D&D 5E Dark Sun, problematic content, and 5E…

[Warpiglet-7]

I think we all have our limits. Which is fine. There are games and settings I avoid either because the content bothers me or it just isn’t something I want to play in a game. But I still think those things should exist. I think it’s better when you have a broad range of media appealing to a wide range of taste and sensibilities, rather than set the bar for a certain height for everything



That is pretty grim but it also a grim setting that harkens darker pages of history and dark sword abd sorcery-post apocalyptic (the latter of which often gets into how evil people are to one another when things break down)


To me it seems about as important as slavery is to Roman settings. I think it would be hard to have the same stories without it (imagine Agora or Spartacus without slavery). So much if the Dark Sun setting I remember experiencing as a player dealt with this theme

I think that is the thing. It gets hard to lean on myth and history with a lot of very targeted boundaries like this all from a modern sensibility. I would not want to glorify this sort of thing at all—-but if you cannot even have it be a hazard or indicative of a terrible enemy you leave a lot out. Much like pillaging armies, executions, whatever.

I think they are courting folks more into anime/superheroes perhaps than fans of older fiction than they did before.

I assume they have determined that is where the money is…and it is—-just not much more of mine.

 

[Warpiglet-7]

I like intern!

Weapons can be ‘implements of disagreement’ and monsters can be ‘friends we just have not met yet!’

 

[Bedrockgames]

We do have a broad range of media appealing to a range of tastes and sensibilities. It’s not realistic to rely on one publisher to supply it.

Sure. But D&D, at least to this point, has been the main game, so if will matter to a large section of the hobby what range WOTC has going. I think this is also important to discuss because it goes beyond D&D alone, and does get into what is allowable for all publishers

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

The return of DS shouldn't be totally impossible.

There is some possibility of a no-RPG product, for example a board game about survival, or a miniature wargame. Here the handicap of the lore is if the life is so hard, then the sorcerer-kings shouldn't fight with armies against each other, and more when they have to send slaves every year to Borys.

If DS was so troublemaker then the option could be to be licenced to other company, for example Renegade Games or Onyx Path, but here we would return if it should be unlocked in DMGuild.

Or a special label within DMGuild with certain prequisites for mature content.

 

[Bedrockgames]

I think they are courting folks more into anime/superheroes perhaps than fans of older fiction than they did before.

I don’t know what the current fan base is. But if anime fans are among them, most anime fans I know are used to much more intense content than Dark Sun (anime obviously varies a lot so that can vary too)

I assume they have determined that is where the money is…and it is—-just not much more of mine.

They may well have but this is one reason I try to make a point if weighing in on topics like this (and why I think everyone should whether they agree or disagree with me) because these kinds of lines among their audience are hard for creators, designers, and I think even big publishers to gauge.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

I suppose they don't fear the usual roleplayer community, but they worry about other group, one who doesn't play RPGs, with the potential to create the equivalent of a satanic panic. If this theory was true, then we had to await until later.

 

[Minigiant]

I dunno man, the first adventure is called Freedom where slavery in Tyr is abolished. Tyr becomes the Free City.

That said I don’t know if Tyr is free in 4th Ed.

Tyr states free in 4E. But all the nobles, rich people, and outside forces are prepared to wreck it.

 

[MGibster]

I personally find it patronizing that WotC has decided not to work on Dark Sun because they find it problematic.

I don't find it patronizing. WotC is dealing with the reality that the current audience for D&D is not the same today that it was 30 years ago. I have no doub that in 2053 the audience will be quite different and who knows what they'll accept?

Don't forget that the Dark Sun canonically also has women who are enslaved to be breeding stock; i.e., sex slaves. Who nearly always die after giving birth. I can't help but wonder if people would be so eager to keep slavery in Dark Sun if the setting had men getting forcibly impregnated and dying as the result (there are sorcerer-kings; maybe this is how they make their minions), and this was considered to be an accepted societal norm.

I'd be fine with it. But then I really like the Alien RPG so maybe I'm just an oddity.

How would you know if it was too upsetting for you until you bought and read it?

Nobody is going to be harmed by reading Dark Sun gaming material. If you don't like it, well, you don't like it and I guess that's money you wasted, but this isn't hurting anyone. None of us goes through life withotu seeing things we find "upsetting."

 

[tetrasodium]

sometimes I wonder if its just the word Slave thats at issue, if we were to use the term Helot or Thrall would it be more acceptable. Afterall the game already uses the idea of Vampire thrall without issue.
slave is a background, the biblical Joseph was sold to merchants, taken to Egypt as a slave then became both a seer and Vizier. Neither the merchants who traded him, nor his master Potiphar were evil.

Not sure if it's this thread or the other, but that's the reason why company towns along with early & pre industrial (mine) work camps came up earlier.

Spoiler: it was bad

The SK's literally have armies trained to enforce that kind of thing

and because of Appalachian blight & various museum/preservation societies there are still groups trying to spread awareness about a chapter of our (US) history we tend to skip over in school. That kind of spotlight shiftdoesn't change much in the lore, because the two can coexist, but it allows things like interviews with awareness groups praising the opportunity to spread awareness

 

[AnotherGuy]

I feel slavery is perfectly fine within a fantasy RPG. There are so many other instances of slavery within D&D that I need not look at it from a RW Colonial/Historical context. There are slaves in the Abyss, in the Nine Hells, and other planes, in the history of various monsters and races, certain monsters create more slaves, monsters charm/dominate other monsters and/or PCs, PCs do the same to NPCs. When we frame certain scenes certain monsters have their slaves on display, it's part of the colour, sometimes they're the plot or intended to be the foil of the BBEG.

I guess it's up to you as an individual. If you're the kind of person that perceives the game from a RL PoV, I guess you may be very critical about things like genocide and slavery within games. I wonder then about such players if they seek simulated reality from the mechanics or prefer dissociated mechanics?