What We Lose When We Eliminate Controversial Content

[Faolyn]

Again, the entire premise of this thread was that people shouldn't remove certain 'controversial' elements from their games, because doing so makes them less interesting.

And, again, there are plenty of games that deal with controversial subjects head-on, and are set in cultures other than Standard Fantasy Middle Ages. It's interesting to me how people concerned about edge and controversy don't seem to have much interest in finding out about those games.

Maybe they should go play Spire. It's all about playing as people who are currently being victimized and enslaved and are fighting back against their oppressors.

 

[mythago]

What appears to be being said is that  publishing slavery is never ok.

Has anyone actually said that it is "never ok" to publish gaming material that mentions slavery?

 

[Imaro]

There are multiple justifications, but with regard to the context of presenting it from a standpoint of world-building, the justification is verisimilitude. Simply put, there's a point where all of the underlying factors that should result in institutionalized slavery are present, and so its not being there becomes noticeable enough that it impinges on suspension of disbelief.

For most fantasy role-playing games, the presence of a medieval (European) culture is presented as a pastiche rather than any sort of serious historical work. Part of that pastiche involves certain aspects of the cultural development of the societies involves, which includes a marked lack of civil infrastructure and social support networks. The result is that it's taken as self-evident that such societies necessarily involve their people living under a greater degree of threat, not only from monsters, criminal elements, and other mayhem, but also from what we'd describe (for the sake of convenience) as ill-fortune, such as sicknesses, poverty, famine, etc.

That's important to take into account, because even in settings with semi-ubiquitous magic, interventionist deities, and all sorts of lifeforms, it's virtually always understood that none of these undercut the aforementioned medieval pastiche in any meaningful way. Specifically, scarcity is still an economic reality in the context of the game world, as is natural selection and other forms of Darwinism.

The result is that all of the reasons for enacting slavery are present, and most of the controls which would be able to prevent slavery's institutionalization are either lacking or anemic. A pseudo-medieval world, where survival is still a very real struggle for most of the background characters who make up the setting, is likely either not going to have organizations dedicated to protecting human (or rather, sapient) rights...or if such groups do exist, they're simply not going to have the level of outreach necessary to protect those rights on any sort of pervasive scale.

Meanwhile, there's going to be villainous groups who do have the means, motive, and opportunity to enact slavery, since a workforce which you don't need to pay is a self-evident economic boon, even if it's morally repugnant. The threat of a slave uprising is likewise fairly easy to control if you keep the slaves oppressed (which goes with them being slaves), and is likewise not going to be a risk that outweighs the benefit(s) of having an oppressed class. And that's without issues of how it obviates the need for jails if you use slavery as a punishment for (alleged) criminal activity, or engaging in genocide if you conquer an enemy in a war, etc. Slavery is morally abhorrent, but if evil people don't care about the moral aspect, it has a lot of pragmatic dimensions to it.

So assuming the setting isn't a utopia, it's absence can be fairly stark.

And that's not even getting into the fantastical aspects of it. If we assume that evil deities have a vested interest in people doing evil things, then at least some of them should have slavery as an aspect of their religious portfolio. Devils and other corruptive influences will also push that idea. Magic makes such things possible as well, once you start looking into perpetual charm magic, etc.

There's no reason why slavery has to be present in a setting. But how you present the setting necessarily opens it up to questions about its internal logic and self-consistency, which means that if you have all of the underlying ingredients there, it becomes odd that nowhere has anyone put two and two together. If we take it as a given that people want to interrogate how their settings work, because a greater understanding of them is more enjoyable, then laying all of the framework for slavery, even inadvertently, and then having it not present is something that people who enjoy world-building are going to notice and comment on.

I have literally never played in a D&D game where the thought... this game really needs more slavery in it, because the lack of it is shattering my verisimilitude... occurred to me.

 

[JiffyPopTart]

@Faolyn literally just described her setting that included slavery. Who is saying that depicting slavery is never okay?

It doesn't take much nuance to distinguish between an undead menace intent on the destruction of every living thing and a fantasy depicition of a society that systematically murders people (esp. if that genocide parallels real world atrocities).

Good lord, this thread....

Previously in this thread I have stated that you shouldn't remove the red crayon from the box, because it limits possibilities in storytelling.

@Faolyn (and others) replied that I can color infinite pictures without a red crayon, so I shouldn't miss it being gone if it were removed.

Now they say they use a red crayon in their coloring.

Now you are implying nobody has ever said to not use a red crayon.....

 

[Alzrius]

Has anyone actually said that it is "never ok" to publish gaming material that mentions slavery?

Anyone in this thread? I confess I'm not sure.

Anyone in the hobby? Yes, very much so:

Slavery is commonplace on Athas and, though it is not race-based, some TTRPG players feel that such an abhorrent practice has no place in the hobby.

 

[JiffyPopTart]

Has anyone actually said that it is "never ok" to publish gaming material that mentions slavery?

For *big publishers" yes

 

[Micah Sweet]

Has anyone actually said that it is "never ok" to publish gaming material that mentions slavery?

Not in those words, no. But to me the sentiment in certain posts is pretty clear.

 

[Alzrius]

I have literally never played in a D&D game where the thought... this game really needs more slavery in it, because the lack of it is shattering my verisimilitude... occurred to me.

I'm not surprised; a lot of players don't care very much for the world-building aspect of the game.

 

[mythago]

And that's why a lot of people are viewing this through the lens of D&D, and are less interested in other games. You can't expect folks to put a lot of effort into researching something that doesn't matter much to them, as much as that would be nice.

Well, yes, one can reasonably expect folks to update their opinions if they receive new information. One can also expect that TTRPGs won't be conflated with D&D only when useful to make a point.

"Game publishers are being pressured not to do X!"

"Here are game publishers that did X years ago."

"Yeah but I meant D&D/Pathfinder so that doesn't count."

That's not about people being unaware that other games exist.

Anyone in this thread? I confess I'm not sure.

Anyone in the hobby? Yes, very much so:

Well, if we're going to ask "has anyone in the hobby offered the opinion that _______" the answer is almost always going to be yes, but I meant in this discussion.

 

[mythago]

Not in those words, no. But to me the sentiment in certain posts is pretty clear.

Is it? I don't see anyone screaming that Steal Away Jordan is bad and should be taken off the virtual shelves.