What We Lose When We Eliminate Controversial Content

[Micah Sweet]

Maybe I'm doing a bad job of explaining myself.

I can write a game that uses slavery in it. I do so knowing what would upset my friends and, therefore, how not to include those things.

I don't need to include slavery. The setting I wrote that has slavery is not a medieval fantasy game. I have come up with a multitude of medieval fantasy settings (and non-medieval fantasy settings) and none of them had slavery in them. None of them needed to have slavery. None of them were less interesting or realistic or rich because they lacked slavery. What I have said is that the red crayon is not necessary for a game to be good.

Of all the settings I have created over the decades, this is the only one that has slavery, and it's a post-post apocalypse weird/eldritch survival horror setting that takes place entirely within an extradimensional big box store. It's not Mad Max in an IKEA, but it's close enough. The slavery is limited to two cultures, and I didn't just throw slavery in there because "it makes sense" or "it's realistic" or even because it makes for a plot point. I did it because of careful considerations during world-building, and I went over those considerations with both my co-creator and the player who is playing the ex-slave, and made modifications based on their input. I made sure to include ways, both legal and otherwise, to escape slavery--including having the largest and most important settlement have a law that any slave who enters it is automatically freed and given sanctuary.

No company is ever going to be able to have that level of involvement simply because they can't tailor it to every player, and companies like WotC have not yet shown that they can handle the topic particularly well, even if they have the best of intentions.

So the question is, is that level of involvement necessary in your view for the subject to be depicted, at any level, in a salable product?

 

[Argyle King]

So you are also making your players get STDs, PTSD, and infected wounds, right? You're making sure they suffer lasting scars after every battle, and melting their faces off when a dragon breathes fire or acid on them? (I had a player once who refused to take any spells that inflict acid damage because she had seen photos of women who'd suffered from having acid thrown on them. Even after we assured her that it was magic and didn't leave lasting disfigurements.)

If you're not including things like that, then you don't actually care about verisimilitude. What you care about is things that provide fun plot points for the game.

I can't speak for the person you quoted.

For me, sometimes I do include those things. It depends on the experience I want.

Also, not every game needs to draw the same lines. If I want more of a 4-Color Comics experience, I'll include different things and have a different general ballpark of what I handwave and what I don't than I would include in a gritty post-apocalyptic setting.

Though, to be honest, I likely I wouldn't run the game using D&D if I wanted to get deeper into the nuances of world-building. At a certain point, the way that D&D-style HP work and how the game is built around vertical scaling of levels makes trying to adhere to even a vague sense of realism break down.

 

[Alzrius]

You are wrong. Google does in fact help to ameliorate those difficulties in allowing people who want a particular niche product to be able to find said niche product.... even when it is not hosted on a large storefront or big site. If you're claiming these same people would choose not to buy the product because it was being disparaged by those who don't like it... Why on earth would they be looking for a product if they cared that said product was being lambasted by people who don't share their interest?

You're incorrect, because as I noted and you already conceded, Google is imperfect; this is the context to which that imperfection is being noted. Leaving aside that Google often doesn't find relevant hits, that it's vulnerable to algorithm manipulation, that things past the first page are often ignored, etc., people still need to be actively searching for things via Google in the first place. That's far less useful than getting your message out to people who aren't already looking for what you're offering.

Simple example... porn. No one and I mean no one has a problem getting it even with all the slack sex industry workers take and those who find it morally offensive, and etc. Your argument just doesn't make sense. It's more likely in the case of these products being published... the market just isn't there or it isn't that big.

Guess what? Porn and RPGs are different, to the point where I honestly don't think this example can be seriously taken as relevant. (And going any further with this example would almost certainly lead to EN World's guidelines being violated, so it should probably best be left at that.)

Again, you have very right to express your opinion on someone's fictional work. Am I wrong because I would tell someone asking me about Lovecraft's work... He's a racist and there are undertones of that through vast portions of his work, same with Howard. Some would claim I am vilifying the man, I don't think I am.

You're wrong to conflate "expressing your opinion" with "attacking someone else for what they've made." You have every right to say that you don't like something, why you don't like it, etc. By all means, make all the "I" statements you want when it comes to how a particular piece of media makes you feel.

But when you make "you" statements (i.e. about the creator, or anyone who likes their work), let alone when you take it upon yourself to try and cause them social harm or face economic consequences, then you've left behind simply issues of opinion, and decided that you know what kind of person someone else is, and that you have a moral mandate to punish them for their turpitude. That is not virtuous, at least within the context of someone else publishing fiction. There is no moral virtue in saying that the creators of a piece of fiction are bad people, and that anyone who does business with them should be ashamed of themselves.

Are these hypothetical people? Do you have an example of this because I'd love to see the type of "righteous Indignation" you're talking about and whether it really is as cut and dry as you seem to be making it out to be.

Ah, I was wondering when we'd get to the "this doesn't really happen" portion of the back-and-forth. Sure, how about The Gaming Goat.

This was a company which put out a deckbuilding game (i.e. non-collectible card game) about bass fishing on Kickstarter a while back. Sounds as innocuous as it gets, right?

Except, get this: they had the following image on their KS page:

Looks about as innocuous as it gets, right? Except you'll notice that two of the frog's toes are touching, which some people took to mean it was making the "okay" gesture...i.e. a white power sign.

Yes, some people actually thought that this illustration was coded language.

Naturally, The Gaming Goat thought that this was ridiculous, and so couldn't help but treat the subject with irreverence, which is the correct response when such incredibly bad-faith claims are raised! They made a joking reference to the issue:

And pointed out that their illustrator was working off of a real-world example:

...and left it at that, at which point everyone had a laugh about the whole thing and moved on.

Oh, no, wait, that's not what happened. Instead, incensed at how their "concerns" weren't being taken seriously, the outraged minority moved to absolutely destroy the people who hadn't treated their upset as Very Serious Business:



The end result was that The Gaming Goat was kicked out of Gen Con 2021, losing (according to them) over $40,000 that wasn't reimbursed:

The Gaming Goat CEO Jeff Bergren Escorted Out of Gen Con

Gen Con 2021 starts tomorrow at reduced capacity with a self-imposed 50% cap on attendance. As most people know, Gen Con 2020 was canceled along with just about every other convention due to the…

www.boardgamequest.com

Now, I suppose Gen Con might have had for some other, undisclosed reason for ejecting them, but I haven't heard of anything being proposed.

All of which is to say, the issues raised about the outraged mob are not theoretical. It has caused real harm to real people, far more so than an illustration of a frog with its toes touching could possibly have inflicted on anyone.

 

[QuentinGeorge]

Well, and Latin America and the Caribbean in general. Really, most semi-modern instances of slavery are largely African or indigenous peoples.

There is slavery going on right now that is completely unconnected to the American historical experience, you know that right?

 

[Faolyn]

There is slavery in Star Wars. Star Wars is not a grindhouse genre of film. Star Wars is considered family friendly.

Star Wars--the original trilogy, at least--has a black-and-white morality and keeps slavery way in the background. You need to have read the novels and comics to know slavery was really even a thing in the universe. Most people, regardless of their age, didn't do that.

When the prequels came around, Anakin was a slave, yes, but let's face it--barely. He wasn't chained up or beaten (at least not onscreen), he and his mother had their own fairly large house, he was able to make his own podracer and droid. He was a slave in name only, there to help pad out the film a bit with a cool podracing scene so that Qui-Gon couldn't just grab him and run.

 

[mythago]

Are people actively protesting the existence of Burnt Unber and want everyone to stop selling it, to the point where those who might want to offer it are too concerned about social stigma to do so, and in fact that same fear is why WotC decided to stop selling Burnt Umber?

No, but a lot of people would like to believe that, because it's more fun to feel aggrieved about the primary-color-ization of the Official D&D Crayon Set.

 

[Faolyn]

It may very well be fair to the setting, and verisimilitude is important to me.

As I mentioned, if you care about verisimilitude, then also include STDs, PTSD, maggots in the gruel, no beds in the inns (people slept on the floor back then), and other realistic things.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Star Wars--the original trilogy, at least--has a black-and-white morality and keeps slavery way in the background. You need to have read the novels and comics to know slavery was really even a thing in the universe. Most people, regardless of their age, didn't do that.

When the prequels came around, Anakin was a slave, yes, but let's face it--barely. He wasn't chained up or beaten (at least not onscreen), he and his mother had their own fairly large house, he was able to make his own podracer and droid. He was a slave in name only, there to help pad out the film a bit with a cool podracing scene so that Qui-Gon couldn't just grab him and run.

Unless you count the droids, of course.

 

[Faolyn]

Are people actively protesting the existence of Burnt Unber and want everyone to stop selling it, to the point where those who might want to offer it are too concerned about social stigma to do so, and in fact that same fear is why WotC decided to stop selling Burnt Umber?

Is anyone protesting the existence of burnt umber to the point that everyone wants to stop selling it?

Because the Dark Sun books are still up on DM's Guild, and there are plenty of non-D&D games that involve slavery of one sort or another. I already mentioned Spire.

 

[Micah Sweet]

As I mentioned, if you care about verisimilitude, then also include STDs, PTSD, maggots in the gruel, no beds in the inns (people slept on the floor back then), and other realistic things.

And I said I do work those things in when practical and not facing a player rebellion. Also please note @Alzrius post about the difference between worldbuilding and direct PC interaction.