What We Lose When We Eliminate Controversial Content

[Minion X]

Slavery has never stemmed from a "need", so this is some misguided stuff, dude.

Not to nitpick, but I think slavery at times may have stemmed from a need to literally import people. Scandinavia for example is extremely barren and has historically had a small population relative to its size, so it makes perfect sense for the Vikings to raid for people and force them to come and live and work there, despite the climate not being suited to the kind of highly productive year-round plantations you get in warmer climes, meaning that for more than half the year the thralls must have been largely idle and simply more mouths to feed. As modern genetic studies show, they simply became part of the general population as time went by.

 

[Minion X]

It has entirely to do with the fact that US chattel slavery was particularly vile, even compared to other forms of slavery,

Was there any particular difference between slavery in the US and slavery in the Caribbean or Latin America? I had the impression that the latter two churned through people at a greater rate, given that they consumed the vast majority of the slaves brought over as part of the transatlantic slave trade.

 

[Justice and Rule]

Was there any particular difference between slavery in the US and slavery in the Caribbean or Latin America? I had the impression that the latter two churned through people at a greater rate, given that they consumed the vast majority of the slaves brought over as part of the transatlantic slave trade.

Being America (#1!), we kind of overshadow what were some incredibly vile instances of slavery involving Africans and indigenous peoples. Sugar plantations, in particular, were known to be incredibly horrifying places.

 

[Minion X]

Being America (#1!), we kind of overshadow what were some incredibly vile instances of slavery involving Africans and indigenous peoples. Sugar plantations, in particular, were known to be incredibly horrifying places.

Yes, the famous American arrogance. Kind of like how this thread would make it out that D&D was somehow ever dark and brooding when even Dark Sun and Planescape look like Disneyland compared to, say, Warhammer.

 

[Hussar]

Are required to show all those things if you're using slavery at all?

Swimming upthread a bit, and still catching up, but, wanted to add a point here.

Yes. It really is required to show all the horrors of slavery. Otherwise, you're just whitewashing the issue. Slavery isn't all that bad... see... these slaves are just working in the field. Lots of people work in fields. Being a slave is just a kinda bad thing that happens to people...

Because, by and large, that's how slavery is portrayed in fantasy. It's all in the background and the horrors of it are rarely actually acknowledged.

Compare, say, how the A series of Slavers Modules are written to the module, in the Candlekeep Mysteries collection, Book of Cylinders. In Book of Cylinders, evil yuan-ti enslave a village of grippli, forcing them to work digging out an ancient temple. Now, in earlier writing, that would likely be the end of it. In Book of Cylinders, there's a scene where the PC's watch a yuan ti actually eating grippli babies in front of the grippli. That's about as on the nose allegory for colonialism as you can get. But, the point is, the incredible horror of slavery and colonialism isn't elided. It's right there, square in your face. It's a fantastic scene and really powerful.

So, absolutely yes. If you're going to include things like slavery, genocide, or whatever, in a published product, then it absolutely should be front and center. It shouldn't shy away or fade to black or anything like that. That's what's been done for decades in published works. I say that no, if a publisher is going to include this stuff in the adventure/setting guide, or whatever, then it should never be "not shown". Keeping it hidden in the back room is exactly the problem.

 

[Justice and Rule]

Yes, the famous American arrogance.

Well, that and everyone is more focused on criticizing our history compared to, say, Brazil. Which is fair, but also minimizes and "Americanizes" what is a far greater issue in the history of the Western Hemisphere.

Kind of like how this thread would make it out that D&D was somehow ever dark and brooding when even Dark Sun and Planescape look like Disneyland compared to, say, Warhammer.

Perhaps not in setting, but definitely in the ludonarrative of the game D&D is meant to be an empowerment fantasy in the end. Warhammer is... less so. It's somewhere on the spectrum between D&D and CoC in terms of PC empowerment, given that you can actually fight demons, but insanity, wounds, and all sorts of trauma are part of the setting and system.

 

[MGibster]

Yes. It really is required to show all the horrors of slavery. Otherwise, you're just whitewashing the issue. Slavery isn't all that bad... see... these slaves are just working in the field. Lots of people work in fields. Being a slave is just a kinda bad thing that happens to people...

Like we whitewash and trivialize violence? Many of our games incentivize us to be violent by giving us experience points and treasure for killing other living beings. I know, you don't have to play the game that way, but some people might play the game that way and that's a problem. Most role playing games, certainly D&D, revolve around violence. They make light of and trivialize a very serious and dark side of humanity that many millions of people have direct experience with. And yet we're okay with that apparently. Just by being included in a game, Vampire the Masquerade trivilizes sexual assault, addiction, abuse, and human trafficking.

I honestly don't get why it's okay to include some problematic aspects and not others. And I'm just going to have to be fine with not getting it. As Lo Pan once told me, I was not put on this Earth to "get it."

 

[Minion X]

Well, that and everyone is more focused on criticizing our history compared to, say, Brazil. Which is fair, but also minimizes and "Americanizes" what is a far greater issue in the history of the Western Hemisphere.

A history professor whose lecture I attended described it as Latin America and the Caribbean having a scale of blackness and whiteness, as evidenced by historical personages like Thomas-Alexandre Dumas and Joseph Bologne, whereas the US quickly developed its black-and-white "one drop does it" policy. Of course, that might have had something to do with the relevant parts of the US being largely English and French, while Spain and Portugal were already used to dealing with greater ethnic diversity in the wake of the reconquista and the reintegration of the Visigothic kingdoms with the Muslim caliphates.
And once the supply of new slaves from Africa was strangled by the European powers, the economic incentives for slavery in the Americas should have disappeared since its really not economical to raise new generations of slaves compared to obtaining working-age adults. Instead it seemed to morph into something resembling contemporary Russian serfdom where a small elite of large landowners used slaves to out-compete free smallholders, but kept the latter from turning against slavery by encouraging a racialist society where even the poorest white person could take some small comfort in technically being socially superior to black people, even if this system worked to keep them impoverished (in the style of Rome once it started to expand).

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Well, the Western "scientific" concept of race at least. While it did make use of morphic differences between different human populations which exacerbated the difference between slaves and non-slaves, you get something similar in all cultures. Like how Russians literally call Muslim Caucasians "black", the Indian caste system or the burakumin of Japan.

It is true that all societies have at least one “us” Vs “them” distinction, many of which are used to justify discrimination and bigotry. This is yet another trivial truth.

Realize that some versions of Western racialism- particularly the one intertwined with the transatlantic slave trade- go beyond treatment of “them” as lesser humans, but rather, as subhuman. That’s a crucial distinction. Remember, contemporaneous accounts by pro-slavery writers considered enslavement an elevating experience for their slaves, a sentiment echoed by certain modern apologists. The inherent inferiority of nonwhites was so apparent to some that it’s enshrined in American constitutional law: The Insular Cases- still in effect today.*




* The Insular Cases are a major reason my grandmother refused to travel to Puerto Rico with her husband to give birth in his family’s estates, choosing instead to remain in NOLA, ensuring my Mom would have full American citizenship, as opposed to the limited form granted to those born in that territory.

 

[Minion X]

Like we whitewash and trivialize violence? Many of our games incentivize us to be violent by giving us experience points and treasure for killing other living beings. I know, you don't have to play the game that way, but some people might play the game that way and that's a problem. Most role playing games, certainly D&D, revolve around violence. They make light of and trivialize a very serious and dark side of humanity that many millions of people have direct experience with. And yet we're okay with that apparently. Just by being included in a game, Vampire the Masquerade trivilizes sexual assault, addiction, abuse, and human trafficking.

I honestly don't get why it's okay to include some problematic aspects and not others. And I'm just going to have to be fine with not getting it. As Lo Pan once told me, I was not put on this Earth to "get it."

Maybe we need safe spaces to trivialize things in order to deal with them, like fiction and games. Roleplaying games is a safe place to do trivial, stupid or silly stuff with serious issues without harming anyone or trivializing the experiences of actual people (or looking like a fool in public). Just thinking aloud.