I know what you are saying, but I'm going to take issue here: violence can affect more people directly, but also violence is a much broader-spectrum concept than slavery. You can have people glorify and glamourize violence, but that's because we view different justifications for violence differently. Captain America beating up HYDRA agents is looked at differently than someone beating their wife. And yet, it's worth noting that domestic and child abuse and such are generally not included in RPGs while other violence is for just that reason: they are perceived differently and can't be justified in the same way certain kinds of violence can be.
I'll be honest: I think that's absolute unserious nonsense that doesn't hold up the remotest intellectual scrutiny. D&D isn't about "Captain America beating up HYDRA agents" (which itself is a whole cultural deal many layers deep with dishonesty, but that's a separate issue). It's about people who are essentially outlaws murdering, with sword, fire and lightning, other sentient beings, and taking their belongings. Very few of the beings involved are even as morally culpable as a HYDRA agent, too!
When it comes down to brass tacks, our society - particularly US society - is simply extremely accepting of murderous violence and violence in general despite the damage it does because we aesthetically likes the stories it creates and the ideas it evokes. Be honest about it. Don't make up excuses or try and split hairs.
It's harder to empathize with the structural problems created by slavery and its aftermath in the Americas, especially if you aren't living it.
And none of the structural problems are remotely addressed by avoiding slavery as a concept entirely. In fact I would argue the opposite is true. This is essentially a cultural taboo that is the result of the USA (specifically) completely and intentionally failing to deal with the consequences of slavery. Bringing in the rest of the Americas strikes me as dishonest. I don't believe for a second that if WotC and Paizo were based in Brazil or Peru or Mexico that the same attitudes would hold (despite some wild histories of slavery - IIRC Brazil abolished slavery long after the US). Probably not even Canada. Maybe the Caribbean.
Again, to be clear, I'm not saying slavery is needed or beneficial, but these arguments are not intellectually sound or honest, imho. This is US companies making US-centric decisions, which is fine, but shouldn't be passed off as something else. Especially not when companies in other countries, with other cultural sensitivities, make similarly specific decisions.
Tell that to the people who insist that games are poorer for not having it. It certainly sounds like they need to have slavery in their games. Tell that to the people who insist that you can't have Dark Sun without slavery, despite every other thing that sets that world apart.
???????
That has nothing to do with golems replacing slaves or the like. Indeed, if sentient, playable golems replaced slaves, we'd be back in the exact same problematic place. So that's not a real response.
I'd agree that slavery isn't needed for Dark Sun, but I would suggestion some form of large-scale societal oppression is, serfdom probably, or something like it.
And saying that "by that logic" they should get rid of other things is a completely useless statement, because we're not talking about those other things; we're talking about slavery.
No.
The topic of this thread is "controversial content" in general. We are talking about all these things. And a rational argument should hold up more broadly, at least when it's such a broadly stated argument.
And maybe companies like WotC don't want to put out rules so the people who play their game can play as a slaver.
This seems like a fatuous concern to me. Just don't include numbers or details on how slave markets/slave economies work if that's the issue. I mean, WotC puts out incredibly under-detailed 1/4-arsed setting books these days, they won't even explain the main economy let alone sub-economies.
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.
I reject the idea that that shows a "need" for slavery at all. In fact Scandinavia is a counter-example - as you actually point out!!! The small population was the result of the land's low carrying capacity with the agricultural techniques the Scandinavians used. Bringing in more people did not make the land more efficiently used - on the contrary, it created more mouths to feed on poor land. The slaves were brought in not at all out of need, but entirely out of greed - greed for their free labour, and from the fact that the Scandinavians could, and did, underfeed them and kill them when they weren't helpful, which wasn't as viable with other Scandinavians.
Let's be clear: the Vikings, glorified wildly by history, were violent, greedy people who operated by stealing from others, and helped set the stage for the worst excesses of later colonialism. Indeed with were "colonizers" themselves, and of a very unpleasant kind. They didn't need slaves any more than they "needed" the gold from Lindesfarne or wherever. Honestly you can make a better moral/ethical (or rational) case of justifying their colonialism in the British Isles (due to the crapness of the land they inhabited) than you can their slaving.
What matters is that a group of players could play slavers if that's what they wanted because the game gives them the tools to do so.
They already
have those tools.
What else would be needed? You can certainly use the rules of D&D to do everything that people were doing in RDR2.
The only clear additions I can see which would act as encouragement/incentive/etc. to sickos to play slavers would be:
A) Detailed pricing on slaves/slaving etc.
B) Real detail on slave markets, economies, etc.
But as I've pointed out, the idea of WotC providing that kind of detail on ANY subject in a 5E D&D is beyond laughable. We'll be lucky if Sigil gets more than 10 pages in the Planescape setting, for god's sake. Very lucky! And we're worrying about this? Maybe we aren't.
