The "other things" I was referring to is general RPG-style muderhobory, which is (for good or for ill) not considered controversial content. Because everyone "whatabouts" slavery by saying "oh yeah, well what about violence, huh?"
They do that because it's right to, frankly. It's a bizarre societal double-standard, particularly because virtually all the major arguments used against slavery apply to violence and also to other forms of oppression.
As for it's "not considered controversial", buddy, it's on the way there. Just look at discussions in the same places you strongest objections to slavery being
even portrayed in TTRPGs. I'm not saying "Hide your kids, the
Federal Government WotC is coming to take your
longsword D&D manual" or something. I'm saying the same sort of concerns that have rendered slavery not even acceptable as a background element are actually beginning to manifest re: murderhobo-ery and the generally violent and acquisitive aspects of certain TTRPGs.
To be fair though I think this is something of a pendulum, and I don't think it'll last. I there'll be plenty of PoC/minority RPG writers twenty+ years from now going "Wow they thought just pretending slavery wasn't a thing was cool and progressive? Man those now 60-something Millennials were dumb and/or just trying to avoid causing a scene rather than being actually progressive like us Gen AAs!".
It would be nice to assume that everyone who reads that will automatically think "ah, a place the PCs can destroy!" but you can't possibly believe that's the reality.
To be honest, I don't think anyone who wasn't already a sicko is going to think "Yay lets be slavers!". I very much think, based on long experiences of RPGs, that people who are messed-up like that, are messed-up regardless of the actual setting elements, unless the setting elements directly encourage them to be messed-up in like "It's okay to enslave goblins because they're not people!" kind of way - even then it only gets a few more people who were already on the edge of that.
I also feel like Star Wars really has a reckoning coming on droids lol though.
I feel like this argument works for 20-30 years ago, but less so in today's gaming environment. That doesn't mean we don't justify way too much violence, but I don't see it as a justification for your nihilistic view.
I honestly don't agree.
I feel like you're letting people off because they given "enemy combatant" status to enemies more clearly now, but it's still sick stuff if you actually think about it - especially in a game where you can KO at zero cost - there's no difficulty, it doesn't even reduce your damage (I think that was a miss on 5E's design, frankly).
Yes, but that happens in media with the good guys. Just look at the Rangers of Gondor ambushing the Easterlings in the LotR movies. People didn't blink an eye at that. But if they weren't at war or something, people would probably not view that the same. We condition ourselves to certain justifications, and within D&D that is still the same.
I would suggest that was:
A) 20 years ago, as you literally just said "things were different" about. I know, we're so old lol.
and
B) That's a war of survival, not some self-professed "good guys" going into the camp of the "bad guys" whilst half of them are asleep and systematically murdering and stealing all their stuff (which is still regularly seen in RPGs). Even if they're awake it's not morally better, just more "honourable". The Rangers are an actual military force, not a bunch of thugs like adventurers are.
Also people have been increasingly raising concerns re: the Easterlings and racism and the like in the intervening period. I think Tolkien is so beloved and so important his work is being and will continue to be "reclaimed" by PoC/minority writers in the same exact way Lovecraft's has been though.
And films and TV, even light-hearted stuff like Willow (TV) still regularly feature slavery as background/setting element, so why is it wrong for RPGs? The suggestion has been made (not by you) that it's because you actually play the characters and their actions. Okay, if we accept that, that 100% applies to violence as well.
My criticism is of the arguments deployed here, again, rather than the goal.
Yes, but that's my point: It's not all violence, but specific ones. We can ethically have problems with what society glorifies, but also worth noting that the window here has been shifting over the years. The same stuff that worked 30 years ago does not today. I've seen plenty of people rip into Gygax's ideas in recent years, and it's become harder and harder to defend.
I mean, maybe our points aren't that far apart then? But I think the issue remains that virtually all anti-slavery-as-a-background-element arguments that involve morals or ethics or the like apply far more strongly to violence, which is a much larger and more prominent part of the game. And theft, note.
I mean, that's what Erik Mona said. Disagree with him if you want, but I don't think you know as much on this as you think you do.
I think you'd be surprised.
But how we do it and which moments of violence we do matters, in my opinion. It's why certain kinds of violence are looked at as being more acceptable than others.
My point is we're still glorifying extremely sick violence, which is really just colonialist and imperialist and often basically Viking/Mongol-style rape-and-pillage dressed up nice and pretending to be "for good". I feel like essentially the same subject matter is just getting more and more glossy and PR'd up rather than really changing. This isn't just a TTRPG thing - indeed many TTRPGs are moving away from it far rapidly than D&D or were never into it - but also very prominent in videogames too. Thought hilariously I feel like maybe more videogames are willing to ask questions about it (but maybe there are just more videogames period).
And the sad thing is the real reason we're doing it is because it genuinely does tend to produce a fun game.
I will say this - if you're going to portray a society free of ills like misogyny, racism, homophobia, etc. it probably makes sense to largely exclude slavery as well. But at the same time, most of the greatest villains of human history, and many of the greatest villains from fiction, have been slavers or similar. The Nazis were, for example. And I think if we're going to designate bad guys, I don't we should necessarily exclude slavery from the list of things bad guys do. I do think it does get EXTREMELY PROBLEMATIC when societies which are supposedly "neutral" or "good guys" have any kind of slavery involvement/acceptance though. And that historically has been very common in D&D settings.
Frankly I blame the 20th century and historians and classicists, where slavery was absolutely downplayed super-hardcore, both in its importance and frequency, and how bad it was. And the reason it was downplayed so much was people wanted to lionize the Romans and the Spartans, two particularly unpleasant and slave-centric cultures.
It's pretty clear that Lovecraft considered having African or Jewish ancestry to be every bit as horrific as having tentacles.
To be fair he also considered having Irish or Scottish ancestry that horrific. The man was absolute super-whack-ass racist even by the standards of his day. He was literally so racist that despite being very aware of racism, when I first read his stories, I didn't quite get that they were racist, I thought he was literally talking about different species and the like. That delusion didn't last long - certainly not past the story where he talked about a guy's Scottish ancestry horrifying one of his characters and rendering the Scot subhuman.
With Lovecraft it's worth noting that his work has essentially been reclaimed, though. Many PoC/minority authors love the concepts in Lovecraft despite the demented racism (and I've read suggestions that it's actually less offensive than some of the more subtle and insidious racism of later authors, because it's so incoherent and extreme), and there's been a lot of cool stuff done with it in the last 20 years. So I think suggestions of removing him from lists are a bit misguided at this point.
Where the heck are we anymore with the crayon analogy? The whole thing feels like it is trying and failing to be too clever by half.
It is definitely an unhelpful/confusing analogy.