What We Lose When We Eliminate Controversial Content

[Micah Sweet]

It's going to be N/A in both directions, supporting neither direction. We simply don't have that information, and apparently people don't trust the only people who would to be forthright.

Pretty much, yeah.

 

[billd91]

While this is funny and true, I'd like to point out that Dark Sun includes sex slavery. As in, women are raped, used as breeding stock to produce muls, and then usually die in childbirth. And then the muls are enslaved to be gladitorial fodder.

I haven't seen Spartacus. Did it include anything like this?

Yes. Varinia, an enslaved woman played by Jean Simmons, is sent into Spartacus's cell for his use and the entertainment of observers. Spartacus refuses to comply with his slaver-voyeurs and does not rape her for their cheap thrills.

Spartacus really is an excellent movie. I highly recommend it.

 

[Bagpuss]

It's going to be N/A in both directions, supporting neither direction. We simply don't have that information, and apparently people don't trust the only people who would to be forthright.

Also it doesn't matter, the crowd that want problematic content removed will say you should protect the minority that might be harmed no matter how insignificant, and the crowd that don't will still stay you should protect the freedom to choose, because it is a fundamental principle.

Pretty much as @MGibster mentioned earlier we just have to agree to disagree, but at least stay civil about it.

 

[Willie the Duck]

If you are talking Dark Sun, are you really detailing the horrors of slavery, like 12 years a Slave (2013) which was a 15 in the UK, or are you more talking how Spartacus (1960) deals with a slave revolt, but is a PG. I mean it's more down to how things are dealt with, than the topic itself.

I think people have answered this but I don't think it is something where everyone is going to see eye to eye. I think slavery fits the hostility and cruelty of the setting, the post apocalyptic vibe where people exploit each other as they fight over resources, and because it draws on things like Sword and Sandal movies and even a bit of ancient history, where slavery was the norm. For me, Dark Sun fundamentally loses something if you take that element out. For others maybe it loses nothing.

This may have come up already, but I think this is a big difference between these movies and something like Dark Sun. In those movies, dealing with and exploring what it is to be a slave, or to try to free oneself or others from slavery, is the central conflict. With Dark Sun, it can be the central conflict, but as often as not, it's just backdrop, worldbuilding, an eternal societal ill your characters might just have to live with if they want to play out alternate plotline #267, or even something they may engage with on the side of the slaveholders. I'm wondering if WotC would be perfectly fine with a Spartacus or Inglorious Basterds licensed RPG in a way they aren't as keen to deal with as something that exists in the game world and the PCs might not fight the slavery in the setting.

 

[Bagpuss]

Yes. Varinia, an enslaved woman played by Jean Simmons, is sent into Spartacus's cell for his use and the entertainment of observers. Spartacus refuses to comply with his slaver-voyeurs and does not rape her for their cheap thrills.

There is also a questionable scene with Tony Curtis bathing his male owner, which I think is about as far as they could suggest things in 1960.

 

[Bedrockgames]

This may have come up already, but I think this is a big difference between these movies and something like Dark Sun. In those movies, dealing with and exploring what it is to be a slave, or to try to free oneself or others from slavery, is the central conflict. With Dark Sun, it can be the central conflict, but as often as not, it's just backdrop, worldbuilding, an eternal societal ill your characters might just have to live with if they want to play out alternate plotline #267, or even something they may engage with on the side of the slaveholders. I'm wondering if WotC would be perfectly fine with a Spartacus or Inglorious Basterds licensed RPG in a way they aren't as keen to deal with as something that exists in the game world and the PCs might not fight the slavery in the setting.

Sure, but I don't think that makes it not essential to the setting (it is just more essential to Spartacus because you can't have the story of spartacus without Roman slavery). However I think in a Dark Sun campaign, Spartacus should be a viable storyline. To take another example, werewolves are part of Ravenloft, but they aren't the point of Ravenloft the way they are the point of the Wolfman movie. But if I can't do a wolf man story in Ravenloft, something essential is missing (even though lycanthropy is clearly more essential to the Wolf Man or The Howling).

I really don't think it is fair to say it is the backdrop. You can't reduce everything in a setting to a central conflict and say anything else is superfluous. Especially when said thing greatly contributes to the core themes of the setting and is likely to play a role in many of the things players are doing.

Again, if you don't think it is important to Dark Sun, fair enough. I just think this question has been answered and the answers are pretty convincing to me.

 

[Willie the Duck]

Sure, but I don't think that <etc.>

I know, I wasn't attempting to address your point directly, so much as musings of my own based on what your and Bagpuss's comments brought to mind for me.

 

[Maxperson]

(For the record, I of course fully agree here.)

I've asked this before but have not gotten a response: Why is slavery so fundamental for Dark Sun?

That's like asking why the force is so fundamental to Star Wars. It's fundamental to Dark Sun because that's how it was made. If they remove it now, they are gutting a significant part of what makes the setting Dark Sun in the same way that removing the force from Star Wars guts a significant part of what that setting Star Wars.

It has water and metal being worth more than gold. It has environment-destroying magic. It has psionics everywhere, to the point where even simple animals have psychic powers. It has a wasted, post-apocalypse environment. It has almost none of the traditional D&D monsters and tons of very weird ones. It has some strange new PC races and unusual twists on existing races. It really requires resource management to play properly. It has no gods, putting elemental forces in their place. It has a very different culture than any other D&D setting.

One would think that any of these other aspects would be far more important to Dark Sun.

There can be many important things to a setting.

 

[MGibster]

Once upon a time, a very, very long time ago, I was young. Now I can certainly tell you that at the tender ages of 13 and 14, we handled sensitive subjects with the utmost respect and maturity it deserved. It'd be a lie, but I could tell you that. The truth is that our sense of humor was often sophmoric, which, if you think about, was pretty good considering we were freshman. One of our favorite jokes revolved around "sore butts" whenever a PC woke up after being rendered unconscious, especially if he had been captured. Hard to believe it, but we'd giggle at that. But as the years passed, we stopped making that joke. We had moved on to different subjects to treat with all the maturity you can expect from a 15 or 16 year old.

I'm not really bothered by the idea that younger people won't treat sensitive subjects with the respect they deserve. In fact, I expect it, because learning how to behave is part of growing up. That young people are unlikely to treat a sensitive subject isn't a good enough reason to exclude something from a game designed to be played by many ages.

 

[Gradine]

I will say I wonder if we have been skating over the difference between "roleplaying" and "rollplaying" in this. In a "roll-playing" group where the setting is more window dressing then the arguments for including controversial elements are probably weaker.

Lol, I was literally working on an MLIS assignment and reading through peer-reviewed articles that basically all came to the same conclusion: "roleplaying" and "rollplaying" is a false dichotomy and most players/tables vacillate between the poles.