What We Lose When We Eliminate Controversial Content

[Thourne]

When do you think indentured servitude and serfdom ended, exactly?

I literally have no idea what you're talking about. You seem to be confusing what I'm saying with a totally different poster. Bizarre.

I'm saying replacing the chattel slavery of older Dark Sun, with, say, indentured servitude or serfdom would not be a problem. Your "milquetoast version of slavery" stuff seems to suggest it would be. Or is that not what you mean?

This is a weird thing to say, frankly.

CoC's earliest setting is the 1890s, and in my experience most people play 1930s. I don't think either tries to act like slavery never happened, but your language is so vague here's it's impossible to understand what exactly you're concerned about.

Deadlands I have to admit I don't remember what it does, but I thought it was post-Civil War. It's been nearly 20 years since I last played it. I was under the impression it didn't pretend slavery didn't happen, but just said "Yo, being racist towards non-white PCs makes the game worse, not better". But I'm not a Deadlands lore buff so I may be missing something.

I've literally never heard of Kerberos Club so the idea that it's a "major historical setting" seems completely bizarre.

Personally I am extremely skeptical of historical settings in the 1800s largely because they downplay virtually all social ills, not just slavery. There was an absolute nightmare array of naughty word going on in that era particularly, especially to anyone who wasn't a rich, white, male and straight, and yeah I do think it is naughty word-up when we have all these games which are allegedly set in "the real world + magic" in the 1800s but suddenly it's all just a pretty backdrop and nothing actually-horrible is going on and so on.

It's one of the grossest things about Steampunk generally - it's obsessed with 1800s stuff, but despite the "punk", ignores the incredible social ills of the period in favour of rich wankers having jolly adventures.

As a result I just don't play games set in that period anymore.

On CoC we play mostly gaslight and 20s but yah most do play 30s or modern.

Deadlands was post war and basically tried to pave over the bad stuff, but was called out and corrected.

Kerberos Club was, by memory, Victorian Supers.

I hope that helps

On the Victorian, honestly I think people get lost in the architecture, clothing and analog tech and don't even bother learning anything.

 

[Thourne]

Honestly I have one huge issue with the Victorian period, that isn't much talked about. Also, likely just a personal pet peeve .
It comes down to the combination of photograhpy and cheap print coming togther to show an image of the world. That has lead to most of the "it is the way we always did things" set in most peoples minds to actually be nothing more than the way some people started doing them in that period.

 

[Maxperson]

Wait...what? I haven't argued putting slavery into an rpg is "supporting" slavery... I don't think anyone has made that particular argument. I think putting slavery into an rpg is including it... taking it out is excluding it. Covering something up is hiding that it exists...

The argument has been made in this thread.

There are literallyu people who argue the holocaust never happened. That blacks/african-americans were enlightened by being enslaved (one poster in this very thread came dangerously close to inferring this). My nephew goes to a private school and when his class was asked to analyze and article about slavery, had to sit through some of his classmates explaining the "benefits" of slavery because the teacher didn't specify the assignment should be approached from an anti-slavery perspective (Yeah, who would've thought that needed to be explicitly stated but there you go).

It doesn't matter whether you consider these people "irrational" or not but I don't subscribe to the notion of... Hey he was going to find a way to shoot someone regardless of whether we provided ammo or not. that's what your statement above amounts to IMO.

Yes. All of that is true. It doesn't come from RPGs, though. Inclusion of slavery in an RPG doesn't encourage, support or make light of real slavery. It's not going to cause people to think that real world slavery "wasn't that bad."

So then why equate them with statements like not including slavery is a disservice to those who experienced it. you can't have it both ways.

I don't. I have never argued here or in any other thread that not including it is a disservice to those whose ancestors experienced it. As you mentioned, this is an imaginary elf game. Imaginary slavery in an imaginary elf game isn't in any way about real world slavery.

 

[Thourne]

I don't. I have never argued here or in any other thread that not including it is a disservice to those whose ancestors experienced it. As you mentioned, this is an imaginary elf game. Imaginary slavery in an imaginary elf game isn't in any way about real world slavery.

Just want to point out that neither have I.
I expressed what I believe another poster meant up thread but it was not my assertion.
Just to clarify.

 

[Maxperson]

Quite fortunately, I am happy to say I do not believe anyone involved in this thread has been in support of slavery.
Most have even gone out of their way to clearly state such.
I imagine the thread would be entirely something else if that were not the case.

No. No one has supported slavery, but someone did argue that putting slavery into the Dark Sun setting would be WotC supporting it.

 

[Thourne]

No. No one has supported slavery, but someone did argue that putting slavery into the Dark Sun setting would be WotC supporting it.

Missed that one.

 

[Maxperson]

Missed that one.

They might not have meant it like that, but the comment was along the lines of, "WotC doesn't want to support slavery by putting it into Dark Sun." And it was said a few times.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

It's not going to cause people to think that real world slavery "wasn't that bad."

I think there are situations in which it could, but there are also ways to counteract that.

Specifically if you had a system which was clearly chattel slavery - i.e. people owned for life, their children born into slavery, etc. - but which was spun positively, and where the setting bore similarities to the real world, that would definitely help some people to think RL slavery "wasn't that bad", esp. as teaching about RL slavery in places like the US is further degraded by creepy laws and so on.

So I think care needs to be taken with chattel slavery as a significant setting element. I don't think you can just slap it in and not think about it. If you do include it, I think it's worth including some kind of sidebar about why and noting that how it operates in your setting is not necessarily indicative of real-world stuff - esp. as it's likely some players/readers will be children.

 

[Thourne]

They might not have meant it like that, but the comment was along the lines of, "WotC doesn't want to support slavery by putting it into Dark Sun." And it was said a few times.

Ah ok, I thought they mean support the inclusion, but I believe I know what you are referencing now.

 

[Thourne]

I think there are situations in which it could, but there are also ways to counteract that.

Specifically if you had a system which was clearly chattel slavery - i.e. people owned for life, their children born into slavery, etc. - but which was spun really positively, and where the setting bore similarities to the real world, that would definitely help some people to think RL slavery "wasn't that bad", esp. as teaching about RL slavery in places like the US is further degraded by creepy laws and so on.

So I think care needs to be taken with chattel slavery as a significant setting element. I don't think you can just slap it in and not think about it. If you do include it, I think it's worth including some kind of sidebar about why and noting that how it operates in your setting is not necessarily indicative of real-world stuff - esp. as it's likely some players/readers will be children.

Text is tricky for tone. Bad editing can make it even worse and with printed texts you just can't respond with appropriate agility.
I very much get what you mean.