What We Lose When We Eliminate Controversial Content

[Snarf Zagyg]

Wait what thread am I in?

I don't even know what country I'm in!

But we might as well cross the streams, right? Slavery and objectification!

Plus Star Wars. But that's never controversial here, right? We all agree on stuff about Star Wars!


.....oh.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

And not just any art, sexy art!

View attachment 279560

How YOO doin'?

 

[Digdude]

I still find it funny that in an adult game of make believe, slavery=bad, yet going around murdering sentient and non-sentient beings=ok. Plus, the level of mental mas+$#bation people over the ins and outs of various social mores as they change over time is totally entertaining. Please continue another 100 pages please.

 

[Kariotis]

Sure. And I've gamed with a number of women going back to 1e who liked them. Not all of them, but more than a few. Can you show that more women disliked those pictures than liked them, and if so that it was a significantly greater number?

Seems we are back to the evidence thing. This time as "prove that more people dislike sexist art than like it". I can just repeat myself: the point is that everybody deserves to be heard and respected.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

I can just repeat myself: the point is that everybody deserves to be heard and respected.

Counterpoint:

Bards, and the people who play them.

 

[Gradine]

I don't even know what country I'm in!

But we might as well cross the streams, right? Slavery and objectification!

Plus Star Wars. But that's never controversial here, right? We all agree on stuff about Star Wars!


.....oh.

 

[Maxperson]

Once, when my partner and I were much younger, she was having a pretty severe panic attack. It took quite a bit what was the source of the intrusive thoughts, but a lot of it was climate anxiety, and eventually she blurted out something about polar bears going extinct.

I told her "Sometimes, you have to let somebody else worry about the polar bears."

The problem with saying "Whataboutism" is simply an antidote to perceived "hypocrisy" is that it ignores the human condition, particularly the aspects of ourselves such as:
a) Limited knowledge
b) Limited energy
c) Limited perspective
d) Limited ability

I may advocate locally for local environmental efforts; this does not make me a hypocrite because I'm not also doing anything to save the polar bears, or the thousands of other environmental issues I could pursue. My particular passion for trans rights and recognition is not negated because I'm not as equally active in combatting biphobia, for example.

By all means, let's get a list together of all the things that we'd like to fix about the currently published D&D 5.0 oeuvre. There's a lot there. But then, that's not really the issue currently up for debate, is it? The topic currently at hand is slavery.

"Whataboutism" seeks to scuttle specific and direct conversations by insisting upon expanding their scope beyond the capability of the group to manage. Which is, more often than not, typically the point.

That's very well said.

My position is that slavery is not a problem in D&D. Nor are things like mass murder or genocide. And I say those things as a Jewish man whose great grandparents were from Eastern Europe.

People often like to tell me that I shouldn't talk about it if I(or my people) haven't experienced it, but while it may or may not be historically accurate that my people were slaves in Egypt, that slavery is still a major part of our cultural identity. One of our largest religious holidays Passover to this day has slavery as it's primary focus. And I there are very few who would dare suggest that we haven't endured a fairly recent major genocide at he hands of the Germans in WWII.

The inclusion of slavery and genocide has never offended me or made D&D feel unwelcoming to me. I know that these things are not specific to my people, nor are the instances in D&D meant to represent what happened to the Jews.

Even if I were to find those things upsetting, I would simply avoid them. Neither genocide nor slavery are major parts of the game, even if they remain central to Dark Sun. With 20(and I'm probably low) settings to pick from, I can avoid Dark Sun with it's slavery and genocide forever. Or I could alter it myself to remove those elements.

 

[Irlo]

That said, if someone is arguing that something bad should be removed, I feel like they should at least be consistent and want all bad things to be removed. If they don't, then the title of Chris Rock's new special comes to mind.

I think you’re missing something important.

People aren’t arguing that slavery be removed* because it’s bad. They’re arguing that it be removed because including it is unwelcoming to many players.

* I say removed as a short-hand. More properly, it’s about considering when, where, and how to depict slavery in gaming materials.

 

[Thourne]

Counterpoint:

Bards, and the people who play them.

sounds more like a pro agrument to me...of course Bards are my favorite so I might be biased

 

[Irlo]

I still find it funny that in an adult game of make believe, slavery=bad, yet going around murdering sentient and non-sentient beings=ok.

If that’s your take-away, you have missed the point.

Depictions of slavery in gaming materials are a problem not because slavery is bad. It’s a problem because the way it has been presented is unwelcoming to many players.