I would like to see objective measures that rate the strength, evocativeness, or effectiveness of the following word choices:
- brutal or merciless or ruthless vs. savage
- barbarian vs. invading
- settled vs. civilized
- "a plane of madness" vs. "a plane of overwhelming chaos"
- villainous or bizaare vs. insane
- crazy vs. foolhardy
- "cosmic horror" vs. "risk of insanity"
- dimwitted vs. incurious
- vile vs. dark
Well it is subjective by its nature. So I don't think you can establish objective criteria. It is also going to depend on what you are trying to do. But taking the OP quote:
- Savage foes changed to brutal, merciless, or ruthless.
- Barbarian hordes changed to invading hordes.
- References to civilized people and places removed.
- Madness or insanity removed or changed to other words like chaos.
- Usage of orcs as evil foes changed to other words like raiders.
- Terms like dim-witted and other synonyms of low intelligence raced with words like incurious.
- Language alterations surrounding gender.
- Fat removed or changed to big.
- Use of terms referring to slavery reduced or altered.
- Use of dark when referring to evil changed to words like vile or dangerous.
Savage has more bite to it IMO. There are also times to use ruthless, merciless, and brutal. But savage suggests a degree of primal violence that I find evocative for certain entries.
Invading hordes is just much more generic and neutral. Invading hordes could be any number of things. Invading barbarians gives me a clear mental picture. Also it isn't like there are present day barbarians taking umbrage here. It is a perfectly useful term.
I think most of us understand what it means for a place to be civilized. To me this just strikes me as an exercise in erasing dualities in language out of an overabundance of caution. Civilized and civilization are terms used all over to refer to the complexity of institutions, urban planning, technology etc
The orcs thing is an ongoing debate. I usually like orcs in my own campaigns to be like any other race (I prefer worlds where humanoids have some moral agency). But I also get the draw of rolling dice and killing orcs for the night. I don't see any problem with it
Incurious is particularly bad in my opinion. Dim-witted means a lack of intelligence, whereas incurious is vague, suggests someone is ignorant out of a simple lack of interest. Dim-witted also has more bite to it. I certainly get that in real life we ought not call someone dim-witted (I am actually particularly careful around this as I had a family member with intellectual disability in my family growing up). And personally I don't think that a person is more valuable because they are more intelligent than someone else (especially if we are just talking about a person's natural aptitude, which they did nothing to earn). That said, I am fine calling Ogre with 5 INT dim-witted because that is a lot more clear than incurious (and incurious sounds painfully diplomatic)
Changing dark is just strange to me. Phrases like 'these are dark times' 'the music was very dark' or 'he has a dark personality' are perfectly normal ways to describe bad times and it seems like an overreaction to try to tie that to race or something. not saying we shouldn't also have evil or dangerous on the table but specifically avoiding dark seems odd.
Taking out stuff like slavery, IMO, removes something from real history that happened (a horror for sure, but not limited to the American experience of slavery). It is just hard to have a believable ancient world without it (Rome was essentially built on a massive slave structure for example)
Then I guess you'll be happy(?) that WotC didn't remove slavery from D&D. Take a look at the actual changes: efreet are still enslaving creatures, duergar were still held in captivity for generations, drow still send raiding parties to capture laborers, etc.
If those things are still in there, then I think that is at least a sign that all nuance on this hasn't been lost. I am unclear what the reduced useage of the term is. In there article there was a reference to changing slave to servant in some instances (which seems almost worse to me)
Also I have to take issue with how you are phrasing this hear. It suggests I am deriving pleasure from the presence of slavery in RPGs because it causes discomfort to others or something. My issue is just wanting settings that are evocative, believable, that trust readers and players to have a nuanced understanding enough that including real world horrors like that doesn't mean WOTC is endorsing them. Essentially I just see taking that stuff out as a sign of the dumbing down of the hobby more than anything
