D&D General On Early D&D and Problematic Faves: How to Grapple with the Sins of the Past

[Reynard]

. Companies today still do shady stuff all over the world, but we, as consumers, for most part, just don't care enough and still buy their products. If i don't care where and how is lithium mined for my laptops battery, so long as it's available and affordable,

I think there's a difference between the stuff we need produced by monopolies that don't give us an alternative, and stuff we can choose because it brings us joy. There are literally millions of works of art out there. Pick one not produced by an naughty word.

 

[Gus L]

I think there's a group of folks who've convinced themselves that there's a giant invisible group that doesn't want to fight villainous slavers, more than there actually being a major constituency that feels that way.

I think slavery in RPGs, especially older style D&D is a tricky subject because while the text may make it clear that the slavers are evil and bad, the open nature of play and the fact that human (or humanish) chattel have value in a game where success is often judged by how much value the characters can accumulate makes the evil of engaging in the slave trade potentially tempting.

Now I haven't had players get into such varieties of evil either, and don't usually include chattel slavery in my worlds, because it's just not especially interesting to me - debt slavery and heritable criminal servitude are more interesting and world appropriate. Still, I am sure that some tables do - one can find discussions of how to run such games it in various places online... but that's how RPGs work, people will bend the setting and rules to their own obsessions, and some of those people are awful. I think this also links to Gygax and friends' misogyny. Those that didn't want to play with his world view never did. We didn't bother gendered stat rolls, even in 1983 for example. However, there is something to be said about what themes a work highlights and what implied setting it creates. Gygax is responsible for the implied setting of AD&D, and it has a fair number of aspects I don't really want in my games ... so I don't use it. Not using the implied setting of course is more work, and one always has to push against the weight of RAW, especially with published work.

So yeah, I see why people want to keep slavery out of their games and out of WotC's materials, and it doesn't seem especially bizarre.

 

[Cadence]

I think there's a difference between the stuff we need produced by monopolies that don't give us an alternative, and stuff we can choose because it brings us joy.

If enough voters cared we could easily have laws about production of those necessities by monopolies and ensuring they were more ethical. :-/

 

[GrimCo]

I think there's a difference between the stuff we need produced by monopolies that don't give us an alternative, and stuff we can choose because it brings us joy. There are literally millions of works of art out there. Pick one not produced by an naughty word.

Not really, there are almost always alternatives (not always in same price range, but there are). But if piece of art i love happens to be created by piece of excrement artist, i don't care and in most cases, don't know (i rarely if ever google artists themselves). I base my judgment on the quality of product, not moral quality of manufacturer. Some people care about that stuff and good for them. Every one of us is free to chose what we use and consume.

 

[Reynard]

Not really, there are almost always alternatives (not always in same price range, but there are). But if piece of art i love happens to be created by piece of excrement artist, i don't care and in most cases, don't know (i rarely if ever google artists themselves). I base my judgment on the quality of product, not moral quality of manufacturer. Some people care about that stuff and good for them. Every one of us is free to chose what we use and consume.

But if you do know, and you know that person uses their profits to harm people, you can't be terribly surprised if the people harmed and their allies judge you for it.

 

[Reynard]

If enough voters cared we could easily have laws about production of those necessities by monopolies and ensuring they were more ethical. :-/

I don't know where you live, but in America we don't vote for policies. We barely vote for politicians. Mostly, we vote for parties, in the event we don't live in a district so jerrymandered that we really don't have a choice. And since both of America's major parties are pro-corporation and pro-capitalism, blaming voters in America for Australian and Chinese Lithium monopolies seems a bit odd.

 

[Remathilis]

The #1 selling video game of 2023 in the US was Hogwarts Legacy.

It's the first time in fifteen years that the best-selling game wasn't a Call of Duty or Rockstar (Grand Theft Auto) game.

HL sold well despite the controversy. However, JKR has spent a lot of her time in Twitter spats with famous people (David Tennant) and suing journalists. Her optics are looking worse now than when HL released. It didn't help her Fantastic Beasts Quadrilogy limped into a weak trilogy as well, so much so they are basically remaking the novels as a TV show because they haven't got anything new to do.

HP is losing its cultural relevancy. It's not dead yet, but it is declining as (outside the video game) the Potterverse is becoming more of a millennial nostalgia thing than an A+ licence.

 

[Cadence]

I don't know where you live, but in America we don't vote for policies. We barely vote for politicians. Mostly, we vote for parties, in the event we don't live in a district so jerrymandered that we really don't have a choice. And since both of America's major parties are pro-corporation and pro-capitalism, blaming voters in America for Australian and Chinese Lithium monopolies seems a bit odd.

< Insert rant on participation rates in primary voting in the US and tangents that don't belong on here >

 

[Reynard]

< Insert rant on participation rates in primary voting in the US and tangents that don't belong on here >

[reply with calls for all open primaries and ranked choice voting]

 

[GrimCo]

But if you do know, and you know that person uses their profits to harm people, you can't be terribly surprised if the people harmed and their allies judge you for it.

If you wouldn't mind giving example, i would be grateful. We are talking about artists,yes? Don't know any artist that uses their profits to harm people.