D&D General Just sweeping dirty dishes under the rug: D&D, Sexism, and the '70s

[Crimson Longinus]

Regarding Dark Sun and "problematic" elements.

I obviously am a big fan of D&D becoming more inclusive. However one thing I am a bit annoyed with sometimes, is if depiction of a bad thing is conflated with an endorsement of the bad thing. Fiction can and should be able to deal with potentially upsetting topics, and it can do so without endorsing them, it can show how they are bad and in a RPG offer catharsis by allowing the players to fight and overcome them. I don't think unpleasant things existing in Dark Sun is a similar sort of thing that sexism that plagued the early products.

Now I get that D&D is a mass market game aimed (at least partly) at kids and teenagers, so I understand that the core game needs to be pretty "safe" in many ways. But I think it would be fine if a separate supplement, that people would have to opt in (like Dark Sun setting supplement) dealt with some darker themes.

 

[GrimCo]

@Hussar

To be fair, product like Book of Vile Darkness (official wotc product for 3.5), can't be sold at DMsGuild cause of it's content clashes with their content guideline policy. I also can't find that particular book in any of pdf stores for legal purchase.

Yes, today we live in abundance when it comes to gaming materials. Online distribution and electronic copies dropped barriers for publishing at all time low. While in the olden days, only way to get something published was in dead tree format ( printing books costs money), today, you can publish book online almost for free. That gives us more available and more diverse material than ever before. And it's awesome.

 

[Cergorach]

When it comes to products aimed at mainstream audience, like D&D is, it should be inclusive and non offensive to everybody.

In what kind of fantasy world are you living? No matter what you do, someone will be offended if they know about it, no matter what you do. The point is, who do you NOT want to offend, and that is telling of the company, the location, the culture, and the era it is made in. And how that is perceived also depends on the person, the location, the culture, and the era...

Let's take the 5E books of the last decade, WotC has been bending over backwards to be as non-offensive as possible towards to certain groups of people. I can't complain about that direction, just about how it's implemented. It feels fake, unauthentic, overcompensated, and like they went through a checklist to include xyz. As an example, a mediocre piece of art that seems to be included because it shows all the colors of the rainbow. I've seen better pieces of art that are older that show all ethnicities and all kinds of cultures in a way more natural setting (bazar/street/festival). I have absolutely no issue with some good art of a Black paladin, an Asian bard, or a Native American alchemist. Normal people having normal jobs, doing regular things, instead of assembling for a color chart photo like some sort of Power Rangers or Captain Planet... The same is true for much of the queer art, over done, stereotypical. That's not how most of the queer people I know are, they are just normal people that happen to love people that have the same 'equipment'.

But when you realize that there's also an American culture and that differs on many points from many European cultures, it's not that weird that certain choices aren't received well everywhere by everyone. I see American 'fake' friendliness vs. Dutch 'bluntness'. I never knew that Americans tend to perceive the Dutch as 'blunt', never knew we were exceptionally tall, etc. Until some Americans on YT pointed that out. I just knew that much of the American friendliness felt overly fake and that we collectively want to punch American carsalespeople...

The amount of fear many Black people have towards the police is alien here and frankly horrifying. That doesn't mean there's no racism, sexism, and many other isms, because there is. It's just not to those extremes. It's still bad and for some reason isms tend to sometimes gain in 'popularity' for some reason... There is no single good way to do everything, and you shouldn't force your believes onto others. That goes both ways. There's a difference between having believes and forcing them onto others. The Freedom of Speech without limit is imho a problem, freedom of speech is fine, as long as you're not hurting others. Your 'freedom' ends where someone else's begins.


As for sexism being fixed 25 years ago... Oef! Maybe it was less bad 25 years ago, then 50 years ago, but it was still there, everywhere! Just like it is now and I suspect that it will be there in one form or another for eternity. The problem is accepting the status quo as a 'solved' state. Things can always be better...

When you look at media from the US vs. western Europe, vs. eastern Europe vs. Japan vs. China, etc. You see some big cultural differences in isms, even in modern media that's distributed/translated all over the world. Is Japan completely bad because the sexism is way worse then I'm used to? Is eastern Europe completely bad because the amount of hate towards queer people is way higher then I'm used to? Is the US completely bad because the amount of racism is way higher then I'm used to? Those are internal issues, that need to be evolved internally.

 

[PHATsakk43]

If we must continue to speak about the stinking pile of dog poo that is Dark Sun, let’s just point out that it was, at least to my observation, done in large part to quell the angry moms from hell.

It removes—or seriously downplays—the parts of D&D that were questionable at the time and reframed the game into a world that wasn’t easily recognizable.

Specifically, it downplayed magic, real-word religion, anything approaching demons and the like, and filled that void with, well nonsense.

Basically, Dark Sun is the perfect vehicle for D&D drive past the Satanic Panic as it’s much harder to see the things that the Bible thumpers were used to being angry about.

This is simply a personal opinion of mine, but it always felt like that Dark Sun was the ultimate example of bowdlerization in response to the Satanic Panic. I’ve felt that way since the setting was first inflicted upon me by a DM shortly after its release.

 

[GrimCo]

@Cergorach I know you can't please everyone and there will always be someone who complains. Maybe i wasn't precise in wording, so scratch that everybody. It should try to be as inclusive and non offensive it can be and still be appealing to broadest audience possible. In the end, you can't win them all. Sometimes, with embracing one audience, you will alienate other. Companies just need to weight out what do they loose vs what do they get.

As for the rest of the post and differences in cultures, thumbs up. That's why in one of the older posts i highlited that i'm not American nor do i live in USA so my perspective on some issues is probably different and framed trough different cultural lense ( when it comes to height, it's toss up between you Dutch and us Balkan folks from Dinaric Alps )

 

[Bedrockgames]

I do NOT agree that there has been a "general chill" on speech. I think that a group of people (straight white men) have lost just a little bit of their cultural hegemony and are acting like having 90% control rather than 99% control is the end of their world. I think that a lot of them were perfectly happy when it was them with the power to "cancel" whoever they wanted, and they don't like that now they also are being asked to show some consideration.

I think everyone is being subject to this chill effect, not just white people.

 

[Emerikol]

I've read the last two pages of this thread and I am baffled the moderators haven't closed it. It seems like the subjects aren't forbidden as I thought but rather certain takes on the subjects are forbidden.

And I don't mean you Snarf starting the thread and I don't mean the whole thread.

 

[Bedrockgames]

I always find it funny that "free speech" advocates are often so interested in promoting a single kind of speech all the while ignoring the thousands of other areas of speech where we are far, far freer than we ever were. Oh, noes. We can't have a setting that features slavery as a central element, but, heaven forbid that we have two men living together in a module. Fifty years and we have exactly one matriarchy in the Monster Manual and it's a bad caricature of feminism. But, yeah, we've got all this free speech in the past that we don't have now.

Just so we are clear here, I want all forms of speech and content. I am totally fine with two men living together in a module and totally fine with slavery in a setting. Of course both are subject to criticism if they are done badly or the product isn't otherwise good. And if a books messaging feels hamfisted, morally terrible or so prioritized the content seems like a second thought, that might be worth criticizing. But I don't want a chilling effect on creativity coming from either the crowd who push back anytime a book has something like slavery or a chainmail bikini, nor do I want a chilling effect from another direction that pushes back anytime there is gay content or characters of different ethnicities and races. And to be extra clear here I am not saying there can't be criticism or dialogue. The present issue I see is the intensity and prioritization we have around looking for problematic content, and an orthodoxy around it (which I think is starting to fade but it has had quite hold on the hobby for about ten years, and a lot of this orthodoxy to @Crimson Longinus point, conflates content with message, so much of the criticism feels unnuanced and mostly concerned about potential optics rather than substance).

 

[PHATsakk43]

I think everyone is being subject to this chill effect, not just white people.

There are always social mores. Now isn’t particularly different.

Some things are more openly discussed and others less so. Also the context of what is in public speech differs as well.

Also, a business isn’t necessarily interested in “free speech” but shareholder value, so making product that works for its base customer as well as not getting into anything particularly controversial is not a chilling effect, but likely a business one.

 

[Emerikol]

Just so we are clear here, I want all forms of speech and content. I am totally fine with two men living together in a module and totally fine with slavery in a setting. Of course both are subject to criticism if they are done badly or the product isn't otherwise good. And if a books messaging feels hamfisted, morally terrible or so prioritized the content seems like a second thought, that might be worth criticizing. But I don't want a chilling effect on creativity coming from either the crowd who push back anytime a book has something like slavery or a chainmail bikini, nor do I want a chilling effect from another direction that pushes back anytime there is gay content or characters of different ethnicities and races. And to be extra clear here I am not saying there can't be criticism or dialogue. The present issue I see is the intensity and prioritization we have around looking for problematic content, and an orthodoxy around it (which I think is starting to fade but it has had quite hold on the hobby for about ten years, and a lot of this orthodoxy to @Crimson Longinus point, conflates content with message, so much of the criticism feels unnuanced and mostly concerned about potential optics rather than substance).

I agree.

One big problem is we take "alignment" as we see it today and press it back on a middle age culture. The fact is by today's standards no one is remotely good in the middle ages. This is partly why Law and Chaos factor so much more largely in societies than Good and Evil. The question is "Are you for the established order? or are you trying to overthrow it?" And those trying to overthrow it are vastly different and would not make good allies in most cases.