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

[Bedrockgames]

Most folks have always had to censor themselves. You think people of colour could express themselves freely wherever they wanted for basically all of American history? They've always had to check themselves. So have women. LGBTQ+ folks couldn't even legally exist for most of that time, let alone enjoy creative freedom. But now that we are asking guys that look like me to be a little mindful too, it's a disaster?

Again no one is denying there is a history of oppression around race and sexuality. But free expression isn't a zero sum game. You seem to be equating how free expression is with who is and who isn't being constrained or having to check themselves (or what the distribution of self checking is). I am saying I don't want anyone to have to worry about checking themselves out of fear of being misunderstood. Also I am not against mindfulness. I think you can probably tell from my posts, even when I strongly disagree with someone, that I try to be mindful. What I don't want to do is impose mindfulness on people (whether that be through actual government censorship, corporate or simply social pressure and shaming). I think the way we have prioritized these issues, often means people look at art in the worst possible light and tend to do things like equate content with message

 

[Bedrockgames]

That’s a fine bait and switch there. “It’s the artists who are being censored, and then while we’re on the subject, us poor forum goers are being censored too, and isn’t it all just a big shame.”

Sorry. Not playing that game.

It isn;t a bait and switch. I addressed and gave my opinion on the former, but also pointed out one need not be in a creative field to sense the pressures I am talking about (which I think is a more than fair point)

 

[Mannahnin]

The creativity of artists, designers, writers, etc. I think a lot of designers and creatives are censoring themselves and avoiding interesting things. Heck you don't even need to be involved in the writing and design end, I am sure many people posting on forums like this one feel they are censoring themselves in conversations. But like I said, it is fading and seems to be getting better. But I just don't think one can look at what has been going on in the hobby in the past ten years and not see there has been some chilling affect (even posters who disagree with me that it is a negative, seem to agree that there has in fact been greater restraint on creative freedom, making creatives more cautious: some just see that caution as a good thing. I think a climate where creatives are cautious isn't good for art in general.

Where's the evidence? Dark settings abound. Midnight, Xoth, Hyperborea, Carcosa, Lamentations of the Flame Princess (whose modules far exceed in darkness anything TSR or WotC ever published), Viking Death Squad, Shadowdark...

What interesting things are being avoided and self-censored? Can you give any examples?

In terms of WOTC, yes they are avoiding risk. And corporations tend to be conservative, but they also respond to the culture. And as the culture has become in many ways more constrained about free expression, you see companies like WOTC responding. I think there is the other issue though that things have shifted. WOTC wasn't a toy company for kids. They made products for a wide range of ages, and had a large adult audience.

WotC has been a subsidiary of Hasbro for more than twenty years. Heck, the starter set I began with, published by TSR in 1983, was marked "for ages 10 and up". The current one is advertised for ages 12 and up.

 

[Emerikol]

The creativity of artists, designers, writers, etc. I think a lot of designers and creatives are censoring themselves and avoiding interesting things. Heck you don't even need to be involved in the writing and design end, I am sure many people posting on forums like this one feel they are censoring themselves in conversations. <snip>

Major league self censor. Not because of societal pressure necessarily.

 

[AnotherGuy]

Like Midnight, or Xoth, or Hyperborea, or Lamentations of the Flame Princess?

The beautiful thing is you can do the same with the lighter settings too - Doomed Realms
My table is currently trying to stop this reality from occurring.

 

[Steampunkette]

I do not want my reality to mirror my fantasy.
In fantasy I want to kill things and take their stuff.
I do not want to do that in reality.
I want my fantasy to have greedy, scummy, dirty, bigoted, slave-pushing, racist, hateful, evil villains, empires and gods.
I definitely do not want my reality to have all of that. Sadly, we do have some of it.

You've got a lot of options for that. And could always dig out the 3e Book of Vile Darkness to make it wooooooorse!

Very true.

Thankies!

As for @Bedrockgames

"Censorship" is for governments and amendments.

Freedom of Speech protects you from the government, not the people you want to sell a product to.

Artists aren't "Censored" when they're hired to produce material within specific parameters. Writers aren't "Censored" when they are hired to produce material within specific parameters. Designers aren't "Censored" when they are hired to produce material within specific parameters.

Any more than a carpenter is "Censored" when they're hired to build a table and 4 chairs instead of a toboggan and an armoire.

Nor is a writer "Censored" when they produce offensive material and people don't buy it.

As far as someone "Feeling Censored" on a forum... tough nuts, bud. You have the right to say what you want, but everyone else around you is equally free to respond with consequences for your statements.

And if you're in someone else's house, benefiting from their hospitality, and you say something they don't like, they're free to show you the door.

But people who bring up the spectre of "Censorship" know this. Because they "Censor" themselves around people they talk to every single day. Switching from what they really wanna say, to what is socially acceptable to say. Whether that's at work, online, or at a family gathering.

Those who don't get fired, banned from online groups, and aren't invited to the next family gathering.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Where's the evidence? Dark settings abound. Midnight, Xoth, Hyperborea, Carcosa, Lamentations of the Flame Princess (whose modules far exceed in darkness anything TSR or WotC ever published), Viking Death Squad, Shadowdark...

What interesting things are being avoided and self-censored? Can you give any examples?

There are so many games now the culture can't even keep track. SO of course you are going to have edgy stuff made that doesn't attract attention. But if you write or design for any publisher that has even a medium size reach, you are going to have to write around a lot of the social pressures we are talking about. And again, you can see this with cases like WOTC (which people want to discount but they are the flagship) blatantly saying Dark Sun would be impossible because of where sensibilities presently are at. And you can see it in books put out by other large and mid-sized publishers. And yes there are edgier publishers out there. But we also live in an age when what tends to happen to creatives who work with them is they get heavy guilt by association. So a lot of folks are reluctant to create things they otherwise might want to make. And this isn't how it was ten years ago. Something shifted. And I think it was for perhaps laudable reasons, but I think the gaming culture lost itself in the search for problematic content.

 

[Emerikol]

I think a lot of people live in a bubble. They don't even realize other opinions have wide acceptance and in rarer but not insignificant cases majority opinion.

I travel a good bit and have done so a lot more in the past. I also move in different circles within my own local culture. I can hear completely different takes at work, the local gaming club, the local book club, or at the local writing group. Every one of those local groups have different worldviews.

So I am not shocked that roleplaying is the same way.

 

[Staffan]

It's -really- not that difficult to make a version of Dark Sun which people would enjoy in the modern day, that would get published in the modern day without much issue.

Sure, you could make a watered-down (heh) version of Dark Sun. But that would turn off a lot of the old fans. The problem is doing something that appeals to both the new D&D audience and old Dark Sun fans. Because if you're not interested in the old Dark Sun fans, why are you doing Dark Sun and not something else?

TSR wound up running -way- too many product lines devoted to different settings and saw a massive decrease on return of investment for Dark Sun, Ravenloft, Dragonlance, Birthright, Etc. Because while having a bunch of settings is great and allows people to play in different worlds, -supporting- those settings required continued investment while the paying public mostly only had enough money to focus on their favorite setting and to pick up a box set of some other setting, once in a while, for side-campaigns or planesfaring stuff.

I have no expectations whatsoever that even if Wizards did make Dark Sun, it would be a fully supported setting. It'd be a one-and-done like Theros, Eberron, and so on. The only way I could see it being a fully-supported setting would be if someone licensed it from them.

 

[Bedrockgames]

"Censorship" is for governments and amendments.

Freedom of Speech protects you from the government, not the people you want to sell a product to.

There is such a thing as corporate censorship. The first amendment applies to government censorship (though arguably your rights can be suppressed by a powerful enough third party). Free speech goes beyond this. It is a principle. And a lot of artists still believe in free expression in the arts. And one of the reasons is the kind of content that tends to get censored is often the stuff people here are holding up as examples of what are thriving now (i.e. LGBTQ content, content by people from oppressed groups, etc). What you are arguing for is a social environment giving the majority forces in the culture the power to pressure corporations and artists to censor content (because 'it's only censorship when the government does it'). Eventually the majority culture doesn't share your views and you find yourself unable to express the ideas you used to be able to freely express. And this can go in a direction you don't like if we arent' striving for a culture of free expression in gaming and the arts