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

[Paul Farquhar]

The is no such thing as "free speech". Either the right of speech is regulated, or those who shout the loudest drown out those with quieter voices. See Lord of the Flies, specifically the symbolism related to the conch.

 

[Belen]

I think the real reason is that Dark Sun sucks.

I feel about Dark Sun the way Snarf does about bards, but far more. In fact, the loathing of the setting is so much that I had to guzzle a good bit of my eggnog stash just to get the motivation to return to this comment section.

WotC knows it’s the worst setting ever devised and is simply using its “problematic” content as a clever ruse to avoid rereleasing that waterless, metal-scarce, psionic, munchkin power fantasy dreck. I mean, it’s basically just cornball edgelord garbage.

Anyway, having to discuss Dark Sun is truly a risk to my liver.

Seriously, if for whatever reasons you want to play in a setting that just sucks, go ride the Dragonlance choo-choo or run Terrible Trouble at Tragidoor. There is no reason to inflict Athas upon yourself.

Also, lots of people run games with well done & complex themes and topics. Many well into the NC-17 spectrum. I run my own games at that level with my friends who are cool with it. And there is plenty of media out there is even farther into stuff that is beyond where my games go, so it isn’t as if you can’t find inspiration in published content, it’s just that Hasbro isn’t going there, because it makes stuff for kids.

Well, Dark Sun is the equivalent of the 80s style mad max post apocalypse shows. It is fine for one-shots but I love post-apocalypse stuff and never could get into Dark Sun.

 

[Belen]

@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.

I, passionately, hate the Book of Vile Darkness and I cannot say that I am sad that it cannot be found. I remember the wars we had on ENWorld over that book. I wish they'd never made it.

I wish you could get PDFs of the 3.0 books though.

 

[Steampunkette]

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?

Oh, no. I don't mean a "Watered Down" version. I mean a version for modern audiences.

All it really requires is presentation of evil as be recognized within the setting as evil.

Muls being the victims of eugenics with dwarves on the brink of extinction? You could -absolutely- do that in the setting, so long as you present the people doing it as deeply malevolent people suitable only as foes to be slaughtered by the players.

Slavery everywhere? Sure thing! Have chains and bonds and slavery. Have slave drivers. Have slave auctions. Make it clear that these things are evil, and hated, and that most people are not in a position to do anything about it. But the player characters are.

Limited resources that might encourage party infighting through mechanics? Easily done! For example: If you have a liter of water, a Short Rest takes only 1 minute. And then just make water REALLY HARD TO FIND.

Cannibalism? Yup, that, too! Everyone hates cannibalism except for cannibals who are pretty much always evil. Yeah that means most of the Jungle Halflings are evil. Who cares? So are most Thri-Kreen. So are most of the humans in the setting who actively benefit from slavery.

Evil Sorcerer Kings presenting themselves as Gods? Cool. People hate them, but feign adoration just enough to avoid getting killed by the guards those Sorcerer Kings employ.

You can do Dark Sun in the modern day without it being "Watered Down". It just requires the condemnation of the evils within the setting, and to present the players as downtrodden heroes fighting against those evils.

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.

Sure. I just don't see it being done because it was a niche.

And there's another layer to it being niche that I don't think we've really acknowledged: It was the Captain Planet of D&D Settings.

And we're kind of out of that phase of social awareness campaigns.

 

[Micah Sweet]

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.

Perhaps a chilling effect for a business reason?

 

[AnotherGuy]

@Staffan the fact that @Steampunkette has made a 5e/A5e psionics book means she is halfway there already. She is Dark Sun's last hope.

 

[Steampunkette]

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

I like how you ignored all the relevant sections of my post to try and throw down a soapbox to shout from.

An artist being hired by WotC to make this piece of artwork:

is not being "Censored" because the character was commissioned as a black woman. Or a wizard. Or "Wearing long flowing white garb with black and gold accents and armored boots"

They were commissioned to produce a specific piece of artwork and they produced a specific piece of artwork. Same as a carpenter producing a table or chairs rather than a toboggan.

This is not censorship. This is someone being hired to produce specific material.

The same is true of writers who work for WotC. Hell, the same is true for -me- when I write for EN Publishing. I'm told what they want, given parameters, and a word limit, and then I produce content within those parameters and word limit to give them what they want because that's just how jobs work.

If I wanna turn around and make something, myself, that they didn't pay me for, I can absolutely do that. And did. And sold it. And EN Publishing are such stand up folks that they let me use a piece of their material to sell my product as tied to their product. Now if I'd written something awful they wouldn't have given me permission to use a piece of their material to sell my product as tied to their product...

But I still could've sold it.

Artists and Writers and Creatives are free to create whatever the hell we want. WotC isn't obligated to buy it and sell it to someone else, though. Neither is EN Publishing. Neither is anyone else.

That's not censorship. That's just business.

 

[Micah Sweet]

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.

WotC are just uninterested in taking that step because it's a big chunk of what killed TSR. Not the setting's contents, mind you. The setting existing at all.

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.

The number of people who bought the Dark Sun boxed set in 1991 was significantly higher than the number of people who bought "The Last Sea" boxed set in 1996.

And it was like that for all of the products TSR put out. They flooded their own niche market with tons of products that essentially became shovelware. They cost more to make and print than the company could get out of them.

WotC could make a modern Dark Sun. -I- could make a modern Dark Sun.

WotC just doesn't want to go through the hassle for the low RoI.

Perhaps WotC should open up the setting on the Guild and let other people do it then? It's not like that wouldn't be worth the squeeze.

 

[Steampunkette]

Perhaps WotC should open up the setting on the Guild and let other people do it then? It's not like that wouldn't be worth the squeeze.

They could. They take a flat 50% off the top of everything sold on DMs Guild, too. So it's not like they wouldn't make bank without any investment required...

But, then, you'd have to deal with Hasbro pissed off that someone else is profiting off their IP to an equal degree! (Nevermind the sales of old products or anything)

And we can't have -that-. Hasbro must make the lion's share of any profits.

 

[AnotherGuy]

Perhaps WotC should open up the setting on the Guild and let other people do it then? It's not like that wouldn't be worth the squeeze.

I'm now seriously wondering if @Steampunkette had to approach Wizards with a proposition, I like some of her ideas above. A mature take on Dark Sun might do well if promoted by Wizards.