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

[Faolyn]

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.

From my (limited) knowledge of Dark Sun--which does not include anything from the novels or adventures--slavery was just treated as another part of the setting, not as an evil to be fought. I think that's the actual big issue with the setting. There's little the PCs can do about it, especially at early levels.

If a new edition of the setting was presented as one where fighting against state-sanctioned slavers or sneaking slaves to a free city was a typical adventure hook or character goal, then I don't think that should be an insurmountable problem. The game could have upsetting issues and would be officially showing them as bad.

The psionics would still be an issue, but that's another story.

Personally, my biggest problem with the setting is that there were a lot of tiny hints that it was supposed to be post-apocalyptic, but it never really leaned into that.

 

[Steampunkette]

For the record: I went back and checked. BedrockGames did not, in fact, later give me a response to address the points I made.

He only responded to the first one with the soapboxing, and then moved on.

 

[Mannahnin]

I think the tide might be turning on some of those. Warhammer 40k, the setting that inspired grimdark, is walking back on a lot of what made their setting grimdark to begin with. They're doing this because they want their IP to be more family friendly and have a broader appeal of course. On the other hand we have the newly released Trench Crusade mini war game and they're leaning heavily into the grimdark aesthetic complete with Christians, Muslims, and devil worshipers.

What? This isn't true

I haven't been keeping up on the fluff much, though I have friends who are still big into the novels. But I remember that it was originally very dark in the 80s and early 90s, though also satirical and funny, then went Bright Primary Colored and Less Grim once it got popular with kids, in the 90s. When I came in with 3rd ed in '99 there was lots of grimdark and satire in the books, but it was kept at kind of an "adults will get it" level.

Has there been another swing? Maybe we should take it to an offshoot thread in Geek Talk & Other Media, if so?

 

[Bedrockgames]

People without a lived experience of being a marginalized person speak from utter ignorance and as such, do not have any clue about what they're talking about.

That doesn't mean people can't still evaluate harm. I mean sometimes people mistake a scratch for a deep cut. Sometimes people perceive an attack when none was intended. I certainly think the perspective of someone impacted, matters and should be a part of the conversation. But like I have said before, we don't check our brains at the door because of these things. We don't give people total control of the conversation in that way (it isn't good for them or for anyone else)

 

[Gradine]

I haven't been keeping up on the fluff much, though I have friends who are still big into the novels. But I remember that it was originally very dark in the 80s and early 90s, though also satirical and funny, then went Bright Primary Colored and Less Grim once it got popular with kids, in the 90s. When I came in with 3rd ed in '99 there was lots of grimdark and satire in the books, but it was kept at kind of an "adults will get it" level.

Has there been another swing? Maybe we should take it to an offshoot thread in Geek Talk & Other Media, if so?

My understanding is that it has not been made more "Family Friendly" at all, but it has been made more inclusive, which is a significant difference that a certain quality of troll can't or won't see any distinction between.

 

[I'm A Banana]

Can't help but notice that you cut out everything but two words from the wotc quote while making that case, kinda makes your claim ring hollow.

Spoiler: said quote

I’ll be frank here, the Dark Sun setting is problematic in a lot of ways. And that’s the main reason we haven’t come back to it. We know it’s got a huge fan following and we have standards today that make it extraordinarily hard to be true to the source material and also meet our ethical and inclusion standards... We know there’s love out there for it and god we would love to make those people happy, and also we gotta be responsible.

✂️ "The Dark Sun setting is problematic" Kyle Brink on Dark Sun.

49 seconds · Clipped by Robert Adducci · Original video "Full OGL Interview with D&D Executive Producer Kyle Brink" by Bob's RPG Radio!

www.youtube.com

It's certainly looking more like those "ethical & inclusion standards" are more in line with those laughable zero tolerance programs concerned more over a ctrl-f word matching standard that would take issue with Indiana jones giving so much screentime to the bad guy nazis that he thwarts.

I didn't think it was necessary to reprint the quote. Also, it still doesn't look like what you're seeing there.

There's no "zero tolerance." Just an admission that it's tough to be true to the source material and also meet ethical and inclusion standards.

That's not censorship. It's not the outside preventing anything. That's just a company deciding what to publish.

Like, there's plenty of stuff I posted online when I was 18 that I wouldn't post today because it doesn't meet my standards today. I'm not prohibited from it. I just choose not to do it, because it's not responsible.

 

[Mannahnin]

For the record: I went back and checked. BedrockGames did not, in fact, later give me a response to address the points I made.

He only responded to the first one with the soapboxing, and then moved on.

He did similar between my post 368 and his response post 378. Ignored all my questions.

 

[Gradine]

For the record: I went back and checked. BedrockGames did not, in fact, later give me a response to address the points I made.

He only responded to the first one with the soapboxing, and then moved on.

C'mon, you've certainly been playing enough D&D by this point to know to bring along at least some form of fire or acid damage for situations like this.

 

[Bedrockgames]

He did similar between my post 368 and his response post 378. Ignored all my questions.

You asked dozens of questions and it didn't feel like a good faith interaction so that is why I ignored them

 

[Mannahnin]

You asked dozens of questions and it didn't feel like a good faith interaction so that is why I ignored them

They were entirely in good faith and sincere. I've been trying to get you to have an honest dialogue.

There were 8 or 9 literal questions, but they boil down to about 5.

Edit:

1. What's "narrow" about the variety of dark content shown in, again for specific, real-world examples, Midnight, Xoth, Lamentations, Hyperborea, Viking Death Squad, and Shadowdark?

2. Who has gotten aggressively dogpiled, and [3] exactly for what? What's "obvious" to you doesn't seem apparent to me. The books I see getting published seem to show the opposite. People can and do publish all sorts of stuff.

I think he's [Kyle Brinks] talking about trying to sell mature content to a general audience, and about their own publishing policy about portraying particularly brutal subject matter, like slavery. I think the particular "problematic" elements they're mostly dealing with are A) slavery, B) cannibalism, and C) Psionics, just logistically because they haven't figured out a way to do it that they like.

4. What's your alternative theory?

5. You think writing for LotFP tars one by association with edgy content? Or is the association issue the fact that James Raggi III strongly supports ZS, a writer who's a notoriously abusive and nasty narcissist, and apparent domestic abuser?