Your table is YOUR table.

[Professor Murder]

To chase this analogy down a bit, what if I want to hear new music* in the older style rather than hearing over and over again the same relatively few songs the oldies station have on high rotation?

In D&D terms, this is the same as asking what if I want new modules* for 1e rather than the same old ones I've run over and over again?

* - in both cases, assume for these purposes I can't just make my own and am restricted to commercial productions.

To chase this analogy down a bit, what if I want to hear new music* in the older style rather than hearing over and over again the same relatively few songs the oldies station have on high rotation?

In D&D terms, this is the same as asking what if I want new modules* for 1e rather than the same old ones I've run over and over again?

* - in both cases, assume for these purposes I can't just make my own and am restricted to commercial productions.

What is challenging is that people who want to enjoy new product built on retro attitudes in terms of game design end up getting associated with those who have a regressive attitude. There is a good deal of guilt by association that I do have sympathy for.
However
Let us be blunt in that fan spaces have long turned a blind eye to some really ugly aspects of their communities out of a sense of solidarity. I have a vivid memory of attending a larp that was desielpunk in overall aesthetic , only to be confronted by someone in an SS uniform and learned that this was actually a pernicious attitude in said fan space.
Retro enthusiasts who are not in favor of this conflation have my support and condolences but it’s on fans to hard push against such things.

 

[Scribe]

I always used to think it was wasting one's time at best and peeing into the wind at worst, but real world politics bending to online narratives has left me unsure.

 

[Gradine]

Some of you are supporting my point for me: the moral imperatives (even the good ones) are not relevant to what you do at your table, nor should they be.

I do think one needs to accept that the only way to have influence here is to "be the change you want to see", if the change isn't going the way you want here.

TTRPGs aren't like, TV or movies or w/e where you can't do that. If you want a TTRPG that pushes in a particular direction, is about a particular subject, just write it!

The latter quote pretty much answers the former

 

[Umbran]

To chase this analogy down a bit, what if I want to hear new music* in the older style rather than hearing over and over again the same relatively few songs the oldies station have on high rotation?

Well, in music, that's pretty rare. Music mostly moves forward, and doesn't engage in straight nostaligia all that much. Modern Classical music does not sound a whole lot like Bach or Beethoven, for example.

I think it is a general thing with creative endeavors - they may look back for a bit of inspiration, but they don't adhere to the past strictly. Not too many people are painting in DaVinci's style these days. Not too many are writing Hardy Boys novels.

The few times old styles of work are revisited, they get a thorough dose of modern sensibilities - so, say, the newer work on He-Man and She-Ra cartoons embrace diversity, and speak to psychological trauma and toxic relationships. They address the things that a modern viewer, if they watched the original the first time, would find to be flaws in the work.

 

[R_J_K75]

Actually "my table" belongs to one of my players since we game at his house. It would probably be pretty rude if I claimed his furniture as mine.

We used to game in my friend's apartment in a building with three other apartments. We we're friends with the guy in the next apartment and we'd just walk in and take his table to where we played. He'd wake up, come home from work etc, to just two chairs and no table in his kitchen.

 

[Reynard]

The latter quote pretty much answers the former

Not really. You're still expecting, almost demanding, that people at their tables do things differently than they have for 20 odd years. I'm simply saying that they don't have to (again,at their tables, taking everyone involved's preferences into account).

My only thesis here is that if people feel off put that The Game seems to be telling them they need to change, that's an illusion, at least insofar as their private play is concerned. And as such, they might want to spend less time and energy railing against said Change.

 

[Aldarc]

We used to game in my friend's apartment in a building with three other apartments. We we're friends with the guy in the next apartment and we'd just walk in and take his table to where we played. He'd wake up, come home from work etc, to just two chairs and no table in his kitchen.

Okay, so sometimes your table is YOUR NEIGHBOR'S table.

 

[Gradine]

Not really. You're still expecting, almost demanding, that people at their tables do things differently than they have for 20 odd years. I'm simply saying that they don't have to (again,at their tables, taking everyone involved's preferences into account).

Um, no, I'm arguing quite the opposite. I'm quite expecting that many people will not do things differently than they have for decades.

My only thesis here is that if people feel off put that The Game seems to be telling them they need to change, that's an illusion, at least insofar as their private play is concerned. And as such, they might want to spend less time and energy railing against said Change.

The argument is not about whether what one should or should not be able to do at their own tables; I can't imagine anyone actually cares about that at all. What matters is the part that's part of the public consciousness. The default assumptions. The standard. The books, to simplify things. Deviate as you will in your own homes, totally, 100%, no one will know and fewer still will care. But the themes and values, as they are expressed in the main text of the game, are what concerns people.

 

[Scribe]

What matters is the part that's part of the public consciousness. The default assumptions. The standard. The books, to simplify things. Deviate as you will in your own homes, totally, 100%, no one will know and fewer still will care. But the themes and values, as they are expressed in the main text of the game, are what concerns people.

It actually surprises me that this needs to be restated.

It's the basis of pretty much every disagreement on the site outside of 4E, Story First, and....Wizards vs Fighters.

 

[hawkeyefan]

It seems to me it’s less about what’s going on at our own specific tables and instead what goes on in these discussions.

I mostly avoid them because they seem really fraught. Like it’s an either/or situation. Either orcs are metaphorical commentary on colonialism OR they’re just monsters that can be morally dispatched.

But the truth is… they’re made up. They can be either of those things or both, or anything else that folks want them to be.

The problem is when folks can’t or won’t accept the opposing view as valid. When people deny that there can possibly be any colonialism in the portrayal of orcs and other fictional creatures. I mean… it’s plain as day why some folks see it that way. Denying that is just silly.

It’s equally annoying when folks who do see it that way can’t accept that others simply don’t care about that. That having a game where orcs are just monsters to be dispatched is not a tacit approval of colonialism. It doesn’t have to be that way… for some people, orcs are just orcs and that’s totally fine, too.

It seems to me that the only way this actually becomes an issue is when two people with opposing views try to play together. A game where there’s a player who can’t help but see elements of colonialism in players clearing orcs out of the caves of chaos but the GM is running things as if orcs are simply boogeymen to be slaughtered for XP and treasure. In such a case, they need to discuss that and figure out how to proceed.

But all the online debate? It doesn’t seem to help the matter at all. It just seems to further entrench the two opposing sides, and anyone who has a more nuanced view is damned by both.

It’s not about the future of the game or anything hyperbolic like that. It’s just a matter of accepting alternate points of view, respecting them, and being decent to each other in person when this comes up.