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The original poster complained that if you exclude “controversial” elements, you have a sadder and more limited campaign world because you can’t tell stories that depend on those elements. This is fallacious. First, we all exclude and include certain things that mean we can’t tell particular...

When you remove specific colors of crayons from the box, you are also making room for other colors of crayons that your box previously had no room for. And your metaphor also forgets that people were tossing out unwanted colors all along. It’s not until someone suggests they remove a color...

No, but a lot of people would like to believe that, because it's more fun to feel aggrieved about the primary-color-ization of the Official D&D Crayon Set.

Man, crayons are such a terrible analogy, but let's go with it again for a sec. You get a set of Official D&D Crayons from WOTC. Turns out they no longer sell Burnt Umber because it was an unpopular color and a majority of people bought other crayon sets with colors they liked more. But you...

So, people who are interested in the whole TTRPG hobby when they want to complain, but disinterested in anything but D&D/Pathfinder when it means they might not be 100% correct in their complaining? Okay.

Is it? I don't see anyone screaming that Steal Away Jordan is bad and should be taken off the virtual shelves.

Well, yes, one can reasonably expect folks to update their opinions if they receive new information. One can also expect that TTRPGs won't be conflated with D&D only when useful to make a point. "Game publishers are being pressured not to do X!" "Here are game publishers that did X years ago."...

Has anyone actually said that it is "never ok" to publish gaming material that mentions slavery?

Okay, and? The discussion is about TTRPGs broadly (as was the original post, which was made in TTRPG General), not just about D&D and Pathfinder and what the companies publishing those specific games should do in their worldbuilding. Nor does one have to play other games to read those gamebooks...

Again, the entire premise of this thread was that people shouldn't remove certain 'controversial' elements from their games, because doing so makes them less interesting. And, again, there are plenty of games that deal with controversial subjects head-on, and are set in cultures other than...

Side note: while I don't recall if this was mentioned in the Dragon article, Charles R. Saunders also wrote a swords and sorcery series, Imaro, which is a lot of fun. The characters are more or less archetypes but the setting is very rich, and, well, swords and sorcery.

Well, sorta. I do agree with you that they are trying to make a more broadly-acceptable game and to expand their market, including getting younger players. I don't think they are "seeking to avoid controversy at all costs" (a thing that is truly impossible in the TTRPG hobby anyway) - they've...

Beyond being snarky, I'm not sure what point you though you were making here. Big TTRPG publishers are putting out what you call 'disney-fied' games because they think that's what will sell. I presume they are competent enough to look at their own sales and marketing data to see what they...

"reasons" = sales. That used to be thought to be an appropriate yardstick for game content - if a company published Journey to the Lair of the Big-Breasted Witch Queens with cover art to match, there was clearly a market for that supplement, it was entirely appropriate for the company to target...

Some sensibiliities are more equal than others!

I'm old enough to remember when complaints about, say, RPG supplements with pin-up covers or rulebooks with gross stereotypical NPCs were met with derisive sneers that "this is what sells" and "they're just doing what the market demands" and "maybe if you don't like it go write your own game"...

"OMG! Censorship! Art!" "Hey, here are a bunch of games that deal with all of these things you're worried about losing." "Never heard of 'em; doesn't count. OMG! Censorship! Art!"

You know who really feels a twinge of fear on opening their social media? Small, indie game designers who are from marginalized groups, and who are producing games that deal with their issues openly. I already linked to a thread on this very board where people lost their entire minds over an...

So first we have a goofy crayon box analogy and now we have a ten year cutoff? Where is all this coming from? I really don’t get why anyone feels it necessary to say “leaving X topics out objectively makes your game worse” when they really mean “I want to include X topics in my game”.

What other crayons were being crowded out of the box to make room for that one?