D&D General D&D Settings with No Problematic Areas?

[doctorbadwolf]

While Xen'drik has its curses that stop civilization, it's (intentionally!) coded as "The Darkest Continent". Xen'drik is the South America that Indiana Jones is exploring in the opening scene of Raiders of the Lost Ark. Xen'drik is the Africa of pulp comics from the 50's. The main inhabitants have consistently been the drow, who have in many unfortunate pieces of art been cast as "jungle savages". That's what Keith is talking about - breaking that coding by adding depth to Drow culture, even within the constraints of the curses on Xen'drik.

If my Eberron campaign ever heads to Xendrik, they may discover that the Drow there have spells specialized to dealing with the curse, and also circumvent it by building community and civilization in ways that don’t look like soemthing that could become an empire.

 

[Mercurius]

I gotta go with Panda-s1 on this one. That kind of joke is inappropriate in a work environment even if you know there are no Asians within earshot. And there are a lot of reasons why someone might not speak up immediately when a coworker says something offensive and Panda-s1 isn't at blame here.

I agree as far as a general rule about work environment. But it really depends upon context--especially the social agreement of the context--and I think intention.

 

[MGibster]

I agree as far as a general rule about work environment. But it really depends upon context--especially the social agreement of the context--and I think intention.

Check out Panda-s1's original post about the subject. "One time while eating at work..." so we know the context is at work. And, yes, I've talked to employees who made similarly insensitive remarks and most of the time their intent wasn't to belittle someone or make them feel bad. A discussion was still warranted though. If these little jokes became commonplace and we did nothing about it we'd be open to hostile work environment complaints.

 

[Umbran]

Since you never said anything to him about it....

Mod Note:

This reads as a sealioning attempt to make someone justify their feelings to you. That's not appropriate, and you should stop now.

 

[Mercurius]

Check out Panda-s1's original post about the subject. "One time while eating at work..." so we know the context is at work. And, yes, I've talked to employees who made similarly insensitive remarks and most of the time their intent wasn't to belittle someone or make them feel bad. A discussion was still warranted though. If these little jokes became commonplace and we did nothing about it we'd be open to hostile work environment complaints.

Yes, which is why I said "I agree as far as a general rule about work environment."

 

[Panda-s1]

I agree as far as a general rule about work environment. But it really depends upon context--especially the social agreement of the context--and I think intention.

are you trying to excuse racist behavior at the workplace behind management's back?

 

[Enevhar Aldarion]

Mod Note:

This reads as a sealioning attempt to make someone justify their feelings to you. That's not appropriate, and you should stop now.

I have no clue what that even means.

 

[Umbran]

I have no clue what that even means.

Mod Note:
Apparently, your Google-fu fails you?

From Wikipedia: Sealioning
"Sealioning (also spelled sea-lioning and sea lioning) is a type of trolling or harassment which consists of pursuing people with persistent requests for evidence or repeated questions, while maintaining a pretense of civility and sincerity."

And, you are hereby required to stop.

In the future, if you have questions about moderation, take them to PM with a member of the moderating staff, rather than discuss it in the thread. Thank you.

 

[humble minion]

The biggest issue I have is he is the only black Darklord but they did so in the worst way possible. He's essentially Blacula, a boring vampire lord in practice, with his only point of interest being his batsh*t crazy origin. Some wizard polymorphs a literal beast into a man, civilizes him, and turns him into a vampire. He has little agency in these actions, but it's still evil enough to get a domain.

It's a waste because something far more interesting could have been done involving African myths or horror, like some of the others I mentioned that might just need a revision to check for cultural accuracy. But no, he's a stock vampire, little different than Strahd, except he lives in a jungle, turns into a panther, and is black. They even gave him a a generic "vampire" name.

I just think if they are to redo Ravenloft, they should look at replacing him with a true African-based horror rather than a blaxplotation version of Strahd with a racist origin.

Agree with all this, von Kharkov was always one of the weaker core Darklords, from a narrative point of view. His story was needlessly complicated and just seemed like an attempt to layer as many origins on the guy as possible. Possibly all this had some meaning in the original module he was introduced in, but I've never read it, so I honestly don't know. But he never gave the setting anything it didn't already have with other vampire Darklords. Could they DONE something with a black vampire in Ravenloft, even core Gothic quasi-Eastern-Europe ravenloft? Hell yeah. There's an Othello analog just waiting to happen, for instance.

As for more broad representation of African horror in the setting ... well, Ravenloft was always shaky-to-perfunctory when it ventured outside of its gothic comfort zone. Even something as low-hanging-fruit as the Egypt/mummy thing was an awkward fit. You have to decide what Ravenloft IS before you can decide how something like African (or Japanese, or whatever) horror fits into it. Is it a coherent setting of its own with its own inhabitants and cultures etc, or is it a nightmare dimension that exists only to torment its Darklords and provide one-shots for PCs on Halloween? CoS definitely took number 2, so I doubt WotC will be exploring the setting much more than they already have, to be honest. The 3e White Wolf team took door number 1, and I have very high regard for what were doing with the setting before it all imploded over there due to management conficts, so it's a shame we never got to see their take.

 

[Mercurius]

are you trying to excuse racist behavior at the workplace behind management's back?

Of course not, and I think you know this. I think such jokes are inappropriate in a public workplace. I'm saying jokes should be considered within context. If it is between friends and out of ear's range, none of our business. If it is a comedy club, all bets are off, and it is down to "vote with your dollar" (e.g. if you don't like Chappelle, Burr, etc, don't buy a ticket).