D&D 5E (2014) Dark Sun, problematic content, and 5E…

[Irlo]

We do have a broad range of media appealing to a range of tastes and sensibilities. It’s not realistic to rely on one publisher to supply it.

 

[Faolyn]

Nobody is being forced to buy it.
if there was the case that something was too upsetting for me, I would just not buy it, I would not want it to be censored.

How would you know if it was too upsetting for you until you bought and read it?

Dark Sun has slavery. You have to read it in-depth before you realize that also means sex slavery.

Edit: and it wouldn't be censorship because the material (2e, 4e) is still available for sale.

 

[Irlo]

I personally find it patronizing that WotC has decided not to work on Dark Sun because they find it problematic.

I am an adult, I can deal with the portrayal of evil and need not be sheltered from it.

Treat me as an adult.

I really don’t think that WotC is sheltering you or patronizing you. They just don’t want to produce the material you want.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

How would you know if it was too upsetting for you until you bought and read it?

Dark Sun has slavery. You have to read it in-depth before you realize that also means sex slavery.

Edit: and it wouldn't be censorship because the material (2e, 4e) is still available for sale.

Have you not just proven that it is possible to learn this without an in-depth reading, by telling someone else about it without them having read it?

 

[Faolyn]

Have you not just proven that it is possible to learn this without an in-depth reading, by telling someone else about it without them having read it?

Based on decades-old material from 2e. How do you know what's in a new book? Do you always search out in-depth reviews for every single product you may wish to buy?

If slavery is so important for your Dark Sun game, why can't you simply add it?

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Based on decades-old material from 2e. How do you know what's in a new book? Do you always search out in-depth reviews for every single product you may wish to buy?

Yes. I do that for literally all products I buy. Doesn't matter whether it's a book, a machine, a computer component...if I don't have at least two different "reviews" (noting that "a friend recommended it to me" qualifies as a "review" in my book), I generally won't buy a product. Food is probably the only exception there, mostly because I buy too much of it to be that scrupulous in review-getting....but I still prefer to have reviews/instructions/etc. before I do something like going to a restaurant or trying to make a particular dish.

If slavery is so important for your Dark Sun game, why can't you simply add it?

I already said my piece on that front. It isn't strictly important to me. However, what is important to me is creators having the freedom to explore, as I phrased it above, "evil unforgivable"....so long as they accept the responsibility that entails. I have been very clear about that, in multiple different posts. In that last one, I even explicitly (and, as usual, with far too many words) said that I do NOT use slavery in the game I run, and one of the reasons that I don't is that I did not feel up to the task. It was a responsibility I did not feel prepared for, and so I specifically and explicitly chose not to, and I told my players that up-front. Of course, the game I run isn't actually Dark Sun, it isn't even that much like Dark Sun. I give the example not to illustrate what is or should be done with that setting, but to show that I'm putting my money where my mouth is, and that I think people should have the confidence and self-awareness to admit that maybe they just aren't in the right position to take on that responsibility.

Edit:
And the difference between slavery being an explicit part of the setting, vs. it being something each DM might elect to add personally, is exactly what I referenced earlier when explaining why official D&D Phyrexians would maybe be too much of a problem while homebrew Phyrexians would be an extremely useful tool (assuming the players are on board for that particular spicy meatball.) That is, the officialness really does make a difference in more than one direction. It may, yes, mean that you have to grapple with an uncomfortable topic--that may in fact be the very point. I consider slavery to be--potentially, with caveats, and heavy responsibility--a useful component or tool for literary work, but one that is both very dangerous and very easy to use poorly. There are plenty of IRL tools that are extremely dangerous even when used by people who should know better--consider explosives. Thankfully, the misuse of something like slavery in a written work (whether it be a book or an RPG or whatever else) is significantly less likely to kill someone than a tub of nitroglycerin. But the possibility of harm is there. All written work, fiction or nonfiction, has the potential to cause harm to someone, somewhere, so for literally all techniques the best one can do is put in due diligence to prevent errors before they get out into the wild, and compensate for errors that you didn't catch first.

 

[Tonguez]

Maybe it's because we're not American and thus are farther removed from the recent history of it all, but when running a game set in faux-ancient-Greece or faux-ancient-Rome slavery as a societal norm just goes with the territory; and a PC being an ex-slaver (or ex-slave!) is just as likely as a PC being an ex-baker or ex-jeweller or ex-any number of other professions..

sometimes I wonder if its just the word Slave thats at issue, if we were to use the term Helot or Thrall would it be more acceptable. Afterall the game already uses the idea of Vampire thrall without issue.
slave is a background, the biblical Joseph was sold to merchants, taken to Egypt as a slave then became both a seer and Vizier. Neither the merchants who traded him, nor his master Potiphar were evil.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Has anyone considered that maybe people at WotC might not want to work on a book about slavery themselves while we're demanding they make it despite it being out of touch with modern sensibilities?

"Hey, I need a slave market in the first section of thi adventure."

"Hey, I need you to accept this two weeks notice."

 

[Warpiglet-7]

sometimes I wonder if its just the word Slave thats at issue, if we were to use the term Helot or Thrall would it be more acceptable. Afterall the game already uses the idea of Vampire thrall without issue.
slave is a background, the biblical Joseph was sold to merchants, taken to Egypt as a slave then became both a seer and Vizier. Neither the merchants who traded him, nor his master Potiphar were evil.

I was thinking “captive” or some such might be less inflammatory. Servant or thrall is fine too.

 

[Vaalingrade]

'Intern'