D&D 5E Dark Sun, problematic content, and 5E…

[Synthil]

Violence, war and theft can be justified.

Slavery can't.

Depends on how narrow you define slavery. If you include military conscription, then there are people who have arguments for it. But that argument seems a bit of a red herring. I don't think inclusion of bad stuff should be based on possible justifications. Because your bad guys in the setting probably don't have good justifications. Hence why they're the bad guys.

If something is to be included or not, should be based on real world harm done by its inclusion. And this includes the emotional well-being of players. If 80% of players had arachnophobia, than excluding spiders and spider like monsters from mainstream publications would be warranted. Not because it is "offensive" or "problematic" but because it negatively affects players.

I may have been under the wrong assumption that slavery is a done deal in modern society. I thought it was an ideal activity to establish bad guys as evil; like human(oid) sacrifices. The vast majority knows and agrees that it is horrible, but most are not being directly affected by it. If however a large portion of the player base has their fun -or even emotional well-being- diminished by including slavery, then it should be removed. That doesn't have to be from every product, just base products. Niche products can still include slavery and spiders or whatever, even if the majority rather not deal with it.

 

[Argyle King]

There was never anything blissful or ignorant about the enslaved. Certain people just pretend (present tense entirely intentional because some dude with way more power than he should ever be allowed will say so every month or so) it was the case. Cypher making the choice to go back to not knowing is vastly removed).

Again, not in the Matrix. The Machines were enslaved before they decided to deal with us and then ultimately chose to use a Matrix that kept us contained but mentally free (to the point of originally trying to make us perfectly happy).

But that's not what's being shown. Cypher isn't going to end up in a controlled environment from his perspective. He's deciding to loose the knowledge of the truth he's learned. The Matrix is more about truth vs falsehood than slavery vs freedom.

I'm not so sure that truth/falsehood is a wholly separate issue from freedom/slavery.

Perspective certainly is part of it. Common components involved in keeping a population passive and controlled are keeping the targets uneducated/unaware and fostering a relationship in which the target is reliant on the authority figure.

There are some components to Plato's Cave mixed into the Matrix.

Related to that are some arguments concerning being unaware but happy versus gaining greater awareness and freedom.

It's been a while since I've seen the movie, but I believe Cypher literally says "ignorance is bliss" as part of his motivation.

It may very well be that the machines had mostly "good" intentions. In the same way, there have been people throughout history who have used similar justifications for why it was better for a group to be controlled than free.

Different perceptions of "truth" and morality are where conflict (arguably a good thing for an adventure RPG) would arise.

 

[KvnLuck]

So I have only read the first and last few pages of this thread, so this idea might have already been brought up, but why not set it 30 years after the revised box set?

As I remember, by the point in the timeline the revised box set is set there are only 2 City-States left that practice slavery and they were in the middle of reforms to abolish it.

 

[Lanefan]

I agree--but the different expectations would be defiling magic, post-apocalypse desert setting, the lack of metal, the ubiquitous of psionics, the strange new monsters and lack of standard ones, the strange new PC races/species and unusual twists on typical ones, elementals instead of gods, etc. You don't need slavery to make Dark Sun unique or interesting.

Isn't Dark Sun also the setting where water is pretty much worth its weight in gold, thus forcing a serious mundane-resource management piece (conservation of water while adventuring) back into the game?

This doesn't seem to square with WotC's trend toward removing such mundane resource management as an aspect of play, though it's a mark in the setting's favour for me personally.

 

[Staffan]

So I have only read the first and last few pages of this thread, so this idea might have already been brought up, but why not set it 30 years after the revised box set?

As I remember, by the point in the timeline the revised box set is set there are only 2 City-States left that practice slavery and they were in the middle of reforms to abolish it.

I'm pretty sure only Tyr has abolished slavery. Raam, Draj, and Balic lost their sorcerer-monarchs at the conclusion of the Prism Pentad, but still practice slavery.

 

[Faolyn]

Isn't Dark Sun also the setting where water is pretty much worth its weight in gold, thus forcing a serious mundane-resource management piece (conservation of water while adventuring) back into the game?

This doesn't seem to square with WotC's trend toward removing such mundane resource management as an aspect of play, though it's a mark in the setting's favour for me personally.

True, unfortunately (the lack of resource management, I mean). They could use a resource die for it--simpler than actually tracking individual units of water, but still with the same risk.

 

[Micah Sweet]

True, unfortunately (the lack of resource management, I mean). They could use a resource die for it--simpler than actually tracking individual units of water, but still with the same risk.

Personally I would just use Level Up's (or Cubicle 7's) Journey system. You've got to believe most of the regions on Athas are at least Tier 2!

 

[Magister Ludorum]

Among the things that put me off on Darksun were...

• NPCs with a G in their alignment who were slave owners (better described as people who use force to make others work for them without compensation - you know Evil). A reading of the works of the Grimke sisters can illuminate as to how participating in a slave system destroys the morality of everyone involved.
• The stories about escaping slavery gave players an opportunity to "play at being slaves" and then participate in revenge fantasy. This is deeply offensive to people whose ancestry includes people who actually experienced slavery.
• I had one player who kept trying to play a cannibal. I felt a deep feeling of disgust for that character that then became a feeling of disgust for the player.

Could Darksun be rewritten without these problematic elements? Sure, it could. As has been mentioned before, using the model of serfdom or even better (IMO) the corporate town* where all resources are controlled by the sorcerer kings and the templars and the workers have to push themselves to edge of their endurance in order to afford the necessities of life. Before anyone suggests that this is the same as slavery, it isn't. Not in any moral sense of the word. Chattel slavery is different, from a moral and ethical perspective.

*All those ceramic pieces become the equivalent of corporate scrip, usable only the community where it was minted. Tie it to the value of a cup of water so that it has a real world value. Of course, the templars could always change the ceramic piece to water conversion rate in a kind of fantasy version of monetary policy.

The first story was about the overthrow of Kalak. I would suggest that a better beginning story would be for the characters to be the heroes who accomplish that deed. Let it be a level 1-15 (or whatever levels D&D writes for these days).

The assumption in the written material should be that all mages are preservers and all templars are secret rebels or ex-templars. No PC should be encouraged to support the evil status quo. What individual players do at their tables is on them, but the written material should be from this perspective.

Change the genocide in the history of the setting to attempted genocide. It's still horrific, but the the material doesn't have to dwell on it and PCs could play any of the races they love. I always thought that Darksun would have been improved with the Mos Eisley cantina effect instead of the various peoples living in their own isolated groups.

Those are just some ideas that most die-hard fans would probably hate, but could be a first step in ameliorating some of the problematic content. Like I said, individual groups should play the setting the way they want, but the default assumptions from book would move away from these issues.

 

[Vaalingrade]

• I had one player who kept trying to play a cannibal. I felt a deep feeling of disgust for that character that then became a feeling of disgust for the player.

God, do I rue the day when edgelord scientists discovered cannibalism as the latest in envelop-pushing disgustingness. And when it broke the 90's era containment in RPGs and novels, spilling over into 00's comics and 10-20's movies. There were three movies out last year that use cannibalisms as an allegory for relationships. Three! THREE.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

There is some "meme" about meneater D&D lizardfolk.

Any times it is not fault by the product, but external circustances. Let's imagine Hasbro is going to launch an animated movie of G.I.Joe. Then a couple of weeks before the premiere there is a real terrorist attack. You can imagine now the audience doesn't want to movie about terrorists. It could have been before, or maybe later in the future, but not now.

Even if WotC published a neutral work, the setting could be ideologically tainted by creators in DMGuild. For example in some works the propaganda by the sorcerer kings would tell thanks these the Tablelands were saved against the natural disaster what destroyed the rest of the planet, and these asked necessary sacrifices to repair the ecological damage. In other modules the PCs should help an ecoterrorist group as a lesser evil option.

Oficially, and it was canon, there was at least one time-traveler. This could allow an explanation about a reboot of DS. Maybe there is an alternate timeline where the disaster of the Brown Tide was avoided, but by fault of Rajaat (from the future) it is a nighmare where all the no-halflings are not wellcome. In other timeline Rajaat was killed (by a time-traveler from the future) before the training of the champions, but using the same time portal other unwanted visitors arrived, the cult of Tharizdum, the elder elemental eye, and these started the titan wars. And other guests are joined to the party, the Thoon cult, masters of the incarnum soulmelds. In other places of Athas is literally an infernal invasion, but if it was not enough troubles, more factions are added, the zerns(masters of the fleshcrafting) and the sheens (biomechanical horrors). Or in other timeline Rajaat becomes the "prophet" of the primal spirits: Father Forest, Silver Wind, Stone Brother and Spirit Khanate to stop the ecological destruction by Tharizdum cult.

Do you want to talk about the scars in the past? I am going to tell you something. My grandparent's generation suffered the Spanish civil war. My dad's father was fighting in one of the sided, and my mom's mother lost a brother in the battle of Ebro. When Franco's dictatorship ended y democrazy arrived, there was an unwritten pact "to bury and forgot" the past, as if it was a taboo.