And I wonder if their choice is based in prudence and good sense, or in irrational fear. Is there really any risk of a possible controversy? Was it their choise, or an order from the top, or from outside? Then, in this case, who and why? I can understand in the entertaiment industry there are some rules of political correction, but I see these rules are changing too much in the last years, and not always with a right coherence, and more once because suspicious motives.
Is it a marketing choice based in the good sense, or submission to an ideological agenda? If it the second reason, then I start to worry, and more when more times in the past WotC has talked about "inclusive content". I fear because a thing is told but after the opposite happenes. I am watching several exemples within the entertaiment industry because the companies are losing money because they stopped to be ideologically neutral.
Who could start a controversy linked with DS setting, toxic players, toxic creators in DMGuild or a lobby with no link with the hobby? Kalidnay is in DMGuild, because it was a dread domain within Ravenloft setting.
Really have modern sensibilities changed, or is anybody talking in the name of those modern sensibilities? But what if that anybody is not the true voice of the majority of the public opinion?
Have we lost the good sense? Are we allowing the imposition of new taboos without questioning anything?
What are the criteria for saying when anything can be potentially problematic? who imposes those criteria? Are those criteria really reasonable, or is it a new tiranny in the name of politically correct?
Wouldn't be enough a disclaimer section explaining the players should understand the respect for the human dignity or anything like this?
Why could DS be potentially problematic, but not Ixatlan or Blizzard's Diablo (videogame)?
I believe the decision to pass on DS is based both on prudence and good sense; the two are not mutually exclusive. Warning: big wall of text coming.
I don’t think WotC submits to a certain ideology as much as they adhere to a certain ideology (they stumble and struggle against their own inertia but I’m giving them benefit of the doubt that they are sincere with what they say)
Earlier,
@Vaalingrade said that (I’m paraphrasing) « this was then, now we’ve evolved ». I’d rather said that we are
evolving; we were evolving back then, we are still evolving now, and I hope we’ll still be evolving in the future. But their point still stands: we are not in the same social context as we were back when DS came out.
A RPG setting isn’t the same as a movie or book or even computer RPG setting. In a movie/book, the setting is a controlable background and it’s easier for the author to make a social commentary in favour or against it. The author is in control of the protagonists actions, thoughts, ethical approach, and evolution of character. In short, the author is capable of nuances, evolving, and basically saying « I don’t approve of this ». As a matter of fact, the more evil the setting, the easiest it becomes to disapprove of it.
A RPG setting is very open. You need to take into consideration that
any type of audience will take active participation in it, potentially promoting things that the authors meant to criticize. Personally, I think it can be possible, as a setting author, to clearly state your intentions and basically say « if you twist my words, shame on you ». Still, the chance that people may honestly misinterpret the author’s intentions, or not be educated enough to see faults in the first place, is pretty high. Until recently, I didn’t know about minstrelsies. « How can something minstrel-related be racist I wondered? ». Where we need to be careful about education is that not everyone around the world knows as much about United States history, and that many different countries and cultures tackled similar problems very differently in their history. Now as long as it remains around your home table; it’s cool. But D&D, from WotC’s own intentions, is the public face of the RPG industry. It’s mainstream enough that a lot of uninitiated people get an idea of what’s going on, but not mainstream enough that public at large can differentiate a game from another, or a setting from another. WotC needs to take that into consideration to be the welcoming game to an uninitiated population. Or diverse populations. Or populations that did experience traumas and are only now starting to deal with it publicly (or get public traction in the awareness of said trauma).
This means no Dark Sun because we’re not ready for it, among the community and outside of it. Perhaps in a near future we might be but now we aren’t. This saddens me, but I made my peace with it.
