Dragonlance Dragonlance "Reimagined".

[Velderan]

as Kender are concerned, I don't have strong views but there is a widespread view that they are hard to reconcile with RPGing, so making them more like naive Halflings or Gelflings would make sense.

That's the biggest issue with kender for me. They're essentially that CN player who is disruptive and acts like a jerk to everyone because "it's what my character would do". I've yet to have a kender player and I hope to change that.

 

[pemerton]

What if I cite other fiction that historically mocks the neurodivergent?

What about it? You think that racist literature, and literature that condones collective punishment, are the same. I don't. And for deep reasons, including the fact that racist literature is a device for justifying and perpetuating racism; whereas the DL retelling of the Cataclysm has, to the best of my knowledge, had zero impact on anyone's theory or practice of punishment. In both your country and mine, it is racism that is the overwhelming explanation for brutality in systems of punishment.

I won't comment directly on other sorts of violence, and militarism, for reasons of board rules and courtesy to others on these boards, but will note that you seem to think that the casual tolerance of lethal violence, and of failures to use great power to do good, doesn't indict the literature you love. And I think that's an incoherent position given your remarks about the Cataclysm.

 

[Vaalingrade]

What about it?

Doing that was supposed to make me change my mind on the DL gods' monstrous acts. I figured fair was fair.

 

[pemerton]

I'm sure WotC wishes for just a small portion of the catastrophic fallout HBO is dealing with on George RR Martin's material.

I'm 90% sure this is sarcasm and HBO has made a lot of money from Game of Thrones. The point of this post is to hedge my 10%!

 

[Faolyn]

I think you've missed my point.

Many of the older RPGers who post on these boards remember, and admire, Boorman's film Excalibur. It's a wonderful filmic retelling of the Arthur story. A key motif in the film is "the King and the Land are one".

I don't think anyone who watches and enjoys that film, or who enjoys the near-identical trope in LotR, really believes in the theory of government that is being advocated. They are suspending their real political commitments and moral values to enjoy a romantic fantasy story, which works within a different value system.

The same thing happens when I watch an X-Men film or read an X-Men comic, and don't judge Storm for her failure to use her weather powers to relieve drought and famine. These are works of fiction.

To what extent they are purely escapist fiction, and to what extent they have something to say about the real world, is a further question. I think it is one we can set aside in this thread. The key point for this thread is that thinking onself into the Arthur story - a celebration of righteous kingship manifested through the pursuit of lethal violence - is no more or less absurd than thinking onself into a story about divine punishment inflicted on a people for its sin of pride.

These are all fictions, not documentaries and not treatises on actual moral conduct.

So I'm guessing you've missed the countless internet discussions about whether or not such actions are wrong or not.

And you're still conflating mortal, albeit super-powered, characters with characters who are supposed to be gods.

(Also: @Vaalingrade has referred to the punishment of one man, but it's clear that the Cataclysm was a punishment of a whole people, not just one man. That's part of the trope - that the people participate in the wrongdoing of their leader. And in fact you don't have to look very far to find serious discussions that play on exactly this idea in contemporary scholarship.)

And that is a terrible, monstrous trope that should probably die a quick death, or at least never be considered a morally good thing ever again.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Then the writers either screwed up on the paladin's alignment and didn't changing it because then they'd have to rewrite huge swathes of lore, or they screwed up on their definition and understanding of feudal monarchy. Probably the vast majority of "Good" societies in D&D should actually be neutral, maybe with Good leanings. Radiant Citadel is actually a pretty Good society.

Also, "they suck so it's OK if we suck too" is not the argument you think it is.

And it still isn't an accurate comparison because the paladin isn't a god that has access to multiple wish spells per day.

Radiant Citadel is as "modern values" as it gets in D&D.

 

[pemerton]

So I'm guessing you've missed the countless internet discussions about whether or not such actions are wrong or not.

I don't rely on the internet for moral philosophy or aesthetic theory. I read and publish in mainstream philosophy journals.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

The same thing happens when I watch an X-Men film or read an X-Men comic, and don't judge Storm for her failure to use her weather powers to relieve drought and famine. These are works of fiction.

that's great... but if the Xmen decided to launch an asteroid at NYC to stop Trask from building sentinels in NYC would you judge storm then?

 

[pemerton]

Doing that was supposed to make me change my mind on the DL gods' monstrous acts. I figured fair was fair.

Well, I regard it as profoundly racist to morally equate literature that condones (say) race-based slavery to literature that uses the pre-modern trope of collective punishment.

 

[Micah Sweet]

So I'm guessing you've missed the countless internet discussions about whether or not such actions are wrong or not.

And you're still conflating mortal, albeit super-powered, characters with characters who are supposed to be gods.


And that is a terrible, monstrous trope that should probably die a quick death, or at least never be considered a morally good thing ever again.

Gods are super-powered, sentient, immortal beings. I don't see a difference significant enough for this discussion. Both could go a long towards solving society's ills but usually don't.