I only have a short amount of time at the moment, so I will try to take as much of this post as I can, starting with this point. I may be brief though.
On that particular trope. Again, personally I don't have an issue with it once in a while. I loved the miniseries shogun for example and the book. And there are similar works like that. I can certainly see the complaint. But at the same time, I think it is about the individual work, and while the complaint may have some validity to it, where I tend to take issue is with the idea that a trope needs to be completely eliminated. I also find in these discussions people get very reductive about the tropes and about the stories involved.
That said, I have no issue with someone criticizing a story on a forum. I think provided it wasn't insanely ruthless or something, and just part of a conversation that is fine. If it veered into other territory that might be different.
Based on your synopsis it is hard to say what was going on because at first the writer felt their work was no good, but then turned on the poster. So I feel like some emotional beats are missing and I don't have the full context. But not a great reaction. At the same time, reactions have been heightened by the state of internet discourse, so I am pretty dulled when I see someone freak out, and I usually forget about it later and don't judge the poster.
Honestly, to me it felt like the co-author was engaging in emotional manipulation. But again, here is my point. If an artist takes mild criticism so harshly that they abandon all art... then good riddance. I say that as an artist. Some times criticism is valid, sometimes it isn't. Sometimes you make stuff that has problematic tropes, and you just have to say "yes, you are right, but that isn't the focus of this particular story that I want to tell." And sometimes you see a trope that you didn't see before, become aware of it, and try to excise it from the work, because it isn't neccessary anyways, and you can work to make something better in its place.
Your entire argument is based on this idea that all art will become grey, bland, and pointless (like gruel) because of criticism. But art criticism has always existed. Always. Black Metal started in the 80's, and it still exists today, and it doesn't seem like criticism of it is going to wash it away in a sea of overwrought PC culture. But you want us to stop striving to do better, out of fear that THIS time we will go too far and ruin all art forever.
Sure, a single critique shouldn't stop an artist. And death threats are clearly something I was pointing to earlier as unacceptable efforts to silence artists and writers. I see that as the ultimate expression of censorship (a person feeling so threatened by an idea, a piece of art, or feeling it is so evil and destructive the only solution is to kill someone).
The point about black jazz, that is why I feel the way I do about art. At least it is one of the reasons, and why I generally don't side with mass movements to censor. Saying people shouldn't care about these efforts to bring art down, because other artists died for their free expression is in my view missing the point of that history lesson. You don't look at something like the cultural revolution for example, which was massive in terms of scale and intensity, and very destructive to art and culture, and human lives, and then point to someone whose life was ruined by a handful of critics and internet trolls (say someone who lost work and is now unable to work in the industry they were part of) by pointing out how much worse the cultural revolution was. Those pieces of history are the lessons informing our concern about these kinds of efforts to stifle creative expression and to impose a one true way approach.
But the point is that art, really good art, is better than the criticism. Bright (the movie) was criticized for a lazy, reductive take on racial tensions. It was tossed in the garbage bin because, frankly, it wasn't good art. But people calling it out didn't destroy all expressions of urban fantasy. It didn't stop all depictions of racism in fantasy. And we can push to move beyond these tropes without worrying about ruining art, because attempts to censor and destroy good art always fail.
You seem to want to present art and artists as these frail things, that if the environment they live in just gets a little too acidic, they will die en mass. But that is false. Sure, occassionally bad things happen to good people, it sucks, but we also have people who don't make art because they are too poor to afford it, or they get sick and can't afford medical care, or any of a million other reasons. We don't need to stop criticizing art out of fear of ruining it. That is a false idea.
And I said, protest is free expression too so that is your right. If someone were trying to stop you from protesting I would be against that as well. My only point is don't fall into the trap of "Protest=good" because it doesn't. People protest things all the times in destructive ways, and protest can and has been used to repress art.
Sure, I don't tend to protest things just for the sake of protesting. That isn't what i happening here. So your grim predictions of a grey future aren't needed.
Thankfully Piss Christ still exists. But his career was affected, his life was impacted. He lost grant money which means work. And he was a practicing Catholic who was condemned as a blasphemer by people from his own religion and from other branches of Christianity. So it isn't like he or Piss Christ came out unscathed. After that incident, you couldn't just find prints of it anywhere. Those kinds of cultural moments get very intense. But it doesn't follow that because death threats didn't stop one instance of art (they have certainly stopped it in other instances) that lesser attempts at censorship have no effect. Again, we live in an age where episodes of telivision shows routinely get taken off streaming platforms over these kinds of protests.
As for actual mild criticism. I am not particularly worried about it. I am worried about some of the more intense criticism and activism against content that doesn't even give people a chance to talk and deliberate.
So I can't tell a multi-billion dollar company that I don't particularly want racism baked into the game, because some small time artist might, maybe, get descended upon by a crowd of people and have their livelihood disrupted? I see you mention he lost grant money, but I decided to look this guy up.
Piss Christ happened in 1987. In 2010 he released a movie. In 2013 he did a large scale project featuring the homeless of New York. He seems like he did quite fine after this event that you keep bringing up, as though it thoroughly and forever ruined his career. It is also interesting that you bring this event from the 80's up. Because have you looked into the whole "cancel culture" thing? This idea that all these people are getting canceled for their ideas? The vast majority of the wealthy artists and influencers and actors who got "canceled"... are still wealthy artists, influencers and actors and still making products and making money off those products.
So, again, this seems like fear mongering. After all, how many shows got taken off TV for having too much racism in them, or sexism in them, compared to how many TV shows have been protested and taken down for showing too much diversity? Yet I bet you if I went to look at the places where those people protest against the inclusion of LGBTQ+ people, I won't see a person like you cautioning them against going too far and ruining art.
Sure, like I said, say what you have to say. But I would emphasize more charitable interpretations of art. A lot of times when I see this, the artist has one take, and some people online react in a very harsh and strong way to something they perceive as a problem. But not everyone is going to agree it is a problem. You are assuming the person is going forward in ignorance if they don't hear your wisdom. Maybe they aren't ignorant. You should also consider the possibility you might be wrong, that the artist is right
So basic communication skills. Don't need predictions of doom for the art world to get that across. And you know, it is weird you keep bringing up this "not everyone will agree" like that is something we don't know. Again, I saw literal Neo-Nazis screaming and brandishing guns at a children's event. I am very aware than not everyone is going to agree that some piece of art is a problem. That isn't exactly shocking news.
And in every case I can think of involving some of the things from WoTC... it has pretty much always started with a "charitable" interpretation. The worse I tend to see, before people start leaping to the defense of things through concepts like "but it is ficitional, so it doesn't matter" is basically "Okay, look WoTC, it is 202X, you should know better by now. Why did you think this was okay?"
Things only tend to get more heated when that response is met with "Well, why wouldn't it be okay? Do you want to suppress all art? I don't see the problem with it!"
I would agree the most useless criticism can be it is fine (though there are times it can be helpful). And if you are giving earnest criticism, again I have no issue. I have more of an issue when there are calls for content, tropes, etc not to appear in media ever again, or for people to completely freak out when such a trope emerges. And I am generally against efforts to cancel creators, ruin them, etc (which often follow from these kinds of criticisms).
And again, I think you are missing the lesson to be learned about artists in other countries facing secret police and repressive authoritarian governments. I've met artists from such countries, usually their message to artists in places where we have freedom but the censorship is more self imposed is to be brave in the face of it, because they understand the stakes more than anyone.
Right, so the message to artists from artists is to stick to their vision. So protesting art isn't a problem, and it can actually help the artist make better art. I have never heard anyone state that a trope shouldn't ever appear in any media ever again. No one says that. And perhaps what you see as people "completely freaking out".... isn't. Maybe they aren't losing their minds, just being vocal.
But I have seen, time and time and time again, people decrying the removal of some of these old, tired tropes, with "But how will I be entertained!" However, as I demonstrated very early on in this discussion... you don't need those tropes. They are not intrinsic of necessary. And, every single time I see people saying that we shouldn't have something in the base game, every single person who says that says that you can absolutely put it in your own game. If your artistic vision demands it, then you should stick to your vision and push forward. But instead, you want to tell us to stop being vocal, because we might scare you into not doing what you want to do if we are too loud and forceful.
Because the former is natural more interested because it is loaded with conflict. The same reason it is often better to have bad guys going around exploiting the locals and murdering people: it is more gameable and gives the players something to chew on.
If you think it has been done to death, that is fair, but my point is it has been done so much because it works. In D&D it seems to have landed especially well and remained for so long because of that (speaking of half elves). Slavery has been done to death but so have dungeons and so have encounters and so have knights and dragons. We keep using these things because they help us tell interesting stories, they help with stakes and they help us paint a picture of certain kinds of societies in these games.
So where in the human entry does it say that they are discriminated against? What about Dragonborn? Firbolgs? Genasi can be considered mixed race, where in their entry does it say that they are discriminated against?
Weird. None of that exists, but you are saying that is the most interesting way to do it. It is more gameable to be discriminated against, it gives the players something to chew on... but only if it is certain races? If this is the best way, why doesn't every single entry give us how the other races discriminate against this race?
And there is a difference between slavery and dungeons. Or slavery and knights, or slavery and dragons. Actually, let's take that last one. How do you depict dragons? In western mythology that DnD pulled from, all dragons breathed fire. Do all DnD dragons breath fire? No. Do all dragons have the same wants and desires? No. Do all dragons have the same lairs? No. Do all dragons have the same body type? No, in fact, the currently most famous dragon is Themberchaud, a fat dragon who isn't wise, powerful, or intelligent, but depicted more like a chubby dog chasing snacks.
Now, how many interesting ways has slavery been depicted? What different versions of slavery have been depicted in DnD? Oh... they've all been basically the same version, for the same reason, doing the same thing...
Dungeons are the same sort of thing as dragons. A dungeon can be a collapsed and ruined temple, a giant's castle, a series of natural caves... they are vast in their variety. Why delve? A million and one reasons. But racism against mixed race people is... basically always the same thing. Has been the exact same thing for DnD half-elves ever since Tanis Half-Elven
FORTY YEARS AGO. If we had only one depiction of dungeons in the last forty years, you might have a point that they are the same tired trope, but we haven't. We don't have the same depiction of dungeons session to session half the time.
It absolutely impacts play to remove going to dungeons and wilderness, killing monsters and taking their stuff. Other things can be done, but this is like 80% of how people play the game. Again, I think framing it as "killing the native population" is just a way to connect it to colonialism, as killing monsters and taking their stuff can cover a broad range of situations.
But no one is complaining about killing owlbears and bullettes. No one is complaining about defeating beholders and Dragons. And no one is complaining about entering a dungeon, or about going into the wilderness.
But going into a dungeon specifically to kill the goblins that live there and take their treasure... that can get a bit icky. And, frankly, I don't think 80% of all people still do that. Or if they do, it isn't every single adventure.
Sure, civilized monsters can be very interesting and other types of adventures can be very interesting. I am all for them. But people do want combat with monsters, they do want exploration. Putting those two things together is pretty much the magic of what makes D&D work (at least it is a big part of it). Many campaigns have other things in them, and some players are more than happy to go to an interesting city of monsters and contend with their challenges in another way. But there is something fun about kicking down the door and killing orcs in a dungeon.
And why is there something fun about kicking in the door of someone's home and slaughtering them?
You can fight monsters without having to fight orcs and goblins. Plenty of monsters in the book other than those two. You can explore, no one has any problem with exploration. But it is notable how often exploration NEVER leads to an "equally advanced" civilization, isn't it? That would be historically accurate after all, It isn't like europeans who went East never encountered advanced civilizations, there were A LOT of them.
And if you absolutely must have a dungeon, and it must contain intelligent humanoid enemies... why can't it be humans? Why not gnomes? There are "acceptable targets" in DnD humanoids, and that is the thing people point out as being a problem. Because if you kick in the door to a dungeon, see a cooking pot, a bed and a large man going for an axe, whether they are an orc or a dwarf is basically all that determines whether or not the party enacts violence or tries to talk first. And that is a problem.
Yes, that is all great stuff. I don't have any problem with going beyond the dungeon or wilderness. What I am saying by cutting that out in the name of fighting colonialism (something it has no real connection to at this point), you are gutting the core activity of the game. The importance of the core activity is people know they can go to that when they need to sustain a long campaign. It's a very easy and basic thing to plan for and execute, and it is time tested.
No, you aren't. You can still explore. You can still go into the dungeon. You can still go into the wilderness. You can still fight monsters. None of that has to change. You are lying right now, and I know you are lying because five of my eight examples included going out into the wilderness or dungeons and fighting monsters. What they didn't include was fighting and killing goblins or orcs or lizardfolk because those are "acceptable targets". We fought things like Owlbears, bullettes, displacer beasts, giant snakes, undead... you know... monsters.
Again, just because there are other things that can be done in a game, it doesn't mean taking out the core activity isn't going to diminish the game. And once again, reducing what is being described to 'killing native people' so it ties to a narrative about D&D dungeon delving and wilderness exploration being a colonialist trope, I think frames the core activity unfairly.
How else do you describe the orcs, goblins and lizardfolk living in the region where you are hunting and killing them, sometimes for generations? If I can't call them the "native people" of the region, what should I call them?
And you keep framing the "core activity" solely in the realm of killing those enemies to steal their property. But that framing is incorrect.
