Again, I have no issue with criticism. I don't know why you keep saying I do. Like I said, conversations like this one are fine, and I encourage them. What I don't like is where these conversations sometimes go in terms of it becoming harder and harder for people to make the kind of art they would like to make (and not because a single criticism has been leveled, but because of the state of the culture at the moment and the way companies and publishers run away from a hint of controversy). It isn't even necessarily the critics fault (though I do think people should understand the power they wield when they go beyond criticism and bring together an active movement to have something removed or not made).
I keep saying you seem to have a problem with criticism because your entire thrust seems to be "be careful about criticizing art, or else people might stop making art." You literally say it right here by stating that the state of culture (ie telling people it is no longer acceptable to continue making certain things) is such that people can't make the type of art they want to make. But, again, that is just... how the world works. This has literally been true for all of human history that the state of culture has made making certain types of art something that certain artists don't do. Your Piss Christ example would never have happened in the 1400's because the man who did it would have been stoned to death. Alternatively, a character like Harley Quinn could never have existed in the 1600's because a woman acting like that would have been seen as improper. Your literal point is we might be able to shape culture, and we shouldn't do so, because we might make it bad.
And I never said everything will be bland. I said over and over, great art can be made despite these kinds of moral restrictions being imposed on them (and I pointed to Bride of Frankenstein as an example). My contention is more that putting a priority on wholesomeness, morality and the responsibility of art to society like this tends to lead to blander art. It is what produces things like the show Growing Pains.
Oh joy, we get to play the "but I never said that" game. This is my favorite. Let's take "gruel" for $300 Pat
Each time you take a little thing like this away, my argument is that is indeed a step towards more pablum content (especially since the stated aim is removing flavor people might object to-----if you are applying the same process to cuisine, you likely end up with something approaching gruel in the end). Nothing wrong with gruel. I happen to like it. But I also like many other flavor palettes and spices in the cabinet.
Pablum: (Noun)
bland or
insipid intellectual fare, entertainment, etc.
Oh, but maybe I'm not reading you closely enough. You aren't saying EVERYTHING will be bland, just that some stuff will be bland. Maybe, oh.... 90% of it? Cause, you know, there is this little thing called Sturgeon's Law which states that about 90% of everything is crap.
The Simpsons was revolutionary TV. It got bland after 20 or 30 seasons, and every show that just copied the Simpsons formula was fairly bland. This isn't because we imposed new moral limits on TV, we didn't put an emphasis on wholesomeness and responsibility. No, the reason was because they were derivative and not as good. And frankly, the sheer number of "edgy" shows really makes me think that it would be bad to have some actually wholesome content on occasion. We are drowning in cynicism and doom, it isn't a bad thing to have a story about hope on occassion that doesn't turn around and say "and you were stupid for believing in such childish nonsense!"
So, no, I'm not terribly worried that every time we criticize and remove something racist from the content we like, that we are inevitably sliding into a world of insipid and bland fair, because we always have a large serving of insipid and bland fair.
Except we are seeing an impact on what is feasible here. Again, ten or twenty years ago, these arguments about orcs, colonialism, etc being baked into D&D, would have been a joke (people would have understood the academic basis of those arguments but would have found it silly to apply them to dungeon crawling). Now Dark Sun isn't being made. I can say with certainty creators are generally feeling the pressure to not say or do anything that gets perceived as wrong and that this is making for an icy creative environment for a lot of people. And again you see it on things like streaming platforms where episodes are taken down, or on Amazon where movies are edited and it isn't even mentioned to anyone that the edits have taken place.
20 years ago the idea that gay marriage would be legal was a joke. 20 years ago the idea of Russia threatening nuclear war if we don't allow them to conquer a sovereign nation would have been seen as paranoia. Time changes things. The world moves, and what was once invisible becomes visible. Hell, when I was growing up I didn't even know the word "gay", the idea of homosexual people wasn't something I encountered until College. You keep acting like the fact that these things wouldn't have happened a decade or two ago somehow means that them happening now makes them invalid. It doesn't. "But this wouldn't have been taken seriously 20 years ago" is not an argument that they should not be taken seriously NOW.
You can say whatever you want to WOTC. My point is people using this moral argument about colonialism to move dungeons and wilderness exploration out of the game (at least the classic: kill things and take their stuff) are doing a disservice to the hobby in the same way that a disservice was done to art when people were morally outraged about Piss Christ.
No, it isn't. I've demonstrated time and time and time again that you can have perfectly fine adventures in the hobby without engaging in those tropes. You just refuse to acknowledge it by assuming that 80% of the game is actually made up of this small fraction of tropes. And then using that to claim we are hurting the hobby by trying to get them to move past a single set of ideas.
The man received death threats. It clearly had an impact on him. That he continued despite all that says a lot about him, but it doesn't excuse or justify the mob mentality that tried to destroy him and his career.
Rebecca Sugar got death threats too. That doesn't mean people should stop criticizing Hollywood. Your argument here literally seems to be "some people take it too far, so you need to watch your step or the mob that you aren't a part of will ruin someone's life". But that is essentially trying to "chill" protest of literally anything and everything out of the fear you will go too far.
If the problem is a mob making death threats, then as long as I'm not making death threats, I'm not part of the problem.
We have covered this subject before and don't agree. I don't think we are going to move the needle much further in this conversation. I think cancel culture is definitely real. Waning, hopefully, but real. Just because everyone isn't definitively canceled that doesn't mean it isn't having a massive effect on art and on artists and creators. And in a hobby like RPGs, where people are just barely getting by, I promise you that the threat of being canceled weighs heavily on most creators. But my concerns with this are actually not even as much with the artists as with fans, because they are often the ones who do get canceled for saying the wrong thing on social media, and it being reframed to a broader audience. Those aren't people in a position to survive that. And when people try to cancel you, they go after you personally. It affects your ability to get work, it affects your family life, and it affects your mental. I had a small semi-successful cancelation attempt and I am still in therapy over it. I almost killed myself over it. And there are many other people out there who have had similar experiences or seen something similar happen to someone. And most of them don't say anything because they are afraid of being attacked by groups of people online themselves.
I'm sorry that happened to you, but just because people go too far doesn't mean everyone needs to stop being critical. That's like saying "some people get food poisoning, so we should shut down all restaurants forever, because we can't risk someone getting food poisoning"
And yes, your tactics ARE pushing towards stopping criticism, because you are trying to instill fear of doing harm into people who aren't the mobs you are worried about.
To me, all these forms of censorship are bad. If this were a thread about why WOTC shouldn't include gay characters because they are a huge company and it might drive away potential new players, and make people who are religious feel less welcome, I would say the same things I am saying here. If you don't see me warning protesters at those events it's because I don't go to those events. I mostly just post on gaming forums.
You can believe all censorship is bad, but that isn't the same thing. I get really tired of people saying that my opinion that something is done badly means that I'm trying to censor them. If we had cars that were exploding and killing people, we wouldn't be censoring the artists who designed the cars by saying those cars are bad and shouldn't be sold anymore. We would be speaking up to try and affect change. That's a good thing. That's the best thing we can do, because it has been what has made so many things possible that were unthinkable decades ago. That isn't censorship. Pushing forward for positive change isn't censorship. And yes, I feel like we can tell the difference between "don't show a nipple because Satan lives in the sins of the flesh" and "Hey, let's stop casting every Latin american person as a criminal and perpetuating harmful stereotypes that get people killed"
Because it's a dice game where you play warriors, wizards and thieves, and killing goblins in their lair is entertaining. Plus it doesn't go beyond the game. It is cathartic. Nothing more.
And it isn't equally a dice game where you play warriors, wizards and thieves, nor entertaining, if you kill Ghouls? It just isn't as carthatic to kill Kruthiks? It does actually go beyond the game if you kill Oozes?
Your argument here could literally apply to any monster in the monster manual, so what's special about Goblins?
if they life in the dungeon I might call them residents of the lair. But they may not be the original inhabitants (it is pretty classic to have a dungeon once inhabited by dwarves or some other group, but who were slaughtered by the monsters presently controlling the dungeon). For wilderness they may also be wandering monsters passing through (maybe they are locals, maybe they are not). They could be invaders. It varies a lot in the specifics
Clearly despite you breaking everything into tiny posts, you don't read them as carefully as you could. "Sometimes for generations" means that they may be passing through? Pretty long journey if they have been settled in the same lands for multiple decades but are just "passing through" Or invaders, you know what we call invaders who have been in the land for multiple generations? Citizens.
And why don't you get to be native people if you live in a dungeon? There are entire ecosystems in the Underdark, why are they "residents of the lair" just because they are underground instead of above ground? We don't call dwarf cities "lairs" just because they are underground.
And let's run that scenario for a bit. You are hired by dwarves to clear out monsters that 70 years ago killed the dwarves and took over an underground city, So you roll up, slaughter the lot of them, and the dwarves take over the underground city... So what do you do in ten years when the "monsters" ask to hire you to kill the invaders who slaughtered the inhabitants of the dungeon and are presently controlling it? This is the problem people are posing. If you take one step further in IRL logic, and take the beings we are told are sentient and intelligent and give them the same motivations as people.... then you see immediately that there is a problem. After all, if the dwarves demanded you slaughter a group of humans who violently took over their home 70 years ago, most groups would hesitate. This makes it a rather obvious double standard. And we have been looking askance as double standards for a long while now, asking why they are still allowed to stand.
Killing things and taking their stuff is a way many people describe the game. Obviously it is short hand and reductive. But there is truth to the idea that the game is about going into dungeons and facing monsters, and going into the wilderness and facing monsters.
It is how some people describe the game. But the most recent ad for DnD from JoCat certainly doesn't describe it that way. The 5e PHB doesn't describe it that way. I've never seriously pitched a game of DnD to anyone that way.
So maybe.... "kill things and take their stuff" has fallen to the wayside in the favor of "Go on a grand adventure" or "Become the heroes of your own fantasy story"
And again, despite you trying to paint it as such, no one is saying you can't go into the wilderness. No one is saying you can't go into dungeons. No one is saying you can't kill monsters. What I am saying is that going into the wilderness specifically to find intelligent people, killing them for their money, and then acting like it is a great time does seem like it has some serious problems to it.
