Reply to thread

Message

<blockquote data-quote="AbdulAlhazred" data-source="post: 8035685" data-attributes="member: 82106">Eh, I think there's a point where, if your PTSD is really such a major issue, you might not want to be running around in boards dedicated to a game which is quite upfront having violent content as a central theme. OTOH some of these other themes (spiders, racial stereotypes, etc.) are much less central to D&amp;D itself, IMHO. So, I do acknowledge that you could take things to an extreme, but I would say your argument might involve an 'excluded middle' too <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink&nbsp; &nbsp; ;)"&nbsp; data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" /> Realistically, I think its appropriate for us to say that &quot;race is a central theme in D&amp;D, but racism isn't&quot; and thus we can try to portray it in a way that doesn't scan, to anyone who is at all reasonable, as demeaning. That might mean we avoid certain types of situations and favor depiction of the world in a certain light, but D&amp;D has already been doing that for a long time. I mean, its depiction of women in society bears no resemblance to that of any pre-modern historical society that I know of, for example. It exists simply to remove an element of oppressiveness against female PCs, which is likely to offend or discourage female players (and maybe men too, whomever). Likewise certain 'adult' themes are not referenced in D&amp;D, at least not overtly.In the case of racism, we should probably make even more clear that D&amp;D 'races' (aka species) are not intended to reflect human races in the world, and discarding the loaded term 'race' seems like a fairly reasonable step. WotC's decision to emphasize that none of the D&amp;D races must be 'inherently bad' or 'inherently inferior' seems like an OK idea too, since inevitably someone WILL draw parallels between them and human races in the real world. You can still have barbaric violent evil orc tribes, and you may eschew having any which are other than that in a given setting, but this way a player is able to play any race and not assume it depicts their actual ethnicity in a bad light, at least as a game rule.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="AbdulAlhazred, post: 8035685, member: 82106"] Eh, I think there's a point where, if your PTSD is really such a major issue, you might not want to be running around in boards dedicated to a game which is quite upfront having violent content as a central theme. OTOH some of these other themes (spiders, racial stereotypes, etc.) are much less central to D&D itself, IMHO. So, I do acknowledge that you could take things to an extreme, but I would say your argument might involve an 'excluded middle' too ;) Realistically, I think its appropriate for us to say that "race is a central theme in D&D, but racism isn't" and thus we can try to portray it in a way that doesn't scan, to anyone who is at all reasonable, as demeaning. That might mean we avoid certain types of situations and favor depiction of the world in a certain light, but D&D has already been doing that for a long time. I mean, its depiction of women in society bears no resemblance to that of any pre-modern historical society that I know of, for example. It exists simply to remove an element of oppressiveness against female PCs, which is likely to offend or discourage female players (and maybe men too, whomever). Likewise certain 'adult' themes are not referenced in D&D, at least not overtly. In the case of racism, we should probably make even more clear that D&D 'races' (aka species) are not intended to reflect human races in the world, and discarding the loaded term 'race' seems like a fairly reasonable step. WotC's decision to emphasize that none of the D&D races must be 'inherently bad' or 'inherently inferior' seems like an OK idea too, since inevitably someone WILL draw parallels between them and human races in the real world. You can still have barbaric violent evil orc tribes, and you may eschew having any which are other than that in a given setting, but this way a player is able to play any race and not assume it depicts their actual ethnicity in a bad light, at least as a game rule. [/QUOTE]

Verification