Ripple Effect of D&D's Statement on the Rest of the RPG Industry?

[Dannyalcatraz]

It's people of primarily European descent still not listening. I get the feeling, I have had Christians, upon discovering I was once Jewish, heap praise on "your people" and how without "Jews" we wouldn't have Jesus in some sort of apology for centuries of being blamed for the crucifiction of Christ.

Our branch of the family converted from judaism to Catholicism sometime between the 1860s-1920s, but it’s not clear when. That fact is also not talked about all that often in the family, so some people forget...or were never told.

Back in the 1990s, 2 of my younger male cousins were in the early stages of antisemitism that was doing a slow burn through their local black community.* Nobody had told them about our great-grandmother by her given name, Elioni Levy. I stepped up to let them know about their jewish heritage before it was too late.

(It would have helped, though, if the other side of the family and ours hadn’t become estranged at some point.)



* We live in different states

 

[teitan]

There are better ways to teach those lessons than airing Song of the South, though. Without going too deeply into it, a goodly amount of American History as taught simply glosses over the bad. Even with Black History Month being a thing for decades, some people (of all ethnicities) are only this year hearing about the Tulsa Massacre...not to mention the literal dozens of other massacres and similar events, like the levee bombings of 1927, the killing of black politicians after the a Civil War, or the defrauding of Black farmers and GIs (and the stuff that happened to other minorities as well).*

Personally, I‘d rather see less emphasis on putting film, music, sculpture, etc, in their proper context and more emphasis in actually teaching the context. Most non-bigots will agree that things were bad and got better. But currently most people don’t understand HOW bad things were, nor that some truly nasty things haven’t ended yet. IOW, most people are only looking at the surfaces of the issues- until you start digging deep, those wounds aren’t going to heal well.




* And I bet you’d find a similar downplaying of the bad in most countries’ scolding history curricula.)

see you think I meant airing it but I meant a place in education on the evolution of race relations and understanding how things were indoctrinated and evolved over time. It has a place in classrooms, not TV& theater screenings.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

see you think I meant airing it but I meant a place in education on the evolution of race relations and understanding how things were indoctrinated and evolved over time. It has a place in classrooms, not TV& theater screenings.

Even in the classroom, I think it’s time better spent on the underlying issues. Like why the great harms done by America to some of its own citizens is simply not taught in depth. I mean, how many of the literally dozens of black massacres- none taught in schools today- could you cover in the 90 minute runtime of that movie? IMHO, the indoctrination effect of not teaching real world events is far more powerful than the propaganda used to paper things over.

 

[dragoner]

Except they seemed to have a thing for casting black actors as Klingons, or darkening the skin of white actors for the parts. Which one is worse in that circumstance, I do not know. I dread the day some of these people with nothing better to do catch some of those episodes from the original series.

Stalin was often compared to Ghengis Khan, and the Red Army his "mongol horde" something that continued with a lot of American propaganda, spot on for the representation of TOS Klingons:

 

[MGibster]

Except they seemed to have a thing for casting black actors as Klingons, or darkening the skin of white actors for the parts. Which one is worse in that circumstance, I do not know. I dread the day some of these people with nothing better to do catch some of those episodes from the original series.

I get the need to analyze things, but sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. The Klingons were aliens and the production was on a budget. The original Star Trek also introduced us to the Federation's foremost expert on computers, Dr. Richard Daystrom, portrayed by African American actor William Marshall. I know that might not sound like a big deal, but this was 1968, most Americans had no experience with computers, and shows like I, Spy weren't shown in the south because people were uncomfortable that Bill Cosby and Robert Culp's characters treated one another as equals. For a lot of Americans, the portrayal of a black man as the foremost computer expert, a man compared to Einstein by Spock, was just as much science fiction as warp speed is.

I don't really think many people are going to go after Star Trek TOS because of Klingons.

 

[teitan]

I get the need to analyze things, but sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. The Klingons were aliens and the production was on a budget. The original Star Trek also introduced us to the Federation's foremost expert on computers, Dr. Richard Daystrom, portrayed by African American actor William Marshall. I know that might not sound like a big deal, but this was 1968, most Americans had no experience with computers, and shows like I, Spy weren't shown in the south because people were uncomfortable that Bill Cosby and Robert Culp's characters treated one another as equals. For a lot of Americans, the portrayal of a black man as the foremost computer expert, a man compared to Einstein by Spock, was just as much science fiction as warp speed is.

I don't really think many people are going to go after Star Trek TOS because of Klingons.

Don't forget the first interracial kiss on television. These incremental steps are important because they provide the context of the time and how walls get knocked down and things become accepted. Violent recourse just creates a siege mentality and by violent recourse I mean demands and forced change. I don't mean the Civil Rights act and the forced desegregation. By my statement I mean laws that police language, which in turn appear to be means to police thought. Areas well covered by Orwell, Bradbury, Huxley and Alan Moore in their works. WHat's going on right now, as a Louisville resident, I am 100% on board but I do think that there has been a reaction to it from the entertainment industry that will blowback on them. Things like the Golden Girls episode and the COmmunity episode.

WOTC did begin a process when 5e launched that was a conscious and organic evolution of acceptance and a real attempt, quite successful, at expanding their audience for the game and going forward I am onboard with similar changes throughout the industry. WOTC has handled it really well in being incremental and shadow changes like Paladin required alignments being stealth removed from the game overall by not being included in the core rule books even from the 1st printing. Then you have the modifications going on through the supplements that are kind of stealthed in like removing negative ability modifiers. There was some backlash at Paizo for similar perceived wholesale changes in P2 that we didn't see when they did similar things in PF1 or in D&D 5e. The reaction to these changes is absurd though because nothing can stop you, as a DM in a home game, from house ruling Drow and Orcs are universally evil with few exceptions. It's called Rule 0.

We hear a lot about what Players are comfortable or uncomfortable with and what DMs need to do but we also need to consider that a DM also needs to have those same considerations that come with these conversations. I am uncomfortable dealing with sex in my games for example but people have always tried to make it a part of the game. Sorry, nope, I am not comfortable roleplaying your fantasy even in Vampire. With how the conversation has been playing out there seems to be little considerations for the DM's limits.

 

[Neonchameleon]

see you think I meant airing [Song of the South] but I meant a place in education on the evolution of race relations and understanding how things were indoctrinated and evolved over time. It has a place in classrooms, not TV& theater screenings.

Song of the South doesn't have much of a place in classrooms. Mostly because it is incredibly boring. There are reasons people can only remember James Baskins' Oscar-winning Zip-ah-de-doo-dah (the best mix of cartoon and live action until Who Framed Roger Rabbit) and the three animated Brer Rabbit shorts. Dumbo, with its crows, is far more racist than Song of the South - but Song of the South leaves nothing else to talk about; probably the biggest moment of tension in the film is whether the uncharismatic child actor will get gored by a bull (he doesn't) or will run away from home (he doesn't). Fantasia is a better paced, deeper, and more interesting film.

And the most interesting parts of the setting (how a bad environment can be seen through rose tinted spectacles) don't need to actually watch the film to be discussed.

Don't forget the first interracial kiss on television.

In its day Star Trek was progressive enough that MLK literally begged Nichelle Nichols to stay part of the cast because it was the one show on TV which had a black person who was seen as the equal of the rest of the cast when the rest of the cast was white. Whoopi Goldberg has spoken repeatedly about how inspired she was by that and literally ran screaming through the house for everyone to see that there was this black character who wasn't a maid.

It is very unlikely that anyone who knows what they are talking about is coming for Star Trek TOS.

 

[Bluenose]

In its day Star Trek was progressive enough that MLK literally begged Nichelle Nichols to stay part of the cast because it was the one show on TV which had a black person who was seen as the equal of the rest of the cast when the rest of the cast was white. Whoopi Goldberg has spoken repeatedly about how inspired she was by that and literally ran screaming through the house for everyone to see that there was this black character who wasn't a maid.

It is very unlikely that anyone who knows what they are talking about is coming for Star Trek TOS.

You also have Doctor Mae Jemison, who was inspired by TOS to want to be an astronaut. She made it. She is also the only real astronaut to have appeared in the TNG episode "Secodn Chances".

I have to admit I find the number of people complaining about modern "Trek" on the basis that "It was never political", "It's being made by SJWs", "It's annoyingly PC" to be somewhat puzzling. Did they not notice that Star Trek has always trended that way?

 

[Nikosandros]

* And I bet you’d find a similar downplaying of the bad in most countries’ scolding history curricula.)

Indeed. In Italy, I was never taught in school about any of the atrocities committed, for example, in Ethiopia by Italian troops and civilians or about the bloody repression in occupied Yugoslavia during WWII.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Indeed. In Italy, I was never taught in school about any of the atrocities committed, for example, in Ethiopia by Italian troops and civilians or about the bloody repression in occupied Yugoslavia during WWII.

Glad you quoted me there- “scolding” was a typo- I meant to type “schooling”! I went back and edited that into my original post.