This is right at the borderline of using charged, political terminology. Proceed with caution.
WotC So, when do the announce the July book? Guesses on what it'll be? 🤔
- Thread starter Whizbang Dustyboots
- Start date
Faolyn
(she/her)
It's been a while since I've read the books, but as I recall, while slavery is considered evil, in alignment terms, it's also treated as a setting norm. Also, muls are a PC race, but they're specifically bred by slavers, and literally the only way you could have been born was by an enslaved woman being raped, and then likely dying in the childbirth due to how difficult a mul pregnancy is.
Compare that to half-orcs; in the 5e PH, half-orcs are described as being the result of political marriages or when a human and an orc community join together. Thus, while there's nothing that says that your half-orc can't be the result of rape, WotC found a way to have an extremely non-rape-centric origin for them.
Even if you ignore the very disturbing elements of forced-breeding sex slaves, by getting rid of that element you're also allowing players to have a choice about their character's origin.
doctorbadwolf
Heretic of The Seventh Circle
Raistlin’s Guide to Becoming A God; An Epic Gaming Handbook
Okay no, I really doubt that’s it, but the name would be pretty great
Mercurius
Legend
This sort of statement makes me wonder two things:
1) Are we entering a new era of puritanism where anything "disturbing" shouldn't be included within the game? I mean, aren't there tons of "disturbing elements"? And what are the criteria for what makes something "disturbing?" Or is it more that the implication is that WotC should make D&D more child friendly, or at least PG rated?
2) Do younger generations of players not realize that you are "allowed" to choose your character's origin and veer from what is written in the books? That what is written in the books is a general guideline, not carved in stone?
Levistus's_Leviathan
5e Freelancer
Nah, more like "Raistlin's Apotheosis Handbook", with the text description at the bottom of the book saying, "An In-Depth Guide to Epic-Level Campaigns for the World's Greatest Roleplaying Game".
I wish we had official epic-level rules in 5e, but they're unfortunately highly unlikely. Not enough campaigns make it beyond level 10, much less to level 20, to justify it from a marketing standpoint.
Faolyn
(she/her)
Lots of people have suffered from sexual assault, or know someone who have. Lots of people have also been enslaved, sometimes for sexual purposes. Very few people have ever been attacked by an axe-wielding goblin or by a fire-breathing dragon.
When you include standard-issue D&D violence in a game, the players are usually armed and armored and on more-or-less equal footing with their foes.
When you include sex slavery in a game, you are overwhelmingly affecting only one gender (especially when it includes forced breeding, like with muls) who is almost invariably rendered helpless to the slaver's whims--and by slaver, I mean the GM.
A DM who really feels the need to can still include it in their game--and judging by places such as r/rpghorrorstories, there are plenty of GMs who feel the need to. But there's no reason why it has to be part of the actual canon, and you don't lose anything by saying "muls are a fertile species" rather than saying, as the original DS books did, that "muls are sterile who are deliberately created by owners who forced the mul's mother to be raped and as such, are all born into slavery themselves."
When it comes to muls, it literally is carved in stone. That's the only way muls are made in DS.
And on that very note, you can add whatever sort of slavery you want in your games; you don't have to feel limited by what's in the books.
on 1 I sure as heck don't think so, you need only start looking at some of the hardcore nightmarefuel level disturbing elements in pokemon, here are a few & I doubt the list is exhaustive
On 2 I think that to some degree 5e seems to cause this with the badly done flaw/bond/trait or whatever. I've seen players have no trouble with fate & other systems then shut down to those three rails waiting for the gm to effectively throw in a quicktime scene for them to push X for to trigger them
doctorbadwolf
Heretic of The Seventh Circle
The solution is easy, IMO.
Make “Epic” a layer that is placed over the game, rather than a set of levels. This is already kinda possible using Boons and such from the DMG, but a more codified set of rules, and new monsters, and player options made for that sort of play specifically, would be great.
Mercurius
Legend
And? How does including such things in D&D affect those people? Should the creators of D&D products try to avoid any topics that might trigger something negative in anyone who might read it?
This is not to say that an individual DM shouldn't adapt their game to the individual players involved, or that WotC shouldn't have some degree of sensitivity to what they put into print. But context is important, and further, I always come back to the question: how far do you want to go in an attempt to protect people? (More on that in a moment).
Lots of people have been "bled dry" by "vampires." Lots of people face "dragons" and "axe-wielding goblins." It is clothed in fiction, in mythic forms, but they can relate to anyone's experience.
Or is it the literal nature of slavery, of breeding that you find problematic? And therefore, must D&D fantasy be completely mythic, with no connection to history whatsoever?
What about war veterans, most with some degree of combat-related PTSD?
These things exist in real life, so why not fantasy? Again, it is one thing to glorify them, quite another to just present them as part of a world within which they make sense - and again, within a fantasy context. I do not think presenting them in a fantasy story is necessarily harmful to someone who can connect their experience to it.
I mean, I understand that this approach is based on good intentions: trying to protect people from experiencing uncomfortable things. But I think it is misguided, in a similar way that over-protecting children from any possible harm, say, keeping them inside from the germs in dirt or the possibility of being kidnapped, actually ends up causing more harm than good. Obviously some protection is necessary, but it can go too far and, I think, has gone too far for many, whether with regards to child-raising or "safe-spacing" around something as relatively innocuous as a fantasy role-playing game.
Muls are a rare instance of something being "carved in stone" in such a way. But if a person doesn't want that back-story they don't have to play a mul. Or if they want to, the DM can accommodate that. And of course, not everyone has to play Dark Sun! Should it, then, not exist, except in a format that removes any possible triggers?
It doesn't really matter to me re: something so specific as muls, at least not in a practical way (that is, I can find a way to play the game however I want, no matter how it is published). What I am concerned with is what seems like unreasonable and unnecessary restrictions around what can or cannot be published, based on how it might affect people, based upon their background. First of all, the line seems to continually be changing, and the circle narrowing. Secondly, I honestly think that, despite the intentions behind it (mostly good), it often causes more harm than good.
Again, I understand and practice the underlying ethic: to be aware of the feelings of others, to "do no harm." But again, I see it as misguided; at the least, going too far (in some cases, way too far) with every tightening restrictions; at most, it actually causes harm.
Have you ever heard of exposure therapy? It has been used to generally good results with war veterans and other trauma survivors. The basic idea is exposing them to a small dose of what traumatized them, be it through memory or virtual reality. This is not to say that D&D should be a therapeutic environment, but I bring this up to point out that encountering such things in the safe context of a fantasy game with friends may actually be beneficial.
overgeeked
Open-World Sandbox
Not quite. By far the most common way muls are created is slavery, yes. But just like half-orcs, muls can be created from willing parents who get together of their own free will outside of slavery. There was one (or a few) included in the novels and supplements. Though, to be fair, it was rare enough to be commented on in the text.
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