D&D General The Art and the Artist: Discussing Problematic Issues in D&D

[Bedrockgames]

But you can get a pretty good idea about how impacted by racism (specifically), they are*, pretty quickly from the attitudes people have and how they talk about themselves and certain issues. The other elements can be harder to gauge, or they can be very easy to gauge, depending on what the person reveals about themselves. It's also worth noting that a lot of people are kind of fooling themselves about their level or wealth/influence (absolutely in both directions). There was a great example in the UK a while back, when during a debate a politician mentioned the average national wage was X, and an angry audience member stood up to exclaim that this was nonsense, and the average wage was actually "above 4X", as he was earning 4X and he "knew" he was earning "less than average". Of course in fact the average wage was X and the dude was relatively wealthy - but he absolutely wouldn't accept it even when all the people in the debate (on all sides!) and even other audience members were like "LOL dude ur wrong".

This is a much larger topic, but I think people very much overestimate how much of an idea they can get about a person's experience with these things from the positions they take on a gaming forum, even when it veers into the political. I am often very surprised just how off my assumptions are about a person's background, experience with suffering, experience with racism, experience with poverty, is based on posting style a lone. I have also learned the hard way, when you think are absolutely right about a thing, it is very easy to veer into being judgmental and cruel (there are times I've called people racist for example, when it became clear to me that is actually not what was going on, and I was ashamed to have used that to justify my own bad behavior towards another person-----and but the same token, there are times when I've disagreed with posters like yourself about these issues, and used my own sense of righteous indignation to justify similar behavior......and both these things often stem from an over-confidence in one's own certainty).

In terms of wages, sure there are always going to be people who think they have it tough, who don't know what tough is. But I really don't find that people taking the positions I am taking, often align with being financially well off (I find in the US, it is the opposite---people taking your position are usually more likely to be financially secure and college educated, often with advanced degrees). But that is just an impression, based on my narrow experience. I shouldn't make assumptions about you for example, because I don't know you. I shouldn't make assumptions about other posters, because I don't know them. And I don't want people to make assumptions about me on this front either (I won't go into it, but I can say I am not well off at all and I know what it is like to struggle and have significant disadvantages).

 

[Umbran]

Alright, since you seem to be so knowlegeable, please explain in detail what in the module has caused such harm, and why it was significant.

Because I have run this campaign with a friend of color and his daughter, and they both loved it.

Dueling anecdotes are not going to get us anywhere useful.

Nor is requiring folks to allow you to vet their harms before you will accept their statements.

 

[DarkMantle]

I think it's also worth addressing this uncomfortable feeling like the carpet is being swept from under you.

It's weird, because I remember when I wasn't always a fan of D&D races as written.

I remember years back when I was skeptical of dwarves and elves and orcs. I felt like they were just stereotyped humans in makeup -- like Star Trek aliens. (I also felt like D&D didn't really explore all the interesting implications of say, living for 1000 years. Even if elves spent 2/3 of their lives diddling away the years, they still have a few centuries to get really, really good at stuff. Mechanically, how about some master-level skill proficiencies with all that extra time?)

Anyway, point is, I had my share of quibbles with D&D races as written.

But I got so used to them.

I mean, they were everywhere, prevalent in novels, video games and movies. They had gotten so familiar to me, it's like I forgot my original stance.

But if I had a reset button that rebooted years of exposure to fantasy races, and I could assess it all over again totally fresh, what would I think about the current controversy? I don't know, but I guess I wouldn't have the feeling of attachment influencing my judgement.

 

[Lyxen]

Dueling anecdotes are not going to get us anywhere useful.

Since one seems to think that his anecdotes are significant proofs of something, why should I not bring my own to the table ? Are they less significant for some reason ? Are only some anecdotes allowed here ?

Nor is requiring folks to allow you to vet their harms before you will accept their statements.

Since words are important (apparently, in the US, words like "exotic" are no longer allowed to be used), I sincerely question the use of "significant", and would like to understand why it is being used in this context. I know that this is the internet, and that unless you exaggerate you will not be take seriously, but "significant harm" had better mean something really significant, don't you think ?

 

[Micah Sweet]

Well… It is a good example of some of the things about modern D&D that we think has room for improvement. That doesn’t preclude it from also being a good example of some of the things about modern D&D we think are good. If the discussion was about, like, hexcrawl adventures, or use of ticking clocks, it might be pointed to as a positive example. In a discussion about representation of race, it’s pointed out as a negative example. Context matters.

If the context of the discussion was a review, I would agree that it would be important to acknowledge the positive and negative aspects in due proportion, because that’s the point of a review. That’s not the context at hand though. The topic at hand is quite literally “discussing problematic issues in D&D.” Of course the focus is going to be on negative aspects in that context.

Maybe I just feel we should be having a wider range of discussions here then. I'm seeing an awful lot of negative threads in the last year or so. I know we all love the game, but I think we need to show it more, and spending most of our discussion energy focusing on stuff we're not happy about doesn't exactly show our love. I'm as guilty as anyone.

 

[Charlaquin]

One thing to note in the Artist / Art discussion is that you don't actually need to know the intention of the artist in order to give a valid critique of the art.

If I'm looking at Van Gogh's Starry Night, I don't need to know anything about his life or personality to say how the work makes me feel and why.

At the same time, if I'm looking at the way Gary Gygax used black skin to denote evil, I can say "this feels racist to me" without having to know his intentions.

So even when I strongly disagree with someone else's critique, I have to accept it as valid because it is their experience of the work, not mine!

I think this is a major point of disagreement within the discussion. To many people, intent is of primary importance, while to many others it is of no concern. It makes these discussions very difficult, because it can seem to the former camp like someone critiquing the outcomes of an artist’s decisions is making assertions about said artist’s intent (and by extension their character), even when that was not what the latter camp was commenting on.

 

[HammerMan]

Alright, since you seem to be so knowlegeable, please explain in detail what in the module has caused such harm, and why it was significant.

Because I have run this campaign with a friend of color and his daughter, and they both loved it.

this is why these questions are SO hard.

if I know 3 orcs personally and you know 7 orcs personally and another person knows 2 orcs personally (I am using orc as a stand in for race sex religion country of origin ext) and I say "All 3 orcs I know don't like this" and you say "6 of the 7 orcs I know like it" and that another person says "The 2 orcs I know don't care and think it's dumb to like it or not" how can anyone say what "orc" think.
also if you take these numbers and say you can't please the 6 and the 3+1 at the same time.

I know while planning my honey moon (hopefully covid wont destroy my wedding) my 1st choice is a place that I an my fiancé always wanted to go and have not. but a lot of my more liberal friends keep telling me "locals want less tourism." however every survey taken there says it is 40% dislike tourism and 60% want it or don't care one way or another" and most of the $ in the place is from tourism... so am I hurting people by planning a trip? Am I hurting people if I don't plan a trip? Is this just a modern trolley dilemma? is there a right answer? (FOr the record still not sure what I will be doing come May of next year)

 

[Charlaquin]

Maybe I just feel we should be having a wider range of discussions here then. I'm seeing an awful lot of negative threads in the last year or so. I know we all love the game, but I think we need to show it more, and spending most of our discussion energy focusing on stuff we're not happy about doesn't exactly show our love. I'm as guilty as anyone.

That’s fair. We could definitely do with more discussion of the positive aspects of past and current games.

 

[HammerMan]

Yes, easily. And while that particular description might be a bit more colorful than we might like, I do certainly hope that people in 2059 look back on today and find things to critique that we don’t currently see. That’s how social progress is made.

I also hope they are more charitable with understanding social progress means things written decades before DO NOT have the luxury of being up to date with the then modern thinking.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

There have been plenty of posts where the point people are making is "if you don't see what I am seeing here, if you don't agree with my conclusions, you are bad" or "You are causing harm".

Sure, and this being a D&D board, sometimes that's about something entirely ludicrous too. Like I've been called a "bad person" on here (repeatedly actually for a while many years ago) because I foolishly admitted that I used to... back in 2E... <whispers> sometimes fudge the dice so I didn't start a TPK and have to make us spend hours rolling new PCs and maybe re-writing the entire adventure and so on... <end whisper>

The hilarious thing was I only admitted this because I was so delighted that 4E made it so I basically never needed to fudge (through various mechanisms - superior balancing, a way to assess encounter difficulty that actually worked, higher base HP, etc. etc.).

Let's not even start on the "Illusionism" wars. I still have a steel plate in my skull from those.

But also, many people who aren't responding that way, and are really just taking a different view on the issue (for instance people who question whether the language itself is a problem, or if the solution isn't perhaps creating more problems than it is solving, etc) find their reactions get characterized as "OMG HOW DARE YOU SAY I AM A BAD PERSON!"

I feel like there are two separate issues here.

1) People who question the approach/solution. The trouble here is that they break down into three groups:

1a) Those with a reasonable disagreement/critique of the solution proposed.

1b) Those who don't understand the solution proposed (often mischaracterizing it in a fairly silly way). They can be a huge problem to discussion if they don't understand that they don't understand, because even when people try to help them, they can demand rather onerous standards of "proof" or really didactic teaching. Unfortunately most of them, no matter how obviously misguided, think they are 1a.

1c) Those who feel it's oppressive that a solution is even being proposed because it's not a problem (this tends to be the most "HOW DARE YOU!!" of the groups). Often with the sub-justification of "I don't find this to be a problem so no-one should!".

That's excluding bad-faith actors who are occasionally present, who understand the solution, but want to cause a derailment. They're fairly rare on ENworld.

The problem is that on social issues etc. you often get an even split, or worse, more 1b and 1c than 1a (and indeed the 1as may get left on the wayside as they're likely being more reasonable). Re: 1b I think if more people were willing to say "I don't get it..." or "ELI5" and fewer people responded with "Google is your friend" or the like, it would help. But most people are unwilling to countenance that they might just not get it. Also people, particularly those affected by issues, can get really tired of having to repeat the same explanation over and over for the sake of others who might not even bother to read it anyway.

(This last also applies to game issues even - like, a game I played had a bug that a lot of people were ignoring, and I could explain very well, but at a certain point the whole "That's not a bug" "Yes it is" "Okay, how is it a bug" "[multi-paragraph explanation]" followed by no response or acknowledgement whatsover got pretty gruelling - and if you link to a post explaining it there's an even higher chance of no response/acknowledgement ever.)

2) People mischaracterized as saying "OMG HOW DARE YOU SAY I AM A BAD PERSON!" when they didn't mean that. I don't doubt this has happened, but I can't think of a single example, because the situation required for it to happen is quite complicated. It's actually quite hard to mischaracterize someone that way, because you basically need them to say at the very least "You're calling me a bad person?" or similar before you can. At least in all the scenarios I can think of.