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The Art and the Artist: Discussing Problematic Issues in D&D
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<blockquote data-quote="Mannahnin" data-source="post: 8527060" data-attributes="member: 7026594"><p>Sure. As a couple of D&D-specific examples, I often think of the multi-racial adventuring party as a core D&D concept from the beginning as a positive example, and Gary's response to complications of the young in the lairs in the Caves of Chaos as a negative one.</p><p></p><p>BOTH things represent ideas Gygax put forward implicitly, rather than explicitly. </p><p></p><p>One is an archetype of a diverse group of heroes, from different backgrounds, with different skills, working together to fight evil and achieve things they couldn't do separately. In this area, early D&D (and this has been carried through, for the most part consistently, to the present day) implicitly presents a great pro-teamwork, "diversity is strength" message. Everyone, of every race, can contribute. To some extent this is borrowed from Tolkien, but it's a great borrowing, and became central to what D&D IS for most folks. </p><p></p><p>The other is more problematic. We have a scenario where the players are presented as working out of/protecting a bastion of law and civilization against encroaching evil hordes of chaos. But the way in which they are expected to "protect" that place is to go to the homes and lairs of the uncivilized baddies, some miles down the road and into a canyon off the beaten path, put the savages to the sword and take their stuff. And complicating this further is the presence of noncombatant women and kids in those caves. I think Gygax originally put them there out of a desire for verisimilitude. These are living, breathing creatures, who reproduce by bearing and rearing young, so you'd expect them to be present in their homes. But they introduce a moral dilemma which he apparently didn't think through very well or want to grapple with. I suspect that's why he resorted to the awful justifications he did in that discussion thread in 2005, probably not even examining his own prejudices and prior assumptions re: the normality and acceptability of Col. Chivington and his men killing NA women and kids, or his rationale being one that was borrowed from similar atrocities inflicted on the Irish by the colonial English. </p><p></p><p>So, here we have two very different, but valid, messages people can take away from two of the most popular and foundational D&D products of all time- the core rules vs. what is probably the most-published module ever printed, which was sold in the Holmes and Moldvay Basic sets for years, Ryan Dancey in 1999 estimating a total print run "easily in excess of a million and a half units".</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Mannahnin, post: 8527060, member: 7026594"] Sure. As a couple of D&D-specific examples, I often think of the multi-racial adventuring party as a core D&D concept from the beginning as a positive example, and Gary's response to complications of the young in the lairs in the Caves of Chaos as a negative one. BOTH things represent ideas Gygax put forward implicitly, rather than explicitly. One is an archetype of a diverse group of heroes, from different backgrounds, with different skills, working together to fight evil and achieve things they couldn't do separately. In this area, early D&D (and this has been carried through, for the most part consistently, to the present day) implicitly presents a great pro-teamwork, "diversity is strength" message. Everyone, of every race, can contribute. To some extent this is borrowed from Tolkien, but it's a great borrowing, and became central to what D&D IS for most folks. The other is more problematic. We have a scenario where the players are presented as working out of/protecting a bastion of law and civilization against encroaching evil hordes of chaos. But the way in which they are expected to "protect" that place is to go to the homes and lairs of the uncivilized baddies, some miles down the road and into a canyon off the beaten path, put the savages to the sword and take their stuff. And complicating this further is the presence of noncombatant women and kids in those caves. I think Gygax originally put them there out of a desire for verisimilitude. These are living, breathing creatures, who reproduce by bearing and rearing young, so you'd expect them to be present in their homes. But they introduce a moral dilemma which he apparently didn't think through very well or want to grapple with. I suspect that's why he resorted to the awful justifications he did in that discussion thread in 2005, probably not even examining his own prejudices and prior assumptions re: the normality and acceptability of Col. Chivington and his men killing NA women and kids, or his rationale being one that was borrowed from similar atrocities inflicted on the Irish by the colonial English. So, here we have two very different, but valid, messages people can take away from two of the most popular and foundational D&D products of all time- the core rules vs. what is probably the most-published module ever printed, which was sold in the Holmes and Moldvay Basic sets for years, Ryan Dancey in 1999 estimating a total print run "easily in excess of a million and a half units". [/QUOTE]
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