D&D General The Human Side of D&D History - From Gary Gygax to Temple of Elemental Evil

I mean that judging someone's family relationship seems off-limits to me unless there has been a crime committed or the family has invited discussion of their business. Here we are judging Gygax as a father and provider for his family - to me to that is crossing a line. We are making a ton of assumptions, his family have not complained about him in this regard, and I don't think it has much bearing on his public legacy. To me, that is very different from exploring the implications of his sexism on D&D, because those weren't just private beliefs, they were sometimes expressed through the game.

It's my opinion that it feels gossipy and not very constructive.
IMO, he was a public figure and at least what I’ve been discussing has been the subject of the podcast, which did quite a bit of research and gathered first hand accounts. Gossipy maybe but also fair game.
 

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Green orcs as a thing in a fictional setting were first introduced by Warhammer (where they spell "Ork" with a K). And later made popular by Warcraft.

So they're actually kinda new in regards to D&D.
At least since 2e, orcs in D&D have been grey, though often a greenish grey. Bright green orcs, á la Warhammer or Warcraft, are generally not a thing in D&D.
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(Also, it's really hard to find pre-3e color illustrations of orcs. The only good one I could find was from the cover of Demihuman Deities, showcasing Gruumsh losing an eye, and he's not really in focus in the picture.)
 


I love how we're both-sidesing sexism in this thread.

I didn't know the man. What strikes me though are the problems of presentism and that context matters.

It matters in what they actually said and did, how trustworthy the source is, and how meaningful it is in the repackaging | repurposing | retelling.
 

You know, it just hit me, with the ‘product of his times’ stuff. I grew up in the 70’s…I guess this means I’ve been way less sexist than I could get away with? I mean, obviously I don’t get to be as sexist as someone as old as Gygax, but surely I should get to be way more sexist than those in their 20’s today, right? If we’re all just pawns to the age we were born in, my generation shouldn’t be fighting this hard about this, right?
Yes and no, but there's a critical difference here between being born in the 70's where your biggest gains are things like piotty trauinging & elementary school vrs & growing up in the 70's when you maybe got your first job. You don't specify which of those is the case & it really matters because that bold bit depends on where you are from & a lot of specifics and what changed in your lifetime.

You claim that you "grew up in the 70's, so you probably remember discussions spawned from archie bunker in all in the family along with many examples of controversy from the golden girls☆ like one where someone was dating a jewish guy & a country club or the one with the black kid where (blanch?) was being casually Harmlessly racist to her (but extremely so by the times. Going to quote a section of this

This trope concerns itself with things from the past that seem like a huge load of Values Dissonance. They may be laden with, say, a Rose-Tinted Narrative or a Historical Hero or Villain Upgrade.

Only... it turns out it was comparatively Fair for its Day. Maybe the Historical Hero Upgrade or Historical Villain Upgrade wasn't that unfair a reflection on the person's views. Maybe the Rose-Tinted Narrative just wasn't rose-tinted enough for its original audience. Maybe it was even ripped apart in its own time for being downright insurrectionist and was brave to go as far as it did.

This doesn't automatically make the work immune to criticism: something less dissonant than its contemporaries can still be pretty darn dissonant. Oftentimes, though, a little research will show that something cringe-worthy or laughable today is also something worthy of applause for what it stood for, and the context can be important in interpreting the work at large. Authors often work under a system of rigid censorship that decrees even mild criticism of the status quo to be going too far, even in enlightened democracies. Attempting to argue for modern values would have really been pushing your luck. (In other words, here Failure Was the Only Option.) A work that's only a little culturally subversive is more likely to escape censorship and earn public acclaim than one that goes all the way, thus ensuring its relevance — or at least survival — into the present day. (For an ironic counterpoint, consider Crosses the Line Twice, which is when one has to go all the way to get away with being offensive.)

Please remember that this trope does not mean "surprisingly enlightened for its time period." It means "more enlightened for its time period", which is not necessarily the same thing. If a vintage work has a message that comfortably fits modern audiences, that's Values Resonance. To qualify for Fair For Its Day, a vintage work must have negative cultural traits as well as positive ones.

We can use a perfect example of this that is also from roughly the same period in time and both of them are from the same source. In Star Trek the original pilot Una Chin-Riley Number One According to Gene Roddenberry and Stephen Whitfield, the prominence of a woman among the crew of a starship was one of the reasons the original Star Trek pilot was rejected by NBC, who, in addition to calling the pilot "too cerebral," felt the alien Spock and a female senior officer would be rejected by audiences.[9] Roddenberry related the tale of how women of the era had difficulty accepting her as well. It was only in 68 when kirk & uhura kissed in Plato's stepchildren. 1966 & 1968 wasn't that far back from early d&d that we should expect a wily different standard to have taken root. I don't think that there is any reason to expect that early d&d would have faced a lower bar than Star Trek TOS season3.

The trouble with presenting "problematic" elements of early d&d without actually being specific while gloating about Streisand effect & such is that you miss out on historical elements is that you miss out on context like what was added by Sacrosanct in 209 or how things like those "goodwives" were also a bit of folk wisdom that despite the even larger power imbalance adventurers should to respect women not sleep around & use the even greater power imbalance of being both male and a powerful adventurer when you should already know the life altering consequences. IoW shoulda put a ring on it for the other gender of a different era. Likewise sex based attribute differences might seem icky & dated by today's standards, but in the day they also meant that there were tables who said "heck yea girls make great clerics" instead of "don't be stupid, girls can't be adventurers" because they existed back when another of Hasbro's current games was sporting this box cover complete with dishwashing

☆I know there were others but those are the only ones I recall & those are mostly from having stumbled across notable clips.
 

Ironically, I am finding the people who say "Chill out, it was a joke" and the people who got really upset about the WotC disclaimers is a near overlapping circle.
At least in this thread, most of those claims were attributed to folks who didn't make them by folks claiming sexism.
 

At least in this thread, most of those claims were attributed to folks who didn't make them by folks claiming sexism.
For the record I objected to the disclaimer in prior threads. I think it is overly broad and I don’t think it is helpful. People should be able to read old books understanding they reflect sensibilities from earlier eras. I just file it under things like trigger warnings
 

(Also, it's really hard to find pre-3e color illustrations of orcs. The only good one I could find was from the cover of Demihuman Deities, showcasing Gruumsh losing an eye, and he's not really in focus in the picture.)
You've got to look at the covers since a lot of TSR interior work was black and white. Spoiler, one of the covers is iconic for being really, really racist...

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And of course:
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Instead of it bring a small preface that almost no one would have paid much attention to.

That's free advertising, I think. The book became known to many. I think, this is what the marketing department wanted, even if it didn't get actual results they were aiming for.
 

That's free advertising, I think. The book became known to many. I think, this is what the marketing department wanted, even if it didn't get actual results they were aiming for.

In fairness I did buy the book because 1) I still heard the content of the book was good and 2) I wanted to see the full preface and foreword, as well as get a better appreciation for their context. But I will also say, I do know people who didn't by the book because of what the foreword said so it may be a mixed bag (again I tend to think when publishers weigh in on this stuff they tend to run the risk of losing this half or the other of their audience)
 

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