I just want to play D&D...
OD&D, 1e, Mentzer, B/X, BECM, 2e, 3e, 3.5, 4e, and/or 5e?
I just want to play D&D...
Each/any where I can play without all of this in my game, lol.OD&D, 1e, Mentzer, B/X, BECM, 2e, 3e, 3.5, 4e, and/or 5e?![]()
As defined by 21st-century morals, yes. As defined by the setting those PCs are in their relative evil-ness or lack thereof depends on the underlying ethics, morals and premises of that setting; to which 21st-century morals might not apply at all.Yeah, if you’re presenting slavery as good and justified, I’m thinking you’ve got a tough row to hoe.
You can have slave owning pc’s. Sure. Just don’t pretend that they are morally justified. They are evil.
If I was a slave-owning Roman I most likely would.Would you actually classify Roman society as good?
OD&D, 1e, Mentzer, B/X, BECM, 2e, 3e, 3.5, 4e, and/or 5e?![]()
With respect... go find us a fantasy novel that leaves the morals and ethics of the time it was written completely behind. Find an example already written that we are apt to know to display what you expect should happen, so we can discuss it in more than theoretical terms.
Ad&d 2e, Glory of Rome.See, I was just told that I’m laser beam focusing on orcs and drow. But here is this sidebar about Rome.
Has tsr or WotC ever published a dnd Rome? As far as I know, I’m fifty years of publishing gaming material for DnD, they never have.
Maybe one of those 2e historical supplements?
But here we are AGAIN, discussing something that’s never happened, where there is no indication that it’s going to happen. All so we can avoid talking about stuff that DID happen and continues to happen.
And around and around we go.
And you are free to do that. Others want to play it, too, but in a different way. They don't want to be punished for playing another race.I just want to play D&D...
You might not have said it but others have, many times and not just here.
Much of the Satanic panic revolved around portrayal of immoral acts (e.g. demon summoning) in the D&D books made D&D itself immoral.
Also, even though your real-world self might think or say something about a world in which a Paladin kicks kids in the teeth just for fun, that doesn't and shouldn't stop an author from designing and presenting a setting where street children are considered chattel and have the same standing as stray dogs, and where the Paladin is in fact a hero to the people.
This gets messy.
What this means is that two authors could write the exact same story word for word, and the only thing that would determine which one was moral and which wasn't is the writers' intent, which may never be known.
The problem is more of failing to divorce, partly or fully, real-world considerations and setting considerations. In the setting an author is presenting, perhaps something we real people would consider evil is an accepted part of life, and those who do it (or do it best) are hailed as heroes and the goal of the commoners is to one day be just like those heroes.
It also comes down to how one reads one's fiction (or approaches one's RPGs), and how seriously one takes any of it. I rarely if ever read anything as if it was a morality play; instead I read it to immerse myself in the author's setting for the time I spend reading the book, ignoring real-world considerations due to being fully aware that real-world considerations may or may not have any overlap with the considerations of the book's setting. Same goes for playing RPGs.
Within the fiction, yes; as the relative goodness or badness is set by the conceits already presented in said fiction.
A reader can of course decide - and debate or discuss with others - whether that setting's conceits would be good or bad in reality, if said reader wants to bother.
You can bring real-world ethics in if you want, but why? Enjoy the fiction for what it is - fiction - and leave real-world ethics for the real world.
This is how I generally approach playing and-or DMing RPGs - that the fiction I'm presenting or playing within has little if any relation to reality, and so I can dial stuff up to eleven and do things I'd never be able (or allowed!) to do in reality. The only place reality intervenes is if something would be offensive to someone else at the table.
On reflection, maybe, and perhaps that was the author's intent. Perhaps it wasn't; and unless the author has otherwise stated his-her intent in writing that work we've no way of knowing which it is.
As defined by 21st-century morals, yes. As defined by the setting those PCs are in their relative evil-ness or lack thereof depends on the underlying ethics, morals and premises of that setting; to which 21st-century morals might not apply at all.
If I was a slave-owning Roman I most likely would.
From the viewpoint of the present day Roman society presents a mixed bag, trending evil. My point is that the viewpoint of the present day does not hold when viewed from within the fiction being presented; and that there's nothing wrong with setting an RPG in Empirical Rome with Romans as the "good guys" provided it's made clear that what's being presented is fiction and is not intended to reflect real-world morality.
Another thing could be that there's likely a difference between canonical historical accounts perpetuated by the rulership, and what actually happened. Perhaps dwarven leadership doesn't want people to know the whole truth.
I also rather like the idea that this is a dark secret within dwarven society, a shameful episode with long-term repurcussions.
@Chaosmancer , could you clarify something for me? Is your main issue with the duergar a world-building issue? What you perceive as bad world-building that disturbs your suspension of belief? Or is it WotC's treatment of the duergar that you find "sickening?" That WotC is "victim-blaming" by essentially focusing on the evilness of duergar, despite the wrong done to them? Or some combination?
One thing that comes to mind is that just because a society tends towards a certain alignment doesn't mean that all individuals are of that alignment. Dwarves tend to be oriented toward good and law, but some are likely LN or LE, a bunch shades N, and even a few "hippy dwarves" being CG.
How are they punished? That's asinine. The PHB isn't an edict from on high. It's not military doctrine. It's malleable, it's built to bend as you need for fun and fun alone. As D&D has forever been.And you are free to do that. Others want to play it, too, but in a different way. They don't want to be punished for playing another race.
How are they punished? That's asinine. The PHB isn't an edict from on high. It's not military doctrine. It's malleable, it's built to bend as you need for fun and fun alone. As D&D has forever been.
How are they punished? That's asinine. The PHB isn't an edict from on high. It's not military doctrine. It's malleable, it's built to bend as you need for fun and fun alone. As D&D has forever been.
Fair enough.Okay, some of this moves into territories of satire and parody, which can be presented in a very different way. Or, in the case of Edgar Allen Poe, a writer who is trying to horrify us by doing the most terrible of things to women, because he in his own life lost many mother figures and we can interpret his actions and writings not as a destruction of women, but as the horror of the destruction of women.
And, it can be possible that we miss key context or details of the author's life and intent that make this hard to determine. It is possible to convey a lot with pacing, framing, word choice and point of view that is difficult to express or make examples of explicitly, but that people pick up on while reading.
But, by declaring a work cannot be compared with real-world ethics, that by using a "critical lens" we are making some sort of foul against the work, we lose a critical tool in determining a work's value. And works of art have value. And sometimes that value is high, and sometimes that value is low.
Of Mice and Men as we discussed earlier fails in it's message if we cannot step outside of the world it presents and think about the implications. As does works like "A Modest Proposal" whose very horrific and disturbing nature is the point of the work. The piece of literature loses all value, if we cannot and should not apply real world ethics to the proposal.
In fact, I would argue that more great works lose their value in the face of the loss of the applying Real World Ethics than anything else.
The players aren't, but the characters they play might be; and those characters may well be considered quite Good within their society and setting.The problem here is that your players are not slave-owning Romans from 100 BCE. If you presented the players with an estate that included 100 slaves, a lot of your players might be very disturbed as suddenly becoming slave owners.
I don't often (as in, pretty much never) have to say this to players as IME they're pretty good at doing this on their own: when playing the game, leave the real world behind. It'll still be there at the end of the session.Or, if they were expected to watch and cheer as a hungry manticore tore apart civilians screaming for help, they might not be capable of being okay with that, like a Roman noble could have been.
And the more you try and sell "No, guys , you are supposed to be okay with this" in the text or at the table, the more they are going to start looking towards the other constant of Roman civilization. Civil War.
Assuming that they are talking about half-orcs and orcs, I would assume that, say, someone who is of a mixed heritage might feel a little attacked reading "though their human blood moderates the impact of their orcish heritage" and seeing right next to that a dark-skinned figure. Or reading "The most accomplished half-orcs are those with enough self-control to get by in a civilized land" Or the fact that the book is very clear that if you aren't in an evil orc tribe, you live in the slums of cities, scrabbling to survive (read: poor)
All of that could be pretty off-putting to someone who is very aware of the discrimination they might face in the real world.
Each/any where I can play without all of this in my game, lol.
The problem here is that your players are not slave-owning Romans from 100 BCE. If you presented the players with an estate that included 100 slaves, a lot of your players might be very disturbed as suddenly becoming slave owners.
Or, if they were expected to watch and cheer as a hungry manticore tore apart civilians screaming for help, they might not be capable of being okay with that, like a Roman noble could have been.
And the more you try and sell "No, guys , you are supposed to be okay with this" in the text or at the table, the more they are going to start looking towards the other constant of Roman civilization. Civil War.
Not all content is built for everyone. But should it? I think things that aren't setting specific should have broader appeal and should be more inclusive but how do they do it? To me, that's the larger issue.First, this is presented as a factual, historical account. Not as a mythology. It has some myth elements, such as the tale of the Duergar leader going through the Nine Hells,
....
And I can't do it. I can't see them as anything other than the victims of a petty god and ignorant or cruel brethren.
Fair enough.
However, I for one am not approaching my RPGing with anything near such highbrow aspirations.I'm neither seeking nor expecting to find any 'great works' in a D&D game, and if I did my first response might be "how and why did that get in here?". When I sit down to play a character for an evening I'm not after a morality play, nor any sort of studied commentary on society be it modern or of some other age, nor any mirror in which to reflect anything.
That sort of thing takes it all far too seriously, and is IMO best left to the classroom, the critic's chair, or the sociologists' club (or theologists' maybe).
The players aren't, but the characters they play might be; and those characters may well be considered quite Good within their society and setting.
One of my own major characters these days is Roman to the core - and being me, naturally I've dialled her up to eleven. She's never owned slaves, but the operative word there is 'yet': slavery is an accepted part of her culture and ownership of at least a few slaves is somewhat expected among the upper class, who she fully intends to become one of. (her way-out-there career goal is Empress, but that's gonna take a long time to achieve!) As such, sooner or later she's almost certainly going to have to hit the slave market even though she herself would see slave ownership as something of a nuisance, nt to mention an in-her-view unnecessary expense.
But note that none of this has anything to do with my own morality in real life. I can and do divorce the in-game morality of my character and her setting from real-world morality, and then just play her into doing what she would naturally do within that game's setting.
I don't often (as in, pretty much never) have to say this to players as IME they're pretty good at doing this on their own: when playing the game, leave the real world behind. It'll still be there at the end of the session.![]()
Some players would be fine and some players wouldn't. The question is whether WotC should be able to make a setting like that without criticism and let those who want to play it play and those who don't choose not to buy it.
Not all content is built for everyone. But should it? I think things that aren't setting specific should have broader appeal and should be more inclusive but how do they do it? To me, that's the larger issue.
The narrator in the Druegar story could be biased or ignorant of facts which means the account is biased and why some of the story is missing. That is a legitimate story-telling technique to create suspense or irony etc...