I haven’t seen anyone here advocating for forcing a view of what’s correct on anyone else. Discussing opinions, explaining positions, telling publishers what we want to see and what we don’t want to see … none of that is about what’s “allowable” or “prohibited.”
What We Lose When We Eliminate Controversial Content
- Thread starter Reynard
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cranberry
Adventurer
Just one group?
History of slavery - Wikipedia
"The history of slavery spans many cultures, nationalities, and religions from ancient times to the present day. Likewise, its victims have come from many different ethnicities and religious groups. The social, economic, and legal positions of enslaved people have differed vastly in different systems of slavery in different times and places.[1]"
Micah Sweet
Level Up & OSR Enthusiast
I play plenty of games that don't include slavery. I don't mind that some do.
Faolyn
(she/her)
Flat earth "theory" isn't a theory for a wide variety of reasons, not the least of which is that the people who use that term don't actually know what a theory really is. Since it lacks any supporting evidence, it doesn't get taught along with theories that do have supporting evidence. Comparing sexist art to flat earth nonsense is like saying, "What's better, Nude Descending a Staircase or the Second Law of Thermodynamics?"
Scribe
Legend
Then you are selective in what you see, or perhaps have an ignore/ignored by issue.
"Wizards cannot provide X because its sexist." is advocating for forcing one's own view and/or moral panic on the largest publisher in the space.
Faolyn
(she/her)
No, of course not just one group. But a very large percentage of RPG writers come from a background that, at one point, had African slaves in it.Just one group?
History of slavery - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
"The history of slavery spans many cultures, nationalities, and religions from ancient times to the present day. Likewise, its victims have come from many different ethnicities and religious groups. The social, economic, and legal positions of enslaved people have differed vastly in different systems of slavery in different times and places.[1]"
You'll notice that it's pretty common for RPGs to have slaves rounded up by evil slavers (like the idea of rounding up Africans and selling them), rather than the slaves be people who were prisoners of war or who were sold into slavery because of a debt, as was often the case in the real world.
Faolyn
(she/her)
So play those games instead of complaining that a different game isn't including slavery anymore.
Micah Sweet
Level Up & OSR Enthusiast
T
The difference to me is, it seems you would prefer that games including content some find uncomfortable to have that content removed at the publishing level, whereas I think those choices should be made at the table. It seems more fair to me, but there's nothing wrong with feeling differently.
Micah Sweet
Level Up & OSR Enthusiast
Would you be ok with those other forms of slavery in published RPGs, or are you mentioning them to make a rhetorical point?
Scribe
Legend
"So play a different game instead of complaining about a single book being in a theme or style you dont like."
We have been told in this thread that is an unacceptable answer, multiple times.
Faolyn
(she/her)
But what you seem to be saying is that it's OK for there to be sexist stuff, because saying "don't be sexist" is trying to force a single viewpoint on people.
I... don't really know what to say to that, other than sometimes, not all viewpoints and not all sides are equally good.
Micah Sweet
Level Up & OSR Enthusiast
That could also be turned around. Play those games instead of complaining that slavery is in other games.
Scribe
Legend
No, what I'm saying is maybe what you think is sexist, is not.
Bagpuss
Legend
I'm not sure that's true, as both Nude Descending a Staircase and the Second Law of Thermodynamics have some worth.
But do you agree that some opinions aren't worth as much as others. Just so we are clear.
Faolyn
(she/her)
As I've said many times before, it really depends on the game.
I'll bring up Spire again. Every single drow is forced into a "durance"--slavery--for four years, starting in their late teens, and at any other time as a legal punishment for a crime (while there are no cars in this game, it's the type of setting where "driving while drow" can be enough of a crime to be arrested and re-enslaved for). The drow in that game only live to be about a 100, so four years is not an insignificant length of time for them. The drow are forced to work for the alfir (high elves), who can do whatever they want with them, physically, mentally, or sexually. If the drow is very lucky, they may have learned a useful skill, or have served their durance being a pretty piece of art to be looked at but not harmed. They are often not that lucky at all. One of the sample adventures has drow who have been surgically modified for artistic reasons.
The entire game is about how messed up this all is, about how the alfir have tried to break the drow, and how many drow are broken because of this. How the alfir have made important parts of drow culture and religion illegal, both to keep them in line and to give the alfir another reason to arrest them. About how this system has affected both the drow and the alfir. The point of the game is to play as a drow fighting against the alfir, but the game straight out says this fight will eventually kill you.
It literally doesn't matter if the game has slavery as evil slavers attacking villages in order to round up new slaves, or if the slaves are there because their poverty-stricken parents tearfully sold some of their children so they could feed the rest of them. What matters is that the game treats the institution properly. Not just as an afterthought or as a way to show that this is the bad guy you get to kill this adventure.
Faolyn
(she/her)
How do you decide that what some people are saying is sexist actually isn't?
Scribe
Legend
The same way you do.
Faolyn
(she/her)
I can agree that what some people try to claim is a fact is not actually a fact.
Just to head off a possible direction you might take, people who are bigoted in one way or another try to support their bigotry with "facts" that are actually completely incorrect or at least horribly distorted. So those "opinions" are also factually wrong.
Hyperbole is not helpful.
This thread is up to 113 pages. If this is the form of argument we are now in, how about we just recognize that the thread has outlived its usefulness, and close it.
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