What We Lose When We Eliminate Controversial Content

[Faolyn]

Absolutely not in D&D.

5E is a superb example. The default encounter is "normal". That's a one-sided stomp for the PCs. Anything below high Deadly is not a "mostly equal footing".

Maybe you're not playing the NPCs cleverly enough?

In other RPGs that aren't D&D or its many relatives, that's more true. But slavery is really only being "excised" from D&D and a couple of close relatives, and just being elided entirely. Whereas other perhaps more-progressive games do include forced labour, sometimes even slavery, just usually not chattel slavery.

It hasn't been "excised." WotC isn't updating one setting to 5e. The original books are still up for sale and still have slavery in them. Pathfinder, IIRC, simply stopped including slavery in new products; I don't think they went back and edited old content.

And those other games likely aren't being marketed to a 12 and up crowd. The games I own that involve slavery certainly aren't.

Nope lol. Big miss.

This is ironically incredibly naive and I would suggest a very sheltered and silly view that doesn't reflect how D&D is actually played. I've been playing D&D since 1989, and many other RPGs, with an awful lot of different people, and the vast majority of D&D settings included slavery (even if not as a common element, it was out there). Has anyone ever suggested taking prisoners, and selling them as slaves in those 34 years? No, they haven't. Not even in Dark Sun. And buying a slave? Are you kidding me? We, the players and DMs from a society that hates slavery and slavers. That sees them as the scum of scum. No normal person goes "Oh I will just buy a slave!". It just doesn't happen. Not even in a game.

Speaking of naive and sheltered... Yeah, I've been gaming since '91, and maybe not with "an awful lot of people," but with a fair number. I've also listened to the stories of many other people whom I haven't personally gamed with (both online and in person). Abhorrent behavior on the part of both GMs and players is not as rare as you might think. There's a subreddit dedicated to these stories, and if even a tenth of them are true, then "abhorrent" may be too weak a word in places.

Also it doesn't even make sense, since when have PCs taken prisoners and dragged them around with them lol? I mean what? We've just been discussing murderhobos and how virtually no PC groups ever take prisoners, they just kill everyone! Absolutely laughable.

Really? From what I've heard, that happens fairly frequently. Someone ITT said it was even possible at their table for NPCs to enslave PCs who were captured after battle. It has happened in my group as well, on occasion, although we mostly just turn them over to the authorities or let them go, depending on the circumstances. I wrote about how in one of my games, the PCs decided to give the captured NPCs a paid job so they wouldn't have to resort to banditry.

This is a fantasy on-par with WotC's "at any moment the OGL will be used to Nazi propaganda!".

Actually, let me revise that - there was one person who did think we should take slaves - but he got kicked out of the group when he started attempting to tell us a story about how "funny" it was the PCs in his previous D&D campaign raped one of the NPCs. He was literally kicked out the door. Later we heard he became a Neo-nazi. And that's entirely representative of the sort of people who think it's cool to have slaves and sell slaves and stuff, I would suggest.

So you have personally experienced this behavior and yet you still think it never happens? Did it ever occur to you that there will be groups wherein taking slaves or raping people isn't an offense worth being kicked out? Awful people play RPGs too.

 

[MGibster]

They also added a 'stoplight system' where everyone could say 'green' (go ahead), 'yellow' (slow down), or 'red' (scene ends), and you go by the most restrictive color (a yellow and a red means red). I thought this was a nice innovation as it lets the GM know when things might be going in a bad direction before actually freaking someone out. (I think I know where they got that from, but it's NSFW.)

Yeah, the first safety system for RPGs I read about really struck me as bearing more than a passing resemblence to the rules many members of an adult hobby community followed. Some people use that as an insult, but I don't. Ideas have a strange way of getting around sometimes.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Maybe you're not playing the NPCs cleverly enough?

LOL. Try harder.

That's how the game is balanced as a simple matter of fact. Denying it just makes you look you're being facetious.

It hasn't been "excised." WotC isn't updating one setting to 5e. The original books are still up for sale and still have slavery in them. Pathfinder, IIRC, simply stopped including slavery in new products; I don't think they went back and edited old content.

Semantics.

And those other games likely aren't being marketed to a 12 and up crowd. The games I own that involve slavery certainly aren't.

That's a completely different and unrelated argument to the ones you've been making previously. So now it's an age thing? Slavery is okay but only for "grown-ups"? I mean, that's actually a more coherent argument than your previous ones, because kids are more likely to have confused ideas about slavery, especially in the US where it appears teaching on the subject is being increasingly curtailed.

Yeah, I've been gaming since '91, and maybe not with "an awful lot of people," but with a fair number. I've also listened to the stories of many other people whom I haven't personally gamed with (both online and in person). Abhorrent behavior on the part of both GMs and players is not as rare as you might think. There's a subreddit dedicated to these stories, and if even a tenth of them are true, then "abhorrent" may be too weak a word in places.

This is just confirmation bias, and you don't you even claim factual experience of it, just "stories" (or are you claiming factual experience?). If you seek out horror stories, you will find horror stories. If you go to the subreddit for horror stories, you will find a ton of horror stories - some true, some exaggerated or "from a certain point of view", some clearly made-up. Even then, virtually none involve slavery - the vast majority involving bullying or creepy sex stuff, in or out of game.

This is the direct equivalent of someone who is very concerned about crime telling us how incredibly dangerous the world is and how you could be murdered at any moment and so on, and then citing some sort of "Crime Stories" subreddit as a factual source on which to base this.

So you have personally experienced this behavior and yet you still think it never happens? Did it ever occur to you that there will be groups wherein taking slaves or raping people isn't an offense worth being kicked out? Awful people play RPGs too.

Are even following my position the discussion?

My position is that the people who are into this kind of thing, are into regardless of the setting. You can have a setting which never mentions slavery, just completely ignores the issue entirely, and people like the creep I described? They'll make up slavery to put it in the game, and then they'll justify it with "realism" or whatever.

Creeps are creeps are creeps are creeps.

Normal people don't just randomly decide to play slavers because slavery technically exists in the setting.

I don't know how I can be any clearer than that. And I mean "normal for TTRPGs", not normal normal, too (so definitely more neurodiversity and so on).

 

[Imaro]

This is just confirmation bias, and you don't you even claim factual experience of it, just "stories" (or are you claiming factual experience?). If you seek out horror stories, you will find horror stories. If you go to the subreddit for horror stories, you will find a ton of horror stories - some true, some exaggerated or "from a certain point of view", some clearly made-up. Even then, virtually none involve slavery - the vast majority involving bullying or creepy sex stuff, in or out of game.

This is the direct equivalent of someone who is very concerned about crime telling us how incredibly dangerous the world is and how you could be murdered at any moment and so on, and then citing some sort of "Crime Stories" subreddit as a factual source on which to base this.

As opposed to your totally neutral, verifiable and encompassing.... anecdotal evidence relayed to us via a...wait for it...story. Glass houses and all.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

As opposed to your totally neutral, verifiable and encompassing.... anecdotal evidence relayed to us via a...wait for it...story. Glass houses and all.

Do you how understand how logic works? I'm not being sarcastic, because a lot of people at least act like they don't.

You can't prove a negative. I can't prove that the second D&D puts the words "slave market" in a setting, half this board isn't going to suddenly say "I WANT TO BE A SLAVER!".

But you can speak from experience. My experience is one creep, out of dozens or more than a hundred people I've played with, was a creep, of a generalized kind. Those people exist regardless of what's in RPGs. From the same subreddit people post stories of creeps being creeps is absolutely the most innocuous possible RPGs.

So my experience is that, and AFAICT, Faolyn's experience is never have seen anything like this. Yet he's claim that the world is absolutely crawling with people out to play slavers, and literally the second you put slave prices or mention slave markets, PCs are going to become slavers.

And you know that's not true so why pretend otherwise? You seem to be saying I can't criticise a truly ridiculous source because mine are imperfect, which is absolute rubbish, too. Do we need to do some kind of industry survey? You got a few thousand to tens of thousands of dollars for us to do that?

 

[Imaro]

Do you how understand how logic and facts and stuff work?

Yes... do you?

You can't prove a negative.

I didn't ask you to.

But you can speak from experience. My experience is one creep, out of dozens or more than a hundred people I've played with, was a creep, of a generalized kind. Those people exist regardless of what's in RPGs. From the same subreddit people post stories of creeps being creeps is absolutely the most innocuous possible RPGs.

Annecdotal evidence... I read tis story earlier in the thread... Is there something new I should get from this?

So my experience is that, and AFAICT, Faolyn's experience is never have seen anything like this. Yet he's claim that the world is absolutely crawling with people out to player slavers, and literally the second you put slave prices or mention slave markets, PCs are going to become slavers.

Is that really what he/she /them claimed? (I apologize @Faolyn as I'm not sure what your preferred pronoun is.)

And you know that's bollocks, so why pretend otherwise?

I don't "know" anything (including the validity of your claims) and neither do you outside of your own experiences... so why pretend otherwise?

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Is that really what he/she /them claimed? (I apologize @Faolyn as I'm not sure what your preferred pronoun is.)

Maybe, if you don't want to read the thread, don't butt in? I dunno - you could just use the comment arrow buttons to find out, neh?

I don't "know" anything (including the validity of your claims) and neither do you outside of your own experiences... so why pretend otherwise?

Jesus. This is some philosophical shenanigans. Do you actually believe your players would decide to play slavers merely because slave markets/prices existed in a setting?

 

[Imaro]

Maybe, if you don't want to read the thread, don't butt in? I dunno - you could just use the comment arrow buttons to find out, neh?

Apparently it wasn't clear... I don't agree with your assessment of the conversation and I believe you should re-read it with a more careful eye.

Jesus. This is some philosophical shenanigans. Do you actually believe your players would decide to play slavers merely because slave markets/prices existed in a setting?

No it's not. And I experienced this when I was a kid in a Dark Sun AD&D 2e game... so yes I believe it's very possible since most kids don't have the maturity or sense of gravity to treat slavery in a respectful manner... especially if not supervised by adults. I also don't understand why a Templar class (someone who would have to interact with slavery in a positive or at best neutral manner) would be made available if there was no desire for playing the other side in Dark Sun... but yes continue to tell me how you're sure everyone else would play the game.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Apparently it wasn't clear... I don't agree with your assessment of the conversation and I believe you should re-read it with a more careful eye.

I've re-read it and I feel like you're not attempting to make a serious argument, you're getting so close to bad faith that I'm considering blocking, frankly.

No it's not. And I experienced this when I was a kid in a Dark Sun AD&D 2e game... so yes I believe it's very possible since most kids don't have the maturity or sense of gravity to treat slavery in a respectful manner... especially if not supervised by adults. I also don't understand why a Templar class (someone who would have to interact with slavery in a positive or at best neutral manner) would be made available if there was no desire for playing the other side in Dark Sun... but yes continue to tell me how you're sure everyone else would play the game.

That's an entirely different argument to the one that's been presented re: having slavery in the game.

The "kids can't handle it" argument is a separate one, which has also been discussed (somehow you are unaware of this?), and which works better than any of the other arguments, albeit only for games aiming at an audience including kids.

As for Templars, I tend to agree they'd be a bad idea to include in a modern RPG, but frankly I've even heard of one actually being played - like quite a number of more obscure D&D classes, races, kits, PrCs and so on. Have you?

 

[MichaelSomething]

I'm sure WOTC would treat slavery with the same diligence it gave SpellJammer!