What We Lose When We Eliminate Controversial Content

[Thourne]

Sounds like an argument in favor of a per-product rating system. As it is, WotC and any other company changing their policy on these topics is literally leaving money on the table.

Right? It isn't like a movie studio only makes movies of a single Rating. They make the movie then evaluate and slap a rating on it.

 

[Faolyn]

Since slavery is a fundamental aspect of Dark Sun society as opposed to say a throwaway line for one race that could easily be excluded from any particular campaign and/or that aspect of the race easily excluded, I'd say your assessment is spot on and part of the issue. Do you sugarcoat the presentation? Because that kind of creates this cartoony, sanitized version of slavery and it's effects on the people subjected to it as well as their descendants, especially those with more modern/recent ties to it... and some/many could find that presentation of it as disrespectful or dismissive.

(For the record, I of course fully agree here.)

I've asked this before but have not gotten a response: Why is slavery so fundamental for Dark Sun?

It has water and metal being worth more than gold. It has environment-destroying magic. It has psionics everywhere, to the point where even simple animals have psychic powers. It has a wasted, post-apocalypse environment. It has almost none of the traditional D&D monsters and tons of very weird ones. It has some strange new PC races and unusual twists on existing races. It really requires resource management to play properly. It has no gods, putting elemental forces in their place. It has a very different culture than any other D&D setting.

One would think that any of these other aspects would be far more important to Dark Sun.

 

[Thourne]

(For the record, I of course fully agree here.)

I've asked this before but have not gotten a response: Why is slavery so fundamental for Dark Sun?

It has water and metal being worth more than gold. It has environment-destroying magic. It has psionics everywhere, to the point where even simple animals have psychic powers. It has a wasted, post-apocalypse environment. It has almost none of the traditional D&D monsters and tons of very weird ones. It has some strange new PC races and unusual twists on existing races. It really requires resource management to play properly. It has no gods, putting elemental forces in their place. It has a very different culture than any other D&D setting.

One would think that any of these other aspects would be far more important to Dark Sun.

Sometimes things are a product of the sum of their parts.
Removing even one alters the product. For some, into an unrecognizable or undesired new thing.
Perhaps, it was critical to sessions of play they had or the identity of their characters.
At some point it is just easier to accept if you put 2 people in a room they wont agree on everything.

 

[Faolyn]

Yeah but you're a bunch of prudes.

While this is funny and true, I'd like to point out that Dark Sun includes sex slavery. As in, women are raped, used as breeding stock to produce muls, and then usually die in childbirth. And then the muls are enslaved to be gladitorial fodder.

I haven't seen Spartacus. Did it include anything like this?

 

[Bedrockgames]

I've asked this before but have not gotten a response: Why is slavery so fundamental for Dark Sun?

I think people have answered this but I don't think it is something where everyone is going to see eye to eye. I think slavery fits the hostility and cruelty of the setting, the post apocalyptic vibe where people exploit each other as they fight over resources, and because it draws on things like Sword and Sandal movies and even a bit of ancient history, where slavery was the norm. For me, Dark Sun fundamentally loses something if you take that element out. For others maybe it loses nothing.

 

[MGibster]

Slavery is something that still affects people today--you don't have to even look at the Civil War; there's estimated to be 50 million people across the world who are enslaved at this moment. And even without that, there's bigots who want to go back to enslaving Black people.

I don't see how that's relevant. There are millions of people affected by violence, just in thr United States alone, and yet that seems fine. There are millions of people displaced by war, yet I can have a setting featuring war refugees. The fact that there are still slaves today, that the leagacy of slavery still lingers here in the United States, or that racist might want to enslave others is a not valid argument for a blanket exclusion of slavery from role playing games in general or D&D specifically.

I understand and respect your position and I'm sure you understand mine, but we have fundamentally different priorities and beliefs on how to best handle sensitive subjects in games. Communication doesn't always lead to a consensus, sometimes positions are so diametrically opposed that there can be no agree, and it's fairly certain we will never see eye-to-eye on this. That's okay, it happens.

But at the same time, nobody wants to beat a dead horse. So I think I'm done with talking about slavery in games for now. You're not going to budge. I'm not going to budge. And that poor horse can't take any more.

 

[Bedrockgames]

I haven't seen Spartacus. Did it include anything like this?

The movie has a scene, which I am quite sure was removed from the original screenings but is usually in any version of it you will find today, where a slave musician played by Tony Curtis is bathing Crassus played by Lawrence Olivier. They have a conversation about snails that heavily implies Crassus wishes to have sex with him (and I would say implies it could be by force: Lawrence Olivier gives a big speech about the power of Rome as lines of soldiers march in the background, and I think the implication is a violent one). But it is all done in dialogue about preferring snails to oysters and whether it is moral to eat one and not the other.

 

[Bagpuss]

216 people on a single forum is not a "significant proportion" of the gaming crowd.

Can you point to any poll or evidence supporting the idea that a "(and the people who make up most of their customer base) find unacceptable".

 

[Kaodi]

I will say I wonder if we have been skating over the difference between "roleplaying" and "rollplaying" in this. In a "roll-playing" group where the setting is more window dressing then the arguments for including controversial elements are probably weaker.

 

[Willie the Duck]

Can you point to any poll or evidence supporting the idea that a "(and the people who make up most of their customer base) find unacceptable".

It's going to be N/A in both directions, supporting neither direction. We simply don't have that information, and apparently people don't trust the only people who would to be forthright.