What We Lose When We Eliminate Controversial Content

[MGibster]

OTOH, not that long ago, there was a fairly large kerfuffle at a con in England (and I'm blanking on the exact details) where the DM did EXACTLY this at the convention, the characters woke up with "sore butts" and the result was a fairly well known DM was ejected from the con.

I'm surprised but not shocked that someone might pull something like that at a con. Some people never grow up or learn how to behave in public.

THIS is what I'm talking about when I talk about including something like slavery and Dark Sun. Because, it's never JUST a setting book. It's also public play. And tens of thousands of gamers routinely play with strangers.

Can you tell me which RPG someone might played at a con that features gang rape as part of the setting? Or sore butts? Because if it's not part of the setting, I don't see how this is an argument in favor of your position.

 

[Thourne]

Here is a funny about my wife for you.
My wife plays nearly full time male characters. Always has.
In about year 12 of our gaming group she actually makes a female character.
Yes, we are shocked.
We begin play.
30ish minutes in her character makes her entrance....and my wife begins speaking...in falsetto.
We lost it.
She didn't know why.
I go, "hun your using a falsetto to play a female."
Then she lost it.

 

[MGibster]

And this is the point I've been making all the way along about "problematic content". I'm a big white dude. I REALLY don't want to sit down to DM a bunch of strangers in Dark Sun where the players start off as slaves a la Spartacus. That's just not going to be comfortable.

It's perfectly fine if you're not into a particular game for whatever reason. The solution is simple, don't sit down and play that particular game. The fact that you're not personally comfortable with it doesn't make it wrong that other people are.

This is nuance that seems to get lost in the scrum. An RPG product isn't just going to be used at a table where everyone knows each other and have all at least kinda sorta come to some sort of agreement on how to deal with stuff like this. I game with strangers a lot. I know that after the end of my current campaign, I'm losing two of my five regular players to real life stuff, which means I'll be shopping for new players again in the near future.

I'm missing the problem here. Sit down and talk to them before you agree to play a particular game with them. Anyone who agrees to play something like Dark Sun, Vampire, or Delta Green probably has a pretty good idea of what the game is all about. And if they don't, talking to them will solve that problem really quickly.

Unless you've only just reached the ripe old age of 18-20, what was funny back then was a mix of both adolescent humor and the baked-in bigotry of the time. I assume you're not at all homophobic or find rape funny, but "sore butts" is a homophobic joke that makes light of rape. You almost certainly didn't mean anything cruel by it when you were a kid. You probably didn't even fully realize what you were joking about (or at least not the ramifications of it). It's just that society made "hur dur, you got butt-raped by a guy" into something that people could laugh at.

That was kind of my point. What I might have found funny when I was 13 wasn't necessarily funny when I was 15 because I've grown and changed. So I'm not concerned if a bunch of kids don't treat a serious topic with the utmost reverance and respect it deserves within the context of gaming with their pals because they're still growing and learning. The fact that many young people don't treat things with the proper respect doesn't necessarily mean we can't include it in a game.

But society is moving away from that kind of humor. People who are gay or who were raped don't have to stay quiet about it. They can point out that those jokes aren't funny and are actually cruel. People who had previously thought those types of jokes were funny got to learn that.

Were you under the impression that I was endorsing those stupid jokes? If so, I really failed to communicate what I wanted to.

 

[Umbran]

... up until about five years or so ago, there were virtually no women in the hobby

Just so everyone's aware, as of two years ago (May, 2021), women made up about 40% of the D&D players, per WotC:

 

[Faolyn]

Were you under the impression that I was endorsing those stupid jokes? If so, I really failed to communicate what I wanted to.

No, I specifically said I wasn't. What I was saying is that societal norms are different, in part because (parts of) society now says "don't make jokes about these things."

 

[Kaodi]

I am somewhat surprised by both the 40+ numbers and the 15-19 numbers. 20-24 as the primary on ramp feels very different than the historical assumption for the game. And that absolute cliff after 40. Wow.

 

[CapnZapp]

It's perfectly fine if you're not into a particular game for whatever reason. The solution is simple, don't sit down and play that particular game. The fact that you're not personally comfortable with it doesn't make it wrong that other people are.

This.

Don't conflate you being offended with a crime against you having been committed.

The discussion climate, particularly in the US, is so extremely inflamed, that I worry civilization and liberty is about to thrown out with the bathwater, in a misguided attempt to protect everybody from being disrespected.

Far too few people realize that an oppressive cultural scene can emerge from both ends of the political spectrum.

It simply isn't sustainable to ban or block or avoid any work that someone can be offended by. We absolutely must allow works that are offensive.

The ONLY solution that doesn't derail our Western society is to walk away from things you cannot stand. Not to loudly proclaim you are offended and hurt and the person "doing this" to you needs to be sanctioned. The solution to sanitize society to only include the impossibly small subset of works that nobody can take offense to is a folly.

So, very much this.

 

[Maxperson]

Excellent job on being technically correct. Well done you.

Now, how about actually addressing the point? Which was that gaming (and fantasy fandom in general) has been dominated by men and particularly white men, for most of its history and by taking out some elements, like slavery, makes room for material that doesn't make people feel unwelcome in the hobby?

You can add room without removing anything. That's the great thing about books. You can add pages of stuff to the end. Heck, they could release Dark Sun unchanged and also release a totally new setting with all kinds of added material.

 

[theCourier]

This.

Don't conflate you being offended with a crime against you having been committed.

The discussion climate, particularly in the US, is so extremely inflamed, that I worry civilization and liberty is about to thrown out with the bathwater, in a misguided attempt to protect everybody from being disrespected.

Far too few people realize that an oppressive cultural scene can emerge from both ends of the political spectrum.

It simply isn't sustainable to ban or block or avoid any work that someone can be offended by. We absolutely must allow works that are offensive.

The ONLY solution that doesn't derail our Western society is to walk away from things you cannot stand. Not to loudly proclaim you are offended and hurt and the person "doing this" to you needs to be sanctioned. The solution to sanitize society to only include the impossibly small subset of works that nobody can take offense to is a folly.

So, very much this.

Good thing that's not happening then, lol. Have you seen all the shows, movies, books, games, etc. coming out today? People discussing and criticizing instances where sensitive topics are mishandled or could have been handled better aren't banning them. They're exercising their freedom of speech to discuss them.

You can put out whatever you want, but you can't control how people interact or discuss it.

 

[Maxperson]

AHA! My bad. I got the name of the monster wrong. It was a Walled Horror from Tome of Beasts 2 - a 2900 xp monster. That's where the 11600 comes from (4 CR 7 critters) and it appears that Fantasy Grounds does not calculate based on that table - it just gives the total value. Good to know.

To be fair though, that's 23200 for the total, which is 5800 xp/PC which is just a hair over Hard, and not Deadly.

It's 1500 over hard(4300) and 600 shy of deadly(6400). I wouldn't call that a hair over hard.

Still, that explains why it was a challenge to you guys. It was a near to deadly encounter and not a moderate one which would be a cake walk.