What We Lose When We Eliminate Controversial Content

[Justice and Rule]

Sure, and I've moved well on from thinking the core of D&D offerings needs to appeal to me, and me alone.

The crux of the question is, if a book is released that offends someone, makes them feel unwelcome, does that mean they are being shown the door to the entire hobby, or does that mean that book is not something they care for?

Now personally, I absolutely feel that Wizards has no interest in my money. That doesnt mean I'm unwelcome. It doesnt mean they are excluding me.

It means my personal tastes, do not align with what they are providing in a general sense, and so I can look elsewhere to other games/books/companies.

If a 'controversial' book, singular, was released, that is not excluding people from the entire hobby. It is a matter of taste. Its a matter of personal choice, as I certainly do not assume that any demographic views near any issue as a monolith.

If it were one book, maybe? But we already had someone in here tell me that adherence to canon was so imperative that we couldn't lose slavery out of the Forgotten Realms, despite the fact that it is really only present in lore blurbs.

Of course. I wasn't saying you can't have epic expansion without slavery, I was saying epic imperial expansion is an evil that presumably people would also want to exclude.

I mean, are people actually asking not to include that or are we just making stuff up to be angry at? Again, people have specific asks here, we should probably concentrate on those instead of just making slippery slope assumptions.

In terms of gladiators, yes you absolutely can do what you are saying. Like I said, settings are thought experiments at their best so I am always in favor of more being on the table (if someone wants to make a world where the kind of gladiators you describe exist, I am all for that). But I am also for not taking Roman style gladiators and slavery off the table as a creative choice by publishers and designers.

But "Roman-style gladiators" aren't all about slavery, either. Are you actually going to deal with someone being owned by someone else, or are you just there for big coliseum battles? Again, you talk about things being taken off the table, but are they actually being used or are they just a style point?

I wasn't suggesting slavery was the only society wide ill (genocide is another that leaps to mind, but many forms of oppression can exist at the society level, mass impoverishment, moral panics, etc). I don't think we are in disagreement here. I was responding to Umbra's suggestion of focusing on evil at the individual level, not focusing on slavery as the sole societal evil.

Sure, sure. Maybe it would be better to say that as a "society-wide ill", slavery is grievously overused, and often only for gratuitous reasons.

 

[Voadam]

So hey, there's slavery in Dark Sun. And not the type of slavery that involves a couple of bad guys doing bad guy things to the shock and dismay of all the Good People around, but the type that's considered the acceptable norm for normal society, where the only thing stopping the PCs from buying and selling slaves themselves is a DM willing to say no. Which means that sort of thing is, by D&D's standards, going to end up everywhere else.

Even accepting that characterization of Dark Sun that seems quite the jump.

I don't think Dark Sun style harsh evil society prevalent slavery ended up in 3e D&D Eberron, or 4e Eberron, or 5e Eberron for example. I don't think it affected the setting level of slavery in any contemporaneous D&D setting.

I don't think it is reasonable to expect it to jump to all D&D everywhere else if there is a 5e Dark Sun with older edition setting prevalent (but free city Tyr and slave tribe anti-slavery PC friendly bases) slavery.

Some mechanical Dark Sun elements did cross over to generic D&D. 3e psionics books had half-giants as a generic PC race option and they even made it into the SRD.

But not hairless focus dwarves, cannibal halflings, and super tall elves.

 

[Scribe]

If it were one book, maybe? But we already had someone in here tell me that adherence to canon was so imperative that we couldn't lose slavery out of the Forgotten Realms, despite the fact that it is really only present in lore blurbs.

Thats already a lost position though. The errata's have been made, and volo's is replaced. Will there be things which people point out as mistakes? Probably.

The issue though, unless I'm mistaken here, is not stuff like that. FR was never the major concern because its already shifting. Just look at the drow nonsense.

No, the question to me is a basic one. If a book is released that I take issue with. Singular book, Dark Sun, with all its problematic history and content, as is, does that mean people are being excluded from the entire hobby, or do they skip the book just as I have skipped on most things post Tashas?

I mean the answer should be obvious. No.

 

[Bedrockgames]

But "Roman-style gladiators" aren't all about slavery, either. Are you actually going to deal with someone being owned by someone else, or are you just there for big coliseum battles? Again, you talk about things being taken off the table, but are they actually being used or are they just a style point?

I didn't say they were, but slavery was an important aspect of Roman gladiators and an especially important element of gladiator tropes in fantasy and sword and sandals (and also in stuff like Dark Sun which draws from those sources). I would say they are important campaign points. Like I said, you really can't have a spartacus campaign without roman style gladiators and roman style slavery being on the table. And again, if you look at the original Dark Sun boxed set, slavery comes up a lot. It is woven right into the setting details about as deeply as slavery was woven into Roman history. You can change that and you can be of the opinion that it isn't good for the game. But this isn't just a style issue from what I am seeing. These are elements that are used in campaigns all the time

 

[Bedrockgames]

Sure, sure. Maybe it would be better to say that as a "society-wide ill", slavery is grievously overused, and often only for gratuitous reasons.

Perhaps. That is a judgment call. Lots of tropes get overused, come in and out of fashion. I get bored with things when I feel they are currently being overdone. But I also sometimes get bored, then want to return to a trope. I think slavery as a society wide social ill is widely used for a reason though. Again, if people don't like that, I have no issue with them making settings that don't include it. I just don't get the idea that this should be a forbidden trope of some kind

 

[Justice and Rule]

Thats already a lost position though. The errata's have been made, and volo's is replaced. Will there be things which people point out as mistakes? Probably.

The issue though, unless I'm mistaken here, is not stuff like that. FR was never the major concern because its already shifting. Just look at the drow nonsense.

No, the question to me is a basic one. If a book is released that I take issue with. Singular book, Dark Sun, with all its problematic history and content, as is, does that mean people are being excluded from the entire hobby, or do they skip the book just as I have skipped on most things post Tashas?

I mean the answer should be obvious. No.

I think anything and everything should be looked at and considered. I think trying to adhere to canon for canon's sake is just... well, not a good way to create fiction. I say this as a comic book fan, mind you.

That doesn't mean we should automatically change things, but we should always look at stuff and consider where we were when it was created and where we are now. As it stands with Athas, I'm generally in agreement that the oppression is the important part, more so than slavery itself.

I didn't say they were, but slavery was an important aspect of Roman gladiators and an especially important element of gladiator tropes in fantasy and sword and sandals (and also in stuff like Dark Sun which draws from those sources). I would say they are important campaign points. Like I said, you really can't have a spartacus campaign without roman style gladiators and roman style slavery being on the table. And again, if you look at the original Dark Sun boxed set, slavery comes up a lot. It is woven right into the setting details about as deeply as slavery was woven into Roman history. You can change that and you can be of the opinion that it isn't good for the game. But this isn't just a style issue from what I am seeing. These are elements that are used in campaigns all the time

I'm not saying you were, I'm asking you to consider why you are including it and why slavery is important to that aspect. If you are running a Spartacus-style campaign, you can do that without slavery but just contracts, poverty, and oppression.

 

[Bedrockgames]

I'm not saying you were, I'm asking you to consider why you are including it and why slavery is important to that aspect. If you are running a Spartacus-style campaign, you can do that without slavery but just contracts, poverty, and oppression.

I've done both though. I have run campaigns where NPCs were specifically under unfavorable contracts working in oppressive conditions and needed to be rescued. That is great. For some settings that will work....but when I am running something that is inspired by ancient Rome, I think having the slavery works well.

I feel like I have answered the question of why I sometimes want it in a campaign many times. I can try again but I don't think they are going to move the dial. Which is fine, I am not interested in persuading you to include them. I am just interested in these things being on the table for designers and publishers. One thought is It is as simple as liking the source material, enjoying how it plays out in campaigns and also because I've read a lot about ancient Rome so it is a social institution I have strong enough command of that I can work with it well in a setting. I am very interested in Roman history and went through a period of reading a lot about the servile wars. In general, maybe because I have family history with these things, I really gravitate towards the darker side of history for both gaming inspiration and for general interest (I have lots of books on different genocides on my shelves).

For something like Dark sun Specifically, I would say it connects strongly with all the themes though so it is somewhat more crucial to the overall feel of the setting. And it is brutally oppressive which lends a certain tone, a certain urgency to matters. I also like the dynamics created when you have things like freedmen in a campaign.

 

[Micah Sweet]

If it were one book, maybe? But we already had someone in here tell me that adherence to canon was so imperative that we couldn't lose slavery out of the Forgotten Realms, despite the fact that it is really only present in lore blurbs.



I mean, are people actually asking not to include that or are we just making stuff up to be angry at? Again, people have specific asks here, we should probably concentrate on those instead of just making slippery slope assumptions.



But "Roman-style gladiators" aren't all about slavery, either. Are you actually going to deal with someone being owned by someone else, or are you just there for big coliseum battles? Again, you talk about things being taken off the table, but are they actually being used or are they just a style point?



Sure, sure. Maybe it would be better to say that as a "society-wide ill", slavery is grievously overused, and often only for gratuitous reasons.

I don't believe that a story element being considered by some "overused" is sufficient reason to claim it should no longer be in published products, particularly ones in which it has already existed.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Even accepting that characterization of Dark Sun that seems quite the jump.

I don't think Dark Sun style harsh evil society prevalent slavery ended up in 3e D&D Eberron, or 4e Eberron, or 5e Eberron for example. I don't think it affected the setting level of slavery in any contemporaneous D&D setting.

I don't think it is reasonable to expect it to jump to all D&D everywhere else if there is a 5e Dark Sun with older edition setting prevalent (but free city Tyr and slave tribe anti-slavery PC friendly bases) slavery.

Some mechanical Dark Sun elements did cross over to generic D&D. 3e psionics books had half-giants as a generic PC race option and they even made it into the SRD.

But not hairless focus dwarves, cannibal halflings, and super tall elves.

Yes. This seems a bit of a slippery slope to me.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I think anything and everything should be looked at and considered. I think trying to adhere to canon for canon's sake is just... well, not a good way to create fiction. I say this as a comic book fan, mind you.

That doesn't mean we should automatically change things, but we should always look at stuff and consider where we were when it was created and where we are now. As it stands with Athas, I'm generally in agreement that the oppression is the important part, more so than slavery itself.



I'm not saying you were, I'm asking you to consider why you are including it and why slavery is important to that aspect. If you are running a Spartacus-style campaign, you can do that without slavery but just contracts, poverty, and oppression.

Again, make a new story with the elements you want and without the elements you don't. An actual,  new setting.