What We Lose When We Eliminate Controversial Content

[Irlo]

Right now WOTC, for example, wants to remove Slavery, Race and anything relating to real world cultures. That is already a LOT.

Radiant Citadel is a recent publication inspired by a variety of real world cultures.

 

[Lanefan]

You guys have tried to say that what's OK in a horror game should be OK in a lighter heroic fantasy, which says that you don't understand the difference between different types of games or what's appropriate in each genre.

Though I personally haven't said that, my pushback here is that publishers producing big-tent games like D&D or PF have to, IMO, make those games appropriate for (or of a type that can handle) very broad swathes of genre all at once in order to continue as big tents.

Thus far, they've more or less managed that: one can run a grimdark horror campaign in 5e (or any edition, for that matter) with all the bad stuff front and centre just as well as one can run a much lighter-tone Big Damn Heroes campaign where the PCs only knock out their foes and the bad stuff - even including deadly violence - doesn't often enter play. And they've even provided settings for each, plus some others: Ravenloft/Barovia handles the gothic-horror sub-genre, FR does well for the Big Damn Heroes style, and so forth.

Dark Sun as a setting fills both the sword-and-sandals niche and the post-apocalypse niche, depending how one wants to approach it; and like it or not a fairly significant element of the sword-and-sandals sub-genre (clearly based as it is on Imperial Rome) is slavery.

You guys have said that people who don't want to play in a game that involves slavery should find another game, which says that you don't care about being sensitive to real people in the real world.

This is fair criticism.

You guys have tried to say that you have to include every color for a game to be worthwhile or rich, which says that you think that slavery is necessary for verisimilitude, that games aren't as full or real without it, to the point that you are willing to ignore all the other things that make a setting interesting.

You guys have tried to say that slavery is needed for the game to feel real while not caring about anything else that feels real, which says that it's not verisimilitude you care about; it's treating slavery as a fun plot point.

Others may have said or implied such things, but I'm on record upthread as noting that in my games I also include many of the other elements you cite as examples of unpleasant realism; thus I feel justified in denying these accusations.

 

[Lanefan]

So, back when the zombie horde was a stand-in for the Cold War, I'd agree with you.

Today, without what folks thought of as a brain-washed, unthinking power trying to sweep the globe, more and more zombie-stories cast the zombies as a way to return the Earth to a state without humans in it, or as nature run amok due to our meddling.

I've always seen zombies as a brainless unthinking power trying to sweep the globe. Then again, I've never been a fan of zombie stories in general so if their focus has changed, no surprise I didn't notice.

Like, climate change driven hurricanes are still forces of nature.

Agreed; as hurricanes are naturally-occurring things. Zombies, however, are not; something un-natural has to make at least the first one.

 

[Faolyn]

Do you think people are likely to play slavers?

How many people enjoy playing evil characters? How many people, even those playing good characters, treat NPCs really badly and/or sacrifice them to find traps, hide behind them when monsters charge, or kill them willy-nilly, because NPCs aren't as real or important as PCs?

So yes, I do think that there are going to be a people who want to play slavers, or at the least end up as slavers even if they didn't start out that way. While the lack of slavery in a game doesn't prevent people from doing this, the addition of slavery can very easily be seen as a tacit approval, especially if the books also include prices for buying and selling them, or at least hints as to how much they cost.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I am not sure I understand your meaning. In the modern context calling some a lesser form of humanity seems to be about as deadly an insult as calling them subhuman; such that "sub-human" just means "sub-full-human" ?

“Lesser form” of human is still human. “Subhuman” meant not truly human- a species similar, but apart.

 

[Sabathius42]

You guys have tried to say that you have to include every color for a game to be worthwhile or rich, which says that you think that slavery is necessary for verisimilitude, that games aren't as full or real without it, to the point that you are willing to ignore all the other things that make a setting interesting.

I'm only going to respond to this one because it's the only one addressing what I have been saying in this thread.

I said that when you remove concepts (aka specific colors of crayons) from the list of available topics that can be included in a game (the box of crayons) then the area your game can cover (your pictures color palette) is not as wide as if you still had access to all concepts (a larger color palette).

At literally NO point have I ever said a game can only be good if you include a specific topic or that the only good games (picture) include every topic.

You literally use the one topic we seem fixated on (slavery) in one of your narratives....presumably because in that game it's something you want to explore. Clearly by YOUR standards it is OK to include slavery at least some of the time.

If you are going to continue to argue against what I'm saying, then please at least sum up what I am saying accurately.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I don't think the Teutonic Knights considered the pagan Prussians and Lithuanians to be anything but sub-human, and the former were largely displaced or exterminated and replaced with German colonists in the European Crusades. I also cited some other examples, like the casteless of India or the burakumin in Japan who are still to this day literally considered lesser by the rest of their societies. You also have places like the Congo where pygmies are cannibalized by militants of other ethnic groups as a show of contempt since they consider the pygmies to be on par with other bushmeat. In the case of Western racialism, this concept was married to the burgeouning field of scientific thought and took on an industrial level of efficiency in exploitation and oppression, kind of like how war was nothing new but the sheer scale of destruction of Word War II gave everyone pause.

I’ll grant you the predation on the pygmies as a possible exemplar, while also noting the societal practice of cannibalism does not require dehumanization as a prerequisite.

I doubt the Teutonic Knights considered their pagan foes as nonhuman. Ditto the casteless or burakumin (or hinin-despite the literal translation). In contrast, blacks were considered by some to be non-human beings- literally soulless, and thus, animals that looked like human, but were not.

 

[mythago]

I said that when you remove concepts (aka specific colors of crayons) from the list of available topics that can be included in a game (the box of crayons) then the area your game can cover (your pictures color palette) is not as wide as if you still had access to all concepts (a larger color palette).

When you remove specific colors of crayons from the box, you are also making room for other colors of crayons that your box previously had no room for.

And your metaphor also forgets that people were tossing out unwanted colors all along. It’s not until someone suggests they remove a color they liked that most people get upset at their “limited” palette.

 

[Sabathius42]

When you remove specific colors of crayons from the box, you are also making room for other colors of crayons that your box previously had no room for.

And your metaphor also forgets that people were tossing out unwanted colors all along. It’s not until someone suggests they remove a color they liked that most people get upset at their “limited” palette.

There is no limit to the number of crayons in the box.

I've never thrown out a crayon, but there are some I've never used. I still want them, though.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Note that while Lovecraft was prejudiced (and very much so), he never actually harmed another human being (at least as far as I am aware) or even do something like engage in politics with the intention of enforcing his prejudices in society.

One does not have to commit a crime or physically strike someone to harm them.

AFAIK, HPL never assaulted anyone. But it does not follow that he never acted out his racism in a harmful way. I would assert that someone as racist as he seemed to be would be virtually incapable of living his life without harming someone he despised because of his racism.

 

[Hussar]

Influential (from the post you replied to) and inspirational (in your reply) seem like two very different things?

I completely agree with keeping him off an inspirational reading list (the title of which makes me think folks should be inspired by them). It feels like he would go on an influential one (which influenced the game).

There is no influential list in the 5e phb.

 

[Hussar]

If people did exercise their brains a bit more and did not make frivolously inappropriate comparisons between people they disagree with over one point or another, and people who commit crimes or outright atrocities, it might go some way to create a less polarized society.

I dunno. I get rather uptight when people say my children should be killed.

 

[Hussar]

Just a note: influential /= inspirational. All kinds of awful people are influential.

Again. There is no list of influential authors in the 5e phb. It is a list of inspirational authors.

I was very, very specific for exactly this reason.

 

[Cadence]

There is no influential list in the 5e phb.

Which I think is a good thing. And so they should take a strong hand curating it.

I missed that you were going just about 5e. (In which case the one you were responding to about influential lists was either about another book or confused?)

 

[Kaodi]

I cannot state with certitude that no act of racial violence could include an early exposure to HPL as a contributing factor. Can you?

This seems to fall within the impossibility of proving a negative territory. It is also impossible to prove no act of racial violence has ever included early exposure to Gandhi as a contributing factor. Though as a side note I think it extremely unlikely the author of the Protocols forgery did not intend to cause deaths.

 

[Minion X]

I dunno. I get rather uptight when people say my children should be killed.

I can't say that I am convinced that miscenegation is the central theme of Shadow over Innsmouth. It seems to fit the recurring theme of personal body horror that you see in stories like Facts Concerning the Late Arthur Jermyn and His Family, The Rats in the Walls and Pickman's Model, which I have the impression reflect on Lovecraft's feelings towards his parents, who both died in mental institutions, and how his mother is reported to have call him grotesque or malformed on occasion (possibly due to her fragile mental state). For example, I've never heard that Lovecraft was anxious that he might secretly have, say, African or Jewish ancestry. I can see how the story can be interpreted that way, or both ways, but when holding it up to the aforementioned stories, two of which also feature the destruction of the people involved through suicide or murder of the people involved, but otherwise cannot be said to have any bearing on miscenegation in the US, I think this might be a case where ancient evil fish people are by and by ancient evil fish people, and not a stand in for migrants or the descendants of former slaves.

 

[Minion X]

I doubt the Teutonic Knights considered their pagan foes as nonhuman. Ditto the casteless or burakumin (or hinin-despite the literal translation). In contrast, blacks were considered by some to be non-human beings- literally soulless, and thus, animals that looked like human, but were not.

I think it is very easy for people to completely dehumanize those they disagree with, oppress or otherwise persecute, regardless of time and place and what the perceived differences are based on. The NPC meme from 4chan springs to mind as an example of how people in a modern, enlightened society can find a way to cast ideological opponents as literally soulless extras in a world where they presumably are the real players.

 

[Bedrockgames]

I can't say that I am convinced that miscenegation is the central theme of Shadow over Innsmouth. It seems to fit the recurring theme of personal body horror that you see in stories like Facts Concerning the Late Arthur Jermyn and His Family, The Rats in the Walls and Pickman's Model, which I have the impression reflect on Lovecraft's feelings towards his parents, who both died in mental institutions, and how his mother is reported to have call him grotesque or malformed on occasion (possibly due to her fragile mental state). For example, I've never heard that Lovecraft was anxious that he might secretly have, say, African or Jewish ancestry. I can see how the story can be interpreted that way, or both ways, but when holding it up to the aforementioned stories, two of which also feature the destruction of the people involved through suicide or murder of the people involved, but otherwise cannot be said to have any bearing on miscenegation in the US, I think this might be a case where ancient evil fish people are by and by ancient evil fish people, and not a stand in for migrants or the descendants of former slaves.

I read it again not so long ago and I think the miscegenation interpretation isn’t as conclusive as it’s become one the internet. I can see it as one interpretation but there are many other viable ones (I already wrote about here before but I think fest (EDIT: Fear) of inherited illness is more prominent especially in key moments of the story).

 

[Minion X]

I dunno. I get rather uptight when people say my children should be killed.

PS: I went back and read your post again and realized I jumped to conclusions when I saw Lovecraft's name in the same sentence, more or less, as Bill Cosby and Jimmy Saville. It was obviously not a direct comparison, like saying "XXX is worse than Hitler!", but examples of people from two separate categories. For what it's worth, I doff my virtual cap and offer an internet apology.

 

[Umbran]

I can't say that I am convinced that miscenegation is the central theme of Shadow over Innsmouth.

I read it again not so long ago and I think the miscegenation interpretation isn’t as conclusive as it’s become one the internet.

One can always find a second, third, and fourth interpretation, if you really want to.

Put in the context of other elements of the man's life and other writings (like, say, the name of his cat, and the racial diatribes in his journalism and personal letters) the pattern becomes rather harder to reasonably deny. Searching for other ways to interpret the work starts like looking like apologia, which can become problematic.

This thread isn't primarily about the one author, so how about we not argue too much over him, hey what?