What We Lose When We Eliminate Controversial Content

[Umbran]

As a non-American my first thought here is why should the rest of the world be beholden to US history and current culture?

Market realities are what they are. WotC and Paizo are American companies, largely selling to American markets. US history and culture will dominate their work. Expecting otherwise is unrealistic.

 

[SteveC]

Except that’s not true.

Most of the fantasy society is on their side. Like virtually everyone in that society is on their side.

Wow. I mean the players aren't on their side. And as someone who played the A series of modules, where you're hired by governments to take care of the problem I'll disagree with that too. And the Dragon Kings are also massively evil as well. I think this is being deliberately obtuse, and that's coming from someone with a Slavic background. Do you just want to get into an argument here? Never mind, I am sad about this but I think we're done here.

 

[ilgatto]

Side note: while I don't recall if this was mentioned in the Dragon article, Charles R. Saunders also wrote a swords and sorcery series, Imaro, which is a lot of fun. The characters are more or less archetypes but the setting is very rich, and, well, swords and sorcery.

Kewl!

I've been reading up on Conan in Stygia for a current mini-campaign and I'm definitely adding this to the list.

 

[Justice and Rule]

And you find in the instance of slavery they cannot explore and be critiqued on?

I mean, we're literally in one right now. It's being critiqued for being used badly, with some of us saying it shouldn't be used so flippantly. Yet here we are, with people acting like we're taking colors out of the spectrum when it's more that we don't want people to constantly overuse a single one.

Sadly you may have me mixed up with someone else. That is NOT my argument. Given that you are unaware of what I said I put it to you that you likely don't have an issue with anything I've said.

I'm absolutely aware of it. @Umbran already identified the whataboutism you're trying to pull.

Also just to comment on this:

Seriously?

This is it right here. This is the 'disney-fication' the 'sanitization' the 'softening' whatever one wishes to call it without getting offended or offending others.

I had no idea they retconned this, and I'm now extremely glad I did not pay for this work.

Laughable.

I'm not sure this is Disney-fying as much as they had 4 short paragraphs to sum up his whole history and we got the typical sort of quality when it comes to Wizards adhering to their own stories.

It's that "for the moment" clause that raises red flags about slippery slopes and makes people curious about where things might ultimately end.

It's "for the moment" because things change. Acting like there are going to be firm rules going into the future when this is entirely contextual is foolish; we have to recognize that these are things that will be discussed rather than trying to establish universal hard rules.

That's also not a justification for incredibly slippery slopes, either. Those are just bad all on their own.

 

[Faolyn]

lol so you are doubling down on it being a 'straight white guy' thing?

Fair enough.

You're the one who brought them up, not me.

 

[Scribe]

I'm not sure this is Disney-fying as much as they had 4 short paragraphs to sum up his whole history and we got the typical sort of quality when it comes to Wizards adhering to their own stories.

There is approximately 0% chance I give Wizards the benefit of the doubt here.

 

[Scribe]

You're the one who brought them up, not me.

What We Lose When We Eliminate Controversial Content

If you go back a good stretch (I am going from memory here), I believe "A Mighty Fortress" (2nd ed AD&D, I think, and based on Western Europe) had all the languages and the barriers to communication were down right hilarious and troubling. The first sessions initial meet in an Inn segment, ended...

www.enworld.org

 

[Justice and Rule]

There is approximately 0% chance I give Wizards the benefit of the doubt here.

I don't think there's much benefit to this doubt, tbh.

 

[Faolyn]

Yeah, that was a huge missed opportunity on their part. They could have gone so much further with those than they did. Sub-Saharan Africa. Aboriginal Australia. Oceania. So much was left on the metaphorical table.

I often wonder why. They were clearly willing to try non-European settings--Planescape, Council of Wyrms, and a lot of the Realms shows that. Were they afraid they couldn't do it right, was it some sort of belief that gamers wouldn't want to play humans who weren't white, or was Africa just not cool in the same way that the popularity of kung fu movies and ninjas made Oriental Adventures cool?

 

[Faolyn]

What We Lose When We Eliminate Controversial Content

If you go back a good stretch (I am going from memory here), I believe "A Mighty Fortress" (2nd ed AD&D, I think, and based on Western Europe) had all the languages and the barriers to communication were down right hilarious and troubling. The first sessions initial meet in an Inn segment, ended...

www.enworld.org

I brought up sexuality, specifically in reference to a mock product featuring big-breasted women. You brought up skin color, apropos of nothing.