AD&D 2nd Edition, for one. Did it provide rules on evil alignment? Yes. But in reading the PHB and DMG of that edition it was strongly indicated and advised against making evil characters. The idea of "heroic/good as focus" in games goes back to at least 1989, and likely no doubt further back than that. AD&D 2E did this back then, of course, because of the existing moral panic of the day, and that is much the same reason we see this happening today.
100% sure. It was a big deal at the time that AD&D 2E explicitly called the idea out and eschewed elements from 1st edition that leaned into the notion of evil PCs. As the game developed some things crept in, such as Ravenloft, with the intent of providing a punishment framework the DM could use to impact players who had their PCs commit evil acts. The end result in Ravenloft, if you may recall, was to watch your PC go monstrous and become an NPC, after all.
Slave tribes.
More blatant misrepresentations. It never fails to get here when someone disagrees with you about something that you feel strongly about. Nowhere did I say or imply that I was making an equivalence. You need to take a step back, breathe, and then read what I say. You don't win the internet or even win points by misrepresenting what is being said.
And I said why, which was the answer.
Because it's far more difficult to add in. If they remove it, they will have to completely alter how Dark Sun society works. That means that I would have to rework the entire setting to add it back in, unlike the Wall of the Faithless.
Okay. And? Since you acknowledge that it has nothing to do with real life, what's the problem? Bad things happen in D&D. That's why the PCs can be heroes. That's a lot of work. A lot more than removal would be for you.
I only need to name one. Slavery. Remove slavery itself and it would make Dark Sun totally different and that can't be replicated serfs, and absolutely pain workers wouldn't even come close. At least serfs are in the same neighborhood.
I just quoted the 2e PHB saying that there were no limitations. It tried to discourage evil, but there was no RAW ban on evil PC alignments and in fact they were expressly allowed. Read the 2e PHB page 47.
It did not ban evil alignments at all. Page 47 of the 2e PHB.
Well, you are correct (my intent was not to suggest it was banned, but eschewed/not favored), but the feel and approach of the day felt fairly heavy handed to players who migrated to AD&D 2E from 1st edition or other RPGs. The excision of obviously evil classes and races (for the time) was primarily why I felt it was 100% obvious their intent, as well as many, many sourcebooks that followed and tended to move players away from that concept space.
They very strongly tried to discourage people from playing evil PCs and be the heroes. The lack of half-orc and assassin, coupled with their myriad of reasons why evil might not be a good idea clearly showed that.
I saw it sometimes. It was uncommon, but then it was just as uncommon in 1e in my experience. Everyone know that switched to 2e did so because it clarified some rules and in my opinion was a better edition than 1e, but we didn't alter how we played our characters.
I saw you entered into the discussion and responded because I wasn't sure if you saw my other post on the matter.
No they didn't prohibit evil as an alignment, they simply provided a lot of context advising against it. It's probably not seen as big a deal today, but in 1989 it was a huge shift to go from 1E which was "anything goes, and the assassin must be evil" to 2E which was "assassin is a thing you can do but not a class, and you can be evil, but its not a good idea and we will de-emphasize the entire focus of the game on campaigns that could allow for evil conduct."
Do not patronize me.
No, that's not an answer. You liking something and that something being necessary for a setting are two incredibly different things--unless you are claiming that your likes and dislikes are the only thing that matters when it comes to a setting.
No, you wouldn't have to completely alter how Dark Sun society works. No slaves, then you add serfs or workers or even short-term indentured servants. Make the gladiators there for similar reasons. QED.
I already said: It's insulting to a real life group that is often, in real life, told that we deserve to be tortured in hell. Do you honestly not understand that?
Really? Because your next paragraph states that removing it would make Dark Sun totally different, which would in fact be "a lot of work." So it's OK for me to do the work to remove it but not for you to do the lot of work to add it back in, even though that work was already done for you in 2e and 4e?
So your answer to why slavery is needed is because slavery is needed, and the only reason it's needed is because you can't imagine using something other than slaves. Bravo. Well done.
Pretty much....in my own groups back then we all tended to play as we always had, but that often was more good/heroic anyway. In a twist of irony, I recall a game in 1992ish when my group had a guest player. He ran a chaotic evil thief and really aggravated the group, so they tricked him and sold him into slavery and had him Shanghai'd off to some distant kingdom (oh, yeah, welcome to the 90's!). I probably would have handled that differently as a DM today, lol....I'm not very tolerant of inter-party conflicts that are clearly derailing the group anymore.They very strongly tried to discourage people from playing evil PCs and be the heroes. The lack of half-orc and assassin, coupled with their myriad of reasons why evil might not be a good idea clearly showed that.
I saw it sometimes. It was uncommon, but then it was just as uncommon in 1e in my experience. Everyone know that switched to 2e did so because it clarified some rules and in my opinion was a better edition than 1e, but we didn't alter how we played our characters.
I saw you entered into the discussion and responded because I wasn't sure if you saw my other post on the matter.
I seem to recall that a lot of that stuff was soft-added back in through the PHB Handbooks, the brown-cover volumes. Like assassin became a kit or something. I know when someone wanted to play an assassin, I just told them to break out the 1E PHB and do it, we never really sweated the small stuff on compatibility issues.
Part of it might have been things like the rise in White Wolf (and the overall move away from pablum in the 90s). If you look at something as simple as sitcom TV from that Era, Seinfeld was a direct response to the emphasis on overly wholesome shows littered with very special episodes and learning lessons. Being a bit more transgressive was cool, so I do think some of that crept into the content more and more (just a sense, it isn't like I have gone back and quantified it)
Not in Dark Sun. Plenty of other setting ideas that have similar themes but don't use things you don't like though.
Personally, I used material from 1e and 2e interchangeably and simultaneously.
