What We Lose When We Eliminate Controversial Content

[Micah Sweet]

I don't think that matters to some people. What matters is that a group of players could play slavers if that's what they wanted because the game gives them the tools to do so. Back in 2018, there was some controversy surrounding Red Dead Redemption 2 because of players uploading video of their game play where they had Arthur Morgan, the game's main protagonist, beating up women, murdering them, and doing all sorts of horrible things like dumping them in mineshafts, feeding them to gators, etc., etc. This wasn't behavior the game encourages, you weren't given any rewards other than a miniscule amount of loot you might get from a body, but the game certainly allows such behavior. And for some people, they want the game designers to prevent that kind of thing from being possible.

I really disagree with forcing the issue in this way. You can't prevent bad people from doing bad things.

 

[Faolyn]

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.

It's pretty clear that Lovecraft considered having African or Jewish ancestry to be every bit as horrific as having tentacles.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

The "other things" I was referring to is general RPG-style muderhobory, which is (for good or for ill) not considered controversial content. Because everyone "whatabouts" slavery by saying "oh yeah, well what about violence, huh?"

They do that because it's right to, frankly. It's a bizarre societal double-standard, particularly because virtually all the major arguments used against slavery apply to violence and also to other forms of oppression.

As for it's "not considered controversial", buddy, it's on the way there. Just look at discussions in the same places you strongest objections to slavery being even portrayed in TTRPGs. I'm not saying "Hide your kids, the Federal Government WotC is coming to take your longsword D&D manual" or something. I'm saying the same sort of concerns that have rendered slavery not even acceptable as a background element are actually beginning to manifest re: murderhobo-ery and the generally violent and acquisitive aspects of certain TTRPGs.

To be fair though I think this is something of a pendulum, and I don't think it'll last. I there'll be plenty of PoC/minority RPG writers twenty+ years from now going "Wow they thought just pretending slavery wasn't a thing was cool and progressive? Man those now 60-something Millennials were dumb and/or just trying to avoid causing a scene rather than being actually progressive like us Gen AAs!".

It would be nice to assume that everyone who reads that will automatically think "ah, a place the PCs can destroy!" but you can't possibly believe that's the reality.

To be honest, I don't think anyone who wasn't already a sicko is going to think "Yay lets be slavers!". I very much think, based on long experiences of RPGs, that people who are messed-up like that, are messed-up regardless of the actual setting elements, unless the setting elements directly encourage them to be messed-up in like "It's okay to enslave goblins because they're not people!" kind of way - even then it only gets a few more people who were already on the edge of that.

I also feel like Star Wars really has a reckoning coming on droids lol though.

I feel like this argument works for 20-30 years ago, but less so in today's gaming environment. That doesn't mean we don't justify way too much violence, but I don't see it as a justification for your nihilistic view.

I honestly don't agree.

I feel like you're letting people off because they given "enemy combatant" status to enemies more clearly now, but it's still sick stuff if you actually think about it - especially in a game where you can KO at zero cost - there's no difficulty, it doesn't even reduce your damage (I think that was a miss on 5E's design, frankly).

Yes, but that happens in media with the good guys. Just look at the Rangers of Gondor ambushing the Easterlings in the LotR movies. People didn't blink an eye at that. But if they weren't at war or something, people would probably not view that the same. We condition ourselves to certain justifications, and within D&D that is still the same.

I would suggest that was:

A) 20 years ago, as you literally just said "things were different" about. I know, we're so old lol.

and

B) That's a war of survival, not some self-professed "good guys" going into the camp of the "bad guys" whilst half of them are asleep and systematically murdering and stealing all their stuff (which is still regularly seen in RPGs). Even if they're awake it's not morally better, just more "honourable". The Rangers are an actual military force, not a bunch of thugs like adventurers are.

Also people have been increasingly raising concerns re: the Easterlings and racism and the like in the intervening period. I think Tolkien is so beloved and so important his work is being and will continue to be "reclaimed" by PoC/minority writers in the same exact way Lovecraft's has been though.

And films and TV, even light-hearted stuff like Willow (TV) still regularly feature slavery as background/setting element, so why is it wrong for RPGs? The suggestion has been made (not by you) that it's because you actually play the characters and their actions. Okay, if we accept that, that 100% applies to violence as well.

My criticism is of the arguments deployed here, again, rather than the goal.

Yes, but that's my point: It's not all violence, but specific ones. We can ethically have problems with what society glorifies, but also worth noting that the window here has been shifting over the years. The same stuff that worked 30 years ago does not today. I've seen plenty of people rip into Gygax's ideas in recent years, and it's become harder and harder to defend.

I mean, maybe our points aren't that far apart then? But I think the issue remains that virtually all anti-slavery-as-a-background-element arguments that involve morals or ethics or the like apply far more strongly to violence, which is a much larger and more prominent part of the game. And theft, note.

I mean, that's what Erik Mona said. Disagree with him if you want, but I don't think you know as much on this as you think you do.

I think you'd be surprised.

But how we do it and which moments of violence we do matters, in my opinion. It's why certain kinds of violence are looked at as being more acceptable than others.

My point is we're still glorifying extremely sick violence, which is really just colonialist and imperialist and often basically Viking/Mongol-style rape-and-pillage dressed up nice and pretending to be "for good". I feel like essentially the same subject matter is just getting more and more glossy and PR'd up rather than really changing. This isn't just a TTRPG thing - indeed many TTRPGs are moving away from it far rapidly than D&D or were never into it - but also very prominent in videogames too. Thought hilariously I feel like maybe more videogames are willing to ask questions about it (but maybe there are just more videogames period).

And the sad thing is the real reason we're doing it is because it genuinely does tend to produce a fun game.

I will say this - if you're going to portray a society free of ills like misogyny, racism, homophobia, etc. it probably makes sense to largely exclude slavery as well. But at the same time, most of the greatest villains of human history, and many of the greatest villains from fiction, have been slavers or similar. The Nazis were, for example. And I think if we're going to designate bad guys, I don't we should necessarily exclude slavery from the list of things bad guys do. I do think it does get EXTREMELY PROBLEMATIC when societies which are supposedly "neutral" or "good guys" have any kind of slavery involvement/acceptance though. And that historically has been very common in D&D settings.

Frankly I blame the 20th century and historians and classicists, where slavery was absolutely downplayed super-hardcore, both in its importance and frequency, and how bad it was. And the reason it was downplayed so much was people wanted to lionize the Romans and the Spartans, two particularly unpleasant and slave-centric cultures.

It's pretty clear that Lovecraft considered having African or Jewish ancestry to be every bit as horrific as having tentacles.

To be fair he also considered having Irish or Scottish ancestry that horrific. The man was absolute super-whack-ass racist even by the standards of his day. He was literally so racist that despite being very aware of racism, when I first read his stories, I didn't quite get that they were racist, I thought he was literally talking about different species and the like. That delusion didn't last long - certainly not past the story where he talked about a guy's Scottish ancestry horrifying one of his characters and rendering the Scot subhuman.

With Lovecraft it's worth noting that his work has essentially been reclaimed, though. Many PoC/minority authors love the concepts in Lovecraft despite the demented racism (and I've read suggestions that it's actually less offensive than some of the more subtle and insidious racism of later authors, because it's so incoherent and extreme), and there's been a lot of cool stuff done with it in the last 20 years. So I think suggestions of removing him from lists are a bit misguided at this point.

Where the heck are we anymore with the crayon analogy? The whole thing feels like it is trying and failing to be too clever by half.

It is definitely an unhelpful/confusing analogy.

 

[JiffyPopTart]

Then your analogy, that removing "red" from the crayon limits the colors you can use/the stories you can tell, is by your own definition completely false.

Please explain I'm missing the logic.

Not having a topic available to use is a completely different concept than there not being a limit to the numbers of topics available. (Except I guess a theoretical limit to ones creativity).

Let's logic this out.

I draw a venn-diagram circle that is labeled "Every story imaginable".

Now I have to properly place a second circle in my venn-diagram labelled "Every story imaginable that doesn't contain controversial topic X"

That second circle will be entirely contained inside the first circle.

Therefore (logically) you have eliminated so.e stories that can be told.

That's literally all I have been saying.

 

[Justice and Rule]

@Ruin Explorer

I don't think we are as far apart as we come off, but I think you're a little too dismissive of the importance of justifications of violence (and other things) in our society. I think justifications, even if somewhat contradictory, are incredibly important to how these sorts of violence can continue to be accepted.

My main example would be police violence and the shift in acceptance of it post-2020. I think certain things are seen as justifiable until people are confronted with something that just isn't, at which point a lot of people are forced to change how they view things. I saw this a great deal in the last few years regarding police violence and I think a massive part of it is that the traditional justifications for such things basically fell apart for obvious contemporaneous reasons. Obviously it doesn't work on everyone, but at the same time I think it's a great example of a shift in view because the traditional justification was challenge/fell apart.

I'm really not trying to "let people off" as much as recognizing why they can make such distinctions. "Enemy combatant" is an excellent example of a justification that may or may not actually hold up under scrutiny, but is used broadly to dismiss stuff people might find uncomfortable if they looked closer (similar to the issue with police violence).

Interactive fiction presents a very different set of circumstances to traditional media, one in which we are not being shown something but are creating it ourselves. And yes, I think that generally necessitates different sorts of rules because of that sort of interaction; you need to be more careful with what you present and how you present it. With RPGs, we can make our own justifications, which means we understand our own reasoning more deeply than the people who may be watching. Of course, this can also backfire: I'm reminded of that time in Critical Role where a character killed an old woman who had attacked them and there was a row at the table because of it; to the person that did it, the logic was simple and obvious, but clearly it was not to the rest of the table). And yeah, we are responsible for the violence we cause and let happen at the table. I'm completely aware of that, which is why I always strive to be the good guy in my games (also I just like to be the good guy in my games). You should hold your players to account when they do naughty word things in the universe just like they might be in the real world for similar actions.

(Yes, I also agree there is totally a reckoning coming for Star Wars and droids. I think they already know it, too: there was some kids book on the side that commented that the view of droids was influenced by the events we see in the Prequels and wasn't the traditional view. A retcon, but maybe it's something. Thanks to A More Civilized Age for finding that tidbit.)

And really, I think things are changing as we go. We see people starting to be against this sort of stuff because people are looking more closely at our justifications and seeing the flaws in them. I think that's an important piece to why we are seeing change now, and why these issues are coming up. And maybe I'm naïve for taking Mona at his word, but he really didn't need to post a statement and still did. I do think that them taking out slavery is about being a more welcoming thing because it was specifically in response to someone calling him out on exactly what I'm talking about.

 

[Justice and Rule]

Please explain I'm missing the logic.

Not having a topic available to use is a completely different concept than there not being a limit to the numbers of topics available. (Except I guess a theoretical limit to ones creativity).

Let's logic this out.

I draw a venn-diagram circle that is labeled "Every story imaginable".

Now I have to properly place a second circle in my venn-diagram labelled "Every story imaginable that doesn't contain controversial topic X"

That second circle will be entirely contained inside the first circle.

Therefore (logically) you have eliminated so.e stories that can be told.

That's literally all I have been saying.

It's not about not having a topic, but simply not using a charged topic flippantly. No one has taken sexual assault out of the possible plots, but it doesn't see as much use because there needs to be care when it it is used. That's the argument being used for slavery: that it is being used flippantly as set dress, which trivializes the institution itself and the pain it causes.

 

[cranberry]

As someone who teaches history, the view that removing slavery from RPGs is somehow going to lead them to take me away is hilarious.

The people asking for this change are not the people I generally view as a threat to my profession, and the people who don't want me to teach about slavery are generally not on the same side as those who don't want it used as much in RPGs.

As a history teacher, I assume you're aware of times throughout history when "undesirables" were rounded up for a variety of reasons.

But, I'm sure it can't happen here...

 

[Justice and Rule]

As a history teacher, I assume you're aware of times throughout history when "undesirables" were rounded up for a variety of reasons.

I mean, yes. And the people who are asking for slavery to not be used flippantly are generally the same people who want me to teach slavery, like really teach it.

But, I'm sure it can't happen here...

It could, but again: the people who don't want as much slavery in their D&D aren't the same people who don't want slavery in their history. I'm not scared of the former, much more scared of the latter.

 

[Minion X]

It's pretty clear that Lovecraft considered having African or Jewish ancestry to be every bit as horrific as having tentacles.

Yes, but the central motif reflects his own anxieties over congential madness, as both his parents died in mental institutions. As far as I am aware, Lovecraft would not have personally feared having an undesirable ancestry.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

First they came for the RPG books
Then they came for the history books
Next they came for the history teachers
Then they came for the history wrong-thinkers
Then they made lists of their enemies and went after them
Finally, they came for me because there was no one left to persecute.

The road to hell is paved with good intentions...

Be careful what you wish for.

That removal or toning down of controversial/potentially bigoted material from a game leads down the path to facism is an amazing perversion of Niemöller’s admonition.