What We Lose When We Eliminate Controversial Content

[Micah Sweet]

So you are also making your players get STDs, PTSD, and infected wounds, right? You're making sure they suffer lasting scars after every battle, and melting their faces off when a dragon breathes fire or acid on them? (I had a player once who refused to take any spells that inflict acid damage because she had seen photos of women who'd suffered from having acid thrown on them. Even after we assured her that it was magic and didn't leave lasting disfigurements.)

If you're not including things like that, then you don't actually care about verisimilitude. What you care about is things that provide fun plot points for the game.

I would actually be happy to include those things, by the way, when it is practical to do so and provided I don't get push-back from my players. My own rules are generally working towards that goal.

 

[Alzrius]

So you are also making your players get STDs, PTSD, and infected wounds, right? You're making sure they suffer lasting scars after every battle, and melting their faces off when a dragon breathes fire or acid on them? (I had a player once who refused to take any spells that inflict acid damage because she had seen photos of women who'd suffered from having acid thrown on them. Even after we assured her that it was magic and didn't leave lasting disfigurements.)

If you're not including things like that, then you don't actually care about verisimilitude. What you care about is things that provide fun plot points for the game.

There's a distinction which your post here doesn't recognize, which is that world-building is different from what the PCs interact with in the course of a game session. Those are two entirely different modes of interacting with the setting.

Even leaving aside issues of balancing verisimilitude with "game-ability" (for lack of a better term), i.e. why we use hit points rather than hit locations and wound-tracking, world-building involves constructing the "how" of the world on a macro-scale. Making an individual check to see if someone contracts an infection after being wounded takes place in an entirely different mode, as it's a game-play issue as much as it is a lore and backdrop issue.

So yes, you do still care about verisimilitude if you have slavery in your game but don't include STDs. The watchword is consistency within the context of the setting as a whole, not "every bad thing must be represented."

 

[Imaro]

No one is pretending it doesn't exist; given that you just complained about your argument being misrepresented, I'm surprised that you're misrepresenting mine now. The issue is that Google in no way ameliorates the difficulties of a small publisher reaching potential customers when a vocal minority has taken it upon themselves to try and make that as difficult as possible for said publisher. That EN World has an entire forum dedicated to promotions and press releases makes that clear enough. That Google exists is clearly a minor (at most) part of any company's strategy of raising awareness, since it's obvious that you have to actively make people aware of your product rather than hope they stumble across you the way they would on a Google search.

You are wrong. Google does in fact help to ameliorate those difficulties in allowing people who want a particular niche product to be able to find said niche product.... even when it is not hosted on a large storefront or big site. If you're claiming these same people would choose not to buy the product because it was being disparaged by those who don't like it... Why on earth would they be looking for a product if they cared that said product was being lambasted by people who don't share their interest?

Simple example... porn. No one and I mean no one has a problem getting it even with all the slack sex industry workers take and those who find it morally offensive, and etc. Your argument just doesn't make sense. It's more likely in the case of these products being published... the market just isn't there or it isn't that big.

I was under the impression that vilifying someone for making, selling, and enjoying a piece of fiction that you don't like was a self-evidently bad thing to do; clearly, you disagree. Likewise, capitalism and business are by their very nature amoral practices, but that's not the same for someone trying to inflict economic harm on someone else because doing so satisfies their own sense of righteous indignation.

Again, you have very right to express your opinion on someone's fictional work. Am I wrong because I would tell someone asking me about Lovecraft's work... He's a racist and there are undertones of that through vast portions of his work, same with Howard. Some would claim I am vilifying the man, I don't think I am.

Are these hypothetical people? Do you have an example of this because I'd love to see the type of "righteous Indignation" you're talking about and whether it really is as cut and dry as you seem to be making it out to be.

 

[cranberry]

Yep because they've really been outpacing WotC during their run with 5e... Wait no, the game is selling better than it has in years with no sign of slowing down. The thing is you need that base so you can then choose your particular add-ons. The market for a purely grimdark, or a sword and slavery, or even romantic fantasy game is going to be magnitudes narrower than a more vanilla, kitchen sink game... especially one that you can customize in those ways if you want to through either official sourcebooks or 3PP sourcebooks...

That was pre OGL fiasco.

Their sales volumes are a function of their existing size...

The last few adventures have not been as well received as earlier ones, and it seems likely that they'll be allocating more resources to the VTT side of the business going forward, potentially harming the quality of the other divisions.

DM's have always had the ability to alter adventures and "customize" to their preference

 

[Imaro]

See to me, the main reasons to hold anything against a company are bad business practices, anti-inclusiveness, and bad product. Making a product you don't like shouldn't be held against the company, instead it is a reason to not buy that product.

Apparently a company choosing not to make a product is a reason though...

 

[AnotherGuy]

So you are also making your players get STDs, PTSD, and infected wounds, right? You're making sure they suffer lasting scars after every battle, and melting their faces off when a dragon breathes fire or acid on them? (I had a player once who refused to take any spells that inflict acid damage because she had seen photos of women who'd suffered from having acid thrown on them. Even after we assured her that it was magic and didn't leave lasting disfigurements.)

If you're not including things like that, then you don't actually care about verisimilitude. What you care about is things that provide fun plot points for the game.

Isn't interesting that those that reply with, enjoy and thumbs-up the whataboutism posts in this thread don't feel the need to do so now.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Apparently a company choosing not to make a product is a reason though...

Oh no. My issues with WotC fall squarely into bad business practices and bad product. I would be fine actually with them making a sanitized Dark Sun at this point, because as much as I would dislike and not purchase the actual product, its existence would open up the setting on the DMsGuild, where products I might actually buy could be published.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Isn't interesting that those that reply with, enjoy and thumbs-up the whataboutism posts in this thread don't feel the need to do so now.

I believe a couple of us did reply to that post.

 

[AnotherGuy]

I believe a couple of us did reply to that post.

I meant Faolyn just used a whataboutism and no one (who enjoys shutting down others convos for reasons of "whataboutism") called her out on it.

The argument she used was "If you like authenticity hence you want slavery then why don't you use STDs to be authentic?" If that is not a whataboutism I don't know what is.

 

[Faolyn]

Good lord, this thread....

Previously in this thread I have stated that you shouldn't remove the red crayon from the box, because it limits possibilities in storytelling.

@Faolyn (and others) replied that I can color infinite pictures without a red crayon, so I shouldn't miss it being gone if it were removed.

Now they say they use a red crayon in their coloring.

Now you are implying nobody has ever said to not use a red crayon.....

Maybe I'm doing a bad job of explaining myself.

I can write a game that uses slavery in it. I do so knowing what would upset my friends and, therefore, how not to include those things.

I don't need to include slavery. The setting I wrote that has slavery is not a medieval fantasy game. I have come up with a multitude of medieval fantasy settings (and non-medieval fantasy settings) and none of them had slavery in them. None of them needed to have slavery. None of them were less interesting or realistic or rich because they lacked slavery. What I have said is that the red crayon is not necessary for a game to be good.

Of all the settings I have created over the decades, this is the only one that has slavery, and it's a post-post apocalypse weird/eldritch survival horror setting that takes place entirely within an extradimensional big box store. It's not Mad Max in an IKEA, but it's close enough. The slavery is limited to two cultures, and I didn't just throw slavery in there because "it makes sense" or "it's realistic" or even because it makes for a plot point. I did it because of careful considerations during world-building, and I went over those considerations with both my co-creator and the player who is playing the ex-slave, and made modifications based on their input. I made sure to include ways, both legal and otherwise, to escape slavery--including having the largest and most important settlement have a law that any slave who enters it is automatically freed and given sanctuary.

No company is ever going to be able to have that level of involvement simply because they can't tailor it to every player, and companies like WotC have not yet shown that they can handle the topic particularly well, even if they have the best of intentions.