D&D General Why Enworld should liberate D&D from Hasbro

[popuman]

You can’t always be ideologically neutral. Take questions like “Is this group of people we’re considering selling to a bunch of delusional perverts who need to be suppressed?” And “Is that group genetically inferior in cognition to the point too few of them could actually play our games and genetically fit for servitude so that if we had games they could play we should be selling them to their masters for use at rheir masters’ discretion?” These are live issues in America, and any answer you provide commits you to something.

Not only the US (America is a whole hemisphere. Heh), but the rest of the world as well. Every time I hear a call for “ideological neutrality” or “objectivity”, I cringe, but that’s just me.

 

[The Firebird]

Check out this list of free 5e adventures: List of free DnD campaigns - Dungeon Masters Only - Dungeons & Dragons Discussion - D&D Beyond Forums - D&D Beyond

Just looking at just the WotC-branded adventures: "Death House" has married heterosexual parents. "Elfhunt" has multiple romantic heterosexual relationships. "Hoard of the Dragon Queen" has another heterosexual couple with kids. And that's where I stopped checking. There's no shortage of heterosexual representation.

Thanks for finding those! I guess reflecting on it I think there are two related issues that contribute to the debate. (1) to what extent is the background representation of NPCs/PCs reflect heteronormative assumptions? (2) to what extent are PCs expected to engage in romance as part of gameplay?

Looking at the whole trajectory of the game, (1) and (2) are both high early on...there is the artwork we mentioned, and then the stories that Gary Alan Fine reported (but that isn't romance, is it?) There is a feeling that sex is part of the game and something that is ok for players to talk about.

Then, I think there is a decrease in (2), but less so in (1), vs time. The 3.5 MM, where I started, has a lot of exploitative art. I don't remember to what extent PC romance was a thing then--it wasn't for us. And by the PHB 2014, we have little exploitative artwork but still the heteronormative background material. Given that is the only player facing book and it doesn't have depictions of romance, that doesn't seem to be something the PCs are expected to engage in.

I'll add that a strictly aromantic approach to PCs doesn't negate heteronormativity...as has been mentioned here, not taking a side can be read as defaulting to the norms that are already in place.

The recent push then has been to change both (1) and (2) simultaneously. Less heteronormativity and more PC romance. It makes sense to me that the two would move in parallel especially with the shift in target audience. Given the acceptance of heteronormativity there is less desire to construct fantasy worlds supporting it.

 

[Umbran]

D&D should be ideologically neutral.

When the world contains multiple, sometimes mutually exclusive ideologies, that may not be possible.

Nor may it be desirable, or moral/ethical to remain neutral - while D&D started with this tidy idea that ideologies square off over a neutral center, reality is not a block of nine alignments.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

Maybe I should have said it with other words. D&D should seem ideologically neutral, or at least without ideological prejudices against any section of the consumers. We need enough diplomacy and delicacy to avoid possible troubles linked with the cancelation culture.

Some times there are "jealousy" because when you show support to a group then other feel "forgotten" or desplaced. You could be losing clients because these don't feel "wellcome"

The key is to know how to introduce new things in the right way. For example Miss Marvel/Kamala Khan from the canceled Marvel's Avenger wasn't too popular, but the same character in the new videogame "Marvel Tokon: Fighting Souls" is wellcome.

The consumer can't suspect the artist or author could suffer some ideological prejudice because then they will distrust her and they will not want to keep listening her. Let's remember the controversy about flower wars with the last DC animated movie "Tlaxcaltec Batman: Blood Empire".

 

[Autumnal]

In fact, though, the opposite is true. John Scalzi gained readers and customers for his stands on various issues of the day. So has Larry Correia, for a strongly opposed set of views. The customers each one loses are made up by others who find the author laying out what they think should be simple common sense. T. Kingfisher is hugely successful with protagonists and plots that are explicitly supportive of a bunch of marginalized and abused groups. Meanwhile, fantasies and romances aimed at the tradwife community flourish, in part, on plots and worlds in which T. Kingfisher protagonist types get re-widened.

And there are a huge number of cases like that. The “don’t offend anyone” strategy applies most when you’ve got a very strong mainstream culture and some strong suppression, intentional and otherwise, of alternative venues. Neither of those is true for the culture most of us are living in at the moment.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

reality is not a block of nine alignments

Chaotic Neutral propaganda!

 

[bedir than]

Some times there are "jealousy" because when you show support to a group then other feel "forgotten" or desplaced. You could be losing clients because these don't feel "wellcome"

Every company loses customers because of the choices they make.
They should choose which customers to lose -- those that think large swaths of people aren't human should be lost.

 

[Gradine]

You can’t always be ideologically neutral. Take questions like “Is this group of people we’re considering selling to a bunch of delusional perverts who need to be suppressed?” And “Is that group genetically inferior in cognition to the point too few of them could actually play our games and genetically fit for servitude so that if we had games they could play we should be selling them to their masters for use at rheir masters’ discretion?” These are live issues in America, and any answer you provide commits you to something.

I agree with your point here, but I would ask you to make it without parroting extremely offensive, bigoted talking points. I come to this little corner of the internet to avoid seeing phrases like "delusional perverts"

 

[Autumnal]

Sure. Sorry about that. My apologies. I was not at my best last night and didn’t bring the level of self-scrutiny and rewording the subject demands.

 

[Umbran]

Chaotic Neutral propaganda!

Fine, let me put it in D&D terms.
If one ideology is Lawful Evil, and it is opposed by a Chaotic Evil ideology, being neutral between them still leaves you Evil.