WotC WotC needs an Elon Musk

[Alzrius]

If language and nudity are worth an R rating, wouldn't sexual assault also be worth an R rating? I've certainly never seen it in a PG-13 context.

I'm not sure if just discussing it, as opposed to showing it (which we aren't in The Devil's Advocate; the main character's wife tells him about it after the fact), would necessarily qualify for an R rating. In the Wes Craven movie Red Eye, the main character talks about her having been sexually assaulted in the past, and that film was PG-13.

 

[Maxperson]

I need to explain your games to you now? You'd think with how many times you've quoted old, out-of-date lore and setting details and claiming that they must still be true, that you wouldn't need me to point them out.

Hasn't happened. It's also true in 5e. Read the DMG and you will see the positive and negative planes as default.

Remathilis has me blocked. I cannot read his post, so I thought you were just posting out in the wild. A post which followed quite closely to my post discussing why the elemental planes aren't too useful. And instead of me saying "no, these things aren't true" I said that the planes weren't serving the purpose you seemed to think.

Fair enough. Blocking sucks that way.

I do not care that the "Great Wheel" isn't a real wheel. That's what the text you quoted talked about. That the planes aren't actually arranged in a wheel shape. That's why they talk about not being able look at Mount Celestial from the outside. I still call it the "Great Wheel" because... that's its name. So, stop acting like I don't understand that the Great Wheel Cosmology isn't literally organized in a Wheel shape.

What I was referring to is that Bytopia is tied to the Great Wheel, because it is in the Great Wheel, but it isn't in the World Axis. Maybe you don't believe me, but here are all the locations officially listed in the World Axis.

It is in the world axis. And the great tree. And... I quoted you the section from the 5e DMG that says that it's so. It might not have been part of the world axis in 4e, but it is now, just like Eberron was isolated in 4e but isn't now.

Prime Material Plane
Astral Sea

• The Verdant Isles of Arvandor
• The Red Prison of Carceri
• The Radiant Throne of Celestia
• The Iron Fortress of Chernoggar
• Haemnathuun, the Blood Lord
• The Bright City of Hestavar
• The Darkened Pillars of Kalandurren
• The Nine Hells of Baator
• The Howling Depths of Pandemonium
• The Gray Waste of Pluton
• The White Desert of Shom
• Tu'Narath
• The Endless Night Tytherion

Elemental Chaos

• The Abyss
• The City of Brass
• The Keening Delve
• The Ninth Bastion
• Zerthadlun

The Feywild
The Shadowfell

Do you notice some missing names? Like... Bytopia? Dothion, Shurrock? These places don't exist in the World Axis. So, as soon as they say "one of the fundamental planes is Bytopia" they have staked out the claim that the Great Wheel, even if it is in the shape of a Trapezoid, is the reality of the setting. THIS is what I am talking about. Bytopia is part of the Great Wheel, but it isn't part of many other cosmologies.

Or exists by a different name in the world axis, or the world axis thinks two similar planes are the same. In any case the 5e DMG places all of the planes into the world axis. The world axis has changed for 5e.

You realize that the post you are talking about was in response to someone who was asking why we would allow violence if we don't allow Sexual Assault, right?

Sure, but he wasn't saying sexual assault was okay. He was saying that the same argument being used to say sexual assault should be removed, also says that all violence should be removed. He was pointing out a flawed argument, not saying that sexual assault was good in the game.

So, as part of a larger discussion, your post followed that context. I'm sorry if you didn't read enough posts, or if that user has you blocked, but your lack of understanding of the context of the discussion is not my problem.

The context issue is yours. The context was pointing out that, "Hey, your argument also means that everything bad has to be removed."

 

[humble minion]

The developers missed an opportunity in not holding it up as an example of the power of belief in the setting - it's the most influential place in the setting simply because people believe it is, and for no reason other than that

The problem with that is that pretty much every inhabited prime world has a much bigger population than Sigil, and all their inhabitants probably think that THEIR world is the centre of the universe. If it comes to weight of belief, Sigil ain't gonna win.

(And of course if you reeeeaaally stretch the notion of 'canon', then you can say that since Ravnica, Strixhaven and Theros now exist in D&D cosmology, then so do all the MtG planeswalkers that have been to those places, and that ARGUABLY extends D&D cosmology to include MtG worlds in general, and as there's recently been a Warhammer 40k MtG set, then all the teeming quintillions of inhabitants of the Imperium of Man in some deeply unpleasant out-of-the-way Prime who believe wholeheartedly that Terra is the most important place in the multiverse are also now D&D canon, and their conviction is going to tip the belief scales regardless of what the inhabitants of Sigil think. Yeah, there's a reason that most Planescape stuff happened in the Inner/Outer Planes rather than on the zillions of Prime Material planes that were probably equally accessible from Sigil if you had the right portal key - when you start to think about infinite alternate Primes, some of the basic setting assumptions look a bit wobbly)

 

[Micah Sweet]

So, your preferences are entirely benign, and I'm terrible for not just accepting that.

My preferences are fine... as long as I'm fine denying other people their interests and not including them.

Double Standard much?





Sure they can inform their backstory. So can having a puppy. Backstories are choices. They are things we can decide. And maybe we should be REALLY CAREFUL about pulling the trigger on making some of the single most vile things parts of the game.

Also, movies and TV shows are quite different than RPGs in this respect. Just because it shows up in a movie, doesn't mean it should be in official products.

I'm not saying we shouldn't be careful. I'm just not comfortable with a blanket veto of something that exists both in the real world and in numerous examples of the fantasy genre, even as a background element.

 

[Faolyn]

I'm not saying we shouldn't be careful. I'm just not comfortable with a blanket veto of something that exists both in the real world and in numerous examples of the fantasy genre, even as a background element.

It's just, what does sexual assault add to a game that regular, non-sexual violence doesn't?

 

[Vaalingrade]

It's just, what does sexual assault add to a game that regular, non-sexual violence doesn't?

The veneer of being grown up and mature by focusing on and trivializing for entertainment a topic that grown up and mature people don't like focusing on for entertainment.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Hasn't happened. It's also true in 5e. Read the DMG and you will see the positive and negative planes as default.

I'm not continuing to beat my face against the wall of your denial

It is in the world axis. And the great tree. And... I quoted you the section from the 5e DMG that says that it's so. It might not have been part of the world axis in 4e, but it is now, just like Eberron was isolated in 4e but isn't now.

Or exists by a different name in the world axis, or the world axis thinks two similar planes are the same. In any case the 5e DMG places all of the planes into the world axis. The world axis has changed for 5e.

So now the World Axis must look identical the Great Wheel? That is "to each their own", just forcing your version onto everyone else?

What you qouted was an explanation that the Great Wheel may not literally be a wheel. That is the only point of that text. But now you are taking it to shoe-horn things that do not exist in a specific cosmology to say that they MUST exist, and so your version being the default is just an arrangement and not making it more difficult to run anything else.

Which, as I literally demonstrated, is WRONG. By listing the Great Wheel planes as the default, they are shaping things to match that version. They may say you can do what you want, but they certainly aren't telling anyone about how the World Axis version of the cosmology works. I don't have a blurb talking about the Elemental Chaos and how to navigate it after all, instead I get four different entries each covering the plane of fire, earth, air and water. Because that is how things work.

Sure, but he wasn't saying sexual assault was okay. He was saying that the same argument being used to say sexual assault should be removed, also says that all violence should be removed. He was pointing out a flawed argument, not saying that sexual assault was good in the game.

Except, the argument isn't flawed. As I pointed out. It isn't an apples to apples comparison, it is an apples to pineapples comparison. May sound the same, may both be fruit, but they are VERY different.

The context issue is yours. The context was pointing out that, "Hey, your argument also means that everything bad has to be removed."

Except it doesn't, as explained. As, quite literally was the point of my post you quoted to try and "gotcha!" me

 

[Chaosmancer]

I'm not saying we shouldn't be careful. I'm just not comfortable with a blanket veto of something that exists both in the real world and in numerous examples of the fantasy genre, even as a background element.

DnD is a game you should be comfortable handing to a 13 to 15 year old. Are you comfortable having cartoons aimed at pre-teens discussing sexual assault in them? Rape? Even as a background element?

AGAIN, the root of this discussion was pointing out that an official setting, which focused on sexual assault, was taken out/altered. No one is saying you can't include it in your home game if you really really must. We are questioning why you feel like you really really must include sexual assault, but that's mostly because you and others keep insisting and trying to argue for its inclusion.

 

[Scribe]

It's just, what does sexual assault add to a game that regular, non-sexual violence doesn't?

Beyond the trope of 'this individual is REALLY evil', I dont know. I never touch the stuff, it (and anything involving kids) has no place in any game I run or participate in.

 

[Incenjucar]

Every single version of the planes is optional. The existence of a given plane in the material only matters for the purpose of a handful of game rules, which are themselves easy enough to fudge. Presenting a few defaults provides a shared story for the community to chatter about, but binds no DM. You can put every planar location in the material plane if you want. The sun is the plane of fire, the moon is the plane of earth, the shadowfell is the underdark, the Feywild is inside the trees and rocks of the truly wild places, etc.