The implication here is that liking old media with problematic elements (and remember we're using your definition where all that matters is that someone might have a problem with it) is ok as long as you are doing so in spite of those things, and you darn well better make that clear to anyone listening lest they get the wrong idea. A culture of fear and persecution practically by definition.
No, it's just recognizing our past and our advancement past that. You can like things but also recognize that some of elements from things you like are harmful. You talk about it as a "culture of fear", but it's not as much as a culture of
introspection. So much of what we are talking about is just being like "Yeah, that's not good".
And it's not a culture of fear and persecution as much as it's just you
fearing persecution that really isn't coming. People are just saying "These are bad looks" and you seemingly can't get over the idea that they might be. People often grow attached to media and identify with it to a point that criticism against it feels like criticism against themselves. Maybe that's what's happening with you. But acting like this is about "persecution and fear" is more of a persecution complex than something real.
The common definition of problematic is far too broad to be useful.
I dunno, seems alright to me, the bigger point would be that problematic elements need to be examined in their individual contexts. People want hard rules for things that are inherently contextual and demand individual examination. They're just not going to get them because these sorts of things are individualized to a large extent. If that scares you, then I dunno what to tell you.
Not at all. It would be immediately obvious what a hypothetical reaction to a "true to source" would be about.
Slavery in 2023? Nope.
Eugenics? Nope.
A bunch of exposed skin? Nope.
That's the easy scatching the surface.
They would be angry it's done at all.
I mean you know it happens here, I shouldn't have to name drop when you are in liking the same posts that do this.
No, most of the posts I'm liking aren't do this, it is just easier to characterize their views this way because it's easier to fight against that rather than the what they are really saying.
The thing is, not everyone feels the same way as you, and your passion doesn't make your opinions on these matters more objectively true. Neither does mine, or literally anyone else's. Like
@Bedrockgames said, we have to agree to disagree.
Yes, but I find my arguments to be better than "I find it more important to keep slavery in the Realms because they were there before and the trueness of the setting is the most important thing to me". Again, most of the arguments I'm addressing are not actually looking at the issue, but trying to make things about bigger issues of "censorship" and "public shaming", which tells me that it's way more difficult than actually looking at what is being talked about.
Oh for the love of...
That's not calling people racist for liking Lovecraft,
that's asking people to put yourself into the shoes of the peoples that Lovecraft hated and despised. There is a real point to be made about our continued focus on him as an individual author, putting him front and center at this sort of stuff. It is not calling you racist, but asking you to imagine that you were called subhuman by an author and in 2023 watch as people support something that uses his legacy.
This is the reason why we need to be so welcoming: because it's so hard to divorce ourselves from certain elements that we should try in every instance because some things will be difficult to get rid of. This is what
@Hussar is talking about, and if you hadn't cut out the next paragraph which makes it clear the viewpoint he is talking from (someone having to listen about someone bitching about black hobbits in
Rings of Power). And it's also why we should avoid
So yeah, not a great example for you.
I have to step out, and I do want to get to your other points, but I do want to say I am not concern trolling. I am expressing my genuine opinion about these topics as they've emerged in a hobby I work in and care about (been playing since 1986). I think when you just dismiss people who disagree with your positions as trolls, you start ignoring large swaths of opinion that are out there. And my opinions are pretty mild to be honest. If this is trolling to you, then I don't know what I can say. Most of my positions are fairly left of center, in some instances even further left than people calling for stuff to be taken down (and I only mention left, because right seems to be the issue for a lot of posters here).
No, you
are. You can talk about being genuine in your views, and I believe that, but what you are doing is concern trolling about public shaming and censorship rather than engage with what we are actually talking about. Point in case:
Except public shaming has been a pretty consistent tool of enforcing social conformity in ways that not only shatter lives, but strip people of their agency and ability to freely express who they are and what they believe. I mean I am not accusing you of using this as a tactic, but I was responding to a poster who said quite clearly they fully supported the return of public shaming. I don't care if it is being used to decry people who like old sword and sorcery tropes or if it is being use to humiliate a woman believed to have violated some rule of propriety in Colonial New England, it is a bad tool for social control with a long, long history of abuse.
And I will say, there is shunning in the game community for these kinds of things and other perceived offenses. I have seen it, and have been on the receiving end of it. It isn't coming from everyone, and I do think, hopefully, it is starting to wane, but it has unfortunately been a tool people have deployed in debates about games and in controversies surrounding games. It isn't a persecution complex to observe what everyone here can easily see has been happening in the RPG community the past 5-8 years
You're so concerned with the "shunning" that you might get that you really just don't seem to understand the struggle of people who are actually affected by this sort of thing. You talk about "Sword and Sorcery tropes", but when I questioned you in the previous thread about changing it to things like contracts with gladiators, you said it could be done. If it can, why not? At the end, I feel like the arguments are not actually about the content, but broad, nebulous reasons that people get "shunned" for which I literally have not seen in this community. It's a bunch of fears over nothing.
There also needs to be room for disagreement about what is problematic. It is fine to have the conversation. But if you don't convince someone, it might not be that they can't recognize the truth. They may simply have taken another view of the trope than you have, and that is okay.
There is, but you're not disagreeing with what is "problematic" and just focusing on concepts like censorship and public shaming. If you want to talk about how slavery is not problematic, be my guest. But at the end, people seem to avoid that argument because I think they know it's a losing one. It's easier to talk about nebulous ideas of "persecution" that haven't happened and have no examples I can think of.
If people were just taking that first passage and saying let's change the wording there because it can be read as X, I don't think people would object. But insisting that core elements of the setting and genre, like slavery, like the harshness of the planet that the inhabitants have physically adapted to, and a world with a survival of the fittest morality (not because its right, or because that's what the designers believe, but because that is what can happen when society collapses because greed has caused the planet to die), just can't be tolerated now....I don't know. This age, for all its flaws, at least seems socially conscious. I think socially conscious gamers can handle those themes.
Elements of things can be changed. People have pointed out a variety of ways where it doesn't actually have to be slavery. You talk about the "harshness of the planet", but
slavery is not the only way to do oppression. This comes off as a complete lack of imagination. Multiple people have come up with multiple interesting solutions to this, some of which would be
way more interesting and allegorical.
You talk about "socially conscious gamers", but I think most "socially conscious gamers" would feel squicked by the idea, and more that those who aren't conscious who would be most okay with it.
And again this is part of where we just have to agree to disagree. You think it is problematic and there is something wrong with continuing to use those tropes. I think it isn't problematic and people are reading too much into elements like Slavery (or misreading why they are there). I don't think we are going to bridge that gap. And that is fine, but the explanation for the failure of us to bridge that doesn't have to be that one of us is refusing to see the truth, or not listening, or not caring, or wants to destroy the hobby, etc. We just disagree.
I think saying I'm "reading too much into elements like slavery" misses a lot of what happens around that stuff. The failure to bridge the gap is that those who are defending this aren't engaging on the same ground and are more interested in the persecution of themselves as an element than actually discussing the necessity and replaceability of it as a game.
Also learn to multiquote. It's just tapping a button.
