Your table is YOUR table.

[Scribe]

Was anyone going to quit D&D because Orcs were evil as they have been from day one?

The Coach of Team Canada in response to a question on if the 3 early fights in the Canada vs US game was going to 'turn people off'.

"I didn't see anyone heading for the exits."

 

[KYRON45]

Is there some reason why you can't do both? For sure you shouldn't buy a game you morally object to. Why can't you also say you're not happy about all the depictions of <that thing you hate> in the books? Don't get me wrong, it's good to remind people that they don't need to follow the books exactly, but I don't think we should use that argument to try to shut down discussion or complaints. And how far would this protection extend? Is the only rule that matters the ones that you use at your table? Are you not allowed to complain about an imbalanced class, or poorly implemented mechanic?

I would use a cookbook as an analogy, rather than music. Certainly, you know your tastes better than the authors do, and can modify the recipe as you see fit. If you like spicy chili, then add a few more peppers in than the recipe requires. If you can't handle spice, maybe don't use any at all. That's all good, and sometimes it is useful to remind people that they don't need to follow every line of the recipe.

But if a cookbook is published that calls for pineapples and ranch in the chili, you're allowed to complain about the recipe. The way you cook at home isn't "the only thing that matters". If a recipe is bad, then it's bad, and you're allowed to complain about it. I don't even think there's anything wrong with 2024 orcs, it's just the general argument that bothers me.

Complain all you want....this is the internet. Opinions abound.
Just know that every time a complaint is posted, it spawns 10 other complaints. Some of those complaints masquerade as opinions, or critiques or "just askings" or "just sayins".
Come on in, the water is warm.

 

[Reynard]

Is there some reason why you can't do both? For sure you shouldn't buy a game you morally object to. Why can't you also say you're not happy about all the depictions of <that thing you hate> in the books? Don't get me wrong, it's good to remind people that they don't need to follow the books exactly, but I don't think we should use that argument to try to shut down discussion or complaints. And how far would this protection extend? Is the only rule that matters the ones that you use at your table? Are you not allowed to complain about an imbalanced class, or poorly implemented mechanic?

I would use a cookbook as an analogy, rather than music. Certainly, you know your tastes better than the authors do, and can modify the recipe as you see fit. If you like spicy chili, then add a few more peppers in than the recipe requires. If you can't handle spice, maybe don't use any at all. That's all good, and sometimes it is useful to remind people that they don't need to follow every line of the recipe.

But if a cookbook is published that calls for pineapples and ranch in the chili, you're allowed to complain about the recipe. The way you cook at home isn't "the only thing that matters". If a recipe is bad, then it's bad, and you're allowed to complain about it. I don't even think there's anything wrong with 2024 orcs, it's just the general argument that bothers me.

I think the problem here is you are applying an objective definition of "bad" which really doesn't work with regards to food, music or RPGs.

 

[Reynard]

Is this still the "our Table" thread or has it been polymorphed (like so many others) into a "I hate WotC" thread?

It's like a few of us decide to discuss cupcakes and people arrive demanding to discuss how carrot cake is evil. OVER and OVER and OVER.

Is that disruptive?

I haven't seen that. But then I have a pretty robust ignore list. So...?

 

[dragoner]

Complain all you want...

I don't know, like with my kids ... no, stop it.

 

[Bohandas]

Not too many are writing Hardy Boys novels.

I think Hardy Boys is copyrighted

 

[Bohandas]

I could be wrong, but I don't think there are many posts asserting that the Orc-dispatching RPGers are tacitly approving of colonialism.

What seems to me to generate disagreement is telling those RPGers that the fiction they are creating, the tropes they are deploying, etc, are connected to colonialism, or trade on colonialist or racist ideas.

I can't remember, but I think it's quite liley that somewhere back in the 1980s I used the "Tribesmen" entry from the AD&D Monster Manual (or maybe I'm remembering the "Natives" from X1 The Isle of Dread). I mean, I'd watched black-and-white Tarzan movies and I knew what role "Tribesmen" and "Natives" play in adventure fiction. I don't think I was expressing any attitude towards colonialism, tacit or otherwise.

I wouldn't, now, deploy those sorts of derogatory tropes in my own FRPGing.

When JRRT wanted to convey savage, brutal, largely nameless, evil, what imagery did he reach for? Dark complexion ("swarthy"). "Bandy" (ie horse-riding) legs. Scimitars. Etc. The ready availability of these tropes is not mere coincidence. There's an explanation for it.

How one then responds to that explanation is a further matter, of course.

Orcs may be partly derived from racist tropes but that doesn't necessarily make them a racist trope as well. That conclusion's a little bit like seeing a Christmas celebration in New York City and concluding that people who live in a modern city that's lit 24/7 care about the winter solstice. Or deciding that if they don't care about the winter solstice they shouldn't be having a party in late december

(EDIT: Or better yet, a Christmas celebration in Sydney)

 

[Lanefan]

I think Hardy Boys is copyrighted

Most of it is (just looked it up). The originals are slowly coming into the public domain (the first three originals hit on Jan 1 2023), but the revised versions won't until 2054.

EDIT: that's the USA. In Canada none of it comes public until 2048, relevant as it turns out the author was Canadian and the copyright duration is thus based on the date of that person's death.

 

[Desdichado]

EDIT: that's the USA. In Canada none of it comes public until 2048, relevant as it turns out the author was Canadian and the copyright duration is thus based on the date of that person's death.

Sorta. Edward Stratemeyer created the Hardy Boys, and he's American. Charles Leslie MacFarlane is Canadian, and it's believed that he ghost wrote the first sixteen novels. But given that he isn't even confirmed to have written them, he (or his estate) doesn't hold the copyright.

I read quite a bit of those as a kid. I'm curious if they still hold up, or if they feel too YA trying to read them now. Hmm... I think I still have at least a couple volumes published in the 50s kicking around in a box somewhere....

 

[Mr. Lahey]

My table isn't actually my table, it's just a license agreement.

This is a hugely important point. If people are playing on VTTs that may be based specifically around a particular rule system, then the ability to customize certain things around the “table” could be limited. This would be an argument that what’s published does carry weight over individual groups.

Or not - I admit I have never played using a VTT.