Your table is YOUR table.

[Smackpixi]

What gets me in most of these discussions is that what people want IS available, IS being produced, and in quantities that exceed what was available at the time it was originally popular. In the TTRPG space, now is nearly literally the best of all possible worlds. Scads of new games, and tons of stuff for old games. The problem people can’t seem to let go of is that TSR/WotC isn’t the one doing it, so it doesn’t count. Even within 5e community people can’t accept that exactly what they want is available on DMsGuild or Reddit, right now, possibly for free.

To chase this analogy down a bit, what if I want to hear new music* in the older style rather than hearing over and over again the same relatively few songs the oldies station have on high rotation?

In D&D terms, this is the same as asking what if I want new modules* for 1e rather than the same old ones I've run over and over again?

But new modules for 1e or 1e style modules for 5e ARE available. There are bands out there making music like whatever you pleasure is, they’re not popular, they’re not getting radio play, but they’re out there, and they’re not bad.

Well, in music, that's pretty rare. Music mostly moves forward, and doesn't engage in straight nostaligia all that much. Modern Classical music does not sound a whole lot like Bach or Beethoven, for example.

I don’t think the Rolling Stones ever made another album as good as Let It Bleed, nor did they attempt to make another one that would qualify as disk two, but I would argue that there are bands, even today, that use it as their biggest influence and are putting out music like it. It not popular, but it’s out there.

So I’m on the side of people that say what people that won’t let it go about the Orcs are really doing is trying to “control the narrative”. They review bomb, they complain here about every new DnD book, to try to make the story that what WotC is releasing is bad, not worth buying, would be better as a hex crawl with Real Orcs that pretty much everyone agrees aren’t racist. I don’t think arguing with people on the internet changes the mind of the Person That Is Wrong, but the spectators not entrenched are influenceable. And that’s why they persist believing that if enough people say a thing enough times, it becomes true.

 

[pemerton]

My take is this:

In the sort of societies that most ENworlders seem to live in - based on what their posts or their profiles reveal about their location - there is no authority that exercises direct and immediate control over how people spend their leisure time.

So, within constraints of budget and time, people are free to do what they like, when it comes to imagining stuff, and sharing what they imagine with others.

So if all someone is doing is playing a game, which involves making stuff up, then normative judgement really has no work to do. It's neither "OK" nor "not OK" for someone to do what they're doing. They just do it!

But if you put your activity out there - present it as something for others to consider, perhaps inviting or wishing for their thoughts or even their admiration, then you are equally opening yourself up to judgement and criticism.

And no one has any obligation to endorse or promote or approve of what you're doing. Nor are other creators - including commercial creators - obliged to create stuff that will cohere with, support or affirm whatever it is that you want to do in your leisure time.

Sometimes, I read posts that seem to want to affirm a liberty of the poster to do what they want to and enjoy doing, but also seem to affirm a duty of others to respect or endorse or support whatever it is that the poster is doing. To me, this is incoherent. Sometimes it even approaches hypocrisy.

 

[Mercurius]

It seems to me it’s less about what’s going on at our own specific tables and instead what goes on in these discussions.

I mostly avoid them because they seem really fraught. Like it’s an either/or situation. Either orcs are metaphorical commentary on colonialism OR they’re just monsters that can be morally dispatched.

But the truth is… they’re made up. They can be either of those things or both, or anything else that folks want them to be.

The problem is when folks can’t or won’t accept the opposing view as valid. When people deny that there can possibly be any colonialism in the portrayal of orcs and other fictional creatures. I mean… it’s plain as day why some folks see it that way. Denying that is just silly.

It’s equally annoying when folks who do see it that way can’t accept that others simply don’t care about that. That having a game where orcs are just monsters to be dispatched is not a tacit approval of colonialism. It doesn’t have to be that way… for some people, orcs are just orcs and that’s totally fine, too.

It seems to me that the only way this actually becomes an issue is when two people with opposing views try to play together. A game where there’s a player who can’t help but see elements of colonialism in players clearing orcs out of the caves of chaos but the GM is running things as if orcs are simply boogeymen to be slaughtered for XP and treasure. In such a case, they need to discuss that and figure out how to proceed.

But all the online debate? It doesn’t seem to help the matter at all. It just seems to further entrench the two opposing sides, and anyone who has a more nuanced view is damned by both.

It’s not about the future of the game or anything hyperbolic like that. It’s just a matter of accepting alternate points of view, respecting them, and being decent to each other in person when this comes up.

This is all very well said. To your last sentence: it is that basic decency and charity of spirit that gets lost in the kerfuffle of online debate. The intolerance for accepting differing opinions without needing to assume a more malicious intent or ideology is unfortunately all too rare. I mean, are we serious about inclusion or not? Inclusion must include differences of interpretation or it is only skin deep.

 

[pemerton]

The problem is when folks can’t or won’t accept the opposing view as valid. When people deny that there can possibly be any colonialism in the portrayal of orcs and other fictional creatures. I mean… it’s plain as day why some folks see it that way. Denying that is just silly.

It’s equally annoying when folks who do see it that way can’t accept that others simply don’t care about that. That having a game where orcs are just monsters to be dispatched is not a tacit approval of colonialism. It doesn’t have to be that way… for some people, orcs are just orcs and that’s totally fine, too.

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.

 

[wicked cool]

Wotc should take a good hard look at BioWare and even right now the MCU. You start straying away from what worked and what appears wasn’t a good story can lead to downfall
People weren’t sick of dragon age and the argument that the mcu is tired is just bs.
Times aren’t great for everyone so for some that night at the movies or that 70 plus video game needs confirmation it’s good
Me personally I don’t like my bullywugs wearing clothes that I would see on bridgerton . They live in swamps!

 

[MichaelSomething]

What gets me in most of these discussions is that what people want IS available, IS being produced, and in quantities that exceed what was available at the time it was originally popular. In the TTRPG space, now is nearly literally the best of all possible worlds. Scads of new games, and tons of stuff for old games. The problem people can’t seem to let go of is that TSR/WotC isn’t the one doing it, so it doesn’t count. Even within 5e community people can’t accept that exactly what they want is available on DMsGuild or Reddit, right now, possibly for free.

But new modules for 1e or 1e style modules for 5e ARE available. There are bands out there making music like whatever you pleasure is, they’re not popular, they’re not getting radio play, but they’re out there, and they’re not bad.

https://osricrpg.com/

 

[Reynard]

. But the themes and values, as they are expressed in the main text of the game, are what concerns people.

Yes, but falsely. In direct contradiction to your point, I say that ONLY what people do in their individual games actually matters.

 

[loverdrive]

Can someone explain to me what is actually being discussed? Are snowflakes being annoyed that [whatever race] is not being depicted as bloodthrirsty subhuman savages?

 

[Maxperson]

This is entirely the wrong way to think about it. Unless you publish the game and own the IP, the ONLY thing it can be about is the game you play/run.

I don't agree. Even if we don't publish the game and own the IP, we can still care about the direction the game is going in, especially for new players who don't have the benefit of being familiar with the stuff in the older editions.

 

[Maxperson]

Can someone explain to me what is actually being discussed? Are snowflakes being annoyed that [whatever race] is not being depicted as bloodthrirsty subhuman savages?

No.