Official OGL Discussion Thread [Archive] - Page 6 - Giant in the Playground Forums

Brookshw

2023-02-23, 07:21 AM

But people are advocating that the game shouldn't depict for example an unequivocably evil force committing genocide because it would be 'problematic'. And they're not objecting to the game as default having the players play characters who indiscriminately slaughter things which the game labels 'evil'. I think you can't take the former position and not object to the latter issue without being hypocritical. It amounts to saying that talking about genocide is worse than committing it.

Not sure about "indiscriminately", I can't think of any instances where PCs are intended or expected to be the aggressors. Even bog standard dungeon dives treat the monsters as hostile to the players. Also, we're kinda throwing darts at what it is that's "problematic", WoTC didn't specify so I mentioned a number of potential issues that I could understand them being concerned with (not to mention people's lived/associated experiences which seems to be their current approach to what content to revise/edit).

D&D isn't just for kids nor played by kids, so the idea that some material is problematic because you wouldn't give it to kids is nonsense. This is a problem solved by the existing practice of putting an age group rating on a product. /Shrug, its a game "for everyone". They could put a rating system in place, last time we had something like that was BoVD. Of course, if they do start age rating it, I think parents/people who do buy it for kids are going to have some pause if they're unfamiliar with it, and it can develop a stigma which WoTC would probably prefer to avoid. I have a friends who manages a toy store, gets people in all the time who know nothing about D&D or TTRPGs looking to buy something for a kids birthday or whatever, and who know nothing about what it is they're seeking to purchase.

More, the people who have strong opinions about having genocide or slavery in games? They aren't kids. They aren't talking for kids and vast majority of time they have no empirical basis for arguments about how the material would even affect kids. 95% of the discussion revolves around moral dislike adult players have for some topics. Watching you people talk is like watching those parents who seriously debate about telling their school-aged children where meat comes from, from the viewpoint of someone who was 4 when first taken to watch how game is butchered. It's ridiculous. If there's a segment of the audience who is going to be turned off by that content and not purchase it, isn't that all the more reason for WoTC to instead spend its resources on content which would be more broadly consumed?

Keltest

2023-02-23, 07:29 AM

skyth

2023-02-23, 07:49 AM

Having lived through the Satanic Panic of the 80's, the whole 'think of the children' argument seems a bit bunk to me...

Brookshw

2023-02-23, 07:56 AM

Shouldn't your toy store friends be doing the responsible thing then and helping those people who don't know what theyre getting understand what it is? It seems really unfair to blame the product for the ignorance and apathy of people who are distributing things without knowing what they are.

The point was to highlight the ignorance of the consumer, not like they can ask questions when they shop on Amazon (ib4, I guess they can scroll reviews?).

Vahnavoi

2023-02-23, 08:24 AM

/Shrug, its a game "for everyone". They could put a rating system in place, last time we had something like that was BoVD. Of course, if they do start age rating it, I think parents/people who do buy it for kids are going to have some pause if they're unfamiliar with it, and it can develop a stigma which WoTC would probably prefer to avoid. I have a friends who manages a toy store, gets people in all the time who know nothing about D&D or TTRPGs looking to buy something for a kids birthday or whatever, and who know nothing about what it is they're seeking to purchase.

Browse back to the post where I explained how well this worked for TSR back in the day.

Long story short:

TSR made a conscious decision to market D&D to kids, which involved creating a Code of Ethics for content creators. It included quite a few clauses to mollify angry parents and other moral guardians.

It was a short-term success, in the sense that it did get D&D to toystores. In the longer term, it allowed competitors, such as White Wolf with Vampire, to rise to prominence by effectively stealing older audiences away from TSR. Overall, it was a mixed blessing: D&D was really big for a while, but the focus on kid-friendly content created the image that D&D and tabletop roleplaying games in general are "for kids".

TSR actually realized they were losing customers and tried to rectify this by making more philosophical stuff, like Planescape. The specific IP under discussion, Dark Sun, computer versions included, was published while the Code of Ethics was in place. It's been remarked by people who worked with TSR at the time that had the Code been enforced, things like Planescape and Dark Sun couldn't have been made. So the company concerned with making D&D "kid-friendly" hypocritically ended up making and selling not-kid-friendly content, because doing otherwise would've been leaving money on the table.

If there's a segment of the audience who is going to be turned off by that content and not purchase it, isn't that all the more reason for WoTC to instead spend its resources on content which would be more broadly consumed?

If WotC is going to treat D&D like a platform, they ought to work like a platform. For comparison, it's possible to get ultra violence and porn games for Nintendo Switch, because even Nintendo can grok that not all their customers are children. Age ratings, content warnings and parental controls exist to let people curate their experience. Point being, nobody forces anybody to play everything D&D ever published. Yes, some people will be turned away from "problematic" content, but others would be drawn in by the same. Making all products for the same target audience runs into another problem TSR also experienced: self-competition. There isn't an endless market for escapist fantasy rated "for all audiences". Focusing all resources on that will eventually hit diminishing returns, at which point it makes more sense to spread out. At which point having a strong public image as "company that makes kid games for kids" will be a hindrance more than a boon.

If WotC marketing can't grok this, they can't corporate right. They are literally walking in the same trap TSR did.

KorvinStarmast

2023-02-23, 08:29 AM

You cannot publish Dark Sun stuff using DMs Guild. (https://support.dmsguild.com/hc/en-us/articles/217029298-Content-and-Format-Questions) One of many reasons that DMs Guild never got money from me. (DTRPG has, though). Also, the UI the one time I was thinking of getting something Grod made was simply not user friendly, so I put them on my "nope" list.

D&D isn't just for kids nor played just by kids, so the idea that some material is problematic because you wouldn't give it to kids is nonsense. This is a problem solved by the existing practice of putting an age group rating on a product. The box on the Holmes basic (Armed archer, wizard, dragon) says "The original adult fantasy role playing game for 3 or more players"
When Basic (Moldvay) came out, it had "The original fantasy role playing game for 3 or more adults ages 10 and up" on the cover. {checking} When I played basic (25th anniversary release, black box) with my kids it said "Dungeons and Dragons Adventure Game" on top; down below "The Adventure begins now" is there.
I would not have cut my kids loose to play by themselves. My son was 10, my daughter 13. I was DM. Their friends or cousins who played with us were in roughly that age range. I tuned the game to the audience. . My wife only played a few times with us, but it just wasn't her cup of tea.

More, the people who have strong opinions about having genocide or slavery in games? They aren't kids. They aren't talking for kids and vast majority of time they have no empirical basis for arguments about how the material would even affect kids. 95% of the discussion revolves around moral dislike adult players have for some topics. Watching you people talk is like watching those parents who seriously debate about telling their school-aged children where meat comes from, from the viewpoint of someone who was 4 when first taken to watch how game is butchered. It's ridiculous.
Concur.

Having lived through the Satanic Panic of the 80's, the whole 'think of the children' argument seems a bit bunk to me... My wife still feels roughly that way, in terms of she somewhat buys into the Satanic Panic PoV (in a mild way) still, to this day.
Which sucks. I would love if she'd play with our group.

Brookshw

2023-02-23, 08:46 AM

snip

I get where you're coming form, however, WoTC's sales and approach have skyrocketed past anything TSR accomplished and are aimed at the market today. Unless your proposing that a re-release of DS would surpass sales of any other product they could launch, its a moot point. Also, acknowledging that TSR abandoned its code of ethics prior to having to sell the IP doesn't really support the point that WoTC shouldn't be seeking to establish and follow some type of standard, or taking care with the content they put out.

Tangent, after the SJ release, I'm dreading what they'll do to PS when it drops, it was by far my favorite published setting (followed by DS).

Vahnavoi

2023-02-23, 09:24 AM

WotC's current success is not all their own doing. They are benefiting from out-of-company successes such as renewed popularity of the fantasy genre past 2000s (thanks to movies like Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings and TV shows like Game of Thrones and Stranger Things), cheaper and wider-spread communications technology (see: the device you're reading this from right now), people who grew up with the old versions feeling nostalgic and wanting to play with their kids (meaning, to this day WotC benefits from groundwork laid by TSR), and a world-wide pandemic forcing people to stay indoors and creating a renewed interest in indoor activities, including tabletop and online variants of their game.

Sure, they're doing well. Doesn't mean they are making smart business decisions. TSR also was doing mighty fine almost to the point they collapsed. Despite all their blunders, the biggest reason TSR failed wasn't because the demand for their game was going down, they failed because they focused too much on things other than their game and stumbled in a situation where they couldn't even meed existing demand. In the same way, WotC can screw around and screw over both their content and content creators, while still remaining big. Why? Because of uncredited body of hobbyists who make and use D&D to run content WotC is unwilling to offer.

Saying the point is moot if I can't show a Dark Sun release being more profitable than other possible products, is horse hockey. They could do it even at a loss, with it still being worth it if it expands the market. It isn't given the risks in that direction are any bigger than those of pushing out more "for all audiences" stuff.

Zuras

2023-02-23, 09:50 AM

Slavery in a setting is a really problematic issue because if players take it seriously it’s going to totally warp your campaign. Last time I saw a party encounter a culture with slavery baked in, the DM’s plan was “you need to negotiate with these evil guys to accomplish your goal” and the players reaction was “we will burn down the entire town of enslavers and salt the earth afterwards”.

You can have that stuff in your setting, but it can be a real problem if it’s in the foreground, rather than the background. Indiana Jones fights Nazis, and we know why Nazis are bad, but there’s no way you could maintain the tone of heroic pulp adventure if you showed a concentration camp on screen.

It’s like trying to set your game in Omelas. Some players might be the ones who walk away, others may not be satisfied with anything less than tearing the whole rotting edifice down.

Psyren

2023-02-23, 09:57 AM

D&D isn't just for kids nor played just by kids, so the idea that some material is problematic because you wouldn't give it to kids is nonsense. This is a problem solved by the existing practice of putting an age group rating on a product.

They could do that. Orrrr.... they could just not bother releasing stuff that would need such a rating. Kyle's comments indicate they've chosen the latter.

More, the people who have strong opinions about having genocide or slavery in games? They aren't kids. They aren't talking for kids and vast majority of time they have no empirical basis for arguments about how the material would even affect kids. 95% of the discussion revolves around moral dislike adult players have for some topics. Watching you people talk is like watching those parents who seriously debate about telling their school-aged children where meat comes from, from the viewpoint of someone who was 4 when first taken to watch how game is butchered. It's ridiculous.

So you have to be a kid yourself in order to be concerned about officially-endorsed adult-oriented content in the game? I find that logic strange.

Brookshw

2023-02-23, 10:16 AM

WotC's current success is not all their own doing. They are benefiting from out-of-company successes such as renewed popularity of the fantasy genre past 2000s (thanks to movies like Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings and TV shows like Game of Thrones and Stranger Things), cheaper and wider-spread communications technology (see: the device you're reading this from right now), people who grew up with the old versions feeling nostalgic and wanting to play with their kids (meaning, to this day WotC benefits from groundwork laid by TSR), and a world-wide pandemic forcing people to stay indoors and creating a renewed interest in indoor activities, including tabletop and online variants of their game. Certainly they've benefited form some outside cultural shifts, but most of the factors you reference came into play after they had already shown notable success beyond what TSR accomplished, not to mention some of the factors you list were also available and applicable during TSR's day.

Saying the point is moot if I can't show a Dark Sun release being more profitable than other possible products, is horse hockey. They could do it even at a loss, with it still being worth it if it expands the market. It isn't given the risks in that direction are any bigger than those of pushing out more "for all audiences" stuff. Spending their resources on another product with broader appeal that could expand their market while being profitable is horse hockey? Color me skeptical.

Vahnavoi

2023-02-23, 10:34 AM

@Psyren: Sure, warp any statement to a silly strawman, and the logic will seem strange. Criticism of adults who use kids as scapegoats for their own issues or make unfounded assumptions of what kids can handle, does not mean only literal kids have a say in the matter.

---

@Brookshw: the argument you said is moot is that keeping on catering to the same audience will hit diminishing returns due to self-competition. You base this claim on essentially just saying it hasn't happened yet. WotC keeping on doing what they've been doing is not inherently less risky than expanding the market via a loss-leader. It is simply unknown, unless you happen to have insider information I don't.

Corporate entitities that fail to make this distinction are the ones that get blindsided in the long term when, apparently suddenly, doubling down on previously successfull strategy doesn't work anymore. It's basic problem of induction stuff.

Luccan

2023-02-23, 11:17 AM

Brookshw

2023-02-23, 11:24 AM

@Brookshw: the argument you said is moot is that keeping on catering to the same audience will hit diminishing returns due to self-competition. You base this claim on essentially just saying it hasn't happened yet. WotC keeping on doing what they've been doing is not inherently less risky than expanding the market via a loss-leader. It is simply unknown, unless you happen to have insider information I don't.

Corporate entitities that fail to make this distinction are the ones that get blindsided in the long term when, apparently suddenly, doubling down on previously successfull strategy doesn't work anymore. It's basic problem of induction stuff.

My position is that expanding the market can occur through different products, releasing one which has broader appeal, over one which has content that you've acknowledged will have limited market appeal, would be preferential. Your position appears to be predicated that a release of DS would grant broader market access over every single possible alternative, which is something I'm skeptical of.

You don't need to keep catering to the same audience, but how to expand is a wide playing field, and not moving in a DS direction doesn't mean you need to stay where you are either.

Frankly I wouldn't want WotC to handle Dark Sun now anyway.

Totally fair, any release by them wouldn't be the same DS from the 90s given their current track record.

PhoenixPhyre

2023-02-23, 11:40 AM

NichG

2023-02-23, 11:56 AM

Not sure about "indiscriminately", I can't think of any instances where PCs are intended or expected to be the aggressors. Even bog standard dungeon dives treat the monsters as hostile to the players. Also, we're kinda throwing darts at what it is that's "problematic", WoTC didn't specify so I mentioned a number of potential issues that I could understand them being concerned with (not to mention people's lived/associated experiences which seems to be their current approach to what content to revise/edit).

In a 'bog standard dungeon dive', its a home invasion simulator. 'I invaded their home and they attacked me, so I was justified to kill them in self-defense!' isn't a great moral lesson if you're trying to hold the moral high ground about this kind of media and the messages that it can carry. If 'depicting an evil empire built on genocide as clearly evil and giving players the chance to play resistance members or people helping slaves escape or other such forms of objection against that empire' is 'problematic', then every single dungeon dive featuring sentient inhabitants should also be considered 'problematic'. Otherwise the word really is a farce.

I'd, as I've said, take the other side and say that neither should be considered problematic, because you aren't invading the home of anyone real, you aren't actually enslaving anyone, etc - its fiction. And in needing a human to 'run' that fiction, whatever injustice is being emulated by one side of the table, the other side of the table is running the ones who are suffering that injustice, and so over time you build empathy and the ability to handle greater degrees of nuance and moral complexity - whether a given group decides thats where they want to focu, or if they just want to do beer & pretzels is up to each group to decide for themselves.

If there's a segment of the audience who is going to be turned off by that content and not purchase it, isn't that all the more reason for WoTC to instead spend its resources on content which would be more broadly consumed?

As a pure business decision about what will sell and what won't, sure. Though just because it might make corporate sense doesn't mean that consumers who that decision negatively effects shouldn't hold it against them and vote with their wallet to change the corporate calculus.

But posters here are defending this as a moral argument (whether or not WotC is trying to earn brownie points for taking a moral high ground of some sort here aside, since its hard to speak to that based on one word in one interview). And that's a lot worse to me, because its pushing a particularly authoritarian norm if you examine it even a little bit. Kids learning to uncritically kill the targets designated by their DM is good, but learning to resist an authoritarian regime marked by slavery and genocide is bad? And it's feeding this Voldemort-esque norm of 'its publically recognizing the existence of evil acts that is bad and should be stopped, more-so than the acts themselves'.

Slavery in a setting is a really problematic issue because if players take it seriously it’s going to totally warp your campaign. Last time I saw a party encounter a culture with slavery baked in, the DM’s plan was “you need to negotiate with these evil guys to accomplish your goal” and the players reaction was “we will burn down the entire town of enslavers and salt the earth afterwards”.

You can have that stuff in your setting, but it can be a real problem if it’s in the foreground, rather than the background. Indiana Jones fights Nazis, and we know why Nazis are bad, but there’s no way you could maintain the tone of heroic pulp adventure if you showed a concentration camp on screen.

It’s like trying to set your game in Omelas. Some players might be the ones who walk away, others may not be satisfied with anything less than tearing the whole rotting edifice down.

At least in my interactions with Dark Sun, its foreground and intended to be something that the players are going to feel like burning down. The first Dark Sun computer game for example, you play a group of escaped gladiatorial slaves who find a village of escaped slaves in the desert and build up a credible resistance movement to fight off the army of the local sorceror king by forming alliances with nearby powers, with the fight against that army being the capstone encounter of the game. The Dark Sun novels begin with a focus on revolutionaries assassinating a sorceror king and proclaiming their city a free city without slavery, and the knock-on consequences and escalation proceeding from that. Dark Sun isn't saying 'this is part of the local society, you should make characters who just live with it and think its okay', nor is it really trying for 'Indiana Jones' in tone.

Keltest

2023-02-23, 12:35 PM

The point was to highlight the ignorance of the consumer, not like they can ask questions when they shop on Amazon (ib4, I guess they can scroll reviews?).

If they can shop on Amazon, they can use google.

EggKookoo

2023-02-23, 12:40 PM

At least in my interactions with Dark Sun, its foreground and intended to be something that the players are going to feel like burning down. The first Dark Sun computer game for example, you play a group of escaped gladiatorial slaves who find a village of escaped slaves in the desert and build up a credible resistance movement to fight off the army of the local sorceror king by forming alliances with nearby powers, with the fight against that army being the capstone encounter of the game. The Dark Sun novels begin with a focus on revolutionaries assassinating a sorceror king and proclaiming their city a free city without slavery, and the knock-on consequences and escalation proceeding from that. Dark Sun isn't saying 'this is part of the local society, you should make characters who just live with it and think its okay', nor is it really trying for 'Indiana Jones' in tone.

This sounds like a game my 11yo (and probably even my 7yo) would enjoy playing.

Vahnavoi

2023-02-23, 02:41 PM

Your position appears to be predicated that a release of DS would grant broader market access over every single possible alternative, which is something I'm skeptical of.

It's not because it doesn't have to be, that's just supposition by you. No loss-leader has to beat every hypothetical alternative, because the risks of those alternatives are just as unknown. I'm talking about Dark Sun because it is an existing non-hypothetical property with known demand for it. This cannot be said for any unnamed or hypothetical competition. We'd just be guessing what kind of product might be succesful.

Brookshw

2023-02-23, 02:45 PM

In a 'bog standard dungeon dive', its a home invasion simulator. 'I invaded their home and they attacked me, so I was justified to kill them in self-defense!' isn't a great moral lesson if you're trying to hold the moral high ground about this kind of media and the messages that it can carry. If 'depicting an evil empire built on genocide as clearly evil and giving players the chance to play resistance members or people helping slaves escape or other such forms of objection against that empire' is 'problematic', then every single dungeon dive featuring sentient inhabitants should also be considered 'problematic'. Otherwise the word really is a farce. Really depends what you do with a bog standard dungeon dive and how you stock the dungeon, not to mention what the dungeon is in the first place, a lot of times its some giant ruin that the other side just happens to be in but isn't really there home to begin with, not to mention that just because there are creatures in the dungeon doesn't mean they need to be fought, that's something more on how the DM runs the game and the players in question.

As a pure business decision about what will sell and what won't, sure. Though just because it might make corporate sense doesn't mean that consumers who that decision negatively effects shouldn't hold it against them and vote with their wallet to change the corporate calculus.

But posters here are defending this as a moral argument (whether or not WotC is trying to earn brownie points for taking a moral high ground of some sort here aside, since its hard to speak to that based on one word in one interview). And that's a lot worse to me, because its pushing a particularly authoritarian norm if you examine it even a little bit. Kids learning to uncritically kill the targets designated by their DM is good, but learning to resist an authoritarian regime marked by slavery and genocide is bad? And it's feeding this Voldemort-esque norm of 'its publically recognizing the existence of evil acts that is bad and should be stopped, more-so than the acts themselves'. I think you're slightly missing the (speculative) point, the moral concerns impact the business decision on its selling points, and that end result is why WoTC is likely not to release it, its doubt its a binary decision process on their end. Remember that argument here, at least as I've put forth, is why I can understand WoTC's point of view, and supported why there's some basis for it, I'm not claiming that I like that direction, just that its understandable.

At least in my interactions with Dark Sun, its foreground and intended to be something that the players are going to feel like burning down. The first Dark Sun computer game for example, you play a group of escaped gladiatorial slaves who find a village of escaped slaves in the desert and build up a credible resistance movement to fight off the army of the local sorceror king by forming alliances with nearby powers, with the fight against that army being the capstone encounter of the game. The Dark Sun novels begin with a focus on revolutionaries assassinating a sorceror king and proclaiming their city a free city without slavery, and the knock-on consequences and escalation proceeding from that. Dark Sun isn't saying 'this is part of the local society, you should make characters who just live with it and think its okay', nor is it really trying for 'Indiana Jones' in tone.

What I learned from the novels was don't let Troy Denning write novels that negate the premise of the world and were never supported in canon in later 2e supplements. Still salty on that one.

If they can shop on Amazon, they can use google.

Could, sure. Would? I mean, I certainly doubt people would put much leg work into it, which could be all the more reason for consumers being disgruntled if they find out after the fact what they bought is not what they thought they did (ya know, like all the angry people who suddenly discovered the OGL was a revocable license).

Segev

2023-02-23, 03:28 PM

Frankly I wouldn't want WotC to handle Dark Sun now anyway. I think they've demonstrated real failure at handling sensitive topics in the past couple years and they don't have the confidence to put out a product without wide appeal, even with all the disclaimers in the world thrown on it. Plus they gave up on making an independent system for Psionics a while ago now and Dark Sun needs that by default.

Even though DS is not my jam, I agree with this 100%.

Yeah, consider this: Think of the reasons given for the changes to race rules (including changing it to being called "species") in and post-TCE. Think of the way things deemed "problematic" have been handled in existing works, already, as they're remade or "addressed."

Without going into any board-rules-violating specifics, think of all the things in Dark Sun that might fall under that "problematic" umbrella.

Now, imagine what a mass-appeal, designed-to-be-inoffensive Dark Sun would look like. Pretend, for a moment, that no missteps of the "Hazodee" sort are made at all. Imagine it is JUST cleansed of all that might displease the same people that are thrilled with the change of "race" to "species" and the alterations to the way races/species are designed.

Can you picture Dark Sun being Dark Sun with all those changes?

It's possible that all those changes might still yield an interesting setting. A sort of "Magic Dune," maybe, focused strictly on evil Dragon Kings trying to blight the already-blasted desert of a world while heroes cling to protecting the last vestiges of nature. But is that the Dark Sun you want?

Keltest

2023-02-23, 04:19 PM

Could, sure. Would? I mean, I certainly doubt people would put much leg work into it, which could be all the more reason for consumers being disgruntled if they find out after the fact what they bought is not what they thought they did (ya know, like all the angry people who suddenly discovered the OGL was a revocable license).

And why exactly should people who definitionally arent putting any thought into their purchases be something to be worried about? What are we, their parents?

Psyren

2023-02-23, 04:27 PM

@Psyren: Sure, warp any statement to a silly strawman, and the logic will seem strange. Criticism of adults who use kids as scapegoats for their own issues or make unfounded assumptions of what kids can handle, does not mean only literal kids have a say in the matter.

Assuming the only reason an adult might agree with a company's desire to give a particular topic a wide berth, is that said adult has "their own issues." is equally silly. I consume Handmaid's Tale and The Boys and Black Mirror and a large number of other properties that deal with forum-inappropriate subject matter - my enjoyment of those topics doesn't mean I have to agree with the idea of them being printed by WotC in a D&D sourcebook.

NichG

2023-02-23, 05:34 PM

Really depends what you do with a bog standard dungeon dive and how you stock the dungeon, not to mention what the dungeon is in the first place, a lot of times its some giant ruin that the other side just happens to be in but isn't really there home to begin with, not to mention that just because there are creatures in the dungeon doesn't mean they need to be fought, that's something more on how the DM runs the game and the players in question.

I think you're slightly missing the (speculative) point, the moral concerns impact the business decision on its selling points, and that end result is why WoTC is likely not to release it, its doubt its a binary decision process on their end. Remember that argument here, at least as I've put forth, is why I can understand WoTC's point of view, and supported why there's some basis for it, I'm not claiming that I like that direction, just that its understandable.

Except that this is a criticism of those people who are complaining about Dark Sun for 'moral reasons' (or otherwise arguing that it would be morally problematic to publish Dark Sun if kids could play it), not necessarily a specific criticism focused on WotC and its decisions. I'm saying that the people who feel like Dark Sun shouldn't be published because of its problematic content are being hypocrites (at best) when they don't apply the same standard to other content in D&D. I find the fear of discussing serious things more 'problematic' by far than the discussion of said serious things, and I think its in our collective best interest not to give that particular take any credence.

Now it may certainly make sense that WotC responds to that environment in the usual corporate cya fashion, but that's a whole different matter. On that point, I'm not generally a fan of encouraging corporate entities centered around entertainment to behave in risk averse ways (be it risk of offending someone, risk of getting mobbed, risk of a flop, etc), because I don't see much value in obtaining yet another edition, splatbook, etc unless it actually is either novel in some fashion or at least manages to exceed the bar of 'mediocre'. But again, that's a different problem.

Segev

2023-02-23, 05:38 PM

Assuming the only reason an adult might agree with a company's desire to give a particular topic a wide berth, is that said adult has "their own issues." is equally silly. I consume Handmaid's Tale and The Boys and Black Mirror and a large number of other properties that deal with forum-inappropriate subject matter - my enjoyment of those topics doesn't mean I have to agree with the idea of them being printed by WotC in a D&D sourcebook.

Thing is, once again, your argument for why WotC shouldn't publish such things could be applied to them being published at all. After all, why should anybody have to police what children watch on streaming services? The streaming services should simply not have such things on them!

Brookshw

2023-02-23, 05:42 PM

And why exactly should people who definitionally arent putting any thought into their purchases be something to be worried about? What are we, their parents?

We aren't anything in the equation, WoTC is the one commercializing their content and has to balance good will and reputation vs. it's other business concerns.

Keltest

2023-02-23, 05:50 PM

We aren't anything in the equation, WoTC is the one commercializing their content and has to balance good will and reputation vs. it's other business concerns.

And again, why should they care about people who arent bothering to even look at a product before they buy it?

Trafalgar

2023-02-23, 05:52 PM

At least in my interactions with Dark Sun, its foreground and intended to be something that the players are going to feel like burning down. The first Dark Sun computer game for example, you play a group of escaped gladiatorial slaves who find a village of escaped slaves in the desert and build up a credible resistance movement to fight off the army of the local sorceror king by forming alliances with nearby powers, with the fight against that army being the capstone encounter of the game. The Dark Sun novels begin with a focus on revolutionaries assassinating a sorceror king and proclaiming their city a free city without slavery, and the knock-on consequences and escalation proceeding from that. Dark Sun isn't saying 'this is part of the local society, you should make characters who just live with it and think its okay', nor is it really trying for 'Indiana Jones' in tone.

Back in the day, I played and DM'd a lot of Dark Sun. And in almost every Campaign, everyone started out as slaves and escaped. I don't remember anyone ever playing any of the immoral character classes in the setting like Templar or Defiler. I think the worst thing was someone taking the Halfling as cannibal thing a little too seriously.

At the end of the day, what your pretend character does to another pretend character doesn't make you a good or bad person.

Brookshw

2023-02-23, 05:55 PM

And again, why should they care about people who arent bothering to even look at a product before they buy it?

Because a bad general reputation will turn people off of making those purchases in the first place :smallconfused: Here we are, in a thread about a topic that has seen numerous people swear off of buying WoTC products because of a loss of good will and reputation, and you're asking why those factors be important and valuable?

Keltest

2023-02-23, 05:58 PM

Segev

2023-02-23, 06:03 PM

Because a bad general reputation will turn people off of making those purchases in the first place :smallconfused: Here we are, in a thread about a topic that has seen numerous people swear off of buying WoTC products because of a loss of good will and reputation, and you're asking why those factors be important and valuable?

I think the question is not answered by this, simply because the two situations don't analogize well. In one case, an informed and engaged audience reacted poorly to WotC trying to sneak something detrimental to the business and community-end of the hobby past everyone. In the other, uninformed and careless customers who don't pay attention might buy something they personally find offensive, and decide they are never buying anything again even though they don't pay enough attention to what they buy to know what they were buying in the first place.

One involves serious, engaged customers who know what they're buying and spend their money deliberately. The other involves probably one-off whim-buyers or folks buying presents for others. I should note that that latter category likely never hears about the allegedly reputation-damaging stuff, and forgets which product it's associated with anyway.

Brookshw

2023-02-23, 06:11 PM

Ok, but their reaction is specifically divorced from any reality. What the product does or does not contain is literally irrelevant if people arent actually looking at it and then complaining that it wasnt what they wanted. There will ALWAYS be people like that. Changing your product based on the reactions of people who werent going to buy it anyway only drives away the people who liked it.

We're talking about people who did/would (theoretically) buy it, that last sentence talking about people who wouldn't buy isn't really connected to that point. Goes back to the conversation from earlier today about what products do they invest their resources in, those that can be successful and non-controversial, vs riskier products/limited markets and controversial ones.

Except that this is a criticism of those people who are complaining about Dark Sun for 'moral reasons' (or otherwise arguing that it would be morally problematic to publish Dark Sun if kids could play it), not necessarily a specific criticism focused on WotC and its decisions. I'm saying that the people who feel like Dark Sun shouldn't be published because of its problematic content are being hypocrites (at best) when they don't apply the same standard to other content in D&D. I find the fear of discussing serious things more 'problematic' by far than the discussion of said serious things, and I think its in our collective best interest not to give that particular take any credence.

Now it may certainly make sense that WotC responds to that environment in the usual corporate cya fashion, but that's a whole different matter. On that point, I'm not generally a fan of encouraging corporate entities centered around entertainment to behave in risk averse ways (be it risk of offending someone, risk of getting mobbed, risk of a flop, etc), because I don't see much value in obtaining yet another edition, splatbook, etc unless it actually is either novel in some fashion or at least manages to exceed the bar of 'mediocre'. But again, that's a different problem.

Missed this earlier. The bolded parts is misleading, no one said those discussions aren't important, it's whether this is the place for them. Also, to your second paragraph, it's an intrinsic matter to the issue at hand, and it sounds like you're acknowledging WoTC has some basis for it's conduct, even if you don't like it. I guess my work here is complete.

Keltest

2023-02-23, 06:15 PM

We're talking about people who did/would (theoretically) buy it, that last sentence talking about people who wouldn't buy isn't really connected to that point. Goes back to the conversation from earlier today about what products do they invest their resources in, those that can be successful and non-controversial, vs riskier products/limited markets and controversial ones.

Ok, but now were back to "they arent paying attention, so the reputation doesnt matter, they will buy/not buy it based on factors entirely beyond Wizard's control."

NichG

2023-02-23, 06:31 PM

Missed this earlier. The bolded parts is misleading, no one said those discussions aren't important, it's whether this is the place for them. Also, to your second paragraph, it's an intrinsic matter to the issue at hand, and it sounds like you're acknowledging WoTC has some basis for it's conduct, even if you don't like it. I guess my work here is complete.

You can understand why someone does a thing without approving of them doing it, you know.

Edit: And you actually did say these discussions aren't important, in your response to Segev about being tired of people bringing out the whole 'those who do not understand history are doomed to repeat it' thing and calling it 'high horse stuff'.

Brookshw

2023-02-23, 06:42 PM

Ok, but now were back to "they arent paying attention, so the reputation doesnt matter, they will buy/not buy it based on factors entirely beyond Wizard's control."

Not really, you can know a thing has a bad reputation without knowing the details. I'm sure you know something by reputation even if you aren't personally familiar with them.

You can understand why someone does a thing without approving of them doing it, you know.

Edit: And you actually did say these discussions aren't important, in your response to Segev about being tired of people bringing out the whole 'those who do not understand history are doomed to repeat it' thing and calling it 'high horse stuff'.

And they aren't important, here, in this game. The world's not going to fall apart and genocide and slavery suddenly becoming widely accepted because D&D doesn't portray them. Assertions to the contrary are indeed high horse nonsense.

Keltest

2023-02-23, 06:50 PM

Not really, you can know a thing has a bad reputation without knowing the details. I'm sure you know something by reputation even if you aren't personally familiar with them.

So the market niche of "people who have no idea what this thing is and no interest in learning more, but also somehow know about its reputation, who would otherwise be willing to get it for people (that they presumably think would like it, despite having no prior knowledge of it at all)" needs to be protected?

warty goblin

2023-02-23, 07:04 PM

I can't see getting upset with what WoTC will and will not publish on their own as much of a sweeping ethical issue. A practical issue sure, there's stuff that would be fun to have that they won't do, but that's as far as it goes.

The bit where they wanted to dictate what everybody else could publish was a genuine problem.

Brookshw

2023-02-23, 07:29 PM

So the market niche of "people who have no idea what this thing is and no interest in learning more, but also somehow know about its reputation, who would otherwise be willing to get it for people (that they presumably think would like it, despite having no prior knowledge of it at all)" needs to be protected?

That's up to WoTC, same as any other segment of their customer base they may desire to protect or not offend.

Keltest

2023-02-23, 09:16 PM

That's up to WoTC, same as any other segment of their customer base they may desire to protect or not offend.

So its Wizard's job to decide on the merits of a stance you are advocating for?

Brookshw

2023-02-23, 10:25 PM

So its Wizard's job to decide on the merits of a stance you are advocating for?

That their position isn't without merit, or at least, is understandable? Yes, I would expect that. It can't come as a shock that protecting their image, reputation and good will is something they're concerned with or consider to have merit. Their product, their risk, they get to decide.

Psyren

2023-02-23, 11:54 PM

Thing is, once again, your argument for why WotC shouldn't publish such things could be applied to them being published at all. After all, why should anybody have to police what children watch on streaming services? The streaming services should simply not have such things on them!

If you can pitch them a scenario where the revenue they'd gain from publishing Dark Sun would be worth all the work it would take them to pre-empt and navigate any potential PR issues they might run into doing so, be my guest. (Also, what Brookshw said.)

NichG

2023-02-24, 12:30 AM

Brookshw

2023-02-24, 09:28 AM

Well it'd be great if a 3pp did Dark Sun stuff Add "well" to the end of that and sounds good, some 3pp are quality, others....

, except they can't... So maybe the appropriate thing for WotC to do if they don't want to take the risk is to put Dark Sun under OGL/CC and let people go with it. If memory serves, they did something like that initially with SJ in 3e and basically gave it to spelljammer.org to run/maintain. Can't see that happening based on their current practices, but it would be nice. There's some fan conversion stuff available if you look around a bit.

Or, alternately, ignoring WotC it'd be interesting to ask how close you could get to Dark Sun in spirit without treading on specific IP - is there actually enough space to make a spiritual successor to Dark Sun, or would it flop for the people who do want Dark Sun because it'd be missing particular iconic things or would seem like a soft-ball version of the original setting somehow in stepping cautiously around the IP boundaries...

How hard would it be to make a Dark Sun clone that doesn't suck and doesn't infringe?

Depends I guess what you consider DS' core identity, not like WoTC has a monopoly on post-apocalyptic worlds run by warlords. Also, if that's what you want, there are other games out there that offer such content. Next time I run GURPs I'm thinking of doing something along those lines (with a bit more of a sci-fi lost tech thing maybe).

skyth

2023-02-24, 09:36 AM

If memory serves, they did something like that initially with SJ in 3e and basically gave it to spelljammer.org to run/maintain. Can't see that happening based on their current practices, but it would be nice. There's some fan conversion stuff available if you look around a bit.

There was a 3E conversion of Spelljammer in the a Dungeon magazine back in the day.

Brookshw

2023-02-24, 09:53 AM

There was a 3E conversion of Spelljammer in the a Dungeon magazine back in the day.

Heh, I think I still have a copy of that somewhere. But there was something in addition to that.

Trafalgar

2023-02-24, 10:33 AM

Well it'd be great if a 3pp did Dark Sun stuff, except they can't... So maybe the appropriate thing for WotC to do if they don't want to take the risk is to put Dark Sun under OGL/CC and let people go with it.

Or, alternately, ignoring WotC it'd be interesting to ask how close you could get to Dark Sun in spirit without treading on specific IP - is there actually enough space to make a spiritual successor to Dark Sun, or would it flop for the people who do want Dark Sun because it'd be missing particular iconic things or would seem like a soft-ball version of the original setting somehow in stepping cautiously around the IP boundaries...

How hard would it be to make a Dark Sun clone that doesn't suck and doesn't infringe?

I guess this is the core issue. I get it that WOTC doesn't want to publish Dark Sun, but why not let a 3rd Party Publisher do it?

For example, I don't see anything in Dark Sun being more problematic than the Red Wizards of Thay in Forgotten Realms. I believe 5e source books on Thay have been published by DMs Guild.

NichG

2023-02-24, 12:24 PM

Depends I guess what you consider DS' core identity, not like WoTC has a monopoly on post-apocalyptic worlds run by warlords. Also, if that's what you want, there are other games out there that offer such content. Next time I run GURPs I'm thinking of doing something along those lines (with a bit more of a sci-fi lost tech thing maybe).

I think you'd need at minimum:

- An ongoing environmental catastrophe linked to sources of personal power that are being used by the forces that be
- Survival pressures from that catastrophe leading to extreme wildlife as well as strange adaptations in the sentients of the setting.
- Something like psionics. It's just so central to DS' distinction from other properties
- Immortal tyrants who are also way above the normal power scale for the setting
- All of the nasty stuff that goes with that plus the harsh world - slavery, genocide, people mistreating those they can gain power over as they themselves are subjected to stresses and pressures from above
- Resistance movements and hidden settlements outside of 'civilization' in response to the above. Guerilla style of play for those supporting said movements.
- Strong survival aspects and scarcity compared to normal RPG elements - gear that breaks, thirst and starvation risks that are actually credible, much more limited economic scale, core resources are totally absent (e.g. no metal)
- No beneficent divine forces, planar access, etc - and some very grimdark reason for that. No 'this life is bad, but we can look forward to the afterlife' to ruin the tone.

Segev

2023-02-24, 03:09 PM

If you can pitch them a scenario where the revenue they'd gain from publishing Dark Sun would be worth all the work it would take them to pre-empt and navigate any potential PR issues they might run into doing so, be my guest. (Also, what Brookshw said.)

:shrug: If I were WotC and wanted to have my cake and eat it to in this regard, I would quietly license it to a third party that showed passion for Dark Sun as a product, and ask them to follow similar guidelines to OGL content, just with the quiet acknowledgement that this is legal for them to do with this IP that isn't in the OGL. Though, personally, I would just publish it, myself, if I were WotC. Probably when also releasing it as an M:tG source for new cards. But I am less concerned than you believe they are about this damaging their reputation somehow.

I also, if I were a Dark Sun fan, would not want to see WotC publish it while WotC is still in the same mindset that OneD&D and TCE seem to be coming from. I am sure I would be disappointed at best by what came out of it.

Luccan

2023-02-24, 03:39 PM

To be clear, I think WotC would screw up addressing the sensitive aspects of Dark Sun like they recently screwed up Hadozee or how they made Van Richten and his tiger less heroic than intended in the original version of Curse of Strahd. Not that they might not give Elves a Dex bonus. It would actually make more sense for some racial bonuses in Dark Sun to be cultural more than physical, since running far and fast is specifically something the elven nomads do as a result of being nomads as much as a result of being elves. Though I also don't think they care about certain mechanics enough to do the setting justice.

Although I thought Dark Sun got the third party treatment as well during 3.X, didn't it?

Psyren

2023-02-24, 05:26 PM

Or, alternately, ignoring WotC it'd be interesting to ask how close you could get to Dark Sun in spirit without treading on specific IP - is there actually enough space to make a spiritual successor to Dark Sun, or would it flop for the people who do want Dark Sun because it'd be missing particular iconic things or would seem like a soft-ball version of the original setting somehow in stepping cautiously around the IP boundaries...

How hard would it be to make a Dark Sun clone that doesn't suck and doesn't infringe?

I'd say you can manage the broad strokes just fine using Ravenloft. Create a campaign set in Hazlan, take a few artistic liberties and you're most of the way there.

skyth

2023-02-24, 06:04 PM

Yeah, not sure why Ravenloft wouldn't be problematic while Dark Sun would be ..

NichG

2023-02-24, 06:19 PM

Yeah, not sure why Ravenloft wouldn't be problematic while Dark Sun would be ..

I mean the conclusion of the last few pages of argument was that Dark Sun isn't problematic - or at least no more so than baseline D&D - but it is (apparently to WotC at least) unprofitable and potentially of high risk to the specific image they may be trying to create.

As far as 'using Ravenloft for Dark Sun', it does seem wildly different in themes to me. Some elements (inescapable grimdark world, powerful tyrants) are there, but the survivalist/environmental catastrophe stuff isn't exactly there nor the local adaptations to harsh conditions or general guerilla/revolutionary aspects. Gothic horror is also a lot more personal than the sort of civilization vs environment aspects of Dark Sun.

Psyren

2023-02-24, 07:20 PM

Yeah, not sure why Ravenloft wouldn't be problematic while Dark Sun would be ..

Hazlan has the "arcane magic despoiled the land" and "immoral/amoral sorcerer kings who don't care about the consequences of their experiments are in charge" themes. And of course, it's in Ravenloft, so there's also the whole "divine magic is unreliable / you can't be totally sure what is actually answering your prayers" bit - not quite the same as Dark Sun there, but not like FR either.

What it doesn't have, to my knowledge, are themes like widespread slavery, or mechanics like banning given races and classes outright. Again though, I don't actually know which elements Kyle was considering "problematic."

Keltest

2023-02-24, 08:49 PM

Hazlan has the "arcane magic despoiled the land" and "immoral/amoral sorcerer kings who don't care about the consequences of their experiments are in charge" themes. And of course, it's in Ravenloft, so there's also the whole "divine magic is unreliable / you can't be totally sure what is actually answering your prayers" bit - not quite the same as Dark Sun there, but not like FR either.

What it doesn't have, to my knowledge, are themes like widespread slavery, or mechanics like banning given races and classes outright. Again though, I don't actually know which elements Kyle was considering "problematic."

Those are setting elements, which are distinct from themes. It doesnt necessarily affect your overall point, but I think its an important distinction to make now before people start talking past each other.

warty goblin

2023-02-24, 10:09 PM

It isn't really like if you engage with the setting much, Ye Olde Fantasy Realme is exactly a beacon of shining respect for human rights. All those peasants? Probably serfs, legally bound to the land, and with significant owed labor to the (hereditary, unelected and unaccountable) manoral lord. Not fully enslaved, but not in anything like a free position.

Nor is having outright slavery in a setting necessarily problematic, or even controversial. Blue Rose, the chirpiest, most intensely inclusive RPG you care to imagine, has slavery, and makes no bones about it being cruel and abusive. But it's what the bad guys do, and you are not the bad guys. Your goal is to stop the bad guys, which is hard because they are also very powerful.

Psyren

2023-02-24, 10:55 PM

Those are setting elements, which are distinct from themes. It doesnt necessarily affect your overall point, but I think its an important distinction to make now before people start talking past each other.

I'm aware - "broad strokes" was meant to cover both.

It isn't really like if you engage with the setting much, Ye Olde Fantasy Realme is exactly a beacon of shining respect for human rights. All those peasants? Probably serfs, legally bound to the land, and with significant owed labor to the (hereditary, unelected and unaccountable) manoral lord. Not fully enslaved, but not in anything like a free position.

Nor is having outright slavery in a setting necessarily problematic, or even controversial. Blue Rose, the chirpiest, most intensely inclusive RPG you care to imagine, has slavery, and makes no bones about it being cruel and abusive. But it's what the bad guys do, and you are not the bad guys. Your goal is to stop the bad guys, which is hard because they are also very powerful.

Just labelling something "bad guys do it" is not enough of a fig leaf for the Fortune 500 company to avoid backlash for printing it.

NichG

2023-02-25, 12:39 AM

Just labelling something "bad guys do it" is not enough of a fig leaf for the Fortune 500 company to avoid backlash for printing it.

No longer talking about WotC doing it though, but rather a third party publisher.

Corvus

2023-02-25, 02:27 AM

I can see why wotc isn't too keen on returning to Dark Sun - it's a setting where oppressive oligarchs abuse the common folk in an effort to keep power and don't care about the societal or ecological damage they cause in doing so, while the players are largely rebels against the system trying to bring them down.

Probably hits a bit to close to home for them.

warty goblin

2023-02-25, 08:03 AM

Just labelling something "bad guys do it" is not enough of a fig leaf for the Fortune 500 company to avoid backlash for printing it.

Movie studios, game publishers, and fiction publishers do this literally all the time.

KorvinStarmast

2023-02-25, 04:12 PM

If you can pitch them a scenario where the revenue they'd gain from publishing Dark Sun would be worth all the work it would take them to pre-empt and navigate any potential PR issues they might run into doing so, be my guest. To stop beating around the bush: WotC is gutless.
Dark Sun is a post apocalyptic world, as are many other settings (such as Numenera, D&D 4e, etc). It has a core concept (particularly as regards the preserver/defiler contrast in magic) that makes for a unique feel. They've messed with other settings (like Dragonlance) and still pressed on.

Psyren

2023-02-25, 04:13 PM

Movie studios, game publishers, and fiction publishers do this literally all the time.

And most of them aren't trying to build brands centered around inclusivity and fun for all ages. I doubt Disney would publish Dark Sun either for example.

...Look, I'm not saying WotC will never revisit Dark Sun ever again, but I can understand them wanting to be cautious too, especially in light of some of their more recent missteps.

No longer talking about WotC doing it though, but rather a third party publisher.

The best ways to enable that are (a) for someone to do a legally-distinct retroclone of some kind, or (b) convince WotC to allow DS content in DM's Guild. We can't advise on the former here, but for the latter, here is the contact form. (https://support.dmsguild.com/hc/en-us/requests/new)

To stop beating around the bush: WotC is gutless.

*shrug*

I'm sure they're as devastated as I am.

NichG

2023-02-25, 05:02 PM

The best ways to enable that are (a) for someone to do a legally-distinct retroclone of some kind, or (b) convince WotC to allow DS content in DM's Guild. We can't advise on the former here, but for the latter, here is the contact form. (https://support.dmsguild.com/hc/en-us/requests/new)

We can't advise on questions of legality, but I see no reason why we can't speculate on how to construct a setting that looks and feels like Dark Sun but in which we do not use WotC IP to construct that speculative setting.

Brookshw

2023-02-25, 05:43 PM

We can't advise on questions of legality, but I see no reason why we can't speculate on how to construct a setting that looks and feels like Dark Sun but in which we do not use WotC IP to construct that speculative setting.

Because things like substantial similarity would (or, at least, should) be a part of that conversation to establish if it's free of WoTC IP - not that such could be definitively established here - and that analysis and conversation is strongly in the legal discussion sphere.

As an alternative, maybe take as a premise what you would add to the Barsoom series (which large parts of are in the public domain, and were a strong inspiration for DS), and ask what you'd like to add to them a fun setting for D&D. Leave discussions of DS out of it entirely.

Keltest

2023-02-25, 05:54 PM

And most of them aren't trying to build brands centered around inclusivity and fun for all ages. I doubt Disney would publish Dark Sun either for example.

They had no problem publishing a setting where the main villain was a genocidal maniac who kidnapped and gaslit people into being his minions while torturing them and violating their bodily autonomy.

Or buying a brand where one of the main characters was a slave, and where slavery explicitly existed as a problem beyond what was immediately solvable.

NichG

2023-02-25, 06:02 PM

Because things like substantial similarity would (or, at least, should) be a part of that conversation to establish if it's free of WoTC IP - not that such could be definitively established here - and that analysis and conversation is strongly in the legal discussion sphere.

As an alternative, maybe take as a premise what you would add to the Barsoom series (which large parts of are in the public domain, and were a strong inspiration for DS), and ask what you'd like to add to them a fun setting for D&D. Leave discussions of DS out of it entirely.

The important point of the discussion for me is whether or not Dark Sun's feel would be preservable without it's details, because that determines whether or not WotC's decision effectively says 'no one shall be allowed to play in DS because we said its problematic' as opposed to 'we don't want to touch it ourselves because of the risk', and that determines what sort of response it deserves from its customers who do want to play in DS. This is also relevant to Segev's point about not trusting WotC to do a good job with Dark Sun, because if there's no alternative then that's a much trickier situation than if for example a 3pp made the Numenera to Dark Sun's Planescape. I don't think actually talking about whether a particular combination of factors would be legal or advising people to take specific actions with regards to publication is actually necessary to get at that point.

Brookshw

2023-02-25, 06:29 PM

The important point of the discussion for me is whether or not Dark Sun's feel would be preservable without it's details, because that determines whether or not WotC's decision effectively says 'no one shall be allowed to play in DS because we said its problematic' as opposed to 'we don't want to touch it ourselves because of the risk', and that determines what sort of response it deserves from its customers who do want to play in DS. This is also relevant to Segev's point about not trusting WotC to do a good job with Dark Sun, because if there's no alternative then that's a much trickier situation than if for example a 3pp made the Numenera to Dark Sun's Planescape. I don't think actually talking about whether a particular combination of factors would be legal or advising people to take specific actions with regards to publication is actually necessary to get at that point.

WoTC doesn't control people's home games, people can do whatever they want at their tables. Most 2e DS material is still available through DriveThru, it's not too hard to use in 5e if you want to do a bit of conversion, you can even find a lot of DS monsters already converted in SJ.

I'm not willing to join this line of discussion further

Psyren

2023-02-25, 08:17 PM

We can't advise on questions of legality, but I see no reason why we can't speculate on how to construct a setting that looks and feels like Dark Sun but in which we do not use WotC IP to construct that speculative setting.

I'm not saying you can't do that, but it would at the very least need its own thread. (And would probably be safer on Reddit or ENWorld etc.)

Satinavian

2023-02-26, 02:40 AM

Corvus

2023-02-26, 07:12 PM

If WoC really think they don't want DS in their portfolio anymore, trhey could easily get rid of it by selling the IP completely.

There is no reason why the next DS incarnation has to be done in D&D at all.

Why would they do that? They are still making money from it, via pdf sales and no one ever gives up an IP willingly if there is even the slightest chance they can still profit from it.

Maybe they think that when the current rendition of the satanic panic resides they can reboot it again in the future.

Mastikator

2023-02-27, 06:50 AM

If WoC really think they don't want DS in their portfolio anymore, trhey could easily get rid of it by selling the IP completely.

There is no reason why the next DS incarnation has to be done in D&D at all.

JC says they want to update DS for 5e but it's problematic and difficult. Most likely if they do they will have to remove some of the elements that makes dark sun dark sun.

Segev

2023-02-27, 01:43 PM

JC says they want to update DS for 5e but it's problematic and difficult. Most likely if they do they will have to remove some of the elements that makes dark sun dark sun.

It is worth noting that Dark Sun actually does something a lot of people clamor for: nerfs casters. You either need to find some unblighted land, or you need to take a lot longer to cast your spells.

KorvinStarmast

2023-02-27, 05:24 PM

Maybe they think that when the current rendition of the satanic panic resides they can reboot it again in the future. Not with the current dev team.

JC says they want to update DS for 5e but it's problematic and difficult. Most likely if they do they will have to remove some of the elements that makes dark sun dark sun. Code for "can't be bothered to put in the effort." I will again observe that I think someone is grooming JCraw for a management position.

Psyren

2023-02-27, 05:59 PM

Segev

2023-02-27, 07:46 PM

Psyren

2023-02-27, 08:41 PM

Sure, I was stating my opinion, not saying no one was allowed to disagree with it. I wasn't even attempting to divine their intent or speak on their behalf.

But since you bring up the UA - putting aside that the designers working on numerical balance for a playtest are probably not the same folks they'd use to dredge up old setting fluff, I think the most recent UA is primarily a tuning issue, and shows that their design time was well placed.

Devils_Advocate

2023-02-27, 09:02 PM

It's not the 'hearing that the things are bad'. It's being able to understand and express why those things are bad, in a way that makes sense to you and holds even when under other pressures of expediency or hierarchies of import. As well as to understand when the same underlying issues take on new forms that aren't precisely like the old ones.

It might be accepted 'slavery is bad', but how about when someone has made someone else so dependent on them that they have no choice but to 'willingly' do what they say? If you have had a chance to develop a structure of thought about not just 'slavery is bad' but why slavery is bad, what slavery does to a society, to its people, etc, then you can think about stuff like 'wage slavery'. If you're just parroting moral lessons and there's a taboo around actually discussing the why of those things or exploring their consequences, you'll end up with something very brittle to just changing the apparent form of the thing.

Murder is bad, sure. How about soldiers killing 'the enemy'? What is a just war, an unjust war, and where should the lines be? How about when the nature of war changes?
I get the distinct impression that people generally do not want to hear how some behaviors widely acceptable in their own society — quite possibly including behaviors that they engage in themselves — are unethical in pretty much all of the same ways as behaviors that their society rightly condemns. That doesn't mean that they shouldn't hear it, but I can very much see how it's not a ticket to commercial success.

Is treating other animals as property any more ethical than treating humans as property, and if so, how? That's certainly one of the questions to which we can apply anti-slavery principles, and non-coincidentally one of the questions that prompts people to develop more general positions than "slavery is bad" even if they haven't already. But publishing something that asks that question is guaranteed to make lots of people mad at you. Regardless of your position. Regardless of whether you take any stance of your own and regardless of whether you portray multiple perspectives as sympathetic. People will be mad that you did not exclusively and explicitly agree with them.

And controversy like that is potentially great if you're a small name trying to attract attention. But for a huge company that wants to have broad appeal, there is no pole long enough for touching that. If a niche product has any significant chance of not only being unpopular but convincing people to boycott your company, it's just not worth the risk.

Witty Username

2023-02-27, 11:39 PM

It is worth noting that Dark Sun actually does something a lot of people clamor for: nerfs casters. You either need to find some unblighted land, or you need to take a lot longer to cast your spells.
As I understood it, preservers are functionally the same as the standard wizard. Defilers are wizards with bonuses to certain spells and faster progression. (AD&D versions, I know of 4e's version but have little understanding of it.
--
Dark Sun changing to fit 5e is a necessity, Psionics not existing, a bunch of races being genocided in canon including a few core races, no outer planes, no paladins allowed as they were purged in the moral greyness, society being prewriting, and a bunch of other things play havoc with 5e core assumptions.

Will 5.1 d&d do Dark Sun justice, well no, no Psionics, too open to character options, and a bunch of other stuff leave it poorly equipped to do the setting.

Corvus

2023-02-27, 11:58 PM

As I understood it, preservers are functionally the same as the standard wizard. Defilers are wizards with bonuses to certain spells and faster progression. (AD&D versions, I know of 4e's version but have little understanding of it.

Functionally the same - but with the problem that almost no one knows about the difference between preservers and defilers. Almost everyone treats preservers as just another walking ecological disaster and wants you dead. And for those that do know the difference, most see you as an enemy and want you dead as well. Preservers had to go out of their way to hide what they were, which made spellcasting tricky.

Segev

2023-02-28, 01:22 AM

As I understood it, preservers are functionally the same as the standard wizard. Defilers are wizards with bonuses to certain spells and faster progression. (AD&D versions, I know of 4e's version but have little understanding of it.
--
Dark Sun changing to fit 5e is a necessity, Psionics not existing, a bunch of races being genocided in canon including a few core races, no outer planes, no paladins allowed as they were purged in the moral greyness, society being prewriting, and a bunch of other things play havoc with 5e core assumptions.

Will 5.1 d&d do Dark Sun justice, well no, no Psionics, too open to character options, and a bunch of other stuff leave it poorly equipped to do the setting.

I wonder if you could use Sorcerers and Sorcery Points in place of psionics. Dragon Kings are both mages and psions, right?

NichG

2023-02-28, 02:54 AM

I feel like you could also use Dark Sun as an excuse to actually make a psionics system though, maybe even one that acts as a parallel progression path for Dark Sun characters in particular, so its something unique to the setting (but which could then get rolled out as a class at some other point)...

Corvus

2023-02-28, 08:20 AM

I think there's a lot of better places for their "effort" to go than some edgelordtopia niche - especially when there's about triple the chance that anything they do there will break the base compared to other settings they could be working on or fleshing out instead.

There are no drow or shadar-kai in Athas, so its a heck of a lot less edgelordy than most settings.

In general in Athas you are rebels opposing oppressive oligarchs who crush the common folk beneath them in an effort to maintain power, uncaring of the societal or ecological damage they cause in doing so. Heck, its practically cyberpunk but with swords and spells rather than guns and cybernetics.

D&D is largely built around the premise of invading someone's home, murdering them when they resist just because they are ugly and/or green, and then taking all their stuff. Adventurers aren't called murderhobos for nothing. Looked at it in that light, the whole game is problematic. PCs cause more depopulation than almost any big bad, using violence to solve most problems and being very much might makes right,

EggKookoo

2023-02-28, 09:54 AM

D&D is largely built around the premise of invading someone's home, murdering them when they resist just because they are ugly and/or green, and then taking all their stuff. Adventurers aren't called murderhobos for nothing. Looked at it in that light, the whole game is problematic. PCs cause more depopulation than almost any big bad, using violence to solve most problems and being very much might makes right,

Which is one of the reasons I think alignment still has a place. It's nice to have a tool to punish (functionally) evil PCs.

Dr.Samurai

2023-02-28, 10:19 AM

I think Kyle's comment is less a remark on what WotC actually thinks about a setting with slavery and genocide in it and more just a sign of the times and the reluctance of any corporation to do something that might get them in hot water online.

I agree with other posters that we're probably dodging a bullet here because current WotC probably would not do a worthwhile treatment of the setting anyways. Fans of the setting would be left disappointed and everyone that likes the new direction will downplay the terrible quality and just say no one can ever be pleased and wizards is doing everything they can.

The somewhat good news is that this direction won't last forever. Even now, people that find things "problematic" can't even agree whether their own terminology is problematic or not. And not only is this not a tenable direction for them, but also for the people making concessions. Because once Wizards agree that simply having genocide and slavery in the setting is "problematic", they create a major chink in their armor. After that, someone can then make the case that other elements of D&D are problematic because, guess what, by these standards, the entire game is offensive. At some point, any company will have to say "enough is enough".

1. Slavery and genocide are wrong, so Dark Sun should not be published.
1a. This argument is inconsistent with the rest of D&D, other settings, published modules, etc.

2. The children! Think about the children!
2a. Presumably these children are playing with adults. You don't have to describe slavery as slavery, you can just say people are being mistreated. Races don't exist because they simply aren't a part of the setting, etc. Of course, you could just... avoid running Dark Sun for your kids! Oh my, what?!?! Things can be published that I wouldn't want to run for my own group? I can't believe it!

3. We don't have psionics.
3a. Perfect opportunity to make a system.

4. It's not economical for them to make it.
4a. Citation needed.

Telok

2023-02-28, 11:11 AM

I agree with other posters that we're probably dodging a bullet here because current WotC probably would not do a worthwhile treatment of the setting anyways. Fans of the setting would be left disappointed and everyone that likes the new direction will downplay the terrible quality and just say no one can ever be pleased and wizards is doing everything they can.

Given the hack jobs on the last two settings and the WotC disinclination to publish anything else (for D&D) but one gimmick box for each of them... I'd have to agree with you.

Psyren

2023-02-28, 02:36 PM

The four WotC owned IP settings that aren't just "high fantasy with D&D's zero to demigod not even making sense in-setting" all over again are: Dragonlance, Spelljammer, Dark Sun, and Planescape.

Ravenloft says hi and several of the MTG settings are not traditional high fantasy either. (Dominaria and Theros are, but Ravnica, Kamigawa, Mirrodin etc aren't.)

Unfortunately (and relevant to the thread) no amount of CC/OGL is going to let a 3PP do it instead.

Not DS directly, no, not right away - but a 3PP who feels like they can capture the themes/aesthetic, could make a name for themselves doing DS-lite in Ravenloft (Hazran) and then do a kickstarter using the CC mechanics, modified to allow for the defiling/preserving aspect (not called that, obviously.) And then if that kickstarter took off, who knows, that might prompt WotC to prioritize DS in 5e. Nothing succeeds like success, after all.

The somewhat good news is that this direction won't last forever. Even now, people that find things "problematic" can't even agree whether their own terminology is problematic or not. And not only is this not a tenable direction for them, but also for the people making concessions. Because once Wizards agree that simply having genocide and slavery in the setting is "problematic", they create a major chink in their armor. After that, someone can then make the case that other elements of D&D are problematic because, guess what, by these standards, the entire game is offensive. At some point, any company will have to say "enough is enough".

1. Slavery and genocide are wrong, so Dark Sun should not be published.
1a. This argument is inconsistent with the rest of D&D, other settings, published modules, etc.

2. The children! Think about the children!
2a. Presumably these children are playing with adults. You don't have to describe slavery as slavery, you can just say people are being mistreated. Races don't exist because they simply aren't a part of the setting, etc. Of course, you could just... avoid running Dark Sun for your kids! Oh my, what?!?! Things can be published that I wouldn't want to run for my own group? I can't believe it!

3. We don't have psionics.
3a. Perfect opportunity to make a system.

4. It's not economical for them to make it.
4a. Citation needed.

What confuses me is that, if you're right and the rest of D&D already has this kind of content/themes then isn't that even less incentive for them to make DS? What's it bringing to the table then?

Similarly, I've been a fan of psionics, but at the end of the day they've proven that you can just take magic and remove the components to get "psionics" that people will gladly pay for, and in so doing avoid all the balance headaches and transparency and godawful psionic combat rules of editions past.

Simply calling WotC lazy or cowards or whatever other insult is pretty weak as sales pitches go. Where's the appeal to profit?

EggKookoo

2023-02-28, 02:42 PM

What confuses me is that, if you're right and the rest of D&D already has this kind of content/themes then isn't that even less incentive for them to make DS? What's it bringing to the table then?

Apples and oranges. I mean, literally, apples and oranges. They're both fruit. If you've had one, do you automatically know what the other tastes like?

Dr.Samurai

2023-02-28, 03:25 PM

What confuses me is that, if you're right and the rest of D&D already has this kind of content/themes then isn't that even less incentive for them to make DS? What's it bringing to the table then?
I'm skeptical that you're confused and that this is what you think I'm saying :smallamused:.

Similarly, I've been a fan of psionics, but at the end of the day they've proven that you can just take magic and remove the components to get "psionics" that people will gladly pay for, and in so doing avoid all the balance headaches and transparency and godawful psionic combat rules of editions past.
Oh even better then! One less hurdle to publish the setting.

Simply calling WotC lazy or cowards or whatever other insult is pretty weak as sales pitches go. Where's the appeal to profit?
The appeal to profit is "lots of old school fans want to see this setting updated and will purchase the 5E campaign, player's guide, bestiary, etc."

"This is problematic" is the opposite of appeal to profit, and why I predict it won't be around forever. You have an IP, that you can make money off of, and you don't because of concern-mongering and offense-taking. And maybe that makes sense, maybe it is more of a problem to publish it then. But in this case, I don't think that holds up, because of point 1. It's absolute CHILD'S PLAY to portray D&D as something problematic that shouldn't be supported because "bad things". If that's the route you're willing to go, prepare to defend yourself against much more.

Corvus

2023-02-28, 05:32 PM

If Dark Sun was anywhere near as 'problematic' as they say, why are they still selling 2e and 4e pdfs for it?

Oh wait, greedy oligarchs, money.

Psyren

2023-02-28, 05:35 PM

Apples and oranges. I mean, literally, apples and oranges. They're both fruit. If you've had one, do you automatically know what the other tastes like?

So then, if the portrayal of that subject matter in Dark Sun really is different than how it is portrayed elsewhere, the question becomes how. And the answer to that question might explain Kyle's hesitation.

Oh even better then! One less hurdle to publish the setting.

You say that, and yet I have little doubt that taking their 5e approach to psionics and putting it in Dark Sun would be heavily controversial if not roundly rejected among the very fans who claim to want 5e DS.

The appeal to profit is "lots of old school fans want to see this setting updated and will purchase the 5E campaign, player's guide, bestiary, etc."

But you could make that same argument about Greyhawk. Or Rokugan. Or Planescape, which they actually have been spending time on updating. Or Blackmoor/Mystara. Or even continuing to flesh out the other updated settings that arguably need it, like Krynn and Spelljammer. So "old-school fans will buy it" isn't actually enough on its own, it has to outweigh all the other things old-school fans will buy that have fewer edge hurdles.

And not only does it have to compete with the other old settings, it now has to compete with all the newer MTG settings that might be even more lucrative.

"This is problematic" is the opposite of appeal to profit, and why I predict it won't be around forever. You have an IP, that you can make money off of, and you don't because of concern-mongering and offense-taking. And maybe that makes sense, maybe it is more of a problem to publish it then. But in this case, I don't think that holds up, because of point 1. It's absolute CHILD'S PLAY to portray D&D as something problematic that shouldn't be supported because "bad things". If that's the route you're willing to go, prepare to defend yourself against much more.

Personally I think a workable approach (beyond just releasing it to DMsG for a third party to take a plausibly deniable swing at it and scooping up some of the profits) would be to split off another ident for a more adult-oriented product line and put it there, distancing the brand. Similar to what Marvel did with its MAX line.

EggKookoo

2023-02-28, 05:41 PM

So then, if the portrayal of that subject matter in Dark Sun really is different than how it is portrayed elsewhere, the question becomes how. And the answer to that question might explain Kyle's hesitation.

It's different in a bunch of ways. It's a question of it being worse.

Brookshw

2023-02-28, 06:22 PM

1. Slavery and genocide are wrong, so Dark Sun should not be published.
1a. This argument is inconsistent with the rest of D&D, other settings, published modules, etc.

2. The children! Think about the children!
2a. Presumably these children are playing with adults. You don't have to describe slavery as slavery, you can just say people are being mistreated. Races don't exist because they simply aren't a part of the setting, etc. Of course, you could just... avoid running Dark Sun for your kids! Oh my, what?!?! Things can be published that I wouldn't want to run for my own group? I can't believe it!

3. We don't have psionics.
3a. Perfect opportunity to make a system.

4. It's not economical for them to make it.
4a. Citation needed.

1a) comparison is faulty no other setting comes close to the systematic incorporation of those elements. Maybe the closest we had was SJ and the unhuman war, which has since been purged (didn't even save my spirit warriors or bionoids those SOBs)

2a) No idea why you think that, I know when I was a kid I mostly played with other kids, and I know that my player's kids have their own games with their friends and no adults. Come to think of it, one of the last times I ran DS may have been for a bunch of 12ish year olds, their immediate goal after I explained the setting was to try and take over Tyr to make it their own dictatorship.

3a) Meh, I don't mind using a different system for psionics, don't care. D&D's messed up the implementation too many times for me to be overly concerned. YMMV.

4a) What Psyren said.

MoiMagnus

2023-02-28, 07:05 PM

2a) No idea why you think that, I know when I was a kid I mostly played with other kids, and I know that my player's kids have their own games with their friends and no adults. Come to think of it, one of the last times I ran DS may have been for a bunch of 12ish year olds, their immediate goal after I explained the setting was to try and take over Tyr to make it their own dictatorship.

Yeah, I've never actually seen a campaign where some players were from different age ranges.

Sure, I've seen and participated in a few one shots with mixed generations. And I know 3 brothers & sister who used to play DnD with their father as a GM. But that's the exceptions.

Everyone else I know learn to play with friend of the same school (some in middle school, other in high schools, other in college, etc), and all the longer campaigns I've witnessed were between peoples of the same generation.

(And by that I mean less than 10 years between the youngest and oldest.)

EggKookoo

2023-02-28, 07:24 PM

Yeah, I've never actually seen a campaign where some players were from different age ranges.

I don't know too many young kids buying store-bought setting books with their allowance. I'm sure it happens, but how often?

When I played before, say, high school, we just made up our own content. We would use the base rules from whatever system we played. These books aren't cheap, and I suspect most kids under 13 or so aren't buying them on their own. They're Christmas gifts or something.

FWIW, my current D&D campaign has players ranging from 7 to 57.

Dr.Samurai

2023-02-28, 09:22 PM

If Dark Sun was anywhere near as 'problematic' as they say, why are they still selling 2e and 4e pdfs for it?
Err.. no, um... uh cognitive load and... it's not economical and... stuff.

So then, if the portrayal of that subject matter in Dark Sun really is different than how it is portrayed elsewhere, the question becomes how. And the answer to that question might explain Kyle's hesitation.
No. It begs the question.

Kyle would then have to explain why slavery is okay in some contexts and not in others. Or why it's especially problematic over say... murder-hoboing, mind control, etc.

You say that, and yet I have little doubt that taking their 5e approach to psionics and putting it in Dark Sun would be heavily controversial if not roundly rejected among the very fans who claim to want 5e DS.
I guess we'll never know. I like the Aberrant Sorcerer approach.

But I kind of agree with you, in the sense that no matter what they might try to do to sanitize Dark Sun, the people that call things "problematic" will likely still find fault with it. I guess the solution then is to just not make it. But then, ironically, you become a slave to the concern-mongers.

But you could make that same argument about Greyhawk. Or Rokugan. Or Planescape, which they actually have been spending time on updating. Or Blackmoor/Mystara. Or even continuing to flesh out the other updated settings that arguably need it, like Krynn and Spelljammer. So "old-school fans will buy it" isn't actually enough on its own, it has to outweigh all the other things old-school fans will buy that have fewer edge hurdles.
Firstly, I don't actually think you can make the same argument about some of the settings you've listed.

Secondly, that you can make the same argument doesn't preclude you from publishing the campaign setting.

Thirdly, Dark Sun is unique enough, even without problematic elements, that it would be a welcome addition in any edition. I mean... 5E must be the least wondrous setting published so far. And I never played 2E or earlier so I'm going out on a limb here. But 3E at least gave us supplements about the planes and deities and devils and demons and desert locales and underwater regions and the list goes on and on and on. 5E has given us virtually nothing in comparison. It's as stale and edition as you can get, barely fantasy. For all the talk about "D&D is not a simulation", taking a look at the books and you're basically wandering through pretty normal locales with maybe some interesting stuff sprinkled here or there, maybe.

Fourth, if the developers were actually working on all this material, I can see a point somewhere around here. But the fact is they aren't working on Greyhawk, Rokugan, Mystara, etc.

Fifth, by your own comment it's clear that old school fans will buy it is enough, because that is exactly who Krynn and Spelljammer appeal to. Unless you're trying to suggest that the bulk of those sales were to bright eyed and bushy tailed newbies that just started their D&D journey in 5E and all rushed the bookshelves to scoop up this new campaign setting called Dragonlance and Spelljammer.

And not only does it have to compete with the other old settings, it now has to compete with all the newer MTG settings that might be even more lucrative.

Compete how, exactly? Are you saying that there are enough people who would purchase a campaign setting, but for the fact that there is now another setting they would rather have?

1a) comparison is faulty no other setting comes close to the systematic incorporation of those elements. Maybe the closest we had was SJ and the unhuman war, which has since been purged (didn't even save my spirit warriors or bionoids those SOBs)
Eberron has several genocides, and lineages wiped out, and discrimination, etc.

There are entire Underdark races that ensalve entire other races.

But that's all besides the point. I already made my comment about how conceding that merely having slavery in the game is "problematic" can open you up to more fights down the line.

2a) No idea why you think that, I know when I was a kid I mostly played with other kids, and I know that my player's kids have their own games with their friends and no adults. Come to think of it, one of the last times I ran DS may have been for a bunch of 12ish year olds, their immediate goal after I explained the setting was to try and take over Tyr to make it their own dictatorship.
I can see it now... little kids, saving up their weekly allowance, so they can sneak out of the house at midnight, hitchhike to the local gaming store, buy the Dark Sun campaign setting, and then play secret games of D&D where they get brainwashed into thinking slavery and genocide are okay.

3a) Meh, I don't mind using a different system for psionics, don't care. D&D's messed up the implementation too many times for me to be overly concerned. YMMV.
I think the point is to NOT be overly concerned. Hence this conversation. I'd be fine if they treated psionics like the aberrant sorcerer. If others don't like it, that's unfortunate but... choices have to be made. And I think people will be happy to have a 5E setting that they can engage with (and homebrew what they don't like about it) then rely on homebrew entirely.

4a) What Psyren said.
This campaign setting will have to compete with all these other settings they're not making so... they shouldn't make it? Ok.

Brookshw

2023-02-28, 09:55 PM

Thirdly, Dark Sun is unique enough, even without problematic elements, that it would be a welcome addition in any edition. I mean... 5E must be the least wondrous setting published so far. And I never played 2E or earlier so I'm going out on a limb here. But 3E at least gave us supplements about the planes and deities and devils and demons and desert locales and underwater regions and the list goes on and on and on. 5E has given us virtually nothing in comparison. It's as stale and edition as you can get, barely fantasy. For all the talk about "D&D is not a simulation", taking a look at the books and you're basically wandering through pretty normal locales with maybe some interesting stuff sprinkled here or there, maybe. 5e definitely hasn't offered much, especially compared to 2e, no argument there.

Fifth, by your own comment it's clear that old school fans will buy it is enough, because that is exactly who Krynn and Spelljammer appeal to. Unless you're trying to suggest that the bulk of those sales were to bright eyed and bushy tailed newbies that just started their D&D journey in 5E and all rushed the bookshelves to scoop up this new campaign setting called Dragonlance and Spelljammer. No we won't, I'm an old school fan and I returned my copy of SJ because it was a hollow shell of the 2e setting, DS will be the same if its ever released.

Eberron has several genocides, and lineages wiped out, and discrimination, etc. Does it? There was the lycanthrope wars with the Silver Flame which are presented as a huge moral dilemma and source of regret in the game, and is only a small portion of the over all setting. Are there others I'm unaware of? Eberron wasn't really ever my thing so I may be ignorant.

There are entire Underdark races that ensalve entire other races. yes, yes, we've been over the difference between wide spread systematic systems and small pockets of "here be bad" (oh, and they've moved away from that generally, save maybe for Illithids)

I can see it now... little kids, saving up their weekly allowance, so they can sneak out of the house at midnight, hitchhike to the local gaming store, buy the Dark Sun campaign setting, and then play secret games of D&D where they get brainwashed into thinking slavery and genocide are okay. So we're moving past the idea that kids are always playing under adult supervision or guidance? Okay.

This campaign setting will have to compete with all these other settings they're not making so... they shouldn't make it? Ok. It has to compete with every other possible setting or product which they could instead dedicate the same resources to, and leads to a question of what's the best ROI. Nostalgia alone doesn't cut it, those of us who played in the pre-WoTC days can't be the largest portion of the market.

Witty Username

2023-02-28, 10:06 PM

You understood wrong.
Preservers took extra time to gather their magic. This impacted their ability as combat casters.
Defilers destroyed life to cast at normal speeds.
Either one was a nerf to the Wizard. And that's before even the lethal/deadly social stigma that meant your character probably died as soon as they revealed their abilities.

Ah, I knew about the life destroying thing (the core reason for the setting), not the casting speed thing, I will need to reread it some (been working on 5e conversions for some of the weirder stuff in AD&D settings, including Dark Sun, although my current problem is Phlogiston).

Keltest

2023-02-28, 10:09 PM

It has to compete with every other possible setting or product which they could instead dedicate the same resources to, and leads to a question of what's the best ROI. Nostalgia alone doesn't cut it, those of us who played in the pre-WoTC days can't be the largest portion of the market.

As opposed to what, releasing another fantasy kitchen sink setting that isnt meaningfully different from the last 3?

Psyren

2023-02-28, 10:51 PM

If Dark Sun was anywhere near as 'problematic' as they say, why are they still selling 2e and 4e pdfs for it?

Oh wait, greedy oligarchs, money.

As a reminder, they sell those legacy Dark Sun PDFs with the following disclaimer:

"We (Wizards) recognize that some of the legacy content available on this website does not reflect the values of the Dungeons & Dragons franchise today. Some older content may reflect ethnic, racial, and gender prejudice that were commonplace in American society at that time. These depictions were wrong then and are wrong today. This content is presented as it was originally created, because to do otherwise would be the same as claiming these prejudices never existed. Dungeons & Dragons teaches that diversity is a strength, and we strive to make our D&D products as welcoming and inclusive as possible. This part of our work will never end."

You can probably see how a disclaimer like this wouldn't really pass muster if they tried to apply it to a brand new Dark Sun product made for 5e or 1DnD.

But I kind of agree with you, in the sense that no matter what they might try to do to sanitize Dark Sun, the people that call things "problematic" will likely still find fault with it.

As would the people who hate change of any stripe. And even if both extremes represent a minority, they're easily loud enough that it's reasonable for them to conclude the firestorm wouldn't be worth it.

Firstly, I don't actually think you can make the same argument about some of the settings you've listed.

Secondly, that you can make the same argument doesn't preclude you from publishing the campaign setting.

Thirdly, Dark Sun is unique enough, even without problematic elements, that it would be a welcome addition in any edition. I mean... 5E must be the least wondrous setting published so far. And I never played 2E or earlier so I'm going out on a limb here. But 3E at least gave us supplements about the planes and deities and devils and demons and desert locales and underwater regions and the list goes on and on and on. 5E has given us virtually nothing in comparison. It's as stale and edition as you can get, barely fantasy. For all the talk about "D&D is not a simulation", taking a look at the books and you're basically wandering through pretty normal locales with maybe some interesting stuff sprinkled here or there, maybe.

Fourth, if the developers were actually working on all this material, I can see a point somewhere around here. But the fact is they aren't working on Greyhawk, Rokugan, Mystara, etc.

Fifth, by your own comment it's clear that old school fans will buy it is enough, because that is exactly who Krynn and Spelljammer appeal to. Unless you're trying to suggest that the bulk of those sales were to bright eyed and bushy tailed newbies that just started their D&D journey in 5E and all rushed the bookshelves to scoop up this new campaign setting called Dragonlance and Spelljammer.

1) Development resources are finite. Time they spend on Dark Sun is time they're not spending on Greyhawk, more Krynn etc.

2) See #1.

3) Being "unique" doesn't mean it's a good fit for the current game. Even putting aside the potential subject matter issues, already I see folks here wanting them to design not one but three separate subsystems in order for the setting to have the necessary fidelity with its older counterpart, and hey while they're at it, could they also ban every divine caster to preserve muh immersion which would limit the already niche audience for DS books even further? It's multiple extra hurdles that other settings just don't have.

4) Beyond the new PHB, you don't know what they're working on. We didn't find out about Planescape until August, but they were clearly working on it much longer.

5) Their goal is and always has been to make something that appeals to both old and new fans alike. Kyle's point was that threading that needle would be harder with a grimdark setting like Dark Sun (see #3.)

Compete how, exactly? Are you saying that there are enough people who would purchase a campaign setting, but for the fact that there is now another setting they would rather have?

Compete for development resources - see #1.

Brookshw

2023-02-28, 10:51 PM

As opposed to what, releasing another fantasy kitchen sink setting that isnt meaningfully different from the last 3?

I certainly hope not. They could always do something new that's more in line with their current standards.

Psyren

2023-02-28, 11:06 PM

One of the Radiant Citadel lead designers/authors, Ajit George, expressed interest in tackling a modern take on Dark Sun: https://twitter.com/ajitgeorgeSB/status/1517525628844527616

Dr.Samurai

2023-02-28, 11:16 PM

No we won't, I'm an old school fan and I returned my copy of SJ because it was a hollow shell of the 2e setting, DS will be the same if its ever released.
This is a quality argument, and I made a similar one.

Does it?
The Lycanthropic Purge

The dragons wiped out all the titans and cursed the remaining few so that their progeny basically devolve each generation, so we now have standard D&D giants in Eberron.

The dragons and elves wiped out the entire line of the Vol family.

The Inspired want to wipe out all Kalashtar and have already wiped out one "lineage" of Kalashtar.

One of the Shadowmarked family wiped out a whole other Shadowmarked family.

There's a lot of "wiping out this whole group of people" going on in Eberron.

And most of these examples are within living memory, as opposed to way off in the distant distant distant past of the setting like in Dark Sun.

yes, yes, we've been over the difference between wide spread systematic systems and small pockets of "here be bad" (oh, and they've moved away from that generally, save maybe for Illithids)
I haven't been over this before actually, so happy to have the conversation.

I don't see what is not systemic about the slavery that drow, neogi, illithids, duergar, etc. engage in. I mean... they have to raid the surface world to replenish their slaves, they have powers that specifically enslave, they have special equipment for their slaves, etc.

I'm sure, that if we just count drow alone, there are more city-states in Forgotten Realms with slavery than there are on Athas. And that's one group of people, and below the surface.

Again... it's not obvious to me what is different, nor why it's so terrible given that it's clearly a very bad thing in Dark Sun.

So we're moving past the idea that kids are always playing under adult supervision or guidance? Okay.
Uh sure. I guess that leaves us at "It seems to be my problem now that parents don't want their children playing certain games, but also don't supervise the purchases kids make, nor ever check on them to see what they've bought and what they're doing. And for this reason, this particular burden of parenting now falls on all D&D players to shoulder, as they can no longer have campaigns published that would be otherwise gated by parents."

It has to compete with every other possible setting or product which they could instead dedicate the same resources to, and leads to a question of what's the best ROI. Nostalgia alone doesn't cut it, those of us who played in the pre-WoTC days can't be the largest portion of the market.
I don't know. But I highly doubt the "it's problematic" crowd are also the largest portion. Or even a big portion.

As a reminder, they sell those legacy Dark Sun PDFs with the following disclaimer:

"We (Wizards) recognize that some of the legacy content available on this website does not reflect the values of the Dungeons & Dragons franchise today. Some older content may reflect ethnic, racial, and gender prejudice that were commonplace in American society at that time. These depictions were wrong then and are wrong today. This content is presented as it was originally created, because to do otherwise would be the same as claiming these prejudices never existed. Dungeons & Dragons teaches that diversity is a strength, and we strive to make our D&D products as welcoming and inclusive as possible. This part of our work will never end."

You can probably see how a disclaimer like this wouldn't really pass muster if they tried to apply it to a brand new Dark Sun product made for 5e or 1DnD.
Ah yes, the "Have our cake and eat it too" disclaimer. Good luck finding the prejudices reflected in Dark Sun. You'll be squinting for sure, but not because of the daylight.

As would the people who hate change of any stripe. And even if both extremes represent a minority, they're easily loud enough that it's reasonable for them to conclude the firestorm wouldn't be worth it.
So we are slaves to those that find slavery problematic. *chef's kiss*

1) Development resources are finite. Time they spend on Dark Sun is time they're not spending on Greyhawk, more Krynn etc.
Are they spending resources on Greyhawk?

2) See #1.
I see you making assumptions.

3) Being "unique" doesn't mean it's a good fit for the current game. Even putting aside the potential subject matter issues, already I see folks here wanting them to design not one but three separate subsystems in order for the setting to have the necessary fidelity with its older counterpart, and hey while they're at it, could they also ban every divine caster to preserve muh immersion which would limit the already niche audience for DS books even further? It's multiple extra hurdles that other settings just don't have.
I wouldn't worry about those guys though. Remember, you and Brookshw are downplaying the impact/needs of the old schoolers. So, if they are just a small group of grognards, that's fine. But don't pretend that their "inevitable" disappointment and outrage is then reason to not do something. They can't be "small potatoes" on the one hand and then "big shots" on the other.

Basically what you're saying here is "no new players of D&D want Dark Sun, and you won't satisfy the few grognards that do", and I'm not sure that you have evidence to back that up.

4) Beyond the new PHB, you don't know what they're working on. We didn't find out about Planescape until August, but they were clearly working on it much longer.
Oh ok. So then I'll just accept this vague nebulous point you're making that they can't work on Dark Sun because it would take time away from some other stuff that we don't know about, but that we all definitely want much more than Dark Sun. Like an MtG setting, or something...

*Looks back at all 5E material*

Yeah, I'm sure they're working on a lot right now...

5) Their goal is and always has been to make something that appeals to both old and new fans alike. Kyle's point was that threading that needle would be harder with a grimdark setting like Dark Sun (see #3.)
Why? I think you're looking at this through some sort of bias. Why are you assuming that new fans won't like Dark Sun?

Did Fury Road secretly flop in theaters or something?

Compete for development resources - see #1.
To make a product the consumer would rather buy?

Psyren

2023-02-28, 11:49 PM

So we are slaves to those that find slavery problematic. *chef's kiss*

...Yes, you're at the mercy of WotC if you want WotC to print you something. Not sure why that might be surprising...?

Are they spending resources on Greyhawk?

No idea - we only have this year's release schedule, and Planescape is the big setting release.
But I can tell you one thing about Greyhawk - fans of it wouldn't be hoping WotC bans clerics and druids, instructing DMs to have their NPCs form an angry mob every time a wizard coughs in the open, etc.

I wouldn't worry about those guys though. Remember, you and Brookshw are downplaying the impact/needs of the old schoolers. So, if they are just a small group of grognards, that's fine. But don't pretend that their "inevitable" disappointment and outrage is then reason to not do something. They can't be "small potatoes" on the one hand and then "big shots" on the other.

Well if they're going to be mad either way, might as well have them be mad for free, i.e. without incurring a bunch of development costs.

MoiMagnus

2023-03-01, 04:19 AM

I don't know too many young kids buying store-bought setting books with their allowance. I'm sure it happens, but how often?

When I played before, say, high school, we just made up our own content. We would use the base rules from whatever system we played. These books aren't cheap, and I suspect most kids under 13 or so aren't buying them on their own. They're Christmas gifts or something.

FWIW, my current D&D campaign has players ranging from 7 to 57.

Yes, they're Christmas/Birthday gifts. But that doesn't change much.

But without going to social commentary on parenting, I can definitely say that (1) a lot of parents disregard warnings on games they buy (2) more importantly even more parents will trust the homogeneity of a brand, so if you sell an official D&D5e book for Dark Sun they'll grab the D&D5e PHB, check that it is "safe for kid" and then assume that everything in the D&D brand is safe too.

And (2) is the main reason why a lot of companies try to be homogeneously kid-friendly, because it also works the other way around: parents looking at a Dark Sun book and deducing that every D&D book is like that.

[Note: while it might not seems like it, I'm also convinced that WotC concerns about DS are overblown. I'm just fundamentally unconvinced by the assumption that there will be an adult on most kid's table, and adult supervision on which D&D product to buy or not for those tables as long as they have the D&D brand on them.]

Corvus

2023-03-01, 05:17 AM

Speaking as someone who works with kids everyday, the parents who are concerned by Dark Sun are going to also be concerned with d&d in general. Those that aren't concerned with d&d aren't likely to be worried by dark sun.

When you have 8 and 9 year olds allowed to watch things like Squid Games, Dark Sun isn't liable to phase them.

It's not the kids or parents who are going to be wringing their hands over Dark Sun.

Dr.Samurai

2023-03-01, 08:26 AM

...Yes, you're at the mercy of WotC if you want WotC to print you something. Not sure why that might be surprising...?
I literally opened up my first post saying that I don't think it's WotC that has the problem, so I'm not sure where your disconnect is. Clearly it's not WotC, since they publish monsters (more than one) with an ability called Enslave.

No idea - we only have this year's release schedule, and Planescape is the big setting release.
Lol, yeah, I'm sure it's going to be massive, absolutely gigantic.

But I can tell you one thing about Greyhawk - fans of it wouldn't be hoping WotC bans clerics and druids, instructing DMs to have their NPCs form an angry mob every time a wizard coughs in the open, etc.
Yeah, agreed, and heaven forbid we introduce any sort of diversity in the campaign settings. We should definitely make sure that WotC only publishes "everything goes" settings.

Well if they're going to be mad either way, might as well have them be mad for free, i.e. without incurring a bunch of development costs.
Good point. Let me make sure I have all the talking points correct here:

1. Publishing takes time and money and it is too much to ask WotC to publish stuff that we want.
2. Old school fans are grumpy meany-heads that will never be satisfied, so trying to publish something they want to see is pointless. We should generally ignore them, unless they're complaining, then we should highlight what they're saying and doing.
3. New fans are just the best. They ARE D&D. They don't like anything that I don't like, and they won't like Dark Sun. Ergo, vis a vis, ispo facto, WotC shouldn't publish Dark Sun.
4. Dark Sun has bad things in it, done by bad people, that the PCs are trying to stop. This is problematic, in a way that is different to all the other bad stuff in D&D. Explanation not needed but point is, it shouldn't be published.
5. I might not be able to play clerics, druids, and wizards in Dark Sun so... it shouldn't be published.
6. There is a contingent of rogue children with purchasing power buying grim-dark campaign settings and playing them without adult supervision, and we must do everything we can to make sure they can't purchase a 5E Dark Sun.

I think I captured everything.

It's not the kids or parents who are going to be wringing their hands over Dark Sun.
100%

And (2) is the main reason why a lot of companies try to be homogeneously kid-friendly, because it also works the other way around: parents looking at a Dark Sun book and deducing that every D&D book is like that.
This is a good point. I would of course argue that D&D is not "kid-friendly" in any way that makes Dark Sun overly problematic. If a parent that thinks all D&D is "kid-friendly" walks into the room and pats their kid on the head and says "Dark Sun? What is that?" and the kid says "It's a desert planet ruled by these evil wizards that have everyone as slaves!" I don't think the parents are going to gasp and recoil in horror. It's really not a big deal. Especially if the kids are trying to take down those wizards.

KorvinStarmast

2023-03-01, 09:06 AM

Preservers had to go out of their way to hide what they were, which made spellcasting tricky. Yes. Practicing magic is dangerous. Even the Harry Potter books occasionally made that point, and that magic system is garbage (from a game perspective).

I wonder if you could use Sorcerers and Sorcery Points in place of psionics. Dragon Kings are both mages and psions, right? That would be one way to do it, but I think that the introduction of the finally finished Psionics system would be a better.

I feel like you could also use Dark Sun as an excuse to actually make a psionics system though, maybe even one that acts as a parallel progression path for Dark Sun characters in particular, so its something unique to the setting Thank you.

There are no drow or shadar-kai in Athas, so its a heck of a lot less edgelordy than most settings. Thank goodness.
D&D is largely built around the premise of invading someone's home, murdering them when they resist just because they are ugly and/or green, and then taking all their stuff. Adventurers aren't called murderhobos for nothing. Looked at it in that light, the whole game is problematic. PCs cause more depopulation than almost any big bad, using violence to solve most problems and being very much might makes right, WoTC D&D is largely about killing for XP, previous D&D was about getting gold/treasure for XP, with some for defeating/killing enemies. Granted, they were certainly headed toward what WotC eventually did in terms of XP awards, but WotC disincentivized the clever play of getting the treasure without having to leave a trail of carnage. There were other choices. WotC D&D is a bit more like Diablo (Blizzard, original game) in that respect.

The four WotC owned IP settings that aren't just "high fantasy with D&D's zero to demigod not even making sense in-setting" all over again are: Dragonlance, Spelljammer, Dark Sun, and Planescape. DL isn't "high fantasy?" OK. :smallconfused:
Preservers took extra time to gather their magic. This impacted their ability as combat casters. Defilers destroyed life to cast at normal speeds. Either one was a nerf to the Wizard. And that's before even the lethal/deadly social stigma that meant your character probably died as soon as they revealed their abilities. And that's a cool feel.

3. We don't have psionics.
3a. Perfect opportunity to make a system. Concur.

It's not the kids or parents who are going to be wringing their hands over Dark Sun. Agree.

@Psyren: thanks for the link to that tweet on an attempt at 5e Dark Sun.
I wonder what kind of funding he'd need to get it off the ground.

EggKookoo

2023-03-01, 09:58 AM

[Note: while it might not seems like it, I'm also convinced that WotC concerns about DS are overblown. I'm just fundamentally unconvinced by the assumption that there will be an adult on most kid's table, and adult supervision on which D&D product to buy or not for those tables as long as they have the D&D brand on them.]

I agree here, this is mostly a magic words issue. It reminds me of the South Park joke where Stan's dad described some aspect of society and Stan says "But dad, isn't that fascism?" And his dad says "No, because we don't call it fascism!"

Conventional D&D gameplay isn't problematic because we don't call it problematic.

Brookshw

2023-03-01, 10:07 AM

This is a quality argument, and I made a similar one. I don't think anyone's suggested DS would be well done by them.

The Lycanthropic Purge

The dragons wiped out all the titans and cursed the remaining few so that their progeny basically devolve each generation, so we now have standard D&D giants in Eberron.

The dragons and elves wiped out the entire line of the Vol family.

The Inspired want to wipe out all Kalashtar and have already wiped out one "lineage" of Kalashtar.

One of the Shadowmarked family wiped out a whole other Shadowmarked family.

There's a lot of "wiping out this whole group of people" going on in Eberron.

And most of these examples are within living memory, as opposed to way off in the distant distant distant past of the setting like in Dark Sun. Sounds like a lot of unsuccessful attempts :smallconfused: Even the "successes" sounds like something on par with the Montagues or Capulets finally winning and taking out the other side, not sure that's really the same thing.

I haven't been over this before actually, so happy to have the conversation.

I don't see what is not systemic about the slavery that drow, neogi, illithids, duergar, etc. engage in. I mean... they have to raid the surface world to replenish their slaves, they have powers that specifically enslave, they have special equipment for their slaves, etc. As mentioned, WoTC is moving away from this in a lot of ways for any humonoid race, either making it small subsets of races/species engaging in such conduct (e.g., duergar in Mordenkainen's are expressly starting to move away from it), and even then, we're not talking about a broad setting wide presence of slavery.

I'm sure, that if we just count drow alone, there are more city-states in Forgotten Realms with slavery than there are on Athas. And that's one group of people, and below the surface. Could be, I stopped really paying attention to FR after 2e, but I'm pretty sure it still has slavery free dale lands, 10 towns, silvermoon, Cormyr, etc. I suspect that would be a key difference, that one setting has slavery in certain places, and in the other its widespread and accepted across the setting with a rare few exceptions.

Uh sure. I guess that leaves us at "It seems to be my problem now that parents don't want their children playing certain games, but also don't supervise the purchases kids make, nor ever check on them to see what they've bought and what they're doing. And for this reason, this particular burden of parenting now falls on all D&D players to shoulder, as they can no longer have campaigns published that would be otherwise gated by parents." I'm not going through that discussion again, see my previous exchanges with Keltest and NichG, though I will mention that I raised that as one, non-exclusive, example of why there can be a perception of problematic conduct in the game, its strange to me that you and Keltest spend so much time on that one example. Can you think of other examples of DS' setting people might think is problematic?

I don't know. But I highly doubt the "it's problematic" crowd are also the largest portion. Or even a big portion.
Well, its simply not possible for the TSR era players to be the largest part, sales volume post WoTC acquisition, and especially in 5e, demonstrates a massively expanded consumer base. Whether the "its problematic" crowd is the largest portion, frankly I doubt they are, my point since the start of this tangent (do we need a new thread for this at this point?) is that I can understand why WoTC is concerned. Also high horses can be turned into glue. Actually, mostly that the high horses can be turned into glue, the rest of this is a tangent to that which seems to be requiring far more ink than the topic is worth (because WoTC is going to release whatever they want regardless).

Dr.Samurai

2023-03-01, 10:29 AM

I agree here, this is mostly a magic words issue. It reminds me of the South Park joke where Stan's dad described some aspect of society and Stan says "But dad, isn't that fascism?" And his dad says "No, because we don't call it fascism!"

Conventional D&D gameplay isn't problematic because we don't call it problematic.
Completely agreed.

Sounds like a lot of unsuccessful attempts :smallconfused: Even the "successes" sounds like something on par with the Montagues or Capulets finally winning and taking out the other side, not sure that's really the same thing.
I get the impression that you have criteria for what is acceptable and not acceptable that you simply don't feel like sharing.

As mentioned, WoTC is moving away from this in a lot of ways for any humonoid race, either making it small subsets of races/species engaging in such conduct (e.g., duergar in Mordenkainen's are expressly starting to move away from it), and even then, we're not talking about a broad setting wide presence of slavery.

Could be, I stopped really paying attention to FR after 2e, but I'm pretty sure it still has slavery free dale lands, 10 towns, silvermoon, Cormyr, etc. I suspect that would be a key difference, that one setting has slavery in certain places, and in the other its widespread and accepted across the setting with a rare few exceptions.
Accepted wherever it's accepted. Obviously not accepted in Tyr, or, presumably, by the heroes. Sort of like any other setting.

I'm not going through that discussion again, see my previous exchanges with Keltest and NichG, though I will mention that I raised that as one, non-exclusive, example of why there can be a perception of problematic conduct in the game, its strange to me that you and Keltest spend so much time on that one example. Can you think of other examples of DS' setting people might think is problematic?
I'm not sure where you think I'm cherry-picking. I feel like I'm hitting all the objections being raised.

Well, its simply not possible for the TSR era players to be the largest part, sales volume post WoTC acquisition, and especially in 5e, demonstrates a massively expanded consumer base. Whether the "its problematic" crowd is the largest portion, frankly I doubt they are, my point since the start of this tangent (do we need a new thread for this at this point?) is that I can understand why WoTC is concerned.
I think it's more the assumption that only TSR people would appreciate Dark Sun, and that anyone else would so obviously take issue with it and require changes or for it not to be published at all. In other words, I don't assume need TSR era players to be the largest bloc of players. Because I don't assume most D&D players will take issue with Dark Sun.

Also high horses can be turned into glue. Actually, mostly that the high horses can be turned into glue, the rest of this is a tangent to that which seems to be requiring far more ink than the topic is worth (because WoTC is going to release whatever they want regardless).
Ok.

Brookshw

2023-03-01, 11:00 AM

I get the impression that you have criteria for what is acceptable and not acceptable that you simply don't feel like sharing. More that I'm questioning your definition of genocide.

Accepted wherever it's accepted. Obviously not accepted in Tyr, or, presumably, by the heroes. Sort of like any other setting. so accepted in 90%? Also, don't presume what the players will or won't accept, people do strange things at times.

I'm not sure where you think I'm cherry-picking. I feel like I'm hitting all the objections being raised. My question to you was "Can you think of other examples of DS' setting people [or WoTC] might think is problematic?", why do you think WoTC considers it problematic?

I think it's more the assumption that only TSR people would appreciate Dark Sun, and that anyone else would so obviously take issue with it and require changes or for it not to be published at all. In other words, I don't assume need TSR era players to be the largest bloc of players. Because I don't assume most D&D players will take issue with Dark Sun.
/Shrug, I don't know if most would, but today's markets aren't the same as the 90's, and the game design and settings has gone in a different direction as a result. The hurtle I don't see being overcome in your argument is why WoTC would better spend its resources here rather than elsewhere. Whatever the potential consumer base is, why would this outsell any other product which could be developed with the resources (including, potentially, other post-apocalypse settings which could be built from the ground up with whatever 'new and exciting' systems WoTC could add).

Psyren

2023-03-01, 12:27 PM

I literally opened up my first post saying that I don't think it's WotC that has the problem, so I'm not sure where your disconnect is. Clearly it's not WotC, since they publish monsters (more than one) with an ability called Enslave.

Right, because monsters = campaign settings...

Yeah, agreed, and heaven forbid we introduce any sort of diversity in the campaign settings. We should definitely make sure that WotC only publishes "everything goes" settings.

I'm not against them catering to the more niche offerings you all want. Eventually. But expecting those to be the priority when they have a bunch of other stuff going on (such as, you know, an entire set of core books) is unrealistic.

1. Publishing takes time and money and it is too much to ask WotC to publish stuff that we want.
2. Old school fans are grumpy meany-heads that will never be satisfied, so trying to publish something they want to see is pointless. We should generally ignore them, unless they're complaining, then we should highlight what they're saying and doing.
3. New fans are just the best. They ARE D&D. They don't like anything that I don't like, and they won't like Dark Sun. Ergo, vis a vis, ispo facto, WotC shouldn't publish Dark Sun.
4. Dark Sun has bad things in it, done by bad people, that the PCs are trying to stop. This is problematic, in a way that is different to all the other bad stuff in D&D. Explanation not needed but point is, it shouldn't be published.
5. I might not be able to play clerics, druids, and wizards in Dark Sun so... it shouldn't be published.
6. There is a contingent of rogue children with purchasing power buying grim-dark campaign settings and playing them without adult supervision, and we must do everything we can to make sure they can't purchase a 5E Dark Sun.

I think I captured everything.

Not remotely.

1. You can ask for whatever you want. Just temper your asks with realism.
2. He never said they'd never revisit Dark Sun, just that it would likely take time.
3. I never said I was against Dark Sun, just that there are plenty of other things I'd like them to do first.
4. You yourself admitted that the other versions of those things are not the same as Dark Sun.
5. You need a damn good sales pitch if your opening salvo is "I want a setting where clerics/druids are nonexistent and most other casters have to hide all the time or be persecuted."
6. "We don't want to do this right now" != "We must do everything we can to make sure they can't purchase."

Dr.Samurai

2023-03-01, 01:05 PM

More that I'm questioning your definition of genocide.
Oh. When people say "x people are committing genocide" it usually doesn't mean that all people are wiped out at that time. It's more like they are targeting a certain group with that in mind.

So Lycanthropic Purge, Giants, Aberrant marked characters in the War of the Mark, Kalashtar.

I can see the distinction you're making but I don't think it's very strong. And I HIGHLY doubt that anyone that thinks it's wrong in Dark Sun is going to accept this distinction.

so accepted in 90%? Also, don't presume what the players will or won't accept, people do strange things at times.
Accepted by who? I don't really know what this means. Are you suggesting that Dark Sun condones slavery or something?

My question to you was "Can you think of other examples of DS' setting people [or WoTC] might think is problematic?", why do you think WoTC considers it problematic?
I don't know. I go by what other people say. I generally don't find things to be "problematic". Things are either a problem, or they aren't, to varying degrees. If I had to throw something in the air as to what other people might have a problem with, I guess maybe scantily clad people running around in the desert? I truthfully don't know. Maybe you can elaborate for me. Your posts feel very coy at the moment.

WotC's problem, on the other hand, is the same problem every corporation is having right now. Vocal people on the internet. That's not surprising and shouldn't be a controversial statement.

/Shrug, I don't know if most would, but today's markets aren't the same as the 90's, and the game design and settings has gone in a different direction as a result. The hurtle I don't see being overcome in your argument is why WoTC would better spend its resources here rather than elsewhere. Whatever the potential consumer base is, why would this outsell any other product which could be developed with the resources (including, potentially, other post-apocalypse settings which could be built from the ground up with whatever 'new and exciting' systems WoTC could add).
I'm not plugged in to any metrics but... do you think Dark Sun would have been outperformed by Theros and Strixhaven? Because I keep seeing you guys treat this like Dark Sun is not worth the effort, but I don't know why. Also, you and Psyren are sort of vacillating between what we're talking about. My comment was is that there really isn't anything that problematic about Dark Sun and it's not a strong position to hold that Dark Sun is somehow beyond the pale while the rest of D&D isn't. You guys come in with "resources" and "competing with all these other things that WotC may or may not be doing", but that doesn't speak to the point being made. When I engage with that point about resources though, then it's "well it's a risk because it's problematic". Yeah, no kidding. No one is saying they have to do it right now and it needs to be at the top of their publishing list. My original point is that WotC is afraid of backlash, and it's difficult to understand having an issue with Dark Sun, but not having an issue with D&D generally.

Right, because monsters = campaign settings...
Again... I don't know what the disconnect is here apart from it's easier and safer to be coy than to actually speak to what your position is. Drow are slavers. There is an entire Underdark dominion in FR of dark elves enslaving other people. Alongside them are the Illithid doing the same thing. Aboleths also.

And in Spelljammer we have the Neogi, who are also slavers of the most depraved kind. These are campaign settings, with monsters in them, that enslave people, systemically.

Then we move to Dark Sun and we have Sorcerer Kings, who enslave people.

I'm not against them catering to the more niche offerings you all want. Eventually. But expecting those to be the priority when they have a bunch of other stuff going on (such as, you know, an entire set of core books) is unrealistic.
Sure sure sure.

I'll note again, that there are two different angles here. The first is taking issue with Dark Sun being "problematic". The second is taking issue with "literally anything WotC is working on will be more successful than Dark Sun".

Segev

2023-03-01, 01:06 PM

Right, because monsters = campaign settings...

I mean, who's doing the enslaving if not monsters or NPCs? A setting is made up of elements, including creatures. Enslavement is inevitably going to involve creatures.

I don't think dismissing "monsters with enslavement abilities" as not counting because "monsters are not settings" is a valid nor convincing argument as to why a setting that features creatures enslaving each other is problematic, but monsters that enslave other creatures aren't. Those monsters appear in a setting, don't they?

skyth

2023-03-01, 01:24 PM

Yeah, I've never actually seen a campaign where some players were from different age ranges.

The group I DM for is a mixed age range. I'm in my late 40's. Have another player that is around my age along with his son, who's 14. The rest of the players are in their mid 20's.

The difference in experiences is interesting for all parties involved.

skyth

2023-03-01, 01:43 PM

KorvinStarmast

2023-03-01, 03:15 PM

I think there's a lot of better places for their "effort" to go than some edgelordtopia niche Tieflings are already core. :smalltongue:

Segev

2023-03-01, 03:15 PM

While Dark Sun has some interesting lore, I'm not sure playing in it would be popular which would make it worth publishing. Especially with the backlash they got over how they neutered Spelljammer (Which I think is a more popular setting than Dark Sun, but that might just be my bias). I'm not sure any grognard-era setting would do well any more as people don't trust WotC to do the setting justice.

Personally, I'd rather see Birthright as a setting before Dark Sun, but I think it's popularity is on par with Dark Sun (And thus not enough to bother making).

Though, they should open up both systems to allow 3PP to make stuff for it. That wouldn't hurt anything.

I mean, at least the central premise of Birthright is adaptable to other games. It's more a tacked-on extra source of power than anything else, even if the setting is built around it.

Heck, how do Birthright's birthrights compare to Eberron's Dragonmarks?

And the problem with Spelljammer 5e is that it was low-effort, removed flavor, replaced it with nothing, and had at most a couple of spells at items that were useful for trying the concept of the setting out. That could've been done in a pamphlet.

But that is true: whatever they'd do with Dark Sun would likely be grossly disappointing to anybody who liked the setting.

KorvinStarmast

2023-03-01, 03:20 PM

I mean, at least the central premise of Birthright is adaptable to other games. It's more a tacked-on extra source of power than anything else, even if the setting is built around it. Heck, how do Birthright's birthrights compare to Eberron's Dragonmarks? I will agree that Birthright can be folded into 5e, but would they put in the effort? With the SJ example, confidence is not high.

And the problem with Spelljammer 5e is that it was low-effort, removed flavor, replaced it with nothing, and had at most a couple of spells at items that were useful for trying the concept of the setting out. That could've been done in a pamphlet.

But that is true: whatever they'd do with Dark Sun would likely be grossly disappointing to anybody who liked the setting. And tasha's, which has some good stuff, had a lot of sloppy work in it.

Psyren

2023-03-01, 03:20 PM

Again... I don't know what the disconnect is here apart from it's easier and safer to be coy than to actually speak to what your position is. Drow are slavers. There is an entire Underdark dominion in FR of dark elves enslaving other people. Alongside them are the Illithid doing the same thing. Aboleths also.

Sure - but in FR, it's each DM's choice if they want to set their entire campaign in Menzoberranzan or the Underdark. And brand new players/DMs are highly unlikely to start out in such disconcerting places; the ones who don't, have plenty else to do in places like the Sword Coast, at least until they get settled in to this whole D&D thing. Dark Sun is not nearly so variegated - it's a grimdark setting and everywhere is terrible. The closest analogue we currently have is Ravenloft, and even Ravenloft isn't telling you to leave your Life Cleric, Devotion Paladin, or Evoker Wizard at the door.

I'll note again, that there are two different angles here. The first is taking issue with Dark Sun being "problematic". The second is taking issue with "literally anything WotC is working on will be more successful than Dark Sun".

You're right, I don't definitively know that it would be less successful - but I do know it's kneecapped right at the starting line. The very nature of the setting meaning that people will expect it to dump a number of the existing classes as player options and come up with new ones before it can even start to feel authentic. That was easy in 4e when there were really only 4 classes (Defender, Leader, Controller, Striker) with various permutations that largely boiled down to fluff/power source, so adding a few new ones and calling them "psionic" was not a lot of design work, but that's not really the case with 5e.

skyth

2023-03-01, 03:26 PM

I mean, at least the central premise of Birthright is adaptable to other games. It's more a tacked-on extra source of power than anything else, even if the setting is built around it.

Heck, how do Birthright's birthrights compare to Eberron's Dragonmarks?

Not sure. I know nothing about Eberron pretty much. But it's not just tacked on power. Human wizards, unless they were blooded, were considerably weaker than normal wizards (If memory serves, for spells of 3rd level and higher, they only had access to illusion, and maybe divination?, magic).

Plus there's the problematic elements inherent in the setting where unless you're born with the right bloodline, you're not allowed to be in charge of anything and are automatically less special. If you're born with the wrong bloodline, you're a bad guy and physically corrupted by it.

Plus the whole schtick to hunt other blooded people and ritually kill them in a special way to steal their power and make it yours.

Brookshw

2023-03-01, 03:39 PM

Oh. When people say "x people are committing genocide" it usually doesn't mean that all people are wiped out at that time. It's more like they are targeting a certain group with that in mind.

So Lycanthropic Purge, Giants, Aberrant marked characters in the War of the Mark, Kalashtar.

I can see the distinction you're making but I don't think it's very strong. And I HIGHLY doubt that anyone that thinks it's wrong in Dark Sun is going to accept this distinction. Got it. Some of those I get meet the standard definition I expect, I think its the "family" part that is particularly throwing me. So far as DS vs. Eberron, I can't say whether the people who might be offended by DS would also be offended by Eberron, but I do suspect there's difference in so far as DS's motivation was that certain races' existence was deemed by Rajaat to be...polluting? Is that that the word? the world, and that to make things better they all need to be exterminated. (wasn't the lycanthropic purge a result of them basically attacking people all over the place, and vol for being a bunch of necromantic generally evil people? Don't recall any details about the rest)

Accepted by who? I don't really know what this means. Are you suggesting that Dark Sun condones slavery or something? Oh, sorry, an accepted practice is 90% of the setting.

I don't know. I go by what other people say. I generally don't find things to be "problematic". Things are either a problem, or they aren't, to varying degrees. If I had to throw something in the air as to what other people might have a problem with, I guess maybe scantily clad people running around in the desert? I truthfully don't know. Maybe you can elaborate for me. Your posts feel very coy at the moment.

WotC's problem, on the other hand, is the same problem every corporation is having right now. Vocal people on the internet. That's not surprising and shouldn't be a controversial statement. Its a real question for you about whether you think some of the aspects could be perceived as problematic, and which. No need to be coy on my part, I've already listed a handful of things which I could understand being perceived as problematic (as an additional example, all jungle dwelling primitives being cannibals). I can only guess on my part, and would like to hear your guesses.

I'm not plugged in to any metrics but... do you think Dark Sun would have been outperformed by Theros and Strixhaven? Because I keep seeing you guys treat this like Dark Sun is not worth the effort, but I don't know why. Also, you and Psyren are sort of vacillating between what we're talking about. My comment was is that there really isn't anything that problematic about Dark Sun and it's not a strong position to hold that Dark Sun is somehow beyond the pale while the rest of D&D isn't. You guys come in with "resources" and "competing with all these other things that WotC may or may not be doing", but that doesn't speak to the point being made. When I engage with that point about resources though, then it's "well it's a risk because it's problematic". Yeah, no kidding. No one is saying they have to do it right now and it needs to be at the top of their publishing list. My original point is that WotC is afraid of backlash, and it's difficult to understand having an issue with Dark Sun, but not having an issue with D&D generally.
Not sure anyone's vacillating so much as there are multiple conversations going on (I mean, my original point was that people weren't going to suddenly become morally bankrupt people who forget genocide and slavery are bad if DS isn't published, and now here we are). I'm sure WoTC is afraid of backlash, that concern makes them look at the ROI, they look for the biggest ROI they can get, determine that involves minimizing problematic content, so it makes more sense for them to produce content that is less likely to be perceived as problematic so they can enjoy the biggest ROI. The points are related. As to whether D&D has certain problematic issues in other settings, goes back to what/how you run your games and the extent such context exists within a setting I expect. I don't know anything about Theros and Strixhaven, but I'm guessing that an opportunity to bring people into D&D from MTG (Strix is MTG, right? Is Theros?) offers a higher ROI than marketing to people who only play D&D.

Corvus

2023-03-01, 07:23 PM

I find the argument against Dark Sun on economic or popularity grounds an odd one, given WotC just released Spelljammer, which was even more niche than Dark Sun back in the 2e days. And Dark Sun had a 4e release as well, which Spelljammer never did, one that was both well received and one of their best sellers for 4e.

Dr.Samurai

2023-03-01, 08:54 PM

Sure - but in FR, it's each DM's choice if they want to set their entire campaign in Menzoberranzan or the Underdark. And brand new players/DMs are highly unlikely to start out in such disconcerting places; the ones who don't, have plenty else to do in places like the Sword Coast, at least until they get settled in to this whole D&D thing. Dark Sun is not nearly so variegated - it's a grimdark setting and everywhere is terrible.
Again, we're hopping around to... which point? I don't know.

Because Kyle didn't say that Dark Sun was too disconcerting for newbies and they needed to settle in first before they were exposed to grimdark. He didn't mention anything about class restrictions. He said it's "problematic". He also said "we know it has a huge fan following", as opposed to "it's just a bunch of grumpy grognards that we should ignore right out".

You're right, I don't definitively know that it would be less successful - but I do know it's kneecapped right at the starting line. The very nature of the setting meaning that people will expect it to dump a number of the existing classes as player options and come up with new ones before it can even start to feel authentic. That was easy in 4e when there were really only 4 classes (Defender, Leader, Controller, Striker) with various permutations that largely boiled down to fluff/power source, so adding a few new ones and calling them "psionic" was not a lot of design work, but that's not really the case with 5e.
5E is designed so that you literally don't need any class. You can't be a cleric, and you can't be a paladin. That's it. Artificer is probably out as well, but it sort of has that distinction already.

Bard? Yes.
Barbarian? Yes.
Druid? Yes.
Fighter? Yes.
Monk? Yes.
Ranger? Yes.
Rogue? Yes.
Sorcerer? Yes.
Warlock? I'd say this is probably a good analogue for templars with Sorcerer King Pacts (maybe turn them into divine casters).
Wizard? Yes.

The groups I play with wouldn't bat a single eyelash if someone wanted to run Dark Sun and said "no artificers, clerics, or paladins". Because this type of stuff happens in home games too. I really don't know where you're getting these expectations from.

Got it. Some of those I get meet the standard definition I expect, I think its the "family" part that is particularly throwing me. So far as DS vs. Eberron, I can't say whether the people who might be offended by DS would also be offended by Eberron, but I do suspect there's difference in so far as DS's motivation was that certain races' existence was deemed by Rajaat to be...polluting? Is that that the word? the world, and that to make things better they all need to be exterminated. (wasn't the lycanthropic purge a result of them basically attacking people all over the place, and vol for being a bunch of necromantic generally evil people? Don't recall any details about the rest)
Ok so it sounds like you do in fact see some sort of distinction here worth mentioning. Apparently, Rajaat wanting to cleanse the world and return it to the halflings is more concerning than any lich king that wants to wipe everyone out, or every archdevil that wants to enslave everyone's soul, or every other generic D&D supervillain that wants to do very evil things to everyone in the world. I guess we will have to disagree on this. I don't think this is a particularly strong exception to take with Dark Sun. The motive appears to be the issue here I guess, which seems very... nitpicky to me.

Its a real question for you about whether you think some of the aspects could be perceived as problematic, and which. No need to be coy on my part, I've already listed a handful of things which I could understand being perceived as problematic (as an additional example, all jungle dwelling primitives being cannibals). I can only guess on my part, and would like to hear your guesses.
But it's something I would really have trouble answering. It would have never occurred to meet that the halflings would be considered problematic. These things strike me as arbitrary associations to arrive a predetermined conclusion.

Not sure anyone's vacillating so much as there are multiple conversations going on (I mean, my original point was that people weren't going to suddenly become morally bankrupt people who forget genocide and slavery are bad if DS isn't published, and now here we are). I'm sure WoTC is afraid of backlash, that concern makes them look at the ROI, they look for the biggest ROI they can get, determine that involves minimizing problematic content, so it makes more sense for them to produce content that is less likely to be perceived as problematic so they can enjoy the biggest ROI. The points are related. As to whether D&D has certain problematic issues in other settings, goes back to what/how you run your games and the extent such context exists within a setting I expect. I don't know anything about Theros and Strixhaven, but I'm guessing that an opportunity to bring people into D&D from MTG (Strix is MTG, right? Is Theros?) offers a higher ROI than marketing to people who only play D&D.
I'm not disagreeing. I understand that problematic content would be a risk (in theory). I'm not arguing that they should publish it regardless of the risk.

I find the argument against Dark Sun on economic or popularity grounds an odd one, given WotC just released Spelljammer, which was even more niche than Dark Sun back in the 2e days. And Dark Sun had a 4e release as well, which Spelljammer never did, one that was both well received and one of their best sellers for 4e.
It seems like that's the argument they're making, but apparently they're just pointing out that, so long as WotC considers Dark Sun problematic on behalf of concern-mongers, it would be risky for them to publish it.

Am I skeptical that WotC can survive this OGL nonsense but publishing Dark Sun would destroy them? No, actually, not really. Vocal people online have taken up some very interesting perspectives since Dark Sun was last published 12 years ago.

Corvus

2023-03-01, 09:23 PM

5E is designed so that you literally don't need any class. You can't be a cleric, and you can't be a paladin. That's it. Artificer is probably out as well, but it sort of has that distinction already.

Bard? Yes.
Barbarian? Yes.
Druid? Yes.
Fighter? Yes.
Monk? Yes.
Ranger? Yes.
Rogue? Yes.
Sorcerer? Yes.
Warlock? I'd say this is probably a good analogue for templars with Sorcerer King Pacts (maybe turn them into divine casters).
Wizard? Yes.

No clerics is a bit odd because there have always been clerics in Dark Sun. What there weren't was gods. It was never fully resolved if there had never been any or they had died off - 4e went the later but 2e let it remain a mystery. What clerics followed were the elements.

4e went with the templars as warlocks route. In the context of how mechanics had changed from 2e days, it was a good move. It made a lot of sense.

If you stick to the very initial description of Dark Sun, before all the metaplot came along, then some of the concerns won't exist. (I'm not a fan of the metaplot introduced later personally, so I just tend to ignore it.)

Dr.Samurai

2023-03-01, 10:05 PM

No clerics is a bit odd because there have always been clerics in Dark Sun. What there weren't was gods. It was never fully resolved if there had never been any or they had died off - 4e went the later but 2e let it remain a mystery. What clerics followed were the elements.

4e went with the templars as warlocks route. In the context of how mechanics had changed from 2e days, it was a good move. It made a lot of sense.

If you stick to the very initial description of Dark Sun, before all the metaplot came along, then some of the concerns won't exist. (I'm not a fan of the metaplot introduced later personally, so I just tend to ignore it.)
Yeah, you're right. Looking at my 4th edition Campaign Guide, it has a sidebar about divine characters and how they don't exist but gives you a few options if you really want to play a divine character.

But looking at the 2E Dark Sun campaign setting, it literally says that there are three types of priests; clerics, druids, and templars. And clerics draw divine energy from the elements. That makes sense since that's the source of the templars power too, I think, through the Sorcerer Kings.

2E lists the following as playable classes:

Fighter
Ranger
Gladiator
Wizard (preserver or defiler)
Illusionist (preserver or defiler)
Cleric
Templar
Druid
Thief
Bard
Psionicist

So we're missing... artificer, barbarian, paladin, sorcerer, and warlock.

Warlock seems extremely close to the templars. Barbarians seems very easy to slot in. Sorcerers, well, wasn't Sadira a sorceress in the books? Seems easy enough to me as well. Artificers and paladins seem out, though I suppose there can be a sort of crusading warrior of an element (earth knight, water knight, air knight, fire knight).

So really seems like artificer, which is fine, since that was created for a campaign setting that's basically in the opposite direction of Dark Sun, and probably paladin, though honestly given that the templar powers are divine, and they are sworn to the Sorcerer King, a paladin oath of the templars seems right on point too.

Witty Username

2023-03-02, 01:33 AM

Paladin didn't exist in Dark Sun for thematic reasons, replaced by the setting specific Gladiator.

Artificer, nope, not having that. Prewriting society and stone age astectics don't jive well. But they weren't invented until 3.5, so it wouldn't be a strict problem like paladin. Just weird.

Sorcerers don't fit in any setting, but they primarily didn't exist in Dark Sun as they weren't codified yet. Sorcerer, Wizard and Mage are more or less interchangeable terms in AD&D. The Sorcerer kings are defiler/pscionisist splits with one exception because they swapped to preserver/pscionisist. Also, draconic bloodline is out due to dragons not existing in Dark Sun, there is Dragon, but not dragons.

OldTrees1

2023-03-02, 02:24 AM

Paladin didn't exist in Dark Sun for thematic reasons, replaced by the setting specific Gladiator.

In late 3E and all of 5E the Paladin thematic limitations expanded far enough that some would fit into Dark Sun (even if the stereotypical ones don't fit).

So while my Ancients Paladin Lux would not fit Dark Sun, there are dark paladins that would. Sounds like 12/12 are good to go.

Brookshw

2023-03-02, 07:57 AM

Ok so it sounds like you do in fact see some sort of distinction here worth mentioning. Apparently, Rajaat wanting to cleanse the world and return it to the halflings is more concerning than any lich king that wants to wipe everyone out, or every archdevil that wants to enslave everyone's soul, or every other generic D&D supervillain that wants to do very evil things to everyone in the world. I guess we will have to disagree on this. I don't think this is a particularly strong exception to take with Dark Sun. The motive appears to be the issue here I guess, which seems very... nitpicky to me. Oh, sure, I suppose. WoTC has been looking at RL parallels as problematic for its content for a while now, that's been reflected in pretty much everything post-Tasha's. I think you can draw a line to RL from 'purifying the world' and 'some races don't deserve to exist because of their inherent faults' a lot easier than with liches stealing souls or devils nicking cities. I had thought that parallels to RL were a premise of this tangent based on WoTC's previous statements and those earlier here, but I guess that wasn't ever expressly stated.

But it's something I would really have trouble answering. It would have never occurred to meet that the halflings would be considered problematic. These things strike me as arbitrary associations to arrive a predetermined conclusion.

It would have to arrive at a predetermined conclusion, WoTC already told us that the conclusion is that its problematic (at least as far as they're concerned, and theirs is the only conclusion that matters since they're the ones who will publish it or not), they said 42 and now we're working backwards speculating on how they might have got there. Personally I don't see any benefit to saying "well I don't think its 42", because that isn't going to change anything. I've suggested a few things that I think are understandable ways they can arrive at that conclusion, maybe you will spot others.

KorvinStarmast

2023-03-02, 09:52 AM

Psyren

2023-03-02, 10:17 AM

Again, we're hopping around to... which point? I don't know.

Because Kyle didn't say that Dark Sun was too disconcerting for newbies and they needed to settle in first before they were exposed to grimdark. He didn't mention anything about class restrictions. He said it's "problematic". He also said "we know it has a huge fan following", as opposed to "it's just a bunch of grumpy grognards that we should ignore right out".

You asked me to elaborate and I did. If you disagree with my interpretation of Kyle's "problematic" judgment, you're welcome to reach out to him and see if he meant something else, but I'm going to stand by my reading in the meantime.

5E is designed so that you literally don't need any class. You can't be a cleric, and you can't be a paladin. That's it. Artificer is probably out as well, but it sort of has that distinction already.

Bard? Yes.
Barbarian? Yes.
Druid? Yes.
Fighter? Yes.
Monk? Yes.
Ranger? Yes.
Rogue? Yes.
Sorcerer? Yes.
Warlock? I'd say this is probably a good analogue for templars with Sorcerer King Pacts (maybe turn them into divine casters).
Wizard? Yes.

The groups I play with wouldn't bat a single eyelash if someone wanted to run Dark Sun and said "no artificers, clerics, or paladins". Because this type of stuff happens in home games too. I really don't know where you're getting these expectations from.

An individual table/campaign deciding to ban 3-4 base classes, and an entire setting/product line doing it ab initio, are two very different things. Do you truly not see that?

Segev

2023-03-02, 10:29 AM

An individual table/campaign deciding to ban 3-4 base classes, and an entire setting/product line doing it ab initio, are two very different things. Do you truly not see that?

Indeed, I do see that distinction. I'll be sure to keep it in mind. I'm glad we can agree that this distinction exists!

Dr.Samurai

2023-03-02, 11:28 AM

You asked me to elaborate and I did. If you disagree with my interpretation of Kyle's "problematic" judgment, you're welcome to reach out to him and see if he meant something else, but I'm going to stand by my reading in the meantime.
Yeah sure, and I'll challenge someone's reading if they're engaging with my posts and the reading doesn't make sense to me.

An individual table/campaign deciding to ban 3-4 base classes, and an entire setting/product line doing it ab initio, are two very different things. Do you truly not see that?
What classes have to be banned? Did you miss the post where we went over the classes?

Artificer seems to be the only class that might be out of place. What's the issue? I can see a sidebar on how to play an artificer of the sort of stone age/bronze age era that Dark Sun takes place in.

Warlock and paladin might need some instruction/guidance, but variety is the spice of life. The whole point of a campaign setting is to see the mechanics of the game in different contexts.

Telok

2023-03-02, 12:07 PM

If I may second this motion...

Perhaps the "problematic" thing is that the Spelljammer adventure didn't sell well enough for the goons in accounting to greenlight anything else. Although if they'd spent budget on writing instead of art & packaging then sold an actual setting book instead of a padded out adventure it might not have been **** on so hard by people who really wanted to buy an updated Spelljammer setting.

Brookshw

2023-03-02, 12:12 PM

Perhaps the "problematic" thing is that the Spelljammer adventure didn't sell well enough for the goons in accounting to greenlight anything else. Although if they'd spent budget on writing instead of art & packaging then sold an actual setting book instead of a padded out adventure it might not have been **** on so hard by people who really wanted to buy an updated Spelljammer setting.

If I may second this motion...

Dr.Samurai

2023-03-02, 12:15 PM

Thirding, lol.

Keltest

2023-03-02, 12:17 PM

Fourthing. Please release setting books as actual setting books.

Psyren

2023-03-02, 12:42 PM

Yeah sure, and I'll challenge someone's reading if they're engaging with my posts and the reading doesn't make sense to me.

Challenge away, though I don't see what doesn't make sense to you. What do you think he meant then?

What classes have to be banned? Did you miss the post where we went over the classes?

Hard ban: Clerics, Paladins, Artificers
Soft ban: Any arcane caster whose activities would result in pitchforks and torches every time they're observed casting. YMMV on how far into the campaign the novelty of that would take to wear off.

Warlock and paladin might need some instruction/guidance, but variety is the spice of life. The whole point of a campaign setting is to see the mechanics of the game in different contexts.

So if the "different context" involved WotC allowing the classes listed above and coming up with ways to leave them predominantly unmolested, you'd be okay with that then?

Xervous

2023-03-02, 12:56 PM

Fourthing. Please release setting books as actual setting books.

I’d continue the chain but WotC has already taken the fifth.

NichG

2023-03-02, 01:15 PM

It would have to arrive at a predetermined conclusion, WoTC already told us that the conclusion is that its problematic (at least as far as they're concerned, and theirs is the only conclusion that matters since they're the ones who will publish it or not), they said 42 and now we're working backwards speculating on how they might have got there. Personally I don't see any benefit to saying "well I don't think its 42", because that isn't going to change anything. I've suggested a few things that I think are understandable ways they can arrive at that conclusion, maybe you will spot others.

The reason to say 'well I don't think its 42' is to determine how one will relate to WotC's position - for example, in choosing whether to trust them to make the content that one wants or to look elsewhere, whether to buy their products, whether or not to publically criticize their decisions or try to pressure them to change those decisions and if so how, whether to act and create things in alignment with WotC's stated vision or to directly try to oppose and undermine it, whether to revert to older editions or keep converting to new ones, etc. As far as does that matter in practice? Well if WotC is already reacting to (what they believe to be) public sentiment to protect themselves from criticism, then yeah I'd say that adapting the form of that public criticism on the basis of how they seem to be responding to it is absolutely an essential element of that process.

If the direction of community criticism seems to be pushing WotC in a direction that is actually opposite to the underlying ethical and moral justifications for that criticism in the first place, then its pretty important that the community change the message they're sending with their criticism if those goals are sincere. If e.g. people collectively want diversity of representation in games but their message gets passed through a corporate filter that turns it into 'its too risky to portray cultural differences, we will be criticized for doing it wrong', then you either have to message differently or you're going to end up with less diversity in your game as a result of asking for more.

So that's the question that should be relevant to the community: do you agree with WotC's interpretation with your previous criticism, about what is actually problematic? Because if not, you have to say it differently.

On the other hand there isn't really any utility to coming up with some kind of post-hoc justification for how WotC is always right except to WotC.

animorte

2023-03-02, 01:19 PM

I’d continue the chain but WotC has already taken the fifth.
I read that as "pleading the fifth" and got a good laugh.

P. G. Macer

2023-03-02, 02:10 PM

I read that as "pleading the fifth" and got a good laugh.

I’m pretty sure that was the joke.

Anyways, sixth-ed or seventh-ed.

Brookshw

2023-03-02, 02:24 PM

The reason to say 'well I don't think its 42' is to determine how one will relate to WotC's position - for example, in choosing whether to trust them to make the content that one wants or to look elsewhere, whether to buy their products, whether or not to publically criticize their decisions or try to pressure them to change those decisions and if so how, whether to act and create things in alignment with WotC's stated vision or to directly try to oppose and undermine it, whether to revert to older editions or keep converting to new ones, etc. As far as does that matter in practice? Well if WotC is already reacting to (what they believe to be) public sentiment to protect themselves from criticism, then yeah I'd say that adapting the form of that public criticism on the basis of how they seem to be responding to it is absolutely an essential element of that process.

If the direction of community criticism seems to be pushing WotC in a direction that is actually opposite to the underlying ethical and moral justifications for that criticism in the first place, then its pretty important that the community change the message they're sending with their criticism if those goals are sincere. If e.g. people collectively want diversity of representation in games but their message gets passed through a corporate filter that turns it into 'its too risky to portray cultural differences, we will be criticized for doing it wrong', then you either have to message differently or you're going to end up with less diversity in your game as a result of asking for more.

So that's the question that should be relevant to the community: do you agree with WotC's interpretation with your previous criticism, about what is actually problematic? Because if not, you have to say it differently.

On the other hand there isn't really any utility to coming up with some kind of post-hoc justification for how WotC is always right except to WotC.

To your first point, I'm not sure how well you'll be able to accomplish that without understanding what it is that WoTC finds problematic, any of the follow up potential actions you reference are predicated on the existence of that understanding. So, unless and until WoTC says more, it sounds like you're proposing an impossible course of action.

As to community criticism, so you want to community - which utterly disagrees with itself and what it wants - to somehow start singing in perfect harmony so that WoTC gets messaged in a particular fashion? No offense, but that's a hefty ask.

As to the final point about whether there's a value of speculating at potential justifications? Disagree, if you can find justifications that lead to the same conclusion then you can make a judgement call of some type because you have independently verified the result by independent testing, however, without knowing how they achieved their results you cannot reasonably attack that position because you can't identify the factors/data which allowed for the conclusion. I acknowledge this is unsatisfactory because only one type of conclusion can be justified.

I’d continue the chain but WotC has already taken the fifth.

:smallbiggrin: Well played!

NichG

2023-03-02, 03:21 PM

To your first point, I'm not sure how well you'll be able to accomplish that without understanding what it is that WoTC finds problematic, any of the follow up potential actions you reference are predicated on the existence of that understanding. So, unless and until WoTC says more, it sounds like you're proposing an impossible course of action.

We don't need to take the position that Dark Sun is 'actually problematic' to observe the interaction between this organization and its community and understand its dynamics. Its much more useful to predicting their behavior to observe e.g. 'they think this is problematic but they don't seem to understand the actual harms or problems justifying that label' than if we assume a stance in which they must always be correct in what they say and its on us to justify that for them.

We can then consider the possibility that, for example, their goals aren't actually about minimizing social harms caused by their products, but rather are about avoiding controversy. Meaning that rather than engaging in positive but risky behavior, they'll minimize risk to themselves even at the cost of leaving social good on the table or causing social harms that they can't easily be criticized for. Which means that creating an atmosphere where things seem 'risky' has inherent cost, and we can understand that predictability of what will get them censured is important to consider over e.g. how strong or how immediate that censure could be.

As to community criticism, so you want to community - which utterly disagrees with itself and what it wants - to somehow start singing in perfect harmony so that WoTC gets messaged in a particular fashion? No offense, but that's a hefty ask.

I mean as a first step I'd like there to be more self-awareness of people in the community about the side-effects of this particular form of influence, and to be critical about the responsible use of this kind of method of feedback. Even just at the individual level, if a couple of people end up thinking more critically about the way in which mob influence functions and what it leads to, that's a better outcome than just letting things be. Clearly this is a powerful force given what happened with the OGL and CC, so its worth thinking carefully about the application of that force and the role it takes in the world. If, say, five people leave this thread just thinking about that carefully - not even necessarily agreeing with my specific position on the ethics of publishing Dark Sun - then that's a win. Even if it doesn't go beyond that, it means that locally the atmosphere of discourse would be just that bit more measured and thoughtful, which has (to me) some value worth the ink.

If in the end those five talk to another five each and so on and so on and it somehow leads to the community as a whole organizing to be more coherent in their feedback, even better! But it'd be outside of the realistic stakes of e.g. this singular discussion to achieve. But shifts do happen, and they're more often collective things of a lot of people making little pushes rather than one person giving the one perfect argument in one perfect place to the exact person who needs to hear it. So while I can't set 'this is what I aim to achieve with this post' as a reasonable thing, as a general pattern of behavior I think its better to post it than to not.

As to the final point about whether there's a value of speculating at potential justifications? Disagree, if you can find justifications that lead to the same conclusion then you can make a judgement call of some type because you have independently verified the result by independent testing, however, without knowing how they achieved their results you cannot reasonably attack that position because you can't identify the factors/data which allowed for the conclusion. I acknowledge this is unsatisfactory because only one type of conclusion can be justified.

To this, I'd say its very important to be aware of the knife edge between comprehension and empathy/sympathy. Its fine to say 'my goal is to understand, and therefore I start from the conclusion and work backwards', but when telling other people that they should approach things the same way you're implicitly saying that their goals are (or should/must be) your goals.

Devils_Advocate

2023-03-02, 04:46 PM

Which is one of the reasons I think alignment still has a place. It's nice to have a tool to punish (functionally) evil PCs.
How is alignment useful for that? D&D ain't World of Darkness; there aren't really any special penalties for evil. Violence against your culture's enemies is as viable as in real life.

WoTC D&D is largely about killing for XP, previous D&D was about getting gold/treasure for XP, with some for defeating/killing enemies. Granted, they were certainly headed toward what WotC eventually did in terms of XP awards, but WotC disincentivized the clever play of getting the treasure without having to leave a trail of carnage. There were other choices. WotC D&D is a bit more like Diablo (Blizzard, original game) in that respect.
But either way, when player characters delve into monster-infested ruins of fallen civilizations to claim their lost treasures, they're plunging into enemy territory in order to loot what they can manage. "Is there a way in which they're better than the fanged green raiders of the human village who do the same thing?" feels like a pretty relevant question. So the PCs prefer not to fight, meting out violence only when they meet resistance (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3YFeE1eDlD0)? Did the orcs go out of their way to kill civilians who were just trying to flee or hide? Maybe they did! That certainly seems like it could make depriving the orcs of resources seem like a heroic act, at least until someone wonders whether they act that way in the first place due to a lack of resources. And of course at the point where humans understandably want to wipe out the orcs, we're right back to "Both sides of this conflict are doing the same things, so it's hard to see a moral difference between them".

It's pretty hard to make characters seem like good guys even in a relative sense because they prefer theft to murder. There's an argument to be made for not trying, and instead telling stories that don't require doing that.

I certainly hope not. They could always do something new that's more in line with their current standards.
A new Eberron, as it were? An intriguing possibility.

EggKookoo

2023-03-02, 05:18 PM

How is alignment useful for that? D&D ain't World of Darkness; there aren't really any special penalties for evil. Violence against your culture's enemies is as viable as in real life.

The context of what I was replying to was around murderhoboism. If PCs aren't evil by alignment, then it's easy to explain consequences when they behave in evil ways. Using alignment in your game can help frame that.

As for penalties, they can be roleplaying/social as well as mechanical. A good fighter who acts evil might shift to evil, and NPCs will start to distrust him. Sure, you can do this without alignment, but alignment is helps make it easier to understand.

Devils_Advocate

2023-03-02, 06:34 PM

Nope!

You can use "good" and "evil" to mean "behavior that people approve of" and "behavior that people disapprove of" respectively, but a lot of players understand good alignment and evil alignment to be things other than those, so calling those "good" and "evil" is going to be confusing and likely lead to arguments. And if that's not by definition what good and evil are, then whether an act is good or evil is a different matter from how that deed changes your standing in society.

Two civilizations are locked in bitter war. A hero to one side will be tortured and executed by the other side. One's standing in one society is the opposite of one's standing in the other society. Maybe you could encode social status as "honor" and be very clear that a character has different honor relative to different groups, but I wouldn't call that good alignment. In a case like that I would say that most probably neither side of the war is good.

MoiMagnus

2023-03-02, 07:01 PM

Nope!

You can use "good" and "evil" to mean "behavior that people approve of" and "behavior that people disapprove of" respectively, but a lot of players understand good alignment and evil alignment to be things other than those, so calling those "good" and "evil" is going to be confusing and likely lead to arguments. And if that's not by definition what good and evil are, then whether an act is good or evil is a different matter from how that deed changes your standing in society.

Theoretically yes, and it happens in practice but I'd say not that often. Most settings have deities that have a specific alignment, and their alignment tend to match how much good they bring to the human's society, so this will have a profound effect on how societies view those behaviours. You should expect the average inhabitant of those world to confuse those two notions and to default to prejudice against "evil" behaviours and support for "good" behaviours.

NichG

2023-03-02, 07:05 PM

The context of what I was replying to was around murderhoboism. If PCs aren't evil by alignment, then it's easy to explain consequences when they behave in evil ways. Using alignment in your game can help frame that.

This is very much a double-edged sword, because a lot of the source material explicitly calls out certain forms of murderhoboism as being aligned with Good. And uses real-life quotes of people who were trying to justify genocide in order to justify it in the game materials. Thanks Gygax.

You can impose conduct on players, but I think that should be a metagame table-level thing rather than trying to use an in-character thing for it. And you shouldn't try to impose moral attitudes on players at all, IMO.

Corvus

2023-03-02, 07:56 PM

Well then, its obvious that the industry as a whole is problematic and we have no choice but to ban it. For the good of the children.

Devils_Advocate

2023-03-02, 08:05 PM

Theoretically yes, and it happens in practice but I'd say not that often. Most settings have deities that have a specific alignment, and their alignment tend to match how much good they bring to the human's society, so this will have a profound effect on how societies view those behaviours. You should expect the average inhabitant of those world to confuse those two notions and to default to prejudice against "evil" behaviours and support for "good" behaviours.
Unfortunately, D&D defaults to basically feudal civilizations where currying favor with a tiny elite is way more useful than currying favor with the populace at large. So the teeming masses of peasants may agree with egalitarian gods who think that the teeming masses of peasants should be treated better, but their rulers are going to go for LN or LE gods of order and hierarchy and such. And the peasants will still want appease these deities, too, out of fear. Maybe being more organized helps everyone to work out a more stable arrangement where the peasants don't have to worry so much about starving and the nobles don't have to worry so much about revolts, but change too much and we're negating setting conceits. Which can be good! It's just by definition not the default.

I don't think that reputation with those who can grant you lands and titles and stuff really strongly correlates with working towards the betterment of sentient beings in general. In fact, disregarding that stuff in favor of being a Hero Of The People will probably earn you the enmity of the nobility, because they make it a habit to identify CG types who will eventually overthrow them in a wave of populism if they don't nip that in the bud, probably by sending the hero on an impossible quest while still young and naive. "Hey kid, do you like proving yourself?" (Yeah, we generally only hear about this when it backfires, but it's safe to assume that this works perfectly well nine times out of ten.)

Jack of Spades

2023-03-02, 08:22 PM

EggKookoo

2023-03-02, 08:24 PM

Congrats everyone, took 47 pages but we finally got to the inevitable alignment debate. We can close the thread now. ;)

(Didn't scrub through to see if this is actually the convo circling back, because who has the time)

It's amazing how just an offhand, totally subjective mention of alignment is like a red flag in front of a bull. There's really nothing else like it.

Devils_Advocate

2023-03-02, 09:34 PM

I'll admit that I find it difficult to understand others' perspectives on the matter. To me, alignment only makes sense as a setting element. I don't see what it's good for otherwise. But loads of people seem to assume that it doesn't and shouldn't even be or describe character traits, but instead be a metagame thing with no binding fluff, like XP or hit points. (I mean, if we're derailing anyway...)

Anyway, we're approaching page 50 and the original topic kind of stopped really being a matter of concern a while ago, so maybe we should just spin ongoing discussions off into new threads and close up shop here. Can't see much merit to a sequel (which I guess would be rather meta in a "new edition of a thing that has gone on long enough at this point" sort of way).

Palanan

2023-03-02, 11:47 PM

Originally Posted by Corvus
Well then, its obvious that the industry as a whole is problematic and we have no choice but to ban it.

In the forthcoming edition of D&D, the only danger from monsters is that they might hug you too hard. Their CR is equal to their grapple modifier.

You overcome them by making a Diplomacy check to explain consent and personal boundaries.

Telok

2023-03-03, 12:26 AM

All the D&D players I see are alignment "kill them all, they'll get the afterlife they deserve, and now they don't need stuff so we can take everything not sufficently nailed down" anyways. Yes, even when the supposed "social blowback" gets talked about. You just kill them all too and end up richer.

Weirdly only really seems a thing in D&D though.

Xervous

2023-03-03, 10:58 AM

What other games started as XP for GP, then switched to a combat-as-sport swat team dungeon raid with a loot treadmill?

Haven’t looked in depth at the burning mess that is Shadowrun 6e but... maybe SR6e? I’d need old timers to confirm the karma - nuyen fluidity of older editions.

EggKookoo

2023-03-03, 11:07 AM

Telok

2023-03-03, 11:50 AM

I don't want to judge anyone else's table fun but I feel like a halfway attentive DM can create NPCs capable of constraining the party if needed.

That's really getting into a D&D issue: Elminster syndrome or a weirdly high level city watch or "why adventurers when a few knights are better".

You've got npcs, singly or in small groups, who are more powerful than your party of murderhobos and have the free time & ability to police the pc's actions. So why aren't they doing the job if they're so much more powerful? And if there's "constraints" to justify the pcs being used instead of npc vs weaker npc then those constraints should be applying to the npc vs weaker pc actions too. Unless we're just doing video game style invisible walls and indestructible guards that only affect players.

Forcing D&D murderhobos into socially acceptable behavior with threats of violence doesn't work well. You end up breaking combat-as-sport, "level appropriate" concepts, and/or coherent & belivable world building.

EggKookoo

2023-03-03, 12:41 PM

That's really getting into a D&D issue: Elminster syndrome or a weirdly high level city watch or "why adventurers when a few knights are better".

You've got npcs, singly or in small groups, who are more powerful than your party of murderhobos and have the free time & ability to police the pc's actions. So why aren't they doing the job if they're so much more powerful? And if there's "constraints" to justify the pcs being used instead of npc vs weaker npc then those constraints should be applying to the npc vs weaker pc actions too. Unless we're just doing video game style invisible walls and indestructible guards that only affect players.

Forcing D&D murderhobos into socially acceptable behavior with threats of violence doesn't work well. You end up breaking combat-as-sport, "level appropriate" concepts, and/or coherent & belivable world building.

All right, well, we're off-topic from the off-topic topic that sprouted from the original topic, so we can let it go at least in this thread.

KorvinStarmast

2023-03-03, 01:45 PM

Perhaps the "problematic" thing is that the Spelljammer adventure didn't sell well enough for the goons in accounting to greenlight anything else.

I’m pretty sure that was the joke.

Anyways, sixth-ed or seventh-ed. Heneree the Eighth I am I am, Heneree the EIghth I am!

How is alignment useful for that? D&D ain't World of Darkness; there aren't really any special penalties for evil. Violence against your culture's enemies is as viable as in real life.

[QUOTE]But either way, when player characters delve into monster-infested ruins of fallen civilizations to claim their lost treasures, they're plunging into enemy territory in order to loot what they can manage. Correct.

"Is there a way in which they're better than the fanged green raiders of the human village who do the same thing?" feels like a pretty relevant question. No, it doesn't. Those ruins or catacombs or caves or tunnels are not necessarily occupied by anyone at all; might be oozes, might be skeletons, Might be giant snakes, might be mummies.
Who is there is very setting dependent, campaign dependent, and adventure dependent.
I have pointed out before that a great many of the dungeon delves we did in the early days ran into a lot of undead and oozes, with occasional interactions that included dwarves, elves, goblins, etc.
Wraiths and wights tended to be a few levels down, but ghouls were very common and quite scary for level 1 and 2 adventurers in those early editions.

Devils_Advocate

2023-03-03, 10:01 PM

Yes, it does. You can replace "How is violence against orcs better than violence against humans?" with "How is violence against the undead worse than violence against the living?" or "How is violence against beasts better than violence against humanoids?" without ever answering any of those questions or, more to the point, ever addressing the underlying questions "What justifies the use of violence?", "How is violence bad?", etc. It's murderhobos all the way down, as it were.

That's really getting into a D&D issue: Elminster syndrome or a weirdly high level city watch or "why adventurers when a few knights are better".

You've got npcs, singly or in small groups, who are more powerful than your party of murderhobos and have the free time & ability to police the pc's actions. So why aren't they doing the job if they're so much more powerful? And if there's "constraints" to justify the pcs being used instead of npc vs weaker npc then those constraints should be applying to the npc vs weaker pc actions too. Unless we're just doing video game style invisible walls and indestructible guards that only affect players.

Forcing D&D murderhobos into socially acceptable behavior with threats of violence doesn't work well. You end up breaking combat-as-sport, "level appropriate" concepts, and/or coherent & belivable world building.
Well, only up to a point. The default assumption is that greedy, bloodthirsty mercenaries — ahem, adventurers — of all levels exist in the world, but are increasingly rare with increasingly high level. And within that paradigm, you don't send dragon-slayers in to do a goblin-slaying job because that's utter overkill when you can hire goblin-slayers for a fraction of the price. The PCs presumably demand much larger piles of gold for their services at dragon-slaying level than they did at goblin-slaying level, and you can bet your sweet behind that their peers are no different! (On the other hand, actual dragon-slaying tends to pay for itself, so the hard part there is mostly finding sufficiently qualified parties.)

Now, don't get me wrong: The more powerful the player characters are, the more they can get away with, not only because stopping them is decreasingly worth the trouble, but also because them stopping bigger and bigger threats to the status quo makes it more desirable to those in power that they continue doing their thing. So if they are in the business of slaying monsters for piles of gold or magic items or huge tracts of lands or whatever, surviving long enough may well mean that they can kill the occasional commoner without much repercussion, because of how leveling up works. But while the limits of what will be tolerated change, there remain limits. If the PCs' costs to anyone ever exceed their benefits plus the cost of having the PCs, ahem, eliminated, well, it's simple math. And they can fully expect that they'll be outmatched to the same degree to which they outmatch their own foes when hired to slay monsters, because exactly the same principle applies: the employer wants someone who will get the job done for the lowest price. So the encounter should be balanced normally; the PCs are just on the opposite side from the one they're used to. Hey, they asked for hard mode!

There's always a bigger fish, and certain setting details demand that some possible courses of action will result in the PCs encountering fish larger than them instead of smaller.

MoiMagnus

2023-03-04, 05:48 AM

Forcing D&D murderhobos into socially acceptable behavior with threats of violence doesn't work well. You end up breaking combat-as-sport, "level appropriate" concepts, and/or coherent & belivable world building.

"Combat as sport" and "level appropriate" are table conventions I enjoy, however like all table conventions they only make sense if they go both ways.
While a prior warning from the GM would be welcome, it's ok for the GM to break the "level appropriate" promise if the players break the "not being murdehobos" promise or do other things equally stupid (like trying to assassinate a deity or something).
[The prior warning is welcome because it's not always clear to players that they are breaking their part of the deal, so it's a good thing to remind them beforehand]

Admittedly, on a table that is fully "combat as sport", I'd halfly expect the GM to narrate the loss of the group rather than wasting time playing an unwinnable battle, but it's not mandatory.

Telok

2023-03-04, 05:19 PM

Admittedly, on a table that is fully "combat as sport", I'd halfly expect the GM to narrate the loss of the group rather than wasting time playing an unwinnable battle, but it's not mandatory.

So you advise just railroad cutscene to party into a jail scenario because they're 11th level murderhobos who can legit wipe out 100+ town guards and leaders?

Devils_Advocate

2023-03-04, 05:45 PM

"Combat as sport" and "level appropriate" are table conventions I enjoy, however like all table conventions they only make sense if they go both ways.
And so far as "coherent & believable world building" goes, well, turn that earlier point around. If there are reasons why higher-level NPCs don't waltz in and wipe the floor with the PCs, how do the same considerations not prevent the PCs from doing the same to lower-level NPCs?

"The PCs are the most powerful people around" is a non-standard assumption that one should fully anticipate might warp what happens at the table. Make the player characters demigods of the setting such that this small group of freaks is of comparable power to a mid-sized empire, and that naturally becomes the scale on which they operate.

If you want to go that direction, maybe look to Exalted for inspiration. (E.g., note its premise that the many parties yet more powerful than the PCs are pretty much all busy desperately fighting each other in this period of intense turmoil, thus explaining why they'd plausibly ignore the Magikarp Power weirdos whose main early advantage is "rapid leveling" until it's too late.)

NichG

2023-03-04, 05:46 PM

Not a good idea to DM yourself into a corner. Don't set yourself up committing something where the possible outcomes aren't tolerable in a metagame sense: 'rocks fall everybody dies' or 'you're all arrested by the guard and imprisoned/executed' might be realistic, but game won't continue if you pull that stuff. Similarly, its not great if you end up flinching when those things are the only consequence left to you that makes sense in a situation. So the answer is don't set yourself on that road to begin with, since it doesn't go anywhere good.

KorvinStarmast

2023-03-05, 08:54 AM

"How is violence against the undead worse than violence against the living?" It isn't. See genre for why.

Devils_Advocate

2023-03-08, 12:03 PM

Ugh, that should have been "better", not "worse", like in the other two questions.

Genres are pretty broad. What specifically did you see as relevant?

Anyway, dismissing victims as not being "anyone at all" is, at best, a semantic argument and not really an ethical one. That doesn't justify your disdain, it just underlines it, dig what I'm saying?

KorvinStarmast

2023-03-08, 01:59 PM

Genres are pretty broad. What specifically did you see as relevant? Might want to check out the "put a stake in a vampire's heart to destroy him" element of the genre.

... dig what I'm saying? You put the stake in his heart whether he's in his coffin or not.

The attempt at equivalence between the living and the undead is either willful ignorance of genre conventions, or yet another failed attempt at trope subversion.

I'll admit that I find it difficult to understand others' perspectives on the matter.
Noticed that.

To me, alignment only makes sense as a setting element. TBH, I find my self in about 90% agreement with that approach to alignment. It's a tool that can be used effectively.
It can also be used clumsily which ends up with unintended damage to the work piece.
(I was gonna mention the page count yesterday, so thanks for saving me that. Agree that this one's run its course)

Vahnavoi

2023-03-08, 03:03 PM

Segev

2023-03-09, 02:59 PM

In vampire and zombie fiction, the question of how okay it is to kill the undead has done loop-de-loops for decades. The answer depends on what specific thing they are supposed to stand for this Tuesday, which in turn depends on what author of a specific work has been smoking and whose kool-aid they've been drinking.

The more important point to take away from Devil's Advocate is that anyone wishing to concern troll can easily bog down a conversation by insincerely asking these kind of questions. The next step usually is drawing attention to hypothetical (mis)interpretations, even and especially when there is no proof anyone is acting on that interpretation.

"It's okay to kill [this brand of] zombies because they aren't people. No, really, the people died; those are just ambuatory corpses. Practically forces of unnatural nature. It may even be that putting them down is a mercy, as their existence may be pain. If it's anything at all."

"It's okay to kill [these] vampires because they are unabashed murderous monsters who haven't an ounce of humanity or empathy to them. They are the worst kind of rabid beast just very good at pretending to be civil until they can get their fangs into the innocent."

The ones it's not okay to kill generally are more human-like in awareness and agency. Zombies will rarely fit this bill. Vampires vary wildly between "just humans, but with powers and dietary needs and a few curses," and "monsters that only look human but lack anything that would make them count as having real agency, or at least any moral ability to use that agency for aught but mass murder."

Vahnavoi

2023-03-09, 03:34 PM

KorvinStarmast

2023-03-09, 04:03 PM

"It's okay to kill [this brand of] zombies because they aren't people. No, really, the people died; those are just ambuatory corpses. Practically forces of unnatural nature. It may even be that putting them down is a mercy, as their existence may be pain. If it's anything at all."

"It's okay to kill [these] vampires because they are unabashed murderous monsters who haven't an ounce of humanity or empathy to them. They are the worst kind of rabid beast just very good at pretending to be civil until they can get their fangs into the innocent."

The ones it's not okay to kill generally are more human-like in awareness and agency. Zombies will rarely fit this bill. Vampires vary wildly between "just humans, but with powers and dietary needs and a few curses," and "monsters that only look human but lack anything that would make them count as having real agency, or at least any moral ability to use that agency for aught but mass murder." It is OK to kill every vampire in the Twilight series, but since they never made the movie Blade Meets Twilight ... Hollywood failed again. :smallfurious:

More to the point, the setting of the story and the manipulation of the trope is in the hands of an author - since this {censored} is all make believe in the first place.

Segev

2023-03-09, 04:07 PM

And it's all fine and dandy until some author decides to turn it all on its head.

For example, in Franken Fran, if I recall right, there's a zombie segment where it's ultimately revealed the zombies are still aware of what's happening, they just can't control their actions because of a disease. When the title character shows up with a cure and explains all this, the protagonists of the segment have a mental breakdown over all the lives they took.

But the actual answers don't matter to a concern troll, because a concern troll is not interested in the answer. The question is asked only to make people worry about what (often, unnamed and unqualified) would think.

While it's tragic that all those lives were lost, zombies who can't control their actions and are a danger to others DO need to be contained, at the least, and if containment is not possible in a way that keeps the uninfected safe, killing them is as valid as if you were killing a determined band of rapacious gangsters in self-defense. Or orcs. Or human bandits. Or invading borg drones.

Which is to say, I totally get the characters being heartbroken and anguished over having unknowingly killed so many innocent victims, but they weren't wrong to do so unless they were making sport of it for on reason other than "acceptable targets." (I have no idea how things went in the story other than what was said in Vahnavoi's post.)

Palanan

2023-03-09, 04:07 PM

Originally Poted by Vahnavoi
When the title character shows up with a cure and explains all this, the protagonists of the segment have a mental breakdown over all the lives they took.

This is pretty much the alternate ending of Will Smith’s “I Am Legend.” (Which was much better than the theatrical ending.)

Originally Posted by Vahnavoi
But the actual answers don't matter to a concern troll….

I’ve never seen this term before. What is this creature, and where do you find it?

NichG

2023-03-09, 04:25 PM

Better to ask 'what are the moral implications of choosing to kill ...' than 'is it okay to kill ...' anyhow. The weight of those considerations will differ from person to person, context to context, leading to different choices even given the same premise.

But that's kind of the issue with genre or author conventions about behavior of characters within a setting - rather than presenting a situation in which there are moral implications which you can engage with or not and choose which angle to take and so on, you're starting from the conclusion. That's some of what puts an author at hazard for being seen as pushing a view of how they think the world should be rather than just impartially presenting a scenario. Presenting a scenario and letting people draw their own conclusions as to what is the proper thing to do should IMO provide some degree of insulation to the author with respect to criticisms of the morality that results. Not perfect insulation - railroading is a thing, and those methods can be used in fiction and setting design just as they can be used in play, but it mandates a much higher standard of argument than e.g. 'a bad thing exists in the setting, the author must support that bad thing'. Arguments about social harm don't obtain that same degree of insulation perhaps, though they do have to take a stance on the rationale behind the choice of which harms we do choose to permit and some we do not, and what justifies a particular harm as being on one side or the other.

EggKookoo

2023-03-09, 05:00 PM

This is pretty much the alternate ending of Will Smith’s “I Am Legend.” (Which was much better than the theatrical ending.)

*stares in Vincent Price*

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OWlNe1-5wb8

Vahnavoi

2023-03-09, 05:31 PM

I’ve never seen this term before. What is this creature, and where do you find it?

It's a person who goes "interesting idea, but I have some concerns...", feigning support but then undermining the very idea. They thrive where ever there are well-meaning people who can't distinquish a genuine question from a rhetorical one.

Telok

2023-03-09, 11:59 PM

*stares in Vincent Price

Bloody ninjas.

Devils_Advocate

2023-03-11, 04:14 PM

Might want to check out the "put a stake in a vampire's heart to destroy him" element of the genre.
You put the stake in his heart whether he's in his coffin or not.

The attempt at equivalence between the living and the undead is either willful ignorance of genre conventions, or yet another failed attempt at trope subversion.
Is your point that the living in the setting are hostile to the undead? I wasn't expecting moral relativism, although that's one possible perspective. But even assuming that the right answer is whatever people say it is, there's a question of whether an individual's or culture's stance on a particular issue is at odds with other general principles that they endorse. In particular, the principle of fairness says that whatever is decided on is not ipso facto fine and dandy.

To clarify, I wasn't asking insincere rhetorical questions. More like sincere semi-rhetorical questions, since others answering them in this thread wasn't really "the point". My point was more that various works of fiction lend themselves to these sorts of questions. And I don't see that as a problem. Exploring our own values is a lot more interesting and appealing to me than "You're supposed to shut off the critical thinking part of your brain for this".

Jack of Spades

2023-03-11, 08:10 PM

*stares in Vincent Price*

*Coughs in Richard Matheson*

KorvinStarmast

2023-03-12, 10:00 PM

Is your point that the living in the setting are hostile to the undead? The other way around.

Trafalgar

2023-03-13, 12:45 AM

Exploring our own values is a lot more interesting and appealing to me than "You're supposed to shut off the critical thinking part of your brain for this".

Nothing we are talking about has anything to do with exploring our values or morality in the real world. Because this is all make believe. Are you saying "I value human life more than you because I refuse to allow my imaginary character kill an imaginary zombie?"

Satinavian

2023-03-13, 03:03 AM

Might want to check out the "put a stake in a vampire's heart to destroy him" element of the genre.
You put the stake in his heart whether he's in his coffin or not.Hmm, we know that vampire stories have primarily been about illicit sex for the last two hundred years. It is not exactly a new development or a twist, it is basically the core of the genre. The monster hunting is occasionally tacked on but far from universal and often just an euphemism for enforcing social mores. Twilight is not a new take, it is utterly typical and lacking any innovation. Blade is the strange one.

So in a way, questioning the vampire slaying and considering vampires as people (sexy dangerous criminal people) are basically genre convention.

None of that applies to zombies. Zombie sex stories are incredible niche and i don't know any from before the 00s. Zombie horror is a very different genre to anything involving vampires.

EggKookoo

2023-03-13, 05:11 AM

Hmm, we know that vampire stories have primarily been about illicit sex for the last two hundred years.

How do we know this?

Satinavian

2023-03-13, 05:36 AM

How do we know this?Mainly because vampires were not particularly well known monsters or had all that many stories written about them before Victorian society discovered them as a vehicle to write about nightly visits of lovers and about homosexual relationships and about rape without being too crude and vulgar for civilized society. That was the first big explosion of vampire fiction and the one that pretty much codified the vampire itself (from various quite different undead myths). There were several similar vampire booms later, the last ones in living memory sparked with the Anne Rice novels (which are full of sex) and on smaller scale Twilight.

But make the following experiment :

- Name 20 somewhat well-known vampire centric IPs
- scratch those aimed at children ("The Little Vampire" and similar one)
- scratch those that have explicit sex
- scratch those that have a romance involving a vampire (and yes, that means Buffy is out as is Underworld)

You should now have less than half left.

- now consider whether the vampires action might be a metaphor for sex
- remove those where the answer is "probably yes"

Are there more left than 2 ?

Lord Raziere

2023-03-13, 05:40 AM

Vahnavoi

2023-03-13, 10:48 AM

Nothing we are talking about has anything to do with exploring our values or morality in the real world. Because this is all make believe. Are you saying "I value human life more than you because I refuse to allow my imaginary character kill an imaginary zombie?"

Who are you trying to kid? It is well-known several major works of genre fantasy are outright religious allegories, and their influence on the realm of games is undeniable. Moving outside genre fantasy makes the thought more absurd, not less. Or do you think that when a Cyberpunk supplement makes a point of having players play transwomen in middle-eastern country struggling to fit new technologies with traditional beliefs, the make-believe's got nothing to do with the real world?

As for your, likely rhetoric, question? There probably are people genuinely making that argument, whether reasoning has any basis in fact is another thing. But regardless of what you think is the answer, it would be, and is, trivial to make games that deliberately discuss these types of questions with the player - as proven not just by tabletop games, but by existing videogames from Harvester to Undertale.

Whether games affect our values and morality is dubious, but it would be ignorant to claim they don't discuss and explore our values and morality. They don't need to do that, but they do, because their authors want to.

---

How do we know [a lot of vampire stories are thinly-veiled erotica]?

From analysis of culture and subtext, when this thing isn't just text or spelled out as the author's intention in interviews, commentaries, etc.. The history of modern vampire genre is well known and annotated, it isn't hard to find essays (https://www.cleveland.com/tv/2009/08/when_did_vampires_turn_from_mo.html) detailing how this happened.

The same can, and to a degree, already has, happened with zombies, though. Zombie romance is an existing genre in paranormal fiction, look up a list on TV Tropes or something.

KorvinStarmast

2023-03-13, 04:17 PM

The same can, and to a degree, already has, happened with zombies, though. Zombie romance is an existing genre in paranormal fiction, look up a list on TV Tropes or something. Sturgeon's Law applies to this art form as well.

The undead are inherently antithetical to the living, because the Living have Life and the undead crave it but do not have it. That is a core premise of the undead as monster in the genre that D&D taps into.

How VtM handles it I won't comment on, but I will offer a nod to establishing a setting for the authors.

In the general case of Vampires, it's blood and control that they want. None of that has changed, Love at First Bite's humorous take on the vampire as sexual predator/stalker considered...

As to The Walking Dead, and the ham-fisted artifice of using a disease/plague to create something like zombies - yet another failed trop subversion.

We seem to have wandered well clear of the original topic, so I guess Star Wars will insert itself into this thread before it hits the limit..was Palpatine undead in movie 9?

False God

2023-03-13, 09:01 PM

was Palpatine undead in movie 9?

Depends on how you count Force ghosts. I'd argue that they're not undead, because the Force is alive.

Functionally though, he had the same goals as you state for traditional undead, the life of the living and control.

I'm not sure how much that differentiates the "undead" from "a murderer" contextually though, which makes me question the value of it as a defining metric of the undead.

Palanan

2023-03-13, 11:19 PM

Just to fold this into a gaming context, there’s a template in Pathfinder called the Prana Ghost, which is a Force ghost in all but name.

Segev

2023-03-14, 05:06 PM

But make the following experiment :

- Name 20 somewhat well-known vampire centric IPs
- scratch those aimed at children ("The Little Vampire" and similar one)
- scratch those that have explicit sex
- scratch those that have a romance involving a vampire (and yes, that means Buffy is out as is Underworld)

You should now have less than half left.

- now consider whether the vampires action might be a metaphor for sex
- remove those where the answer is "probably yes"

Are there more left than 2 ?
Define "might be a metaphor for sex?" That's so broad as to be open to presuming the conclusion. Literally any monster's activities "might be a metaphor for sex" if you look at it "correctly."

I am sure you'd argue that the classic Dracula is engaging in a metaphor for sex (possibly non-consensual, possibly not, depending what parts of it you consider part of the metaphor vs. necessary elements of the framing device for the metaphor), but by that standard, so are werewolves, the titular monsters of Alien and its sequels, Ursela's villain song from The Little Mermaid, and don't get me started on Scar! Manipulating his brother into trusting him in a time of desperate vulnerability only to take advantage of the situation to get what he wants and then throwing his brother away after emotionally manipulating his nephew and THEN guilting said nephew into running away lest the scandalous thing he made his nephew feel solely responsible for was revealed.

None of those are, I think, actually such metaphors, but you can see how they "might" be. This is why I find that a really weak standard to prove it.

"Assume these are metaphors for sex. Now, doesn't them being metaphors for sex prove they are metaphors for sex?"

Devils_Advocate

2023-03-14, 05:47 PM

While that wasn't ideally phrased if so, I imagine that Satinavian's intent was to remove examples where vampires action probably is a metaphor for sex, not where vampires action "probably might" be a metaphor for sex.

Even then, though, the "probably" implies a level of objectivity that's still lacking. Change it to "probably intended as a metaphor for sex" and we're talking about the likelihood about something that presumably really is or is not the case. But even then, probability is itself subjective.

The other way around.
X putting a stake in Y's heart in order to destroy Y is X being hostile to Y, not vice versa.

And, more to the point, if Group A sends a raiding party into Group B's territory to pillage everything they can get their greedy little hands on, that's Group A being hostile to Group B.

If you want to talk about the relevant tropes, then isn't mummies' whole deal that they're angered by their tombs being defiled? Like, a bunch of colonialist grave robbers bust into one o' them ding dang pyramids, but OH SNAP, those wacky white people chose the wrong **** to wreck this time! Nothing too strange about that state of affairs in a broader sense, really. Fortune kills the bold nine times out of ten; we just generally don't hear about all of the doomed expeditions. Maybe if they featured shambling corpses more often. Although often enough and they'd become the expected norm and thus unexceptional, like the normal inanimate corpses generated by such expeditions. With some reasonable assumptions, maybe we could calculate the optimal undead to expedition ratio for effective cautionary tales. What was I talking about again?

Oh, right! This is the sort of "bastard vs. other bastard" story where the audience will tend to be sympathetic to the protagonists even more so than average. Tell the same story from the mummy's perspective, and a lot of people are probably gonna switch to rooting for the mummy, downplaying or outright ignoring the mummy's unsympathetic traits this time. How dare those foreign heathens deny the dead pharaoh his rightful rest! Never mind that his elaborate tomb and pampered afterlife are part of a position of unearned privilege reserved for a tiny elite...

Anyway, in D&D, "the undead" is a broad general term for both animate corpses and immaterial spirits. No hostility towards the living required. Ghosts, for example, are all about resolving their unfinished business. They ain't got time for killing anything with a pulse, man, unless the living make a habit of interfering. They can even be good-aligned! 3rd Edition introduced an alternate type of undead powered by positive energy instead of negative energy, with the idea being that these didn't have to be evil... but undead didn't have to be evil in the first place, so that part didn't really make much sense.

But if we are going that route, I recall reading that mummies in D&D were at one point powered by positive energy instead of the usual negative! Which just supports the perspective that they're spirits of righteous vengeance who give sacrilegious thieves their well-deserved comeuppance.

Nothing we are talking about has anything to do with exploring our values or morality in the real world. Because this is all make believe.
Like exclusion from "anyone", exclusion from "we" does a fair bit of work through the implying of implications. But if you mean that I, specifically, interjected this entirely unrelated new topic into the discussion, I have to disagree with more than just the "unrelated" part. Before I brought it back up, NichG had earlier discussed the idea of general principles beyond specific positions on specific issues (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?653211-Official-OGL-Discussion-Thread/page42&p=25714818#post25714818). And the idea that we can examine such general principles by considering hypothetical scenarios is... generally uncontroversial, I'm pretty sure? Like, "Who cares about abstract hypotheticals, we should deal with real situations as they come up" is not one of the standard responses to e.g. the trolley problem. And for good reason! To say that is to argue that one should not try to prepare for novel situations in the future. It implies that it's better to instead make split-second decisions under unfamiliar circumstances without prior consideration. Is that really the stance you want to take here?

One might suggest that such purported general principles do not really exist. I can't honestly say that I've observed anything more than nominal adherence to high-level abstract values to be common. And not just in the sense of knowingly doing wrong to others; people seem to think that violations of their own professed values are ethical! In which case, those can't actually be the premises on which they decide whether something is ethical or unethical. But people do somehow still seem to believe that they value individual freedom or impartiality or whatever in general, not just in specific cases! So illustrating that people don't actually value those things as ends in themselves thus winds up making a point about the values of actual people that is somehow not obvious to most people. Which feels like it falls under "exploring our values in the real world".

Are you saying "I value human life more than you because I refuse to allow my imaginary character kill an imaginary zombie?"
No. Rather, due to ways in which both humans and non-humans are treated in real life, I get the impression that I have greater than average consideration for other beings in general. I wouldn't feel the same way about real people only being okay with the mistreatment of fictional beings. But we don't live in that utopia. And audience sympathy for e.g. little-developed characters seems to be driven largely by the same attitudes that drive sympathy for real world e.g. strangers. We don't care as much what happens in imaginary stories, but still caring in basically the same way to a degree is a big part of why we read books, play games, and so on. So I surmise that most people entirely fine with fictional e.g. violence aren't fine with it only because it's fictional, but because they're at least somewhat okay with something similar happening in real life.

Whether zombies are technically human matters only with respect to how others, not I, decide who is an acceptable victim. I reject the implication that drawing that line arbitrarily is somehow self-justifying. And if it is self-justifying, then devaluing humans is just as valid as any other choice! Sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander and all.

Does that give a better sense of where I'm coming from?

Vahnavoi

2023-03-14, 06:39 PM

Like, "Who cares about abstract hypotheticals, we should deal with real situations as they come up" is not one of the standard responses to e.g. the trolley problem.

It probably is one of the standard responses, in the sense that non-negligible amount of responders asnwer like that. It's right up there with "why are there only two options, this obviously BS, I look for the third option so no-one has to die!"

The trolley problem is well-known, but not well-understood, and there's segments of the population who are unwilling or uncapable to entertain the scenario as presented, or unwilling or unable to consider hypotheticals or counterfactuals at all.

NichG

2023-03-14, 06:59 PM

It probably is one of the standard responses, in the sense that non-negligible amount of responders asnwer like that. It's right up there with "why are there only two options, this obviously BS, I look for the third option so no-one has to die!"

The trolley problem is well-known, but not well-understood, and there's segments of the population who are unwilling or uncapable to entertain the scenario as presented, or unwilling or unable to consider hypotheticals or counterfactuals at all.

I don't even think those segments of the population are wrong to hold that position, as framing scenarios with unreal constraints and proposing forced choices are both pretty standard manipulation tactics you'd be likely to encounter in day to day life.

False God

2023-03-14, 07:34 PM

It probably is one of the standard responses, in the sense that non-negligible amount of responders asnwer like that. It's right up there with "why are there only two options, this obviously BS, I look for the third option so no-one has to die!"

The trolley problem is well-known, but not well-understood, and there's segments of the population who are unwilling or uncapable to entertain the scenario as presented, or unwilling or unable to consider hypotheticals or counterfactuals at all.

The trolly problem is a thought experiment because it is unrealistic. Reality is much more complex. It's useful as a narrative framing device because stories often need to fabricate drama when the "real world" solutions are usually much more appropriate, but much less interesting.

This is true of "thought experiments" in general. They might be interesting to think about, but they're not usefully applicable to real life.

The trolley problem is understood fine. Most people just aren't interested in engaging in tedious binary moralizing it proposes.

NichG

2023-03-14, 07:53 PM

The trolly problem is a thought experiment because it is unrealistic. Reality is much more complex. It's useful as a narrative framing device because stories often need to fabricate drama when the "real world" solutions are usually much more appropriate, but much less interesting.

This is true of "thought experiments" in general. They might be interesting to think about, but they're not usefully applicable to real life.

The trolley problem is understood fine. Most people just aren't interested in engaging in tedious binary moralizing it proposes.

Well the point of the trolley problem is not so much 'what should you do?' as it is to make you notice that responsibility for a decision can factor into how people reason about morality even moreso than outcomes. The whole 'there can be a net good trade, but being the one choosing to make that trade might matter'

But yeah, actually answering it or putting someone in a position to answer it or even being concerned over how it gets answered are all on the bad faith usages side.

Vahnavoi

2023-03-14, 07:53 PM

@Tanarii: that is a completely nonsensical take, especially in context of a hobby that thrives on what are fundamentally extended thought experiments.

KorvinStarmast

2023-03-14, 07:57 PM

X putting a stake in Y's heart in order to destroy Y is X being hostile to Y, not vice versa.
Wrong. You don't understand the what is at stake in the fiction. Willful ignorance is not a good look, since you chose to utterly divest that situation of context.

Vahnavoi

2023-03-14, 08:14 PM

But yeah, actually answering it or putting someone in a position to answer it or even being concerned over how it gets answered are all on the bad faith usages side.

Gee, you must really hate combat-heavy games, considering such games regularly lead to situations analogous to the trolley problem.

Let's be perfectly clear, all the common criticism towards the trolley problem can be and have been applied towards combat-heavy games. My point here isn't that such games are beyond criticism. It's that in the context, that part about bad faith usage is itself dubious and quite hypocritical.

False God

2023-03-14, 08:23 PM

Gee, you must really hate combat-heavy games, considering such games regularly lead to situations analogous to the trolley problem.

Let's be perfectly clear, all the common criticism towards the trolley problem can be and have been applied towards combat-heavy games. My point here isn't that such games are beyond criticism. It's that in the context, that part about bad faith usage is itself dubious and quite hypocritical.

Not, they really aren't.

"Kill it." or "Don't kill it." aren't thought experiments, they're decision points. The point of thought experiments is understanding the reasoning that produces the decision. Binary moralizing "You didn't kill it, so the whole town died!", or "You killed it, so you're a bad person!" are bad faith proposals.

Killing or not killing, fighting or not fighting aren't trolley problems. They're just decision points. Decision points without underlying examination of the thinking that brought you to the decision point isn't a thought experiment. And combat heavy games sure as heck don't bother giving people the time or even care of they want to explore the reasoning behind their decision to push the button or not. They just throw them into some more combat.

A low combat game is far more likely to present a real thought experiment, since the actions taken in combat have the potential to be more meaningful within the context of the game, since the fight itself is likely to be more meaningful.

The fact that you even present a "combat heavy game" as an example of being even remotely a thought experiment is demonstrative of the problem with binary thinking. Even in a combat heavy game, the choices should not be binary. To construe them as binary only underscores how much of a bad faith setup it is in the first place.

Devils_Advocate

2023-03-14, 08:37 PM

It probably is one of the standard responses, in the sense that non-negligible amount of responders asnwer like that. It's right up there with "why are there only two options, this obviously BS, I look for the third option so no-one has to die!"
Eh, you're probably right.

"Try to find a better solution" is a perfectly reasonable answer to what you would do and to what you should do for at least some variations of the Trolley Problem.

Wrong.
I'm not sure what you think "hostile" means at this point.

You don't understand the what is at stake in the fiction. Willful ignorance is not a good look, since you chose to utterly divest that situation of context.
What fiction? What context? Vampires appear in lots of stories, and they aren't remotely the same in all of them. Was horror the "genre" you meant to refer to earlier? D&D is a fairly generic fantasy game. Works of fantasy can and do use horror monsters in ways that are not ham-fistedly cliche. Like, your earlier description of undead would work great for a horror game, but D&D is not really a horror game and non-coincidentally that description does not apply to all of the undead in D&D. Feels kinda like you're the one ignoring context here. (Crossed part of that out 'cause I don't wanna do a false dichotomy here.)

Vahnavoi

2023-03-14, 08:46 PM

@False God: now you're just exemplifying lack of understanding of the trolley problem.

The though experiment doesn't do the kind of binary moralizing you accuse it of. Plenty of games do, for example, you might as well be criticizing common D&D play scenarios. The decision points of who to kill and why, alongside of the moral judgement passed on the character, are just parts of the game, no bad faith required.

Meanwhile, the point of the trolley problem isn't to moralize the respondent - it and its variants exist to examine how seemingly immaterial changes in the scenario influence decisions made. Any dynamic game will naturally create strings of such subtly varying scenarios. It's cute you think "combat-heavy" means people don't reason about why their characters do this or that, or that this (in tabletop games) primarily mental exercise of imagining an intensense violent affair somehow doesn't count as a thought-experiment, or that strings of binary decisions can't be used to make an interesting game... but I have zero reason to give such arguments any credit. They are objectively false.

NichG

2023-03-14, 08:47 PM

False God

2023-03-14, 08:49 PM

Vahnavoi

2023-03-14, 09:11 PM

@False God: your ideas of how it is or isn't used aren't particularly great, nor binding on how games actually use it.

---

@Tanarii: you continue making comments that make no sense in context.

The basic trolley dilemma has all basic building blocks of a roleplaying game scenario, and can be iterated or extended into a more elaborate scenario easily enough. Even if you maintain such a scenario tells nothing of morality and is only a tragedy of characters caught in a cruel situation where they lack agency to act right... yup, a horror game scenario or several, right there. Simply disgust at the cruelty or (supposed) pointlessness, can be the aesthetic point to include it in a game.

Devils_Advocate

2023-03-14, 09:40 PM

By the way, KorvinStarmast, I find myself more than a little bewildered by your repeated combination of

(1) seemingly refusing to specify what you're talking about and
(2) acting as though me not knowing what you're talking about is disingenuous of me.

You seem to be trying to allude to something fairly specific as though it's obvious what you're referring to. It's not obvious to me. It's obvious to you what you're thinking, but that's because you're the one directly experiencing your thoughts firsthand.

I am likely less well-versed in various genre fiction than you, but there is nothing willful about my ignorance on the matter. Meanwhile I am quite skeptical that the same can be said of your evasiveness.

To generalize my own impressions, aside from non-normative sexuality rarely seen as frightening anymore, what makes vampires scary is that they prey on humans. And that's obviously a legitimate concern for humans. But vampires really have their work cut out for them if they're to be more evil apex predators than humans. Our species is remarkably cruel to its food.

KorvinStarmast

2023-03-14, 10:37 PM

I'm not sure what you think "hostile" means at this point.
I sure do.

What fiction? The fiction regarding why one puts a stake in a vampire's heart.
This isn't rocket science. That's the genre I have been talking about this whole time which you deliberately evade and try to subvert.
And you accuses me of what?
Sorry, no credibility for you on this one.

As an aside, if you honestly don't know the genre of vampire fiction, why are you even engaging?

But vampires really have their work cut out for them if they're to be more evil apex predators than humans. Our species is remarkably cruel to its food. Sorry, that's the kind of subversion I have been calling you out on already. Do you see the problem now? The "whataboutery" does not advance the conversation, it's deliberate noise to obfuscate the core fiction.

Telok

2023-03-14, 10:48 PM

D&D morality in 95% of games: "There's real afterlives. Kill them all, let the gods sort it out, loot everything. Bob, did you remember to pack the crowbars and stone drills?"

Segev

2023-03-15, 08:46 AM

MoiMagnus

2023-03-15, 09:01 AM

The reason "kill the monster or don't; if you don't, it will destroy the village," is generally not analogous to the trolley problem is that the trolley problem sets up innocents as the ones who will die no matter what; you're just choosing to do nothing and allow by your inaction a larger number of innocents die, or to do one other thing and cause by your action a smaller number of innocents who would otherwise live to die in order to save the larger number of innocents who would've died had you not done this thing.

In the "kill the monster or don't" scenario, you're either facing a non-agent (e.g. choosing to destroy the otherwise-empty trolley itself), or you're facing a malicious agent (e.g. you're slaying the man who will trick the innocents onto the trolley track to set up this horrifying experiment). In either case, killing is potentially justified in order to save the innocents. If the monster is a creature without agency, then it is acceptable to put it down as a danger to innocent people. If the monster is a creature with agency, then it is acceptable to put it down because it willfully endangers innocent people. If, somehow, the "monster" is a person whose agency has been taken away, you're back to the trolley problem and you probably have people seeking to break the mind-control and/or destroy the bad guy who stole the agency of the "monster."

Yes. Though there is a common point:

The trolley problem assume that "the trolley will kill the peoples if you do nothing and using the switch it is the only action you can do" which is a weird hypothesis that make common morals difficult to apply
Similarly D&D assume that "the monster will kill peoples if you do nothing and killing it is the only action you can do", which also make common morals difficult to apply

As soon as you relax the hypothesis, for example by making it so the adventurers might wrongly assume that the monster will kill peoples, or by having alternative solutions to killing the monster, then you're on more dubious moral ground.

[Similarly to how as soon as you relax the hypothesis of the trolley problems, other actions might be more morally correct]

Vahnavoi

2023-03-15, 09:25 AM

@Segev: all situations where one might have to do utilitarian calculus over which lives to save is analogous to a trolley problem. The basic dilemma has myriad variations to study seemingly inconsequential factors that nonetheless make people change their minds, like this whole "innocence" deal.

But, more relevantly: I can just grant you that you're right about basic "kill monster or don't" scenario, and it won't change any of my points, because that is not the only version of the trouble that is commonly gamed.

You also have:

"If I don't fight the monster, it will kill most of my party members, but if I do fight, it will kill a party member who is otherwise not at risk."

"If I don't fight the monster, it will kill most of my party members, but if I do fight, it will kill me."

"If I don't fight the monster, it will kill a bunch of non-player characters, but if I do fight, it will kill a player character."

List not exhaustive.

Many games also have an explicit morality system, such as alignment, empathy, humanity, sanity, corruption points etc., so the decision is not isolated from rest of the game and the player can have pressure to act in multiple directions - a classic example being player of a selfish or evil character being motivated to pick the anti-utilitarian option, even as the metagame points to another.

Segev

2023-03-15, 11:24 AM

Yes. Though there is a common point:

The trolley problem assume that "the trolley will kill the peoples if you do nothing and using the switch it is the only action you can do" which is a weird hypothesis that make common morals difficult to apply
Similarly D&D assume that "the monster will kill peoples if you do nothing and killing it is the only action you can do", which also make common morals difficult to apply

As soon as you relax the hypothesis, for example by making it so the adventurers might wrongly assume that the monster will kill peoples, or by having alternative solutions to killing the monster, then you're on more dubious moral ground.

[Similarly to how as soon as you relax the hypothesis of the trolley problems, other actions might be more morally correct]In terms of the second bullet, that isn't a moral dilemma any more than stopping the trolley from killing the people it otherwise would kill by destroying the (empty) trolley is a moral dilemma. The monster is either an unintelligent thing that needs to be put down, or it is an intelligent being who is choosing to harm innocent people and thus abdicates its own right to its life being sacrosanct.

@Segev: all situations where one might have to do utilitarian calculus over which lives to save is analogous to a trolley problem. The basic dilemma has myriad variations to study seemingly inconsequential factors that nonetheless make people change their minds, like this whole "innocence" deal.

But, more relevantly: I can just grant you that you're right about basic "kill monster or don't" scenario, and it won't change any of my points, because that is not the only version of the trouble that is commonly gamed.

You also have:

"If I don't fight the monster, it will kill most of my party members, but if I do fight, it will kill a party member who is otherwise not at risk."

"If I don't fight the monster, it will kill most of my party members, but if I do fight, it will kill me."

"If I don't fight the monster, it will kill a bunch of non-player characters, but if I do fight, it will kill a player character."

List not exhaustive.

Many games also have an explicit morality system, such as alignment, empathy, humanity, sanity, corruption points etc., so the decision is not isolated from rest of the game and the player can have pressure to act in multiple directions - a classic example being player of a selfish or evil character being motivated to pick the anti-utilitarian option, even as the metagame points to another.
In each of those cases, the monster is the agent choosing to kill your "party member who is otherwise not at risk." (And, frankly, the only scenario where I can think of it killing a party member only if you attack it, but will kill the rest of your party if you don't, is one where it's definitely smart enough to be holding a hostage, and is also evil enough not to be trustworthy when it claims it'll spare the hostage if it gets to kill your other friends.)

In other words, it ceases to be the trolley problem because the one making the actual (potentially-)evil choice isn't you. "If you don't sacrifice your brother on my altar, I will destroy this city! Are you willing to be responsible for a whole city being destroyed for your petty morals?" is correctly answered by, "But I'm not the one who'll destroy it. You are. Even if I do not sacrifice my brother on your altar, you can choose not to follow through on your threat. Therefore, it is not my action that makes the determination. Heck, even if I do sacrifice him as directed, there's no guarantee you won't destroy that city anyway."

NichG

2023-03-15, 12:38 PM

@Segev: all situations where one might have to do utilitarian calculus over which lives to save is analogous to a trolley problem. The basic dilemma has myriad variations to study seemingly inconsequential factors that nonetheless make people change their minds, like this whole "innocence" deal.

The 'have to do' is doing a lot of work in this sentence. To many people, the process of going through working out their thoughts about the trolley problem would naturally lead to a rejection of utilitarianism because they would feel that it does matter if its 'them' pulling the lever. That 'I don't think I should be responsible for choosing who lives or dies' reaction doesn't make sense in utilitarianism but fits in deontological or virtue ethics stances (as well as more complex social models of morality about trust and predictability of behavior).

And in open-ended scenarios, picking between presented options that are both bad can be criticized in a way that is absent in the trolley problem, because there is always the possibility of unknown third options that the person could have taken. That fundamentally changes the scenario, which is why people get annoyed when the response to the trolley problem is e.g. 'I call 911' or 'I destroy the trolley'. Because without that forced choice it has very different implications.

EggKookoo

2023-03-15, 12:43 PM

The 'have to do' is doing a lot of work in this sentence. To many people, the process of going through working out their thoughts about the trolley problem would naturally lead to a rejection of utilitarianism because they would feel that it does matter if its 'them' pulling the lever. That 'I don't think I should be responsible for choosing who lives or dies' reaction doesn't make sense in utilitarianism but fits in deontological or virtue ethics stances (as well as more complex social models of morality about trust and predictability of behavior).

One thing I find interesting about the trolly problem is the relative moral difference between actively causing distress and passively allowing distress. Is the person that takes action to harm someone more morally culpable than the person who refrains from preventing harm that he himself did not cause?

If so, how much so? Can it be measured in lives?

NichG

2023-03-15, 01:03 PM

One thing I find interesting about the trolly problem is the relative moral difference between actively causing distress and passively allowing distress. Is the person that takes action to harm someone more morally culpable than the person who refrains from preventing harm that he himself did not cause?

If so, how much so? Can it be measured in lives?

Even worse (well, to me worse), it suggests that this moral difference can lead to a position in which it's socially immoral to try to save a life even at zero external cost when your ability to succeed is uncertain, because then you are taking on responsibility for what happens when otherwise it would have been an act with no responsibility associated with it. And practically speaking, that moral position can have very severe downstream consequences when taken at large...

EggKookoo

2023-03-15, 01:19 PM

Even worse (well, to me worse), it suggests that this moral difference can lead to a position in which it's socially immoral to try to save a life even at zero external cost when your ability to succeed is uncertain, because then you are taking on responsibility for what happens when otherwise it would have been an act with no responsibility associated with it. And practically speaking, that moral position can have very severe downstream consequences when taken at large...

At the same time, how do you avoid it? Even the basic trolly problem has to deal with it, otherwise there would just be one or two people on the trolly. But typically I see it with a half-dozen at least, and often more like 10 or more. The experiment has to significantly weigh the cost in lives so to balance the moral difference between action and inaction.

Which is one problem I have with it as it's usually presented. To me it's really just asking what your personal number is. If there's one person on the trolly, usually most people I think would opt for inaction and feel morally safe. Two people on the trolly? Well, debatable. At some point there's a number where it feels "obvious" you should steer it onto the lone rail-sleeper, but what number is that and why is there even a number at all?

NichG

2023-03-15, 01:29 PM

At the same time, how do you avoid it? Even the basic trolly problem has to deal with it, otherwise there would just be one or two people on the trolly. But typically I see it with a half-dozen at least, and often more like 10 or more. The experiment has to significantly weigh the cost in lives so to balance the moral difference between action and inaction.

Which is one problem I have with it as it's usually presented. To me it's really just asking what your personal number is. If there's one person on the trolly, usually most people I think would opt for inaction and feel morally safe. Two people on the trolly? Well, debatable. At some point there's a number where it feels "obvious" you should steer it onto the lone rail-sleeper, but what number is that and why is there even a number at all?

Well again, the answer a person gives doesn't matter, its the process of thinking through it that matters. In that sense, the value of the trolley problem is that even if you think e.g. 'I'm a strict utilitarian', you might feel different about the choices and then you have to square that feeling with your explicitly stated moral philosophy. So e.g. in my case for example I would end up saying 'this highlights a fundamental flaw in human social organization, in that it incurs this bias towards inaction out of fear of being the one responsible - while that can serve the purpose of stability, in many cases it becomes an instinctual norm that is harmful and we should actively try to resist that moral instinct in those cases (for example, using different ethical standards for doctors treating patients who could not have been saved by normal means, or having standards for when someone is or isn't accountable even if their actions led to deaths specifically when inaction would also have led to deaths)'. Which isn't an answer to the trolley problem, but you could say its an overall position shaped by having been exposed to the trolley problem.

Other people may come up with other justifications or ways of making sense of what they feel, but its the way of making sense that is the important thing and not the personal number.

Devils_Advocate

2023-03-15, 01:58 PM

I sure do.
What, then? Go on, give me your definition of "hostile" whereby trying to destroy someone isn't hostile.

The fiction regarding why one puts a stake in a vampire's heart.
This isn't rocket science. That's the genre I have been talking about this whole time which you deliberately evade and try to subvert.
And you accuses me of what?
Sorry, no credibility for you on this one.

As an aside, if you honestly don't know the genre of vampire fiction, why are you even engaging?

Sorry, that's the kind of subversion I have been calling you out on already. Do you see the problem now? The "whataboutery" does not advance the conversation, it's deliberate noise to obfuscate the core fiction.
Here's my understanding of the situation:

Humans generally evaluate behavior relative to some "in-group". Under this paradigm, "good" actions benefit the in-group and "evil" actions harm the in-group, and the perspective of an unbiased third party, hypothetical or not, doesn't enter into the equation. All that's required for someone, whether a fictional monster or a real human being, to rate as "evil" is acting against the interests of one's perceived in-group.

I take it that you don't care whether a fictional vampire is better or worse than anyone else from an unbiased perspective. If it just doesn't matter to you whether or not you're actually worse than the monster you root for the protagonists to kill, then I guess that that is "adding noise" from your perspective.

But comparing and contrasting the behaviors of different groups and individuals is what I was talking about in the first place. That is the conversation here. Why have you repeatedly replied if you don't want to participate in that conversation?

There's nothing inherently wrong with subverting a genre. Although, given that I'm not producing any fiction here, "subvert" feels a little strong. More like "analyze".