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Post by tdenmark on Jul 11, 2020 17:18:37 GMT -6
This Psychology Today article on the related claims that orcs in fantasy are examples of racism is extremely relevant to this discussion Not a bad article. Anyone who sees orcs and thinks they represent any real world society or people group has some serious issues they need to work out of their thinking. If anything Orcs in Tolkien's writing represented corruption, or at most since he was Catholic might be thought of as 'sin', though he clearly expressed distaste for allegory and certainly did not intend it. The book burners are at the gates. If they burn D&D to the ground no doubt Tolkien could end up on the chopping block shortly after. |
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Post by DungeonDevil on Jul 12, 2020 5:58:40 GMT -6
Will they burn my copy of Fahrenheit 451?
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Post by delta on Jul 12, 2020 9:54:24 GMT -6
Outside of the 2000 WOTC market research survey, I've never seen a breakdown of the demographics of Dungeons & Dragons customers. Any information on minority participation rates would be anecdotal, at best. WOTC keeps voluminous survey data internally, and they've been cognizant of this shift for at least several years. In April they released this much publicly: www.enworld.org/threads/d-ds-best-year-yet.671664/ |
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Post by captainjapan on Jul 12, 2020 12:54:06 GMT -6
"the 46+ age category ... a rounding error". Hillarious. We'll boys, I guess that's it. Time to pack it in. According to Wizards of the Coast "statistics", we've officially aged out of d&d.
thanks, delta;)
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Post by tdenmark on Jul 12, 2020 14:55:05 GMT -6
"the 46+ age category ... a rounding error". Hillarious. We'll boys, I guess that's it. Time to pack it in. According to Wizards of the Coast "statistics", we've officially aged out of d&d. thanks, delta;) Yeah, but we get our kids into it. Though I got a little assistance from Stranger Things. |
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Post by tombowings on Jul 12, 2020 16:53:30 GMT -6
Those who can't tell the difference between facts and fiction aren't mature enough for fiction and are barely mature enough for facts.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 12, 2020 17:36:52 GMT -6
Outside of the 2000 WOTC market research survey, I've never seen a breakdown of the demographics of Dungeons & Dragons customers. Any information on minority participation rates would be anecdotal, at best. WOTC keeps voluminous survey data internally, and they've been cognizant of this shift for at least several years. In April they released this much publicly: www.enworld.org/threads/d-ds-best-year-yet.671664/I'm not sure those statistics mean much. During my days defending pharma companies, they had two general profit strategies: blockbuster drugs (expensive drugs on patent that treated something significant) and lifetime drugs (less expensive drugs, not always on patent anymore, that treated something more common). The idea with the lifetime drugs, like a statin for example, is that they'd generate large profits over time because once prescribed the patient would always be on them. I think a snapshot that tells you who is playing today is less informative than knowing who keeps playing over time. 4E likely sold more product than retroclones and past editions while it was being supported by WoTC, but it also was a flash in the pan with few long-term fans, I think. How many of them stuck around, I don't know. Hard to say how 5E will fare in the long run. Or how many of 5E's younger fans will still be playing D&D (in any form) two decades from now. Those older demos in the WoTC chart may be smaller, but their significance is probably understated, because most of them probably did not start playing D&D in their 30s and 40s. They're likely long-term players/repeat customers. Just speculation on my part, I admit. I also wonder if distinguishing between people who buy WoTC's D&D products and those who report playing D&D would skew the stats. And whether the stats would change based on distinguishing between customers based on how much money they spend on the hobby. |
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Post by delta on Jul 12, 2020 21:32:57 GMT -6
To be clear: I'm not saying the linked blurb is enormously informative. I'm just pointing out that WOTC market research did not end in 2000, and what data is released publicly is just the tip of the iceberg. I 100% agree that there's enormous tension between the camps of (a) a bulk of new players who buy lots of new product, and (b) an elite slice of older DM's who aren't buying much/any new product, but are inducting large swaths of new players to the hobby over time. Personally I'm really happy to not have to make business decisions across that boundary.
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Post by dicebro on Jul 13, 2020 5:46:42 GMT -6
And it was all supposed to be about having some fun. This meticulous scrutiny sucks. Call me old fashioned, but that’s what I’ve been trying to escape from when I play games in the first place. The SERIOUSNESS of it all is non compos mentis.
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Post by robertsconley on Jul 13, 2020 7:34:15 GMT -6
My thoughts on the matter
1) The disclaimer is a boilerplate placed on all pre 5th edition products. It is fig leaf created as a knee jerk response.
2) The original disclaimer was not proofed.
3) Indications are that Wizards was caught flatfooted by this and are fumbling the response making nobody happy. This is compounded by the fact that there are hundreds of PDFs spanning across five decades and there is only a small creative staff at WoTC.
4) This is likely compounded by the current staff not being aware of the history of D&D's popular culture. For example Oriental Adventures coming out during a wave of appreciation of Asian fantasy and mythology by US popular culture.
5) However times change and terms like Oriental for reasons good and bad are no longer acceptable.
6) Fantasy portrayal of gypsies has always been problematic in my opinion. While the Romani were featured in European folklore, the modern association with vampires is a recent innovation spawned by Bram Stoker's Dracula. Just as the modern view of the vampire is relatively recent. For my part I try to avoid gypsy stereotypes in my description of the beggars a group of outcast horse nomads and been doing this since the late 80s when I first detailed the beggars in my Majestic Wilderlands
7) While not perfect, the industry has trended toward more accurate portrayal of non-European cultures in adventures and setting. Completely fictional depictions often draw on the original source then how these cultures were portrayed in golden age comics and pulp stories.
8) If Wizards does something that benefits older editions great. But I never relied them on doing the right thing. They are a corporation with their own interest. Those interested in older edition likewise have their own interest. Like during the Great PDF Purge, we need to rely on ourselves to keep the older edition living games.
9) We are getting older and the OSR has being growing for a decade. The younger and newer crowd may not be aware of what available, what can be done with it, and way of getting material out to share or sell.
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Post by robertsconley on Jul 13, 2020 7:38:59 GMT -6
As how to resolve this situation in general. My opinion is the best approach to redouble efforts to help people publish or share their materials. Let them know about the available open content. How to use digital technology and the internet to their advantage when it comes to publishing.
That in this day and age one does not have to rely on pleasing (or changing) a multi-million dollar corporation to realize and share one's creative vision.
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Post by tombowings on Jul 13, 2020 13:41:44 GMT -6
With regard to the word "oriental," what is the process by which words are deemed inappropriate? I don't get it. A f*g**t is a pile of sticks. Gay means happy. Read your d**ned Shakespeare, everyone.
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Post by robertsconley on Jul 13, 2020 13:47:17 GMT -6
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Post by tombowings on Jul 13, 2020 14:32:37 GMT -6
Your link only explains how meanings are added to words, not how they are subtracted. |
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Parzival
Level 6 Magician
Is a little Stir Crazy this year...
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Post by Parzival on Jul 13, 2020 14:53:24 GMT -6
Those who seek to be offended will find a way to be offended.
Those who seek to offend will find a way to offend.
And thus, you have the explanation as to why inoffensive words and ideas acquire offensive status, even (and especially) if undeserved.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 13, 2020 15:51:48 GMT -6
Okay, folks, time to take a breather here. The next stable genius who argues semantics and hurtful language do not exist will receive a ban. Consider this your first and only warning, tombowings. And if the next words you say are not "yes, Sir, I am terribly sorry, Sir", then I'll personally change your name to "dicklicker". By the phenomenal logic you yourself apply, we will then all heartily laugh and conclude that you are surely a guy who likes to practice his punching power on a specific kind of English sweet water fish. Writing this on my phone, so no fancy colors or well placed punctuation today; just understand that the mod team is giving you an opportunitty here, by allowing this discussion. Those who choose to abuse this opportunity will get handed their walking paper immediately and without further ado. |
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Post by captainjapan on Jul 13, 2020 15:59:04 GMT -6
With regard to the word "oriental," what is the process by which words are deemed inappropriate? I don't get it. A f*g**t is a pile of sticks. Gay means happy. Read your d**ned Shakespeare, everyone. The meaning of the word, "oriental", has been shifting from the start. The more that Europeans became familiar with eastern cultures, the less the term was applied. Once upon a time, the middle east (palestine, the levant, or what-have-you) was named, "the Orient". We're talking about the high middle ages, here. I think India stopped being part of "the Orient" after it was colonized by the british. So, as late as the 1980's, the far east was saddled with the term. That's why the middle east isn't included in TSR's Oriental Adventures. The term just evolved in an ever easterly direction. The decline in the use of the word f*gg*t to describe a bundle of sticks is because we don't use firewood to warm our homes, anymore. Few people would have occasion to use the word f*gg*t for it's original meaning. Getting back to "oriental"; the problem is not necessarily with the term, itself. The problem that Oriental Adventures' critics have is with the western attitude toward eastern cultures, called, Orientalism. See the 1978 book of the same name by "cultural critic" (and yes, those were scare quotes), Edward Said. This book was cited as a primary source, every podcast I heard, in critiquing Oriental Adventures and Al-Qadim. |
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Post by robertsconley on Jul 13, 2020 16:33:57 GMT -6
Getting back to "oriental"; the problem is not necessarily with the term, itself. The problem that Oriental Adventures' critics have is with the western attitude toward eastern cultures, called, Orientalism. See the 1978 book of the same name by "cultural critic" (and yes, those were scare quotes), Edward Said. This book was cited as a primary source, every podcast I heard, in critiquing Oriental Adventures and Al-Qadim. The problem I have with those who take that line of reasoning is that 1) Edward Said was talking about the Middle East. And his book was widely criticized important elements of the history of the reason and only focuses on when Europeans were dominant. He only briefly touched on India, China, and Japan. See en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orientalism_(book)2) Oriental Adventures was written in a time of rising appreciation for Asian fantasy especially material from Japan and Hong Kong. The whole situation is frustrating because in principle I think that a nuanced portrayal of elements like Orcs and drawing on original source material for Asian fantasy results in interesting adventures and campaigns. But distorting the history of pop culture is not the way to achieve that and demeans the work of people who worked hard to popularize the originals in the first place. I am not talking about interpretations but folks who brought mangas, films, and books over from various Asian countries can show how enjoyable they can be for themselves. Having said that, it wasn't easy resurrecting various older editions. It was nice for a time when it Wizards restored the PDFs, did the collector editions, and the latest edition drew a fair share of its elements from older editions. But now it gotten a little harder. The solution is still the same was when there was no PDFs, and the classic edition hobby was scattered groups and individuals. Open it up, spread it wide, and help people to create and share. |
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Post by Deleted on Jul 13, 2020 17:24:27 GMT -6
As to the matter tdenmark originally wanted to talk about: I very much appreciate that he started this thread, as this is not only a matter relevant to this the current situation, but also something to balance as we all try to bring elements of "oldschool" gaming and storytelling to audiences that very likely won't remember or know the context in which those oldschool concepts were created. To give you an idea of how the evolution of "-isms" happened parallel to D&D: In 1984, at the height of AD&D's popularity, women in most Western countries needed a written permit by their husbands or fathers if they wanted to work, receive a formation, open a bank account, or rent a home on their own. As to homosexuality, the last significant "anti-gay" laws in the Western hemisphere were changed in between "The Return of the King" and "An Unexpected Journey". And as to racism, it might have gotten less violent, but I'm gonna head out on a limb here, or, really, kneel on a defenseless man's neck here for nine minutes, and say that I think we all know that it's still around. - So, it's not like the people who are demanding change are doing so out of some starry-eyed do-gooder's detached perspective. And the general argument that books that were written for kids 30 to 50 years ago might not be appropriate for kids today is not, in principle, wrong. The same goes, by the way, for the argument that writers who produced their works during a time period when things that are today considered discriminatory were considered acceptable should not be read without pointing out these differences. Pulp era depictions of women or of non-white races have no place in modern YA literature, end of story.The same goes for, say, what makes a good person, according to books like "The Four Feathers", and the like. Okay to read if you know what you're dealing with, but not okay to be presented at people who don't know that. Why there are so many that are arguing this point in particular, and arguing it to the death, I will never understand. Tradition is not wrong; uncritical tradition that lacks emotional distance is wrong. And if we want "oldschool" fantasy in general to live on for a while longer, then we need to signal our readers, and our players at the gaming table that we understand that. We need to know that we probably shouldn't look at Robert E. Howard for descriptions of realistic females, the same that we should not model our descriptions of people of color after the way they are portrayed in "Gone With The Wind", or, say, people of the Jewish faith the way they are portrayed in Walter Scott's "Ivanhoe". That's not a big mental exercise to make; it just means that you respect your players more than you respect your literary tradition. Which should be a given, if you want to run a game instead of running a freaking one-man show gig about how you smart you think you are. --- As to current events, as to the wave of attempts to micromanage content, as it is currently done by the "woke" movement in the United States, my own observation is that, while, in principle, surely justified, it's just a power play gone wrong. It's not a strategy, it's not some means to an end. It's people trying to mask that they are unable to deal with bigger, serious issues by overstating the significance of smaller issues. My personal impression is that it will go away as soon as those bigger issues are dealt with, and that, whatever form of censorship or self-censorship is happening now will quietly go away moving forward. Now, this might sounds as if I'm belittling the significance of current events: I'm not. But "Speedy Gonzalez" doesn't hurt me: Politicians saying that people who speak Spanish are likely to be criminals and rapists do. If I was currently living in the US, I would probably not be able to do anything about the politicians. But I would terrorize the hell out of anyone who I know likes "Speedy Gonzalez" - just because doing something is better than doing nothing. |
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Post by robertsconley on Jul 13, 2020 18:43:41 GMT -6
Well said Rafael
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Post by Deleted on Jul 13, 2020 18:44:24 GMT -6
AL-QADIM!
It's clear enough that Clark Ashton Smith invited the sultan. Do you dare make it your campaign setting then? I know at least one man in my gaming group who would, given more time in his schedule, and he married an Iranian woman.
Importantly, I can't speak for Oriental Adventures - my group was strictly Bushido.
Hurray!
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Post by Vile Traveller on Jul 13, 2020 19:35:36 GMT -6
Languages and social standards change over time in response to the needs of society. Whether it is right or wrong is generally irrelevant to progress (and any student of history knows that progress is not always forward). We can make personal choices as to how we react to change, and whether we make that reaction public, though in the case of people whose livelihood depends on public perception they'd better be very careful in the internet age - things you said 20 years ago can come back to bite you. At the moment WotC is doing what any business would do as a minimum, which is to acknowledge current public sentiment by the expedient of adding disclaimers to certain products. This is no different to all the other disclaimers we have become used to but no longer notice, like "adult themes and/or violence" in movies, for example. This is really a minimum, and they could clearly do more to demonstrate that they are a 21st century corporation in terms of how they treat their subject matter, their employees, and their fans. To be precise, not only to demonstrate but to be better.
What I would not approve of, under any circumstances, is any effort to try to delete older texts and replace them with "corrected" ones. Certainly, produce new texts (appropriately flagged as revised and not original) and market those instead, stop selling problematic titles so that no-one is profiting from them and let the Internet Archive host them for posterity. This has nothing to do with my personal feelings about the content, but with a deep horror of the idea of erasing history. History is what happened, it is not for any group to sanitise. No matter how well-intentioned, you can be sure the powers-that-be will pervert the process for their own self-justification. To bore you some more with one of my local examples, a visit to the Museum of Macau today will introduce you to an entirely new and surreal definition of "de-colonisation" since that former Portuguese colony was handed over to the CCP (I refuse to say "returned" because the CCP was not around when it became a colony). A definition where colonial history is not come to terms with, it simply never happened. People might deliberately repeat past mistakes, but if past mistakes are erased from the historical record then a lot more will be repeated simply because no-one knows they were mistakes in the first place.
I personally find the only way to negotiate the modern internet is to emotionally distance myself from it completely. This is somewhat distressing in itself, but like wearing masks whenever I leave my home it is simply the new normal. Here in Hong Kong everyone I know much prefers the term "Oriental" to "Asian" precisely because it has come to mean the Far East as opposed to everything east of Europe. In fact, "asian" is considered something of an insult. Few in the region are offended by western misinterpretations of their culture in popular media, because it is seen for what it is - at best an amusing well-intentioned but ultimately doomed effort ("imitation is the sincerest form of flattery), at worst a laughable attempt to be mocked and forgotten. Much hilarity ensues from my lectures on western landscape architectural history when I get to Chinoiserie, for example - no-one is outraged, if anything there is a slight feeling of awe and a lot of pride at the idea that an alien culture with its own rich history was so fascinated by Chinese design as to try to copy it without understanding anything about it at all.
There are also a lot of rather strange adaptions of the trappings of Western civilisation in these parts, in fact far more than the other way around. For every Oriental Adventures in the West there are a hundred variations of The Record of Lodoss War over here. I suspect very few from either side of the globe have much idea what's going on on the other. The current moral panic in gaming (and as someone with a social science background I use the term in that sense, not as a pejorative) is no doubt fuelled by an American population with unprecedented levels of diversity yet still subject to great racial inequality, while the Far East is if anything becoming less diverse. But moral panics rarely achieve their initial aims, no matter how justified or well-intentioned they are. As I said, fascinating to observe from behind a glass wall, but deeply disturbing on many levels.
I don't think it will happen as a result of the current situation, because humanity has a severely-shortened attention span since the universal adoption of the smartphone. But I would be deeply saddened if this led to fewer people trying to write about cultures other than their own, because that is simply the best way to learn about those cultures. Should all Japanese-inspired RPG materials be written in Japan? What about Mythic Wales? My grandfather was Welsh, does that qualify me? The other one was German. Should I get rid of my Master's thesis written many years ago, about the relationship between traditional Chinese gardens and modern landscape architecture in Hong Kong? Local experts are certainly part of the equation when writing about another culture, but beyond that I don't think there is any reason for historical or cultural accuracy in gaming at all, because that's not the point - we are not writing history books, here. And any serious (and honest) historian will tell you that there is no such thing as an accurate history of anything, especially not when written by authors close to the source.
Well, that was a bit of a braindump from me, sorry about that.
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Parzival
Level 6 Magician
Is a little Stir Crazy this year...
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Post by Parzival on Jul 14, 2020 7:45:24 GMT -6
My ancestors were largely Scots, Normans, and English.
Therefore, I find I must be offended by myself!
;-)
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Post by tombowings on Jul 14, 2020 10:56:52 GMT -6
Okay, folks, time to take a breather here. The next stable genius who argues semantics and hurtful language do not exist will receive a ban. Consider this your first and only warning, tombowings. And if the next words you say are not "yes, Sir, I am terribly sorry, Sir", then I'll personally change your name to "dicklicker". By the phenomenal logic you yourself apply, we will then all heartily laugh and conclude that you are surely a guy who likes to practice his punching power on a specific kind of English sweet water fish. Writing this on my phone, so no fancy colors or well placed punctuation today; just understand that the mod team is giving you an opportunitty here, by allowing this discussion. Those who choose to abuse this opportunity will get handed their walking paper immediately and without further ado. Should we allow bigots and racists to redefine perfectly fine words? Is that really what we want? I understand that there are some words that have purely offensive meanings (the N-word, for example). Others have simply been corrupted by bigots, racists, and other nefarious individuals. "Oriental" could simply be used to mean East Asian. It could also be used offensively. Why shouldn't we eject the negative meaning(s) instead of the legitimate one(s)? |
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Post by tdenmark on Jul 14, 2020 13:11:17 GMT -6
With regard to the word "oriental," what is the process by which words are deemed inappropriate? I don't get it. A f*g**t is a pile of sticks. Gay means happy. Read your d**ned Shakespeare, everyone. One of the most frighteningly accurate predictions in Orwell's 1984 is how the definition of words is changed in order to serve agendas. (Dr. Walter Martin has a great talk about this in Cult of Liberalism - note, this is not political liberalism it is theological liberalism) We are living in that time. |
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Post by DungeonDevil on Jul 14, 2020 13:14:18 GMT -6
In 1984, IIRC, the official state-produced dictionary grew smaller with each passing edition, the intention of which was to limit language, to limit thought, to limit critical thinking, to limit criticism and prevent dissent. Chilling...esp. for those of us who are Linguists.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 14, 2020 13:41:10 GMT -6
And in Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged, the bureaucrat and committee members grew more and more powerful even while taking less and less action. Such persons simply don't need an extensive dictionary, just catch phrases, and even these may face censure. Or, to bring it around in fun with contribution from early D&D, say instead that such persons may face Tenser!
There, that feels better.
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Post by tombowings on Jul 14, 2020 13:52:59 GMT -6
Personally, I think the anti-SJW perspective is oversimplified. I don't think any influential body is trying to maliciously modify language. Some dictionary definitions have changed recently, but dictionary definitions have always been in flux. Anyone inclined towards literature knows to a historical dictionary instead of a contemporary one. The trouble, as I see it, manifests when we select the most nefarious meaning as the default one and then attempt to limit the use of that perfectly serviceable utterance.
If I want to insult someone, I don't need to rely on profanity. Shakespeare was a master of insults without limping on the profanity as a crutch. At the same time, many words considered profanity today can ALSO be used without a hint of malice. All words can be used for good and evil.
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Post by asaki on Jul 14, 2020 16:32:39 GMT -6
In 1984, IIRC, the official state-produced dictionary grew smaller with each passing edition, the intention of which was to limit language, to limit thought, to limit critical thinking, to limit criticism and prevent dissent. Chilling...esp. for those of us who are Linguists. Yep. Newspeak  Double-plus good! |
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Post by Punkrabbitt on Jul 15, 2020 0:13:25 GMT -6
I for one am sorry that @rafael did not make good on his threat to change tombowings's forum name to "dicklicker"  |
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Double-plus good!
