D&D = Colonial Genocide endorsement

[Flight Commander Solitude]

I lost the plot at "core tenant".

[mjudge55]

mjudge55: No-one would say that you couldn’t or shouldn’t think about moral issues that may arise through D&D gameplay. The insanity here is lies in comparing imaginary evil monsters with real-world victims of genocide.

I guess I'm suggesting that's not so crazy. The idea that there would be races of sentient human-like beings that are inherently evil, selfish, stupid, demonic, etc. is of course part of the ridiculous fantasy and part of the fun of D&D. But you don't have to ponder too long to see some pretty dark places that fantasy comes from, historically. And the S&S genre did come about during some brutal times in terms of race relations in the world. I see a connection there, but rather than running from it by diluting the genre, I think maybe we should just be aware of it, maybe sometimes poke fun at it, turn it on its head, or do unexpected things with it. Which is what clever players do anyway.

The problem I see with the original blog entry or whatever it was, was that dude seemed to be advocating some kind of wacko PC purge of D&D, as a response. Which yeah, that's weak sauce.

[ThirstyStirge]

Running a typical "kill them all and take their stuff" D&D campaign is awful.

I always appreciate diverse viewpoints on the hobby, and although I don't agree with everything, I do think the paradigm of getting xp for murder and thievery is pretty much what the hobby developed into post-Arneson (or, more precisely, sans Arneson), who awarded xp for character development, activities, interests outside of dungeoneering: a very different model than the Gygaxian System.

A thought-provoking essay. Thanks for bringing it to our attention.

[Kellri]

Lemme guess, he's an upper-middle class white liberal-arts major? As a lifelong expat and an ethnic Jew, I say he don't know shit about REAL genocide. It's not an adventure - it's banal evil perpetrated against normal humans - sound like D&D to you?

[Kellri]

The more I think about it...his whole argument is bogus. Every single classic module (except maybe Tomb of Horrors) had some ulterior 'good' motivation for the PCs beyond simple acquisition or murder. The real OSR is not post-modern deconstructionist.

[JasonZavoda]

"How can you shoot women or children?"

Those Orc's should have armed themselves.

Warning, some cuss words....

[PapersAndPaychecks]

I know, everybody! Let's run a game without killing! It can still be fun. We'll arm all the characters with foam rubber swords and sleep spells, and instead of monsters, there can be teletubbies and Barney the dinosaur! They can have treasure made of chocolate coins.

While we're at it, let's end all the killing on our television screens and computer games and books. I think burning all the history books and the Shakespeare plays and all that other violent stuff is a small price to pay. Let's do it now!

[Flambeaux]

I know, everybody! Let's run a game without killing! It can still be fun. We'll arm all the characters with foam rubber swords and sleep spells, and instead of monsters, there can be teletubbies and Barney the dinosaur! They can have treasure made of chocolate coins.

While we're at it, let's end all the killing on our television screens and computer games and books. I think burning all the history books and the Shakespeare plays and all that other violent stuff is a small price to pay. Let's do it now!

I'm with you, Stuart! Viva la revolucion!

[Chainsaw]

I know, everybody! Let's run a game without killing! It can still be fun. We'll arm all the characters with foam rubber swords and sleep spells, and instead of monsters, there can be teletubbies and Barney the dinosaur! They can have treasure made of chocolate coins.

While we're at it, let's end all the killing on our television screens and computer games and books. I think burning all the history books and the Shakespeare plays and all that other violent stuff is a small price to pay. Let's do it now!

I have got a chocolate coin for him

[zevious zoquis]

this guy is "not fun" defined. The appeal of something like D&D is that we can get away from moral complexity. THere is good and there is evil and theres not a lot of moral ambiguity there and thats fine unless you happen to be a psycopath that can't differentiate fantasy from reality - and frankly I don't want to live in a world where everything is geared towards eliminating any and every possible bad influence for the psycopaths.

[James Maliszewski]

Maybe I'm just getting old and even more close-minded than usual, but I'll be honest: I just don't care about stuff like this. I mean, yeah, it's a pretty clear example of someone thinking way too much about the "message" of D&D, but people have been doing that for almost as long as there's been a hobby. I never paid much heed to them before and I'm not going to start now.

At the same time, if someone out there finds he enjoys the game more by thinking "deep thoughts" about it, like a perpetual 19 year-old, more power to him. I think that's absurd, but so what? I expect a guy like that pays as much heed to my opinion as I do to his. More to the point, his thinking his deep thoughts has zero impact on my players' willingness to gleefully slaughter orcs by the dozens for the irredeemably evil monsters we all know them to be.

I think I'd rather hash out initiative or the necessity for weapon specialization one more time than waste any time worrying about some guy who obviously doesn't really get D&D, a category that contains an astoundingly large number of gamers. Such is life.

[Bargle]

I believe there is a place--a fun place, for a meta-game where players--if they want, can explore cultural conditioning and challenge ideas which aren't thought about. If someone wants their campaign to explore the racist and colonial violence of the Boer Wars, or run a game as metaphor for ante-bellum lynch mobs, have the orcs all wear nazi uniforms, or even bring in themes of the subjugation of the irish by the English (I mean JRRartin is using many real world themes in his song of ice and fire--the daerynies are the French, the fire god is christianity replacing the old/new gods etc).

Fantasy and science fictiom are at their best when they deal with the issues of the day, but with the serial numbers filed off--someone may side with an alien species and their plight--but won't if it's the plight of palistinians for example, even if the scenarios are the same. Fantasy and sci-fi can trick us out of our world view to see the same issues differently, as a tabula rasa.

I'm not saying, it's the game I want to play. But I don't understand this 5 minute orwellian hate fest directed at this guys post. There are people in this thread that threated actual violence toward this guy---which actually went a certain way to proving his point....

[Geoffrey]

The title of Gary's "From the Sorcerer's Scroll in The Dragon #31 (Nov. 1979) is "Books Are Books, and Games Are Games, and Never the Twain..."

The writer of that article quoted in the OP should ponder that "Real Life Is Real Life, and Games Are Games, and Never the Twain..."

[TRP]

Viva la revolucion!

Who are you, and what have you done with Flambeaux?!?!

[foxroe]

"Those who swallow the camel of the entire concept, then strain at gnats of a particular monster or situation seem to be be losing much of the basis for playing. However, that sort of thing happens as one becomes familiar with the fanciful and begins to qualify the experience by comparison to reality." - EGG