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I dislike this article. It’s a little old now, but there are several things blisteringly wrong with this idea at its heart.
Purely for example, if you read a book on dragonflies and take offence because you see racial similarities between whatever race a person is and dragonflies, that’s an issue with you, not the source. You are relying on your opinion on what the source says. Since opinion varies per person, you should not dictate policy based on opinion. It’s an insurmountable hill to cater to whatever opinions are since opinion will always change - it’s an unsound basis for any form of logic.
Let’s do a thought experiment:
If a trailer-dwelling white person in the USA reads about the Vistani, and takes offence because they also live in a trailer, sees that as a negative, and assumes the Vistani are a potshot at him, is he right to be offended and call for a ban?
If a nimble Canadian POC (which is also a terrible term as it literally applies to everyone on the planet) reads about Elves and assumes they’re talking about him because he also happens to know how to use a bow and is skinny with a lithe frame, is he correct in calling for a ban? What if he sees being nimble as a negative for some reason (because positive / negative characteristics are opinions and what people see as negative is not objective)? What if he sees it as being racist by saying the source is calling ALL Elves nimble and therefore good at sports? “But they stereotypically have a different skin colour!” I hear you saying. So do Orcs. That argument applies here and if you can’t square that circle, then the logic falls apart utterly.
Personal identification with aspects of characters in a source material are not cause for alteration. You are an individual; you are not a group. Grouping people into camps based on visible traits or histories is a disgusting habit.
Treat people as individuals and racism dies. Treat people as groups and call out the differences constantly and you’ll have people fencing themselves in while calling themselves inclusive.
I appreciate your reply, and I’ve responded to the potential racism elsewhere in this thread and don’t simply want to tread old ground, so I’ll go on a bit of a tangent about the comfort and lack of offence of the players.
From a psychological standpoint, humans are worse-off being comfortable all the time - doubly so in fantasy. There is no positive benefit. Immersion, confrontation, and understanding are more important (there are scads of journal articles about how it actually makes things worse mentally) than trying to enforce that everyone never offends anyone. Because offence is an opinion. Anyone can choose to be offended by quite literally anything, and if literally everything can potentially be offensive, then nothing is.
Think about the inverse though - if you can not be offended by anything, you’ve taken a massive amount of power away from racists. You’ve taken their largest weapon and completely disarmed them. If you do the opposite of the above however, you’ve handed them taboos they can instantly and easily use on you. You figuratively load their clip for them, point it at someone they hate, and ask them politely not to use it.
All WotC has succeeded in doing is stripping the lore from one of an infinite number of world backgrounds and given time-strapped people fewer easy bases for their own campaigns. Congrats to them I guess? They can be lazier in the name of understanding while accomplishing next to nothing positive, but hey, at least players won’t have to challenge themselves or their biases.
Are you able to articulate a functional benefit to the players from them removing scads of lore?
Hm. With all due respect, saying that racism can be defeated via not being offended by it is completely absurd. MLK was so goddamn offended he changed the country. (Then the FBI killed him for being so offended.) When George Floyd was choked out by a pig, America was offended, and we saw (surface level) change. When Eric Garner was choked out by a pig, way less people were offended, and we saw no change. Racist people aren’t racist due to an expected reaction - they’re racist due to inherent immoral beliefs.
While fantasy does not necessarily need to be nice and cozy, having someone deal with similar negative shit they deal with in real life while playing a game is not good. In the campaign I played, one of the players mentioned at the start that they didn’t want any discussion or actions related to sexual assault. Should that request be ignored, since they need to be put in a less comfortable position? Of course not. If you’re dealing with subtle racism throughout your life, you should be able to escape it when you’re engaging in fantasy, should one choose. At the very least, vaguely racist archetypes should not be the default. And while the article you linked makes the point that triggering material does not make PTSD worse, it says nothing towards the inverse - so if it doesn’t help, why make people feel shitty at all?
In my opinion, if there’s a player out there who was made uncomfortable due to the depiction of Orcs and/or Drow, who isn’t after these changes, it’s worth it. These changes make the game more inclusive, which is a net win, and given the staying power of DnD, these changes will not feel like a big deal in 50 years. (Plus, I’d have to imagine they’d rewrite the lore, not just throw it out, no?)
(For reference, I ask questions at the end of many sections to give you easy things to change my view with and thus counter me, not to be leading or an asshole)
You seem to be confusing the offence for what changed things. Large-scale action changed things in the scenarios you described. Offence may have helped trigger the actions, but did nothing in and of itself. If I hate the colour pink and I see you wear a pink shirt, is my offence going to help change things? No, it’s just mindless complaining. Action will change things.
Offence without action is worthless, however action without offence can still very much change things.
Offence is one ingredient of a MUCH larger recipe, but it accomplishes little by itself. Offence is personal. As such, it’s no more effective at dictating what the public should do that your personal religious beliefs.
Are you able to show cases where offence without action caused major change? Are you able to articulate why personal offence would be a positive thing to dictate policy with?
Objectively, yes, it absolutely can be. There’s a reason that one of the most effective forms of therapy is Exposure and Response Prevention. It helps combat all sorts of phobias, anxieties, OCD, and prejudices. My wife is a therapist and uses it often to help clients.
Using it in a semi-gamified setting is valuable and they’ve been using it in full-VR environments to great effect lately with MASSIVE help towards phobias. I would even argue that people removing themselves from things that make them uncomfortable is one of the major contributors to the mess we find ourselves in now where anxiety is at an all-time high and everyone has scads of self-diagnosed issues.
That being said, would I bring sexual assault out at my table if a player has requested I don’t? No, because that would be a dick move.
But also, would I bring a bunch of players together who wanted to play a full 1-20 campaign and let someone with agoraphobia dictate that the party and storyline stay strictly indoors the entire time? Also no. Putting yourself into a scenario and limiting everyone else because of your personal issues is also a dick move, especially when all aspects of it from villains to victims are imaginary to begin with.
Are you able to show that people are psychologically better off avoiding things?
Sorry mate, wasn’t trying to be an asshole or leading - I think I’ve got a vaguely combative tone by default, which when combined with years of horrid alien site usage has altered my tone quite a bit. I do stand by everything I said, however.
Racism isn’t relevant to what you’re saying here, or the article. It’s an issue that the majority of non-white Americans still face, and is a sad daily reality for a lot of our fellow countrymen. It’s not trauma, but a constant, and sometimes systemic, mistreatment. If someone isn’t bothered by racism, they’re still affected by it via historical practices such as redlining, segregation, voting laws, medical mistreatment, employment discrimination, micro aggressions, etc. I think comparing taking offense to stereotypical depictions that have historical context to a phobia is a very flawed argument to make.
The very act of taking offense is an action, and in my opinion, is much more effective when dealing with discrimination. I have a friend who used to make quite off color trans jokes - I ignored it for a while, because I personally was not bothered, but eventually brought up how offensive he was being. He stopped making those jokes, and educated himself. If I continued not taking offense, he’d likely still be making those jokes, and would be a worse person because of it.
I think the argument about anxiety being at an all time high merits another discussion entirely - off the top, I’d argue that the economy and state of the world plays a much larger part than ignoring triggers. (And as someone with a few menty B’s in my past, I’m not sure how I feel about the “scads of self-diagnosed illnesses” comment.) That being said, exposure therapy is just that - therapy. People play games to relax and feel comfortable, not necessarily deal with defeating trauma. From my knowledge, exposure therapy is significantly less effective without someone to guide you through it. But again, see above as to why this comparison is not, in my opinion, valid when it comes to the original conversation.
For your last question, yes. My ex was sexually assaulted multiple times, and told me about it in graphic detail. I can absolutely attest that my day is fucked up when I read horrid recollections of similar things, or even watch media that depicts sexual assault. I don’t need therapy for the trauma that was passed to me, because it’s not mine - when I hear accounts, I’m filled with rage and sadness at the state of the world. Until our society fundamentally changes, this rage will not go away - and I think it’s good that I’m angry about that. I’m absolutely better off just not engaging with that kind of material in my day to day, and especially when I’m trying to relax and play some DnD.
Now, I’m not saying it’s healthy for someone with their own trauma to avoid it entirely. I am absolutely an advocate for exposure therapy, and have seen it work wonders for the aforementioned ex. But people with that kind of trauma should be able to pick and choose when they interact with it, and again, it should not be the default in what is supposed to be an accessible game.
(Edit: I’d also like to point out that the original offense taken to Orcs and Drow has caused us to have this conversation, which I think in itself is a productive consequence.)
Not a problem! I can understand why you feel the way you do. I also can argue forcefully and it puts people off.
These are always my favourite conversations on here. We both say our piece and shake hands and be done with it. This is why I made this Community in the first place.
I think these Actual Conversations ™ are legitimately important to remember in these polarized times that just because someone disagrees, doesn’t mean they’re an irredeemable and uneducated asshole. Sometimes two well-spoken people just disagree and that’s okay.
I appreciate you engaging with me on this!
Cheers :)