Easier playing newer games.

[Randomizer]

I've read that they no longer discriminate against certain races like Orcs that were originally only evil alignment based on Tolkien's works. Although most of these remarks are from Knight of the Dinner Table  which parodied it and the company which had for a while the license to use AD&D 1st edition. 

[Edgwyn]

6 hours ago, Thaluikhain said:

 

Isn't that why demons, daemons and devils became Baatezu, Yugoloth & Tanar'ri?  Cause of Satanic Panic (or so I'm told), which seems to me to be about people being offended, though you might argue that it's not the same.

 

Also nudity in the official material (usually tasteful, mind), comes and goes.

These two examples are exactly what I was thinking of.  There was a lot of female nudity and armor bikinis in the 1st edition and the materials that proceeded it, which was very typical of fantasy artwork at the time, but has been toned down since.  

[SoulScroll]

16 hours ago, Depth of Thwart said:

Do you have an example of something that was modified or removed from AD&D solely because people were "offended" by it, rather than for other reasons (e.g., players in general didn't enjoy it, change in design philosophy or target audience, material impact, copyright issues, etc.)?

 

You can probably see where I'm going here -- I'm wondering if there is a more relevant description for this kind of stuff than "offensive".

 

I also heard there were a lot of complaints about D&D's Oriental Adventures series, of which I have the hardbound rulebook and a couple modules. I think the offended parties were seeking an apology of sorts.

[Slawbug]

18 hours ago, Depth of Thwart said:

something that was modified or removed from AD&D solely because people were "offended" by it, rather than for other reasons (e.g., players in general didn't enjoy it, change in design philosophy or target audience, material impact, copyright issues, etc.)?

 

OK, so let's look at the three examples that have come up.

 

1) Female nudity and near-nudity.

 

This wasn't changed in the 80's or even in the 90's; this only really started to change in the last decade as the demographics of D&D players shifted (and perhaps also the attitudes of existing players).  These new players and attitudes are hardly offended by nudity; rather they object to the inequity of having a huge proportion of scantily-clad women, and very few scantily-clad men.

 

2) "not discriminating against orcs"

 

Evil orcs still exist, and I don't think anyone ever said they were offended on behalf of the hypothetical non-evil orcs.  For one thing, good orcs did exist in plenty of custom campaign settings; having a turncoat friendly goblin, orc, or other lesser minion has always been a popular trope, easily played for both humor and character development.  (I'm willing to bet there's even a reference to this in the core 2E rulebooks from 1989, though I can't produce one off the cuff.)  For another thing, Tolkien himself brought this up decades before D&D existed -- there's a Gandalf line about it, and I'll bet more than a few in Tolkien's letters, too.  Finally, the evil orcs haven't been removed; rather more options were added.  Adding a new option because people wanted to be able to play in new and different ways is not the same as removing an existing option because it was seen as problematic.

 

3) Satanic Panic

 

I agree that this might be closer to being offended, but it was taken to much greater heights.  From Wikipedia:

 

"In 1985, Patricia Pulling joined forces with psychiatrist Thomas Radecki, director of the National Coalition on Television Violence, to create B.A.D.D. (Bothered About Dungeons and Dragons). Pulling and B.A.D.D. saw role-playing games generally and Dungeons & Dragons specifically as Satanic cult recruitment tools, inducing youth to suicide, murder, and Satanic ritual abuse.^[42] Other alleged recruitment tools included heavy metal music, educators, child care centers, and television.^[42] This information was shared at policing and public awareness seminars on crime and the occult, sometimes by active police officers.^[42] None of these allegations held up in analysis or in court. In fact, analysis of youth suicide over the period in question found that players of role-playing games actually had a much lower rate of suicide than the average.^[42]"

 

Even if offendedness and personal judgments were behind the BADD movement, what they actually expressed were some very serious allegations.  This is something that largely affected 2E (again, 1989), but even then, demons were de-emphasized but not removed, and labels like "demon" were absolutely still used.  The concern wasn't that people were going to be offended by the inclusion of demons, but rather that there could be legal repercussions.  It's worth noting that 2E made a number of other small changes to sidestep possible legal issues, too, like obscuring all references to Tolkien/Leiber material.

 

 

1 hour ago, SoulScroll said:

I also heard there were a lot of complaints about D&D's Oriental Adventures series, of which I have the hardbound rulebook and a couple modules. I think the offended parties were seeking an apology of sorts.

 

Do you have a source for this?  I can't find anything about it -- while "oriental" is a weird word choice for the title, Wikipedia just shows me that the 1985 book was a huge seller, and the 2001 book won an award for best campaign setting.  I'd especially appreciate a source for the "seeking an apology" bit.

 

What I do see are people today -- 20 years after the most recent release -- going back and rereading it with a modern perspective, often more interested in historical accuracy, and pointing out problems.  But I just don't see anything about people being "offended" back when it was actually being published -- certainly nothing about WotC cancelling it for that reason.  (Compare to the mtg Kamigawa expansion that WotC put out a few years later.)

[Randomizer]

https://comicbook.com/gaming/news/dungeons-dragons-oriental-adventures-sale-wizards-of-the-coast/

 

Googling Oriental Adventures and Asian portrayal gives others that point to complaints about stereotypes and that there were no Asian writers for the source material. While it sold well, later critics complained about content. When you consider the market at the time was white male gamers, they would be the least likely to object.

[Slawbug]

Yes, this is precisely what I cited above -- this link is from 2020.  What I don't see is anything that suggests (let alone shows) that these comments were made when it was originally published, let alone that WotC changed or discontinued it as a result.

[SoulScroll]

4 hours ago, Depth of Thwart said:

 

Do you have a source for this?  I can't find anything about it -- while "oriental" is a weird word choice for the title, Wikipedia just shows me that the 1985 book was a huge seller, and the 2001 book won an award for best campaign setting.  I'd especially appreciate a source for the "seeking an apology" bit.

 

 

Randomizer already researched this reasonably well. It was only a vague memory of something I saw on Twitter a while ago, along with my hazy memory saying apologies were requested (could be wrong here).

Edited January 3, 2022 by SoulScroll

[Slawbug]

The question at stake is:

 

"Do you have an example of something that was modified or removed from AD&D solely because people were "offended" by it..."

 

Complaints made 20 years after they stopped publishing it cannot have caused its prior modification or removal unless you're alleging time travel.

[Thaluikhain]

14 hours ago, Epopt Art said:

2) "not discriminating against orcs"

 

Evil orcs still exist, and I don't think anyone ever said they were offended on behalf of the hypothetical non-evil orcs.  For one thing, good orcs did exist in plenty of custom campaign settings; having a turncoat friendly goblin, orc, or other lesser minion has always been a popular trope, easily played for both humor and character development.  (I'm willing to bet there's even a reference to this in the core 2E rulebooks from 1989, though I can't produce one off the cuff.)  For another thing, Tolkien himself brought this up decades before D&D existed -- there's a Gandalf line about it, and I'll bet more than a few in Tolkien's letters, too.  Finally, the evil orcs haven't been removed; rather more options were added.  Adding a new option because people wanted to be able to play in new and different ways is not the same as removing an existing option because it was seen as problematic.

 

While evil orcs weren't removed, the default assumption that a race of intelligent human like creatures is going to be evil (or mostly evil) and it's fair to kill them on sight has been removed.  In theory.  The topic of killing orc babies still gets people arguing today.

 

But, ok, if someone claims this is more due to people wanting to play good orcs than because making them all evil is not a million miles away from some ideas floating around IRL, no way to prove otherwise.

[Slawbug]

47 minutes ago, Thaluikhain said:

While evil orcs weren't removed, the default assumption that a race of intelligent human like creatures is going to be evil (or mostly evil) and it's fair to kill them on sight has been removed.

 

Is this "default assumption" actual in the rules, or is it just the general mythos that players are steeped in regardless of D&D?  What you're describing is something that may have changed organically inside individual players and inside the culture at large, but not something where D&D itself pulled the rug out from under anyone.

 

Indeed, this is something that individual DMs have always run to suit their taste.  You could find DMs in the 80's who ran maybe-the-orcs-aren't-that-bad campaigns, and you can find DMs today who run inherently-evil-kill-on-sight campaigns.  The rules have never prohibited either.  So what even are you alleging has changed here, between editions?  That the rules spend more sentences mentioning the possibility of non-evil orcs?  And that they somehow included these extra sentences because they were worried players would be offended if they didn't?  That's not really a QED -- it's just a speculative assertion about designer motives, put forward without any evidence whatsoever.

 

55 minutes ago, Thaluikhain said:

But, ok, if someone claims this is more due to people wanting to play good orcs than because making them all evil is not a million miles away from some ideas floating around IRL, no way to prove otherwise.

 

This is exactly my point!  Edgwyn stated (and the rest of you seem to agree) that D&D "modified some things with each edition to make them less offensive".  You are all providing examples of things that were changed, but so far, nobody has provided any evidence or argumentation explaining why these changes were clearly made "to make them less offensive."

[Kelandon]

22 hours ago, Epopt Art said:

These new players and attitudes are hardly offended by nudity; rather they object to the inequity of having a huge proportion of scantily-clad women, and very few scantily-clad men.

Isn't that also being offended? Offended by nudity vs. offended by inequity... seems like it's still being offended.

[Slawbug]

Trying to parse this out.  Does raising an objection to something, because you think it's bad, automatically qualify as being offended by it?  Or is there a distinction?

[Sudanna]

There can be a distinction. Most obviously in, like, procedural matters. If you think you should take Main Street rather than First, you aren't necessarily offended if the driver chooses otherwise(though people certainly can be). The nudity issue seems clearly like a matter of offense.

[Thaluikhain]

10 hours ago, Epopt Art said:

 

Is this "default assumption" actual in the rules, or is it just the general mythos that players are steeped in regardless of D&D?  What you're describing is something that may have changed organically inside individual players and inside the culture at large, but not something where D&D itself pulled the rug out from under anyone.

 

Monster manuals used to (don't know if they still do) have alignments for all monsters, including orcs who were chaotic evil, IIRC.

[Slawbug]

Those same monster manuals listed alignments for all elves, all dwarves, etc., despite the rules making it clear that player characters could be of any alignment.  Nothing about that alignment listing was absolute.

 

Fun fact: the 5th edition monster manual still plainly lists orcs as chaotic evil, so this hasn't even changed:

 

 

You will understand, I hope, why this makes me suspect that this conviction that everything has changed because people got offended is being taken a little more seriously than the reality is...

[Kelandon]

7 hours ago, Epopt Art said:

Trying to parse this out.  Does raising an objection to something, because you think it's bad, automatically qualify as being offended by it?  Or is there a distinction?

I mean, I'm just looking up words in a dictionary, but they're different (though overlapping). "Offend" is defined as "cause to feel upset, annoyed, or resentful." There are things that I object to as bad but which don't make me upset. There are things that make me upset but aren't necessarily inherently bad.

 

Grossly inequitable nudity/near-nudity is probably both both bad and offensive, and I would guess that most of the people who object to it as bad are also offended by it.

[Edgwyn]

On 1/2/2022 at 7:39 PM, Epopt Art said:

Even if offendedness and personal judgments were behind the BADD movement, what they actually expressed were some very serious allegations.  This is something that largely affected 2E (again, 1989), but even then, demons were de-emphasized but not removed, and labels like "demon" were absolutely still used.  The concern wasn't that people were going to be offended by the inclusion of demons, but rather that there could be legal repercussions.  It's worth noting that 2E made a number of other small changes to sidestep possible legal issues, too, like obscuring all references to Tolkien/Leiber material.

Slartibus, I think that you are being overly specific on your definition of change due to offense.  Yes, I remember seeing poorly duplicated screeds left on the shelf of the local B. Dalton or Walden Books where they had their AD&D material that told me that I was going to commit suicide and rot in hell in no particular order.  The BADD folks were offended by Demons, Devils and what was mostly line art of naked and semi naked women.  TSR addressed these issues at different times and to different degrees (sometimes only temporarily).  My interpretation of your point is that since TSR's intended audience (generalized as nerdy straight teenage boys of which I was one) actually enjoyed those aspects that TSR did not make any changes out of offense but made changes to avoid law suits.  That seems to be a lot narrower than your original statement.  Ultimately the satanic panic and similar items were due to people being offended by various things (including Heavy Metal like you mention), and I choose to believe that some of the panicers seized on suicide to increase the offense.

 

Law suit and copy right issues came up pretty quickly, I had the early printing of AD&D first edition Dieties and Demigods which I believe has two extra pantheons that TSR did not fully secure the rights to and so were eliminated in the later printings within the first edition.  There was lots of Tolkien inspiration/plagiarism (Halflings and their tribe names and Rangers are pretty specific) that had to be adjusted as well.

 

While I certainly was incorrect in when TSR/WoTC reduced the prevalence of female nudity/semi-nudity, your own statement support the statement that WoTC is worried that players or perspective players will be offended by the prevalence of female nudity.  The whole reason that I included female as a modifier for nudity in my original comment was because of how one sided it was in the 1970s/1980s material.  

 

Finally, while I had the original Oriental Adventures book, I do not recall any of my friends of Asian backgrounds objecting to it at the time.  Certainly in retrospect there are some very problematic aspects to the book, but this was at a time when you could still make a movie like Blazing Saddles.

[Slawbug]

21 hours ago, Edgwyn said:

My interpretation of your point is that since TSR's intended audience (generalized as nerdy straight teenage boys of which I was one) actually enjoyed those aspects that TSR did not make any changes out of offense but made changes to avoid law suits.  That seems to be a lot narrower than your original statement.

 

That's part of what I'm getting at, but I'm not restricting it to players being offended either.  Let's look at what my original question (it was a question in response to your claim, not a statement of its own) actually was:

  

On 1/2/2022 at 1:44 AM, Epopt Art said:

Do you have an example of something that was modified or removed from AD&D solely because people were "offended" by it, rather than for other reasons (e.g., players in general didn't enjoy it, change in design philosophy or target audience, material impact, copyright issues, etc.)?

 

You can probably see where I'm going here -- I'm wondering if there is a more relevant description for this kind of stuff than "offensive".

 

My original question was just as narrow: I asked for something changed "solely because" people were offended by it.  I have no doubt that the BADD people were offended, and that plenty of people were offended by the nude women for a variety of reasons.  But that was true in 1977 too, so if "offended people" were enough to make them change it, why'd it take three-plus decades for them to act on it?  I propose that "offended people" was not enough, on its own, to make them change anything.

 

Your original statement was specific: not just that people were offended, but that changes were made because of that.  That second part is where there's disagreement.  It's the causal link at issue.

[Slawbug]

There is, by the way, some ability to look into this directly.  Here's an excerpt from an article the lead 2E designer wrote (Dragon 121, if you're googling), mid-design, after he had solicited player feedback on removing some character classes from 1E:

 

"Assassin - Still dead. Again, this is more a matter of mindset than a separate occupation. The unique abilities don't work, in my opinion (the Assassination Table is a crock). The question of image that came up had nothing to do with any kind of religious pressure, as some of you mistakenly thought. Sorry, it's much more mundane - a lot of potential players have been turned off by bad experiences with uncontrolled assassins destroying parties, campaigns, and fun for everyone else. No fun at all."

 

This is a great example of something where many people assumed (and still assume) it was about offensiveness, but it wasn't at all.

[Kelandon]

4 hours ago, Epopt Art said:

I asked for something changed "solely because" people were offended by it.

Big institutional decisions (like the overall portrayal of women in a large franchise like D&D) rarely have a single cause, so this seems like a goofy question, tbh.

[Slawbug]

Completely agreed, Kel.  Indeed, this was the spirit of my question.  The claim I was responding to was that same question in statement form: that some things were changed specifically "to make them less offensive."

[Kelandon]

12 minutes ago, Epopt Art said:

Completely agreed, Kel.  Indeed, this was the spirit of my question.  The claim I was responding to was that same question in statement form: that some things were changed specifically "to make them less offensive."

Well, no, that's different. You can change something to make it less offensive (i.e., with the purpose of making it less offensive) but do so not solely because people were offended by it. Purpose and cause aren't the same thing, and moreover, having a purpose and attributing sole cause are not at all the same thing.

[SoulScroll]

On 1/6/2022 at 4:15 PM, Epopt Art said:

There is, by the way, some ability to look into this directly.  Here's an excerpt from an article the lead 2E designer wrote (Dragon 121, if you're googling), mid-design, after he had solicited player feedback on removing some character classes from 1E:

 

"Assassin - Still dead. Again, this is more a matter of mindset than a separate occupation. The unique abilities don't work, in my opinion (the Assassination Table is a crock). The question of image that came up had nothing to do with any kind of religious pressure, as some of you mistakenly thought. Sorry, it's much more mundane - a lot of potential players have been turned off by bad experiences with uncontrolled assassins destroying parties, campaigns, and fun for everyone else. No fun at all."

 

This is a great example of something where many people assumed (and still assume) it was about offensiveness, but it wasn't at all.

 

So this was largely a business decision to include more people for potential game sales revenue by making everything 'tamer'?

 

Edit-to-Add: If the question I asked above has significant truth to it, I think it's pretty sad that the almighty dollar has superseded raw, unfiltered artistic expressions designed to be interacted with by the consumer, otherwise known as gaming creations. If people feel offended, just don't look at it, buy it, or play it!

Edited January 8, 2022 by SoulScroll

[Thaluikhain]

1 hour ago, SoulScroll said:

Edit-to-Add: If the question I asked above has significant truth to it, I think it's pretty sad that the almighty dollar has superseded raw, unfiltered artistic expressions designed to be interacted with by the consumer, otherwise known as gaming creations. If people feel offended, just don't look at it, buy it, or play it!

 

Eh, businesses do tend to end up following the money.  Look at that movie franchise that started out ok, but they kept adding more sequels and it got rubbish.  Daresay you won't guess which one I mean if I give you a dozen guesses.

 

As for just not buying offensive stuff...that's a bit trickier.  There's offensive and then there's offensive.

[Edgwyn]

Business is pretty much all about following the money.  Most movies are not self funded, and so the people who are providing the funding for the artists to create their art are doing so with the expectation of a return on their investment.  An individual in their basement can paint, write music, create computer or pen and paper games, write a book, or otherwise follow their artistic passion on whatever path it leads them.  But as soon as they decide to monetize that passion (say to support a wife, two kids, and a tarantula), they have to decide where their comfort level is on the spectrum between pleasing the most number of people (and not offending potential customers is a good start) and keeping their artistic integrity.

 

We have rules on these forums (which I think are good) that can be distilled down to don't offend the casual reader.  I do not have the time right now to search through Jeff's blogs to see if he has given the why on how the character artwork has changed in its depiction of females between the Exile series (whose re-makes have kept the same art) and the newer series like Avadon and Queen's Wish.  Slartibus, Kelandon or one of the other mods may know off of the top of their heads though.

 

Irrespective of the creator's artistic vision, there would not have been a second, better funded, movie in a trilogy, if a whole bunch of us had not watched the first movie in the theaters multiple times and bought the toys, t-shirts, and comic books.  That convinced the business to fund the artist for two more movies to finish the first trilogy of their vision.  By the time the second trilogy came around, the artist was pretty much free of the constraints of needing to please anyone, because he and his financial backers knew that they would make money anyway (plus if he really wanted to, he could self fund) and so we ended up with what many of us consider a bad trilogy from the original artist and a bad trilogy from new artists.  Of course that middle trilogy may very well be a case where the unfiltered artistic expression prevailed over the tastes of the consumers.

[Edgwyn]

Slartibus, I will agree that the changes in AD&D material was definitely not as abrupt as I stated in my first post in this sub thread (one of you all might want to split this topic out, because we are far from Solberg's original topic), but I do believe that there is plenty of evidence, including in your statements that reducing offense was a factor in several of the decisions that TSR and then WoTC made over the past 40 years, if not as abruptly in the 10 year lift of an edition.

[Dintiradan]

(Timely enough, I was reading this thread earlier today, which predictably contains a few apologists promoting the most charitable reading possible.)

 

I'm with Kel: the "solely" qualifier makes things difficult. Let's take a recent example: getting rid of negative ability modifiers for your character's species (notably, the negative INT modifier for orcs). There's the clearly stated reason why this change was made, but there's also the modern WotC design philosophy (not just for D&D) of avoiding the feel-bad of negative modifiers, as well as a shift to adding more choice in ability modifiers (so you don't end up with the same species/class combinations all the time). These factors aren't the primary motivation for the change, but they still are factors. Does it still count as a change made "solely" to avoid offense?

 

It's also going to be a lot tougher to divine TSR's motivations for certain changes, because companies as a whole (and WotC in particular) are a lot more open these days, and active on social media -- and their communications are a lot easier to google. Not saying that TSR never communicated with its fanbase, but you can't find those communications with a casual Google search.

 

7 hours ago, Edgwyn said:

... my first post in this sub thread (one of you all might want to split this topic out, because we are far from Solberg's original topic) ...

Topic drift is a proud SpidWeb tradition!

[Slawbug]

I put in the "solely" qualifier, FWIW, not because I think multivariate decisions aren't a thing, but because I wanted to see if anyone could point out a decision that was clearly based on "not offending people" versus that we were assuming was based on it.  (The posts that followed provide a pretty good example of why I was worried about this: "not offending people" was even blamed for a change that it was assumed happened -- but that, when we looked, in fact never did.)

 

It seemed like this would be the easiest way to assess Edgwyn's assertion one way or the other: i.e., if this is truly a common thing, then maybe there's a clear example of it, even if most instances are murkier multivariate issues.

 

I think part of the issue here may be different senses of what "offending people" means.  I guess I'm used to hearing that argument in sort of a don't-clutch-your-pearls context, where it's set up as a counterpoint to free speech -- and often used to minimize and dismiss arguments that something is causing material harm by pre-emptively dismissing it as "hurt feelings" rather than assessing and analyzing the argument itself.

 

8 hours ago, Edgwyn said:

Slartibus, I will agree that the changes in AD&D material was definitely not as abrupt as I stated in my first post... but I do believe that there is plenty of evidence... that reducing offense was a factor in several of the decisions...

 

We'd probably quibble over some of the details, but I'll say "fair enough" to this on a general level.

 

1 hour ago, Dintiradan said:

I'm with Kel: the "solely" qualifier makes things difficult. Let's take a recent example: getting rid of negative ability modifiers for your character's species (notably, the negative INT modifier for orcs). There's the clearly stated reason why this change was made, but there's also the modern WotC design philosophy (not just for D&D) of avoiding the feel-bad of negative modifiers, as well as a shift to adding more choice in ability modifiers (so you don't end up with the same species/class combinations all the time). These factors aren't the primary motivation for the change, but they still are factors. Does it still count as a change made "solely" to avoid offense?

 

I continue to be confused by the concept that someone is offended on behalf of orcs.  What in the world am I missing here?  Also, I'm not sure I understand how any of the reasons given here or in the link are about people being offended at all.  Seriously asking for help understanding, what am I missing here?

[Dintiradan]

It's not that people are offended on behalf of fictional orcs, it's that people are bothered by how orcs are frequently racially coded, in a way that, say, nephils and sliths aren't. This has its origins with Tolkien:

squat, broad, flat-nosed, sallow-skinned, with wide mouths and slant eyes: in fact degraded and repulsive versions of the (to Europeans) least lovely Mongol-types.

These days, the concern seems to be less orcs-as-yellow-peril and more orcs-as-black-people, though really they can be stand-ins for any group that's othered. More than once I've seen authors make pretty clear parallels between orcs and North American natives while still casting them as unambiguous adversaries, which is concerning when you consider the philosophies of Gary "Nits Make Lice" Gygax. Moreover, a lot of the narrative write-ups for half-orcs mirror real life anxieties about miscegenation in a way that you don't see for, say, half-elves. Again, see Tolkien and the Uruk-Hai.

 

You could argue that orcs aren't alone in carrying this sort of baggage. For instance, a lot of common dwarf tropes trace their way back to Wagner's portrayal on them. But those anti-Semitic takes aren't reinforced through mechanics or narrative write-ups. The portrayal of orcs as tribal and uncivilized, hulking but lacking in intelligence, savage and menacing, ugly and crude, and practising barbaric customs is reinforced, in both narrative and mechanics.

 

I don't think it's impossible to do orcs well in a setting. You could make sure not to portray orcs as having a monoculture. You could make the real-life parallels a deliberate part of your campaign and explore the ramifications during play (only if your players are okay with this type of game!). Or you could go with something more lighthearted and make your orcs like the football hooligans of 40K. You could go the Peter Jackson route and have your half-orcs literally come from holes in the ground. What would it be like being part of a rootless, culture-less people created only for war? How would you move beyond that?

 

But all that assumes players and DM are sitting down before the campaign begins to discuss the setting, and that hasn't always been the assumed approach. Here's what elves are like, here's what dwarves are like, here's what halflings are like. And here's the combat statistics for the Others, along with all the good stuff that falls out once you kill them.

[Thaluikhain]

8 hours ago, Dintiradan said:

It's not that people are offended on behalf of fictional orcs, it's that people are bothered by how orcs are frequently racially coded, in a way that, say, nephils and sliths aren't. This has its origins with Tolkien:

These days, the concern seems to be less orcs-as-yellow-peril and more orcs-as-black-people, though really they can be stand-ins for any group that's othered. More than once I've seen authors make pretty clear parallels between orcs and North American natives while still casting them as unambiguous adversaries, which is concerning when you consider the philosophies of Gary "Nits Make Lice" Gygax. Moreover, a lot of the narrative write-ups for half-orcs mirror real life anxieties about miscegenation in a way that you don't see for, say, half-elves. Again, see Tolkien and the Uruk-Hai.

 

Yeah, and even if racial coding the race of monsters as a specific real world race is avoided, the basic idea that there's a race of sentient humanoids who are evil (or stupid or barbaric or otherwise lesser than the heroes) and you can spot them by their different skin colours and facial features is not a million miles away from certain sentiments in real life.

[Edgwyn]

I may be mis-remembering this, but wasn't there something in early D&D or AD&D lore where orcs were poorly executed duplicates of the elves created by the evil deities and perhaps the same with Dwarves/Goblins and Halflings/Kobolds?

[Randomizer]

48 minutes ago, Edgwyn said:

I may be mis-remembering this, but wasn't there something in early D&D or AD&D lore where orcs were poorly executed duplicates of the elves created by the evil deities and perhaps the same with Dwarves/Goblins and Halflings/Kobolds?

That's from the Tolkien source material for the first .

[Kelandon]

On 1/8/2022 at 3:05 PM, Epopt Art said:

I think part of the issue here may be different senses of what "offending people" means.  I guess I'm used to hearing that argument in sort of a don't-clutch-your-pearls context, where it's set up as a counterpoint to free speech -- and often used to minimize and dismiss arguments that something is causing material harm by pre-emptively dismissing it as "hurt feelings" rather than assessing and analyzing the argument itself.

That's probably significant. Some things are offensive because they are bad. I don't think a woke mob of antifa/BLM surrounded the creators of D&D and forced them to change their ways against their will. I do think that different sensibilities are in charge now that would at least think twice before, for example, releasing something called "Oriental Adventures" in the present day because the term "Oriental" might be offensive to a large number of people, probably for good reason.

[Slawbug]

Sounds like we're all back on the same page now.

 

For orcs, the Tolkien material was "corrupted Elves" rather than poorly executed imitations: Melkor got to some Elves before the rest of the Valar did, "corrupted" them, and then "bred" them somehow.  It was a major point that the Valar could not create independent life on their own.

 

It was actually the Dwarves who were created through imitation, by Aule, essentially automatons until Iluvatar took pity on them.

[stilltim]

I still have my notes for Ultima IV... meticulously jotting down every little thing said to be able to complete the very complicated (for the time) quests. And yeah, I had every level of every dungeon meticulously graphed. Fascinating at the time, and definitely the series that got me hooked on RPGs. But by today's standards, the game involved a lot of repetitive drudge work.

 

Honestly, I prefer having the drudgery taken out of it. Those older games probably needed to make you do that stuff just to stretch the most play out of the tiny amount of actual content that fit on a few floppy disks. Modern games don't need that. I would be surprised if anyone found a game like Skyrim less immersive. (I'm personally missing several months of my life because of that game.) Jeff's games are a bit more challenged on that front, which is hardly surprising given that he's only 1 guy, but even his games dwarf those early RPGs and, to be honest, they're a lot more fun because of it.

[SoulScroll]

On 1/11/2022 at 1:15 AM, stilltim said:

I still have my notes for Ultima IV... meticulously jotting down every little thing said to be able to complete the very complicated (for the time) quests. And yeah, I had every level of every dungeon meticulously graphed. Fascinating at the time, and definitely the series that got me hooked on RPGs. But by today's standards, the game involved a lot of repetitive drudge work.

 

Honestly, I prefer having the drudgery taken out of it. Those older games probably needed to make you do that stuff just to stretch the most play out of the tiny amount of actual content that fit on a few floppy disks. Modern games don't need that. I would be surprised if anyone found a game like Skyrim less immersive. (I'm personally missing several months of my life because of that game.) Jeff's games are a bit more challenged on that front, which is hardly surprising given that he's only 1 guy, but even his games dwarf those early RPGs and, to be honest, they're a lot more fun because of it.

 

I definitely can relate to all of this. I keep a folder with notes from a lot of different games I tried over the years, including writing down all the dialogue in the earliest areas of Underrail, a really good 2014 RPG. Eventually, though, I give up in futility because of all the 'work' involved and chronically either restart or play another game. Automated dialogue storage such as in Jeff's games or Pillars of Eternity series really makes a game much more enjoyable for me.

 

I played a little Skyrim, only to realize I never spent much time on Morrowind or Oblivion, which I would prefer finishing in order first so I can try to feel the flow of the epic saga from start to finish as a book was intended to be read. Also agree how dismaying it can be sometimes how gaming can ravage my semi-limited free time hours overall.

 

ETA: Looking at Jeff's Avernum 1: EFTP,  I'm guessing there are well over 5,000 'pages' of descriptions and dialogue with the in-game journal only holding, by my best guess, 256 entries (maybe some programming array index limit involved with that).

 

DOUBLE ETA: Another fun thing I noticed about Jeff's games is how he can be remarkably subtle in some of the hints on what to do next in some of the game descriptions he provides. Sure, some hints are obvious (eg. 'you should go to Silvar and seek quests, young padawan'), but other hints are not so obvious & trying to glean meaning or direction from subtle hints is half the fun when playing blind and spoiler-free.

Edited January 14, 2022 by SoulScroll

[Arch-Mage Solberg]

Sorry about not replying. As I barely even have time to play the games anymore, talking about them seems kinda moot. However, I still have a fondness (nostalgia) for them. Maybe making this post was a bit of an 'old mannerism', but I still stand by what I originally said. Games seem to be getting easier with all of the location markers, full and small scale maps, fast travel from anywhere, etc. I know that I'm old fashioned. Some of us still are. Are the newer games fun? Of course they are and I enjoy playing them when I get the chance.

This isn't just about Spiderweb games. If anything, Spiderweb games are probably the most original old-school RPG's out there. Are they like they were 20 years ago? Maybe not, but they're better than most out there. I know that I'm in the very small minority, but I miss the sense of adventure. Having to remember what NPC's say so that you know where to go. I remember playing Skyrim when it first came out. Knowing I had a marker eventually made me not pay too much attention to NPC's about quests since location and item markers did that job for me. 

Those things make it a bit easier to play, but it just seems that something is missing. Ok, my rant is over. I'll see y'all guys later.

 

Post #739

[ladyonthemoon]

11 hours ago, Arch-Mage Solberg said:

I remember playing Skyrim when it first came out. Knowing I had a marker eventually made me not pay too much attention to NPC's about quests since location and item markers did that job for me. 

Those things make it a bit easier to play, but it just seems that something is missing. Ok, my rant is over. I'll see y'all guys later.

If you play Skyrim on pc, you can remove the markers.

 

Anyway, it's obvious that newer games are made for lazy players, players who don't want to think about what they are playing, resolve riddles (the riddles in Skyrim are ridiculous) and so on. They want linear games they can play fast because "I have other games to play!". Pity, really.

[Ess-Eschas]

9 hours ago, ladyonthemoon said:

Anyway, it's obvious that newer games are made for lazy players [...]

 

You know, ladyonthemoon, I find this slightly worrying.

 

In this thread, there’s been an interesting discussion about how video games have changed over time. We’ve had input from people with very differing opinions, and that’s been great! By combining various different perspectives, we’ve been able to have a good discussion about various changes in video game design, and the positive and negative outcomes of these changes.

 

For example, our original poster, Solberg, has a strong opinion on this subject. But they have explained their reasoning, and why they feel the way they do.

 

By contrast, you’ve come into this thread stating – categorically, and with no proof, evidence or explanation – one particular view. Moreover, you seem to be stating that view as fact. To add insult to injury, you seem to be using this viewpoint to belittle or otherwise disregard an entire swathe of people who, for whatever reason, don’t happen to see things in the same way that you do.

 

May I remind you, ladyonthemoon, that you made a similar post in a broadly similar vein earlier on in this topic. I recall that quite distinctly. After a brief discussion in which several members of the forums disagreed with your comments, you deleted that post, and every subsequent post you made in this thread. Let’s try to make sure the same doesn’t happen again!

 

It is a really, really good thing that we have people with a whole variety of experiences and opinions on these boards! You are far from alone in liking games from a particular era, as some other posts in this topic testify. And there are plenty of people on here who would be most happy to talk respectfully about the positive and negative aspects of games you like compared to others. Your opinions are interesting, and there are no doubt many users who would be happy to discuss them with you.

 

But coming into a thread stating that many of the posters are flat-out wrong, and insulting them to boot, is perhaps not the best way to share your opinions. I’m not sure it makes people all that inclined to continue the discussion. Unfortunately, that doesn’t do much good in showcasing your ideas. At the end of the day, that’s not good for you, or for the thread.

Next time, perhaps that's just something to keep in mind. By being just a little more respectful of other people’s viewpoints, and a little more open-minded, you might be surprised at the different sorts of reactions you can inspire in people!

Edited February 14, 2022 by Ess-Eschas
Adding some additional clarity.

[ladyonthemoon]

8 hours ago, Ess-Eschas said:

I recall that quite distinctly. After a brief discussion in which several members of the forums disagreed with your comments, you deleted that post, and every subsequent post you made in this thread. Let’s try to make sure the same doesn’t happen again!

I remember something like that too. I stick to my point, if people feel insulted, that wasn't my point but if I'm wrong they shouldn't feel insulted.

 

Edit: Mind you, this situation is entirely the fault of the game companies. I agree that it's not a vast majority of players who asked for easier ways to play games (markers, easy riddles, auto hide helmets and so on...) but the game companies listened to them and gave them what they wanted, making their games more and more for the widest crowd, in fear of not selling their games if they asked too much from their customers.

 

Now that I think of it, these players have become customers, not really game players. My point of view goes to them. If people who feel insulted do not belong to that crowd, they can be assured that I'm not talking about them.

 

I won't delete my posts this time and I won't comment further about that either because I don't want to start a fight.

Edited February 15, 2022 by ladyonthemoon

[Ess-Eschas]

Laydonthemoon, it seems that, for whatever reason, you’ve decided not to listen to me.

 

So, I hope you’ll forgive me if I try to get my point across just once more. I’m doing this because I think the approach you’re adopting here is causing you some harm. You don’t have to agree with my viewpoint, or my advice, but I would encourage you to listen. After all, it costs you very little, and I am only trying to help.

 

1. Opinions are great! Your opinions are interesting, and I’m pleased that you’re confident in your views. Getting together people with lots of different opinions results in interesting and engaging discussion, and you are no exception to that!

 

But opinions are just that: opinions. They are not facts. As soon as you start stating opinions as fact, then we begin to have problems.

 

For instance, let’s look at what you’re stating here. You make various claims about what you think are happening to video games over time, about who plays video games, who designs video games, and what all their motivations are. But you are not these people. You don’t know what motivates them.

 

All you have here are educated guesses, and your own opinions. Those are fine, and interesting to read about. But they are not truth. You might be reading the situation correctly but, without firm evidence, you could just as easily be wrong. And if you happen to be wrong, and are spreading ‘facts’ that are wrong, then you are muddying the situation, making it all the more confusing for other people. That makes it all the harder for other people to look at what’s going on, and figure things out for themselves. And that hurts all of us.

 

2. Consider this. Someone takes the same bus into work every day. That bus is blue. Would they therefore be right in stating that all the millions of other busses in the world are also blue?

 

You need to be careful with making solid statements from tiny samples. Your statement might seem reasonable from that sample, but it might be completely wrong when you look at the bigger picture.

 

3. As I understand it, the power of an insult is largely unrelated to how ‘true’ it is. The hurt comes not from the statement, but from the emotion behind it. If you decide to belittle someone, or denigrate them, then it doesn’t matter whether or not your descriptions of them are accurate or not. You’re still acting in a negative way towards them. And that can hurt. It can also hurt whether or not you meant it to hurt.

 

In this thread, you have labelled a whole bunch of people using negative, derogative terms. Some people are going to be hurt by that, because you are saying unpleasant things about them. Whatever your motivations, you are causing harm to others. And that is a problem.

 

It may also cause issues for you. I am trying to object to your comments kindly and thoughtfully. But there are others in the wider world might be less restrained in their responses to you. If you keep dishing out insults towards people unlike yourself, don’t be too surprised if you end up getting insults dished right back at you. Don’t be surprised if you get caught up in fights, or ugly arguments. Some of those insults and fights may end up hurting you by return. And that is a problem.

 

Anyway, those are my thoughts. You are entitled to listen to or ignore them at your leisure. But, if nothing else, please just remember my warnings. Maybe I am wrong, but I am saying these things to try and help you, and perhaps they may just give you some food for thought at some point in the future.

[Edgwyn]

Ladyonthemoon, as I stated earlier in this thread, I grew up playing games well before automap.  I like automap.  If your opinion of my work ethic is based on my approach to playing computer games, I think that you may want to question your judgement.  I play computer games for fun.  I have plenty of time at work each day to do calculations, research products and techniques and do other difficult things, so I read for fun and I play computer games for fun.  If you believe that the only way to play computer games is to make maps with pencil and paper and have perma-death, then that is what you must enjoy.  I don't.  

[TriRodent]

On 2/15/2022 at 2:21 AM, ladyonthemoon said:

but the game companies listened to them and gave them what they wanted

 

{gasp}

 

Type, type, type ... delete, delete, delete ... type, type .... delete, delete .... type, delete...

 

Nah, I think I'd rather join E-E somewhere down on the (lower levels anyway) of the high road... (those sliths have much better lung capacity & can get 'way' higher on that road than I'll ever hope to get...)

[Arch-Mage Solberg]

On 2/14/2022 at 7:17 AM, ladyonthemoon said:

If you play Skyrim on pc, you can remove the markers.

I know and have removed them. My comments are on things like that make it seem too easy to go from one place to the other. 

 

Quote

Anyway, it's obvious that newer games are made for lazy players, players who don't want to think about what they are playing, resolve riddles (the riddles in Skyrim are ridiculous) and so on. They want linear games they can play fast because "I have other games to play!". Pity, really.

I definitely wouldn't say lazy. As someone who likes to play games (but has almost no time for them), I can see the need for easier game mechanics to get a more enjoyable experience. However, my main (and really only) complaint is that the ease of playing has overridden the enjoyability of playing. 

That being said, I'm not saying that newer games can't be or are not enjoyable.

 

Post #740

[SoulScroll]

6 hours ago, Arch-Mage Solberg said:

I know and have removed them. My comments are on things like that make it seem too easy to go from one place to the other. 

 

I definitely wouldn't say lazy. As someone who likes to play games (but has almost no time for them), I can see the need for easier game mechanics to get a more enjoyable experience. However, my main (and really only) complaint is that the ease of playing has overridden the enjoyability of playing. 

That being said, I'm not saying that newer games can't be or are not enjoyable.

 

Post #740

 

I just want to interject a few random thoughts:

 

--A fast travel system such as those used in Fallout 3 or Fallout NV mods where scavenged vehicle fuel is used as a limited supply of fast-travel runs seems to be

   a happy medium between the hyper-realism of no fast travel and the sweet, easy candy land of unlimited fast travel.

--I, too, prefer a game with no quest markers and only using dialogue to find quest locations.

--Games are the most fun for me at the hardest difficulty, yet it takes me forever to progress.

--Any difficulty lower than the hardest feels like cheating for me, or it even feels as though I'm a whining toddler wanting his way 

   from parents who finally relent to my childish wishes for no adult-like struggles when I turn down the difficulty.

   (This does NOT mean I am judging others for playing at easier difficulties. It only means I'm a masochist who had tough parenting growing up.)

Edited February 18, 2022 by SoulScroll

[stilltim]

On 1/14/2022 at 7:11 AM, SoulScroll said:

 

I played a little Skyrim, only to realize I never spent much time on Morrowind or Oblivion, which I would prefer finishing in order first so I can try to feel the flow of the epic saga from start to finish as a book was intended to be read. Also agree how dismaying it can be sometimes how gaming can ravage my semi-limited free time hours overall.

 

I did not play either Morrowind or Oblivion at length. I tried one of them briefly (Oblivion I think), but found that I invariably got lost in its ridiculously convoluted 3d maze-like dungeons and died before I was able to find my way back out again. I didn't find anything in Skyrim that felt like it was missing backstory from the previous games. It felt pretty standalone to me.

[Swimmin' Salmon]

Seems like any of these decisions are economic in nature. Jeff might be making changes simply to give people more of his story in a shorter time in order to keep their interest up. But, he has also acknowledged (I believe) that he wants to retain his fan-base. Especially those of us who take 2 years to reply to things and sometimes forget to play the rest of a game because other life events crop up. So, the game remembering things is good. But, it is also annoying to not be able to explore. It would be simple to have a "game difficulty" setting that disabled all the auto-helps, or disabled the caravan which follows you around and serves as your "junk bag". It would be fun to have junk bag only be an option in zones that have been rendered "safe" by way of mass murder or some substitute such as alliance formation. But, again, it's all economic. How many more games will he sell if those features are added? I guess the same question is asked by restauranteurs every day when they decide if fresh flowers or fabric flowers (or none) go on their tables. "How will this change affect my bottom line?"

 

ps, owned first edition of DMG, PH, FF, MM, D&D and they ALL featured female near-nudity and male near-nudity, but definitely more female than male. Blame Moorcock and Howard for this, as they heavily influenced GG and his basement buddies. Game designers are not all humanists, and many are deeply flawed people and this shows in their products. I do not include Vogel in this category, he seems (despite his spider fetish) to be a decent person.

Edited February 28, 2022 by Swimmin' Salmon

[googoogjoob]

I don't think there's any reason to assume any of these changes are economically motivated, or "selling out," or "pandering," or whatever you want to call it. I think that requires one to assume that the older a Spiderweb game is, the closer it is to some Platonic ideal RPG, and that over time Jeff Vogel has progressively caved in on his ideals and made increasingly-degraded games that deviate ever-further from that ideal. Which is silly. One might be used to drawing maps by hand or trudging back and forth between a dungeon and town to carry out all the loot, or the like, or one might feel nostalgic for these aspects of a CRPG, but they're not objectively "better" things, and they can't be meaningfully measured against an objective ideal. Jeff's writing on games has, I think, shown a general disdain for "dead time" and busywork in games, and an impatience with games that get in the way of themselves with such. And I think his designs have, over time, simply gotten closer to bearing out his developing ideas on these things, and reflecting his developing tastes. Maybe it would in fact be somewhat harder to sell a CRPG with no quest log, but old-school CRPGs like Spiderweb's are already kind of a hard sell to a general audience anyway, and I think most of the decisions made in their design just tend to reflect the sorts of games Jeff Vogel himself would want to play.

 

Spiderweb's games have had automaps since Exile 1; rudimentary fast-travel systems first appear in Exiles 2 and 3, and the Geneforge games have let the player travel freely and instantly between cleared areas for over 20 years; they've had quest logs for over 20 years too, and junk bags for over a decade. I don't think these things are necessarily concessions to anybody, so much as they reflect that Jeff's more interested in the core explore-talk-fight-loot-level loops of his games, and that he's gotten less patient over time with the stuff that gets in the way of the player doing those things. I don't think any of these changes are "concessions," and I think he's remained willing to make pretty bold, potentially-playerbase-alienating design decisions in other realms- cf the drastically different skill system in Queen's Wish, and its free respeccing; or its base-building elements, or its forcing players to clear dungeons in one go, or even its shift to a top-down perspective. Mutagen has some pretty bold choices too, from the new Creation control mechanics to removing experience gain from Creations entirely.

[stilltim]

8 hours ago, googoogjoob said:

I don't think there's any reason to assume any of these changes are economically motivated, or "selling out," or "pandering," or whatever you want to call it. I think that requires one to assume that the older a Spiderweb game is, the closer it is to some Platonic ideal RPG, and that over time Jeff Vogel has progressively caved in on his ideals and made increasingly-degraded games that deviate ever-further from that ideal. Which is silly.

 

 

Agreed. Jeff seems to tinker with mechanics from game to game and make them look and sound much better. But, the oldest Spiderweb games I've played still have similar play to the newest. I don't think he's dumbed them down at all.

[Arch-Mage Solberg]

On 2/28/2022 at 9:07 AM, Swimmin' Salmon said:

Especially those of us who take 2 years to reply to things and sometimes forget to play the rest of a game because other life events crop up.

Targeted statements? It's possible I may or may not have left off conversations and games with vast amounts of time between responses. However, as many people say, "Absence makes the heart grow fonder," or something like that.

 

Post #741