I was in a Facebook group for tabletop RPGs. It wasn’t much of a group, to be honest, just endless “look how creative I am for playing vanilla D&D,” “I’m such a nerd for playing D&D now that it’s popular,” and people spamming the group with their awful “art” or blogs that they’ve spammed so much everywhere that Facebook automatically blocks the URL. Maybe one post in 20 was even remotely interesting, and I was about ready to leave anyway.
One of the members posted a “petition” (actually just a post on his Blogger page) demanding WOTC take down their disclaimer about older D&D content. Apparently it was just too offensive to his delicate sensibilities to let stand.
Here’s the incredibly offensive disclaimer.
We (Wizards) recognize that some of the legacy content available on this website does not reflect the values of the Dungeons & Dragons franchise today. Some older content may reflect ethnic, racial, and gender prejudice that were commonplace in American society at that time. These depictions were wrong then and are wrong today. This content is presented as it was originally created, because to do otherwise would be the same as claiming these prejudices never existed. Dungeons & Dragons teaches that diversity is a strength, and we strive to make our D&D products as welcoming and inclusive as possible. This part of our work will never end.
Disclaimer from Oriental Adventures:
There’s a much longer and more informative version here.
Short version: mistakes were made. We admit this isn’t acceptable, but we’re not going to witewash it either. We’re trying to do a lot better, and here’s what we’re doing about it.
Which I’m totally cool with. Kind of like how I can read old literature despite knowing the authors weren’t exactly great human beings just like everyone else in that time period. In fact, WOTC is going far above and beyond by taking responsibility for content produced by TSR long before WOTC got their hands on D&D. I’m talking about stuff made in the ’70s, while WOTC didn’t get the rights to D&D until the late ’90s or early 2000s. That’s class right there. No “hey, we didn’t write it, so it isn’t our problem,” but a flat ownership on the grounds that they’re taking responsibility because they’re publishing it.
So really, good job Wizards. That isn’t sarcasm. I think they’re absolutely doing the right thing here. Which isn’t surprising since the usual suspects have been whining about them being “too PC’ and “too progressive” for decades now.
So anyway, back to the “petition.” The guy posting it used it as an opportunity to whine about BLM, the evils of Social Justice Warriors, claim systemic racism isn’t a thing, all that typical racist dogwhistle garbage. And then it got worse.
I recognized the name of his Blogger page. A few years back he was spamming G+ groups with his latest garbage RPG supplement. He tried selling it as “Guardians of Galaxy XXX” and got hit with a cease & desist, so he changed it to “Guarding Galaxy XXX.” So we’re already off to an inept start.
He was giving away free PDF copies, so I grabbed one. It’s pretty typical of those godawful direct to video “teen comedies” that end up rated R so their target audience can’t actually watch them legally — complete with the “adults only” warning label. Ten whole pages (including covers and full-page “art”) of stupid sex and violence, endless dated pop culture references, terrible “art” that either looks like it was drawn by a drunk monkey or someone slapped a Photoshop filter onto porn and drew in a few details. As I said, pretty typical for that kind of drivel. There’s a lot of this garbage out there, and aside from the endless spamming I would have ignored it — I wound up blocking him on G+ because of the spam and having nothing useful to say when he wasn’t just hawking garbage.
Then you get to page 8, where he has Totally Not Kylo Ren and Totally Not Khan (from Wrath of Khan) force the PCs to perform oral sex on TNKR while TNK leers. “To prove their loyalty.”
Last time I checked, this is sexual assault. And no, I don’t care that it’s in-game rather than the actual guy forcing himself on a player. It’s still some sicko playing out his rape fantasies.
It also isn’t just a matter of “adult themes.” Clockwork Orange and The General’s Daughter were both movies that dealt with the same subject matter. However, in neither case were the rapists considered awesome dudes, nor was it played for laughs. If watch either of those movies and think “forcing myself on someone is awesome,” you completely misunderstood them. You’re probably also a garbage human being.
If you think “it’s just fiction” is a defense, you’ve never been in the room with someone who has been sexually assaulted when they see The General’s Daughter. I had an ex who had been pretty badly mistreated. As a matter of basic decency, I made sure there wasn’t anything of that nature in any movie or show I suggested. Because she would have a full meltdown.
So I gave the group admin a heads up. I’d want to know if the guy posting racist screeds in a group I ran was also into sexual assault within the topic of the group. People have kinks and as long as you aren’t making other people participate when they don’t want to, you do you.
The response started out underwhelming and rapidly progressed to reprehensible. Initially he said the racist post had been removed for being political. OK, that’s nice. And what about the part where you have a guy publishing player-rape fantasies in games that then get promoted through your group. He dodged around it for a while and I finally said “You figure it out. You have a proud promoter of rape on your hands. How you deal with it says a lot about your ethics.”
And dude immediately started swearing at me, defending it on the grounds that if he isn’t actually forcing himself on the players he’s cool with it, “adult themes” are fine, etc. Then the typical strawman comparing it to being a fan of Game of Thrones. All while completely ignoring the fact that this guy isn’t just some random GOT fan, but a slimeball publishing rape fantasies as hilarious and awesome.
Several Fallout games have dealt with the subject as well. Here’s the difference. When they address the subject it’s done in a respectful manner. In New Vegas there’s an entire plotline involving a rapist (who you’re actively encouraged to kill), one of his victims, and the lasting effects it had on her. It was anything but “manly macho man force himself on someone. Hurr hurr hurr. Awesome.” When you meet her and ask about what happened, she’s clearly messed up in the head. If you do the plotline right, you end up convincing her to see a psychiatrist and getting her some help. Having dated a few women with histories of sexual abuse, she was very well written and made a genuinely sympathetic character.
If you can’t see the difference, you’re kind of a garbage human being. If you defend the guy fantasizing about raping people there’s no “kind of” involved.
It gets sadder. Admin starts beating his chest about how many groups he runs, his team of moderators like it makes him some kind of manager, you name it, then tells me “UR SO DONE, DUDE!!” As though this is a threat. Sorry, man, if you’re down with wannabe rapists, you’re not someone I’m going to associate with anyway.
“Wannabe rapists are scum” is not a high bar to clear.
And then it gets even sadder still. All of a sudden people started sending friend requests to my account and Stacie’s. All of them D&D players. Some of whom I recognized from the group. How much do you want to bet this loser has his friends trying to dig up some dirt on me or screw with me out in the real world because I called him on his garbage ethics?
I miss the days when tabletop RPGs really were the domain of uber-nerds instead of just another trend for idiots to jump on. Sure, we had parents burning our books and trying to send us to reeducation camps to purge the bad juju, but at least we had standards as a community.