Hand Wringing and Pearl Clutching

Why is slavery in a role-playing game a bad idea?

Answer:

Incorporating slavery as a theme or element in a role-playing game (RPG) can be a highly sensitive and controversial topic for a variety of reasons. Here are some of the key points to consider:

Historical Context: Slavery has been a tragic and deeply traumatic part of human history. It was marked by immense suffering, abuse, and violations of human rights. Many people find it offensive and disrespectful to trivialize or romanticize such a serious and painful topic in a game setting.

Emotional Impact: Slavery can evoke strong emotions in players, including anger, sadness, and discomfort. Role-playing games are often played for enjoyment and escapism, and incorporating such a heavy topic can disrupt the overall tone and atmosphere of the game, making it difficult for players to have a positive experience.

Ethical Concerns: Addressing slavery in a game can raise ethical questions about the portrayal of sensitive topics and the potential for perpetuating harmful stereotypes or misrepresentations. Games have the power to influence perceptions and attitudes, so it's important to handle such topics with care and sensitivity.

Trauma and Triggers: Many players may have personal connections to slavery due to their own cultural or family histories. Depicting slavery in a game can be triggering for these individuals, causing them distress and negatively impacting their experience.

Lack of Nuance: Games often have limited scope to explore complex historical and social issues like slavery in a nuanced manner. Reducing such a profound topic to game mechanics and storytelling elements might oversimplify the reality and significance of the historical events.

Potential for Misinterpretation: Players might not fully grasp the historical context and gravity of slavery, leading to misunderstandings or inappropriate reactions. This could further contribute to trivializing the topic or causing unintended offense.

Distracting from the Fantasy Setting: Many RPGs are set in fantasy worlds with their own lore, cultures, and conflicts. Introducing a real-world historical theme like slavery might feel out of place or disrupt the consistency of the game world.

Alternatives for Conflict: While conflict is a key element in many RPGs, there are numerous ways to create engaging and compelling stories without resorting to such a sensitive topic. Developing conflicts around other themes can allow for meaningful gameplay without the risk of offending or triggering players.

If game developers do choose to incorporate sensitive topics like slavery, it's important to approach them with extreme caution and respect. This might involve thorough research, consultation with experts, and providing proper context and content warnings to players. In many cases, however, it's advisable to consider other narrative elements that allow for engaging and thought-provoking gameplay without resorting to the use of such a contentious subject.

The above answer was not written by me, or by a traditional "politically correct" pundit.  Admit it, that's where you, dear reader, expected it to come from.  As you skipped to the bottom, you looked for the name of the writer, expecting you'd smile upon recognising the name of the writer.

Except that the source is chatGPT, in answer to my question.  And lest the reader think that chatGPT is way, way off the mark of what the "real world" thinks, I give you this link from reddit.

The program sounds like a PC pundit because it's been deliberately fashioned so as to respect "sensitive and controversial" subjects, since any insensitivity to human beings would be seen as a good reason for banning the program.  The creators wouldn't like that.

Thus, the first two paragraphs are very clear about the key arguments against any mention of things that are culturally "traumatic."  People were hurt; this is something that shouldn't happen any more.

But note the context established: role-playing games either "trivialize" or they "romanticise."  They're played for people to "enjoy" and "escape."  Things that are traumatic, therefore, have no place in an RPG.

YET, "games have the power to influence."  Do books and films not also have the power to influence?  Are not these things sometimes used to discuss slavery directly, even demonstrate the perpetration of slavery in dramatic terms?  Are we saying that these, too, should refrain from addressing the subject — because I'm pretty sure that's exactly what either chatGPT or the politically correct pundit would tell me, if I asked the question.  Without going down that road too far, let me just say that there's been a steadily growing effort — largely on the part of Google, since taking control of the internet — to shut down and close down any search for subject material that isn't considered defacto "approved."

This is not how scholarship is intended to work.  But that is how the internet views it.

Note the argument that a role-playing game simply hasn't the capacity to deal with slavery in a "nuanced" manner.  This, given the game's "power to influence perceptions and attitudes," clearly suggests that the only way that slavery can possibly be depicted through an RPG is to glory in it, to revel in the practice, to trot it out like a prize greyhound ready to run.  Games, the reader will take note, might oversimplify the reality.

Might.

Wow, is that word carrying a lot of water in this context.  Dear reader, no matter what you think, no matter your interpretation of what capacities you have as a DM, don't play with this stuff because it might go awry.  Oh crumpets and cakes, we simply can't have people oversimplifying slavery, not in this culture!  Oh lawd, close the gates and man the walls, someone in this culture might oversimplifying a brutal, traumatic part of human history.

Thank gawd we don't include such subjects in RPGs, or else that might happen somehow in human culture.

I play with a group of people who are fully capable of grasping the historical context of slavery, because they're educated.  Because the consistency of MY slave world is deeply invested in real-world historical themes, it's the absence of slavery that would seem out of place.  I approach my game with level of seriousness that yes, would make many people uncomfortable.  These people aren't welcome to come play ... specifically for the reason that they see an RPG merely in terms of "enjoy" and "escape."

What I want to "enjoy" is a group of people who don't live in fear to discuss the hard subjects; who don't allow their feelings to stand in the way of examining and considering matters of importance and far-reaching consequences.  I strive to "escape" the company of stupid people who use arguments like misinterpretation and distress engendered in their family's history as reasons NOT to engage in  sensitive topics.

I like sensitive subjects ... precisely because expecting players to adapt to subjects that stir an adult's consciousness provides a great deal of satisfaction.  As adults, we've already encountered these themes; they're part and parcel with things we already sweat about.  It provides much better content to mine where building conflict occurs.  Certainly better than a group of adults pretending they can get their blood up over kiddie themes like girding up a sword to go underground and fight stick figures.

As a final point ... why use chatGPT as a foil?  Straw man, anyone?

Because, if the reader understands how chatGPT works — it is a random program, designed to comb the net for a common response engendered by the source material of millions of websites, with no brain of its own — it's really the best foil.  It's better than one pundit.  It's the vast community's expression, the deadbrained amorphous blob arising from a mass of largely uneducated sources who have written something despite knowing next to nothing.  It's the burbling jabberwock, coming all over itself.  Though it can't be killed, it's already dead.  It can only be made more and more insensate with time, as it struggles to produce an answer to things that won't offend any body.

Which can only be, as always, no answer at all.