Game News Feargie talks about WotC morality guidelines in NWN2

[Volourn]

Good. You did your best to explain HOTU away. Now, try TOEE. Thanks.

 

[J.E. Sawyer]

The only developer I've seen complaining about how some stuff is not possible at all with the moral guidelines is JE; all other devs seem to be saying that once they know the guidelines, it's easy to build stuff that works with them.

That assumes that guidelines are consistently upheld and enforced. WotC revised their content guidelines while games like Jefferson were in development. They ultimately reserve the right to censor or allow anything. A game with a quarter of the "evil" content of the Book of Vile Darkness could easily be rejected. The original Dark Alliance's "salacious" female characters would not be allowed today (hint: check out Dark Alliance 2 and the obviously raised necklines) even though books like Faiths and Pantheons can show an avatar of Loviatar in a dominatrix outfit with ass piercings. Don't believe me? I'm pretty sure there's an interview with a WotC rep on enworld that says exactly that. I'd find it myself but enworld is slower than the mystics from Dark Crystal.

When we started working on Jefferson, the style guide we received was basic, but relatively clear. One of the things it insisted was that D&D should not be portrayed as a game for children. Quite to the contrary, it was meant to be played by young adults, of high school/college age and higher. After watching the content revision processes of DA2 and hearing about the process on ToEE, I highly doubt that Jefferson would have made it through the review process even remotely intact, though I would not have guessed that at the beginning of development.

 

[MrBrown]

@ JE: Ok. I remember you saying something about them changing before, but thanks for the clarification.

I'd still like to ask a question. In your post you mention that Jefferson wouldn't have made it though review as is. But do you think, with the current guidelines, it's feasible to still make good D&D games (let's just assume 'good' is something like 'games you'd want to make' and/or 'games we'd want to play) ?

 

[J.E. Sawyer]

Games you'd want to play? I don't know, probably. Teen-rated games sell well. Do I want to make games like D&D Heroes, a game that ostensibly adheres best to WotC/Hasbro content guidelines? No, not really. If I'm making RPGs, I want to make games where moral relativism is a big issue, and where people can not only do horrible things, but if appropriate suffer the consequences of doing those horrible things.

Take drugs and sell slaves? Yes, you can do it, but if anyone finds out, characters who care will care and will do something about it. Kill a kid out in the middle of nowhere? Unless there's some extra-special reason why things should happen to the contrary, you're probably going to get away with it. I like games where people can make decisions based off of what they intuit (for the most part) the consequences will be. I like writing characters who are appealing on many levels but have a twist to them -- like an honorable Sembian duellist who's horribly racist against Thayans and uses slurs against them constantly, or an extremely pious, humble paladin CNPC who happens to be homosexual.

The main theme of The Black Hound was guilt. One of the viewpoints that many characters suggested in the game was that it's not okay to do the wrong thing for the right reasons, nor to do the right thing for the wrong reasons. This is moral ambiguity, and it manifested in almost every faction you joined. Even the "good guys" faction of the game was torn between two sides -- those who wanted to save the soul of the antagonist and those who simply wanted to kill her to prevent harm from coming to anyone else. I was very happy to make what I hoped and believed was a mature D&D game. Sadly, I don't think that game would pass WotC's guidelines without being utterly mangled to a pulp.

Note that I didn't write, "awesome" or "totally well-written". I'm not arguing that the quality was good, only that it was a serious, mature game.

For their content and rules review processes, I would never work on another WotC/D&D title again. Hell, the reviewers often even make mistakes, correcting things in games that the developers got right. Christ. Frankly, I just wouldn't want to waste my time trying to explore where the boundary of acceptability will fall on any given title.

 

[MrBrown]

If you read the rubric on the Wizards site you'll see that those are the overall content guidelines for the D&D game. As we have learnt from both Troika and ex-BIS developers, they are aimed at electronic products too.

I can see that it says it's the 'basic WotC guideline for all products'. I'm guestioning it mostly because it's only referred to in the context of RPGA. Basically, is it as is, or an interpretation made for RPGA.

Second, that guideline is old... I remember seeing it first at the end of IWD2's development or at the start of Jefferson's... Which, I think, would mean it should have had some effect on ToEE, SoU and HotU (if the timeline in my head is correct). ToEE and HotU certainly took alot of liberties at the 1st clause.

 

[Gromnir]

"Gromnir's apparent insistence that the swingeing (they really are, Gromnir, go read them) new Hasbro/ WoTC content guidelines will only mean that writing will improve as developers attempt Samizdat-style ways around certain issues is quite cute. Incorrect, of course, but cute."

where we say that the writing will improve?

*shrug*

we has gone through the guidelines before… as mc is aware… and we has shown how they not necessarily mean what you think they do. can still have slavery and drug use and all sorts of things. in fact, all those things still exist in recent wotc releases.

anyways, every developer save one that we can name has recognized that the guidelines ain't a real obstacle now, and they not see 'em as being a limitation in the future neither... and josh has understandable issues with wotc.

mc can keep posting the guidelines. doesn't change fact that hotu didn't seem to have many problems with 'em... and we not know where you get this "slip under the radar" bs. wotc was quite willing to make bis change a great deal of iwd2 content despite the fact that it were almost complete, and that weren’t even the guidelines you love to post so much. wotc has shown that it ain’t shy ‘bout making a developer change stuff… even very far into development.

most developers we spoke with noted that wotc checked stuff pretty close, but 'cause the guidelines was adopted 'cause some hasbro exec saw his preteen son playing in nwn's brothel and were shocked and appalled (HA!,) the guidelines ain't much more than a no brothel rule. what content in bg1 or bg2 or iwd or iwd2 or even ps:t woulda' been removed 'cause of guidelines? every developer we spoke with save one pretty much agrees that brothels woulda' been the only things changed.

heck, look at toee... the great example of wotc guideline evil. what do we know were actually lifted from toee based on wotc guidelines? the brothel. the child killing thing that got troika in trouble had nothing to do with wotc... oddly 'nuff, that were an issue with laws of germany and korea and a few other places that prohibit the release of media that include depictions of killing children... laws that has existed for some time, and laws that many of us fans was aware of... no reason for troika to be caught off guard. troika found blaming hasbro and wotc a convenient way to deflect their own stoopidity.

quite a while ago mc told us that all future d&d games were doomed ‘cause of the guidelines. then hotu were released. hotu, as we understand it, had more evil options and morally ambiguous content than any previous bio title and virtually every developer has publicly noted that the guidelines ain’t no great burden. even so, mc doggedly holds to his initial predictions in spite of all evidence to the contrary.

who knows, maybe mc is correct, but most nwn fans just ain’t gonna be convinced… and for good reason. as we noted already, mc’s protests ain’t new… the stormcrows flocked ‘round the bis and bio boards in the past… and nothing came of it.

HA! Good Fun!

 

[J.E. Sawyer]

Gromnir, they made the DA2 team change all base character models to prevent the player from seeing the PC models in their underwear. They made them re-do all female character models so the tops of their chests (like, mid-chest to neck) were completely covered up. They made the designers alter dialogue so it wasn't even remotely sexually suggestive. Things that would have been rated PG (not even PG-13) were struck down to ultra-safe levels.

Do these sound like reasonable changes, changes covered by the guidelines?

Let me put it to you this way: without looking at WotC's guide, could you take ToEE, NWN + expansions, DA, DA2, and the line of WotC-published gaming material and determine a consistent policy of content enforcement?

 

[MrBrown]

The main theme of The Black Hound was guilt. One of the viewpoints that many characters suggested in the game was that it's not okay to do the wrong thing for the right reasons, nor to do the right thing for the wrong reasons. This is moral ambiguity, and it manifested in almost every faction you joined. Even the "good guys" faction of the game was torn between two sides -- those who wanted to save the soul of the antagonist and those who simply wanted to kill her to prevent harm from coming to anyone else. I was very happy to make what I hoped and believed was a mature D&D game. Sadly, I don't think that game would pass WotC's guidelines without being utterly mangled to a pulp.

Regarding this, do you know or did you get the impression that WotC/Hasbro has a problem with moral ambiguity (or not making a clear distinction between good and evil) as such, or just with the more extreme stuff like slavery and racism?

For their content and rules review processes, I would never work on another WotC/D&D title again. Hell, the reviewers often even make mistakes, correcting things in games that the developers got right. Christ. Frankly, I just wouldn't want to waste my time trying to explore where the boundary of acceptability will fall on any given title.

Well, I can understand that.

 

[Gromnir]

p.s. keep in mind that we is not suggesting that jefferson would have gotten past the wotc censors untouched, but that is a much different thing than dooming all future d&d games.

Gromnir doesn’t like d&d… we has never liked the d&d license for crpgs and we thinks it is a crutch that limits developers as much as it may boost sales. is not like we is supporting wotc or its guidelines, and we ain’t saying that we would prefer a d&d game to an original and unencumbered product, but we also recognize that the cries of doom we continue to hear seem much disproportionate to actual limitations suffered.

offer Gromnir a pile of money and ask him to write a story w/o drugs, sex & rock n’ roll. is maybe not our ideal project, but we is hardly crippled by such a limitation.

HA! Good Fun!

 

[J.E. Sawyer]

Regarding this, do you know or did you get the impression that WotC/Hasbro has a problem with moral ambiguity (or not making a clear distinction between good and evil) as such, or just with the more extreme stuff like slavery and racism?

I honestly have no idea. I think their "problems" change with whoever happens to be reviewing any given product. Long ago, Jim Bishop handled most of the content approval. He left, and then it sort of fell to Anthony Valterra and miscellaneous people on the D&D 3.5 team (in fact, the position Jim Bishop held had been abolished for the time). After that, Rich Redman started reviewing content, at least for some products. And also, people at Hasbro and Atari reviewed content. They most certainly did not all agree on what content was or was not acceptable.

Did you know owlbears were removed from DA2 after they had already been modeled, textured, animated, and included? They were! Why? Well, because owlbears are described in official material as quadrupeds, and the DA2 owlbears were quite clearly walking on their hind legs.

 

[J.E. Sawyer]

offer Gromnir a pile of money and ask him to write a story w/o drugs, sex & rock n’ roll. is maybe not our ideal project, but we is hardly crippled by such a limitation.

I'm not arguing that. I'm arguing that if you're told to create something and given fairly free guidelines that then shift like the sands of the friggin' Sahara halfway through the process, it's not exactly easy to make a "quick fix" of it. Hell, I could write E-rated games. That's just not the sort of game we set out to make.

 

[Gromnir]

"Let me put it to you this way: without looking at WotC's guide, could you take ToEE, NWN + expansions, DA, DA2, and the line of WotC-published gaming material and determine a consistent policy of content enforcement?"

no.

'course that also makes it kinda clear that the guidelines ain really hard and fast rules.

lets expand further... look at all d&d material released by wotc post guidelines. has those guidelines resulted in some recognizable shift from mature to juvenile? has the quality of d&d products diminished substantially or notably in the post-guideline era?

*shrug*

as you know, Gromnir has never been in favor of using d&d, but these predictions of doom seem to conflict with simple observation of what has actually taken place since the guidelines was adopted.

HA! Good Fun!

 

[J.E. Sawyer]

"no.

'course that also makes it kinda clear that the guidelines ain really hard and fast rules.

That's my point; they aren't consistently enforced. I would rather have hard and fast (but restrictive) rules than ethereal guidelines that start to be enforced in an ultra-conservative manner when an interested party doesn't want your game to come out on time.

I mean, that could happen, possibly.

 

[Gromnir]

offer Gromnir a pile of money and ask him to write a story w/o drugs, sex & rock n’ roll. is maybe not our ideal project, but we is hardly crippled by such a limitation.

I'm not arguing that. I'm arguing that if you're told to create something and given fairly free guidelines that then shift like the sands of the friggin' Sahara halfway through the process, it's not exactly easy to make a "quick fix" of it.

which is a far differen thing than what mc is suggesting.

predicting what wotc will or will not decide to balk at seems a difficult thing to predict. perhaps jefferson could have survived largely intact... though given the bis/wotc relationship we would not want to hazard any money on that bet.

regardless, FUTURE projects won't suffer from your shifting sand scenario in quite the same way, and as such, we cannot help but observe that in light of such a recognition, mc's predictions does seem like unnecessary doomsayings.

HA! Good Fun!

 

[Gromnir]

“I would rather have hard and fast (but restrictive) rules than ethereal guidelines that start to be enforced in an ultra-conservative manner when an interested party doesn't want your game to come out on time.”

HA!

you is preaching to the choir. how many times has we complained that rules that is not applied in a predictable and rational manner is effectively worthless? we can’t count that high. a rule applied in an ad hoc manner is no rule at all. ‘course, if all rules were applied in a fair and evenhanded manner, and if substantial notions o’ justice and fair play were actually observed, Gromnir would be out of a job.

nevertheless, once it becomes obvious that the rules is not being applied in a fair and impartial manner, dogged reference to the black letter rules is meaningless.

is it unfair that Atari can make d&d games with more mature content than it seems Interplay were allowed? sure, but that not mean that future d&d games is doomed… not by a long shot.

HA! Good Fun!

 

[Monte Carlo]

Gromnir: I'm not suggesting "doom" for future D&D titles. I'm merely stating the obvious, inasmuch that the majority of future titles are probably going to end up as pre-teen console fodder.

Like you, I'd happily (in fact would prefer to) play CRPGs based on new intellectual properties, but D&D is this 500lb gorilla that seems to be getting in the way. For me, personally, it's a bit of a sad indictment on the industry when the game I'm looking forward to most in the CRPG genre is Dragon Age. I'm not indulging in fashionable Bio bashing either (well not completely)...it's just something about what's happening over on their boards (with the developer's confrontational and dare I say it defensive?) attitude not really auguring well for the future.

Well, at least it'll be Haagen-Daz vanilla and not McDonalds vanilla, if you get what I mean.

JE: Your comment about interested parties using content scutiny as a blunt instrument is beginning to make sense. Thanks.

Cheers
MC

 

[RGE]

I couldn't give a toss about brothels, the ability to garotte infants or anything else. What I could give a toss about is the invidious political correctness and "Good Must Triumph" diktats that make Disney look like Tarantino.

"Good Must Triumph" makes it difficult for me to take stuff seriously, so I agree that such a guideline works against the quality of the game.

But the stuff about those guidelines making Disney looking like Tarantino? Was that the best you could do? When has evil ever triumphed in a Tarantino movie? If evil is lucky, evil gets to live, but I don't remember ever seeing it triumph. Disney doesn't need much to look like Tarantino in that regard, and thus your example implies that those guidelines aren't that much either. But perhaps you were referring to the violence which would set Tarantino apart from Disney, despite not 'giving a toss about' "the ability to garotte infants or anything else"?

 

[Monte Carlo]

But the stuff about those guidelines making Disney looking like Tarantino? Was that the best you could do?

Actually, at the time, yeah. I must try better in future. My bad.

 

[Volourn]

Mr. Sawyer wrote: "Let me put it to you this way: without looking at WotC's guide, could you take ToEE, NWN + expansions, DA, DA2, and the line of WotC-published gaming material and determine a consistent policy of content enforcement?"

This is definitely true, and I actually can understand where you are coming from with your beef over it. It most definitely needs to be more consistent in dtermining what fits, and what doesn't.


Of course, what MC is forgetting that TOEE had lots of evil stuff in it including allowing evil to win in the End Game. That kinda puts a damper on the whole "good must triump eveil and players must be assumed to be good" motto hasbro supposedly has...

 

[Spazmo]

No, it just reinforces JE's point. How come the games developed by Interplay--a company that Atari would like to see fall apart--get intense scrutiny from Wizards while games published by Atari--same Atari as above, the ones who are pals with Hasbro--get more or less carte blanche? ToEE did suffer somewhat from it (kids etc., though it's true that Troika should have worked harder to work around it), but obviously not as badly as, say, BGDA2. If the neckline for DA2 had to be at the chin, how come nekkid female characters in ToEE were in (omg) panties and bra?

So yeah, reason #419 why I hate Atari.

 

[Volourn]

I wasnot arguing with JE's pointwas I now? In fact, ia greed with him that the rules seem to be enforced on a case by case basis which in many ways is silly. However, that still doesn't change the fact that MC is wrong when he says that players are 8always* meant to be goody goodies when this simply isn't true. once again, if it is, explain why TOEE allows "evil" endings?

 

[Avin]

fact is: i'm a d&d player. i buy their books and i'm not happy about the guidelines. books are more and more restrictive that i ask myself if george bush and his puritans owns hasbro.

my point is: that guidelines are restrictive and do not serve the purpose of a crpg, even more when i'm reading more and more that gamers age are growing up.

worse: most games that hit the shelves now (including GTA) are mpt mature games, just use violence and some sex to appeal players. that doesn't make 'em matures. the moral choices JE would put in jefferson do.

...l we be tied up to immature games forever? i'm just getting tired of waiting for a puritan industry release something new...

 

[disapointed]

'When has evil ever triumphed in a Tarantino movie?'

Actually I dont think one could describe any of Tarantino's main protagonists, that do in fact have triumphant moments, as 'good' people.

 

[Gromnir]

No, it just reinforces JE's point. How come the games developed by Interplay--a company that Atari would like to see fall apart--get intense scrutiny from Wizards while games published by Atari--same Atari as above, the ones who are pals with Hasbro--get more or less carte blanche? ToEE did suffer somewhat from it (kids etc., though it's true that Troika should have worked harder to work around it), but obviously not as badly as, say, BGDA2. If the neckline for DA2 had to be at the chin, how come nekkid female characters in ToEE were in (omg) panties and bra?

So yeah, reason #419 why I hate Atari.

you liked toee. let us not forget that. mc is hypothesizing that 'cause of guidelines, d&d games is relegated to childish console fodder... but many of you here at codex liked it. we should not forget that point, should we?

also, how many folks liked bg1, bg2, and iwd? how much material in those games woulda' been subject to the guidelines even if those guidelines were strictly enforced? even ps:t had very little material that woulda’ attracted any censorship. was those childish console fodder? is possible that spaz thinks so, but we bet that there is legions of fans who would disagree. past d&d games has had very little mature content, so if you liked d&d games in past, one wonders how you could be worried ‘bout future d&d games.

again, back to what started this thread, hotu were largely unencumbered by the application of the wotc guidelines, so is no surprise that nwn fans is unmoved by guideline concerns. furthermore, the guidelines themselves, as we has seen, is not really guidelines. whatever is guiding wotc to censor some games and not others has little to do with the specific wording of the guidelines, so constantly referring to the black letter rules is pointless. finally, given that so many here liked toee, and so many other folks liked other d&d games that woulda’ probably gone largely unchanged, we not see reason for sudden predictions o’ doom. if jefferson had survived, it may have gotten screwed, but none of us really knows what wotc woulda’ done and even so, Jefferson were an exception to what was being done in mostest d&d games… is hardly illustrative.

*shrug*

HA! Good Fun!

 

[Spazmo]

No, Grom, I essentially agree with everyone: you're right that the guidelines don't make it impossible to make good games and products (but they don't help) and everyone else is right that they suck and JE is especially right that they're apparently mainly intended as a tool to strangle companies that Hasbro doesn't like.

Avin: yeah, I know what you mean. I bought the d20 Modern game the other day and was shocked to note that what intends to be a fairly serious modern game has nothing whatsoever pertaining to drugs or prostitution. So this criminal underworld my PCs are fighting... they smuggle candy and run illicit clown colleges? Like Gromnir says, there are ways to make compelling villains and plots without these things (they could be gun runners) and nothing stops you from including anything in your home game, but it's still goofy as heck.