Quote from: S'mon;1086512Again I think it'd be easy to get this sort of prejudice completely wrong (eg following the modern 'Nazifying the Confederacy' trope & treating Southerners as anti-Semitic and northern white ethnics as pro-Jewish, when reality was much more the reverse), and it's not something that would come up much unless your Jewish PC is trying to marry the daughter of a Boston Brahmin.

Whereas obviously if you are playing a black PC in 1920s Mississippi it is very much going to come up, because that is a situation where you are going to encounter actual racism. Not prejudice, racism. Not 'Jews in Nazi Germany' level of racism, but it is going to severely impact your PC.

The modern nazification of the Confederacy, along with my old love of Starcraft and my own Confederate ancestry, is one of the reasons why I decided to write Southern-flavored fantasy in the first place.

Right now I've started brainstorming a story inspired by Annihilation, Made in Abyss and Tower of Druaga in which our hero is a Southern farmboy who decides to join the explorer's guild for the pay since his family fell on hard times.

Quote from: jhkim;1086496So... you think that CoC games are meant to be playing HPL's stories. And since women didn't appear in HPL's stories, does that imply they shouldn't appear in CoC games?

Actually, one does - Asenath Waite in The Thing on the Doorstep. Although she is possessed and has the Innsmouth gene, and that gets her dismissed as an example, the fact is that even being in a female body she's able to get an education, control her husband, manage their affairs and get by in general. There are also a few others, but they are not protagonists.

I forgot to mention...

The upcoming game The Sinking City makes a subplot around Lovecraft's racism, but not in the way you'd expect (I don't know what you'd expect, to be honest). There's a racist feud between what I assume are the Jermyn family and the Marsh family.

Quote from: jhkim;1086496So... you think that CoC games are meant to be playing HPL's stories. And since women didn't appear in HPL's stories, does that imply they shouldn't appear in CoC games?

Women do appear in HPL's stories, but they are not usually protagonists.

Having a woman become a protagonist in such a story is less of a leap than having a Bantu warrior show up in a Viking setting. Then again, people love crap like the Last Samurai where actual Japanese are deprotagonized in order to give Tom Cruise a chance to ham it up.

Quote from: ArrozConLeche;1086550Women do appear in HPL's stories, but they are not usually protagonists.

Having a woman become a protagonist in such a story is less of a leap than having a Bantu warrior show up in a Viking setting.

I think that depends on the Viking setting. The distances involved are huge, but if you have some kind of fantasy Viking empire that is expanding along the coasts then it makes such inclusion less egregious. Although to be fair, Ibn Fadlan claimed to have met Volga Vikings in the 10th century (this inspired the Antonio Banderas movie The 13th Warrior by way of Michael Crichton).

Quote from: ArrozConLeche;1086550Then again, people love crap like the Last Samurai where actual Japanese are deprotagonized in order to give Tom Cruise a chance to ham it up.

Isn't this "mighty whitey" trope precisely what leftist critics despise? Are we for or against that trope here? If one is supportive of mighty whitey stories, then it doesn't make sense to disapprove of the reverse.

I think that being more inclusive can be done well, but it requires actual work. Just dropping a Shaolin monk into Camelot without explanation isn't going to please anyone. You could write a book or three explaining how that monk got to Camelot in the first place. There are plenty of stories from real history of individuals going to different continents, like Marco Polo visiting China and Tisquantum being taken to Spain.

The BBC Merlin show that cast Guinevere as non-white? It doesn't make sense that she'd be lower class (as depicted in the show), since the largest population of non-white folks in England at the time (pre-renaissance, anyway) were Moorish nobles. In fact, the original Arthur stories do feature Moorish and half-Moorish nobles.

The original Greek myths feature black heroes and princesses in some tales. Andromeda is a black princess. Memnon is a black king. Chariclea has black parents but passes for white.

Greetings!

Why is there this constant, shrieking obsession with having *Black African* characters in everything? Fucking play some fantasy or historical African campaign setting, and everyone can be BLACK. Every character, all the time. BLACK, BLACK, BLACK.

Who gives a fuck if some game is focused on Europe or a European type where everyone is WHITE.

Same thing with mythological shows. Everyone in Arthurian Britain can be fucking WHITE and there's nothing wrong with that. Make a show set in Africa, again, where it makes sense that everyone is fucking BLACK.

Geesus this constant sobbing about whaa! whaa! whaa! We have to go down the fucking checkbox and have at least one Asian, two Muslims, three Black Africans, etc, etc, etc. Fuck this stupid shit gets tiresome. Can't forget to include a fucking bloated, fat Purple Jabba to join the mix, too.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Player's choice.

If you want to play a white dude in an Asian setting (Shogun, Last Samurai), that's cool - the GM should work with the player to find a way to make it work.  If the player wants to play a black dude in a Viking setting, the GM should work with the player to find a way to make it work.

From a historical perspective, it isn't hard.  Vikings sailed throughout Europe and the Mediterranean, including North Africa.  They traded in slaves primarily in Europe, but not exclusively.  It would be possible for an African to have come to the frozen North (or an Arab, or an Indian, or a Cambodian) one way or another, so there's no reason not to support your players playing the character they want to play.

Quote from: deadDMwalking;1086571If the player wants to play a black dude in a Viking setting, the GM should work with the player to find a way to make it work.

From a historical perspective, it isn't hard.  Vikings sailed throughout Europe and the Mediterranean, including North Africa.  They traded in slaves primarily in Europe, but not exclusively.  It would be possible for an African to have come to the frozen North (or an Arab, or an Indian, or a Cambodian) one way or another, so there's no reason not to support your players playing the character they want to play.

No he shouldn't in my opinion. He could and it's possible to include a black guy in Viking setting like you said but if a GM thinks it will break suspension of disbelief in his setting, he can say 'no'. I would. The GM is not to cater to all player's fantasies, he has a consistent world to uphold and if he thinks a character will break his game, he's allowed to say no. Same goes for white dude in Asian setting. And when your GM says he has a plan to run a elven campaign and you present him with your idea of a dwarven cleric, you're a possible douchebag, why would you do that?

The black guy in Viking setting instantly reminded me of this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EZ4WnV6D36M



Hi everybody by the way, I'm new here. English is not my native language so sorry about occasional poor choice of words.

Quote from: kanePL;1086575No he shouldn't in my opinion. He could and it's possible to include a black guy in Viking setting like you said but if a GM thinks it will break suspension of disbelief in his setting, he can say 'no'. I would. The GM is not to cater to all player's fantasies, he has a consistent world to uphold and if he thinks a character will break his game, he's allowed to say no. Same goes for white dude in Asian setting. And when your GM says he has a plan to run a elven campaign and you present him with your idea of a dwarven cleric, you're a possible douchebag, why would you do that?

The black guy in Viking setting instantly reminded me of this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EZ4WnV6D36M



Hi everybody by the way, I'm new here. English is not my native language so sorry about occasional poor choice of words.

Greetings!

Welcome to the forums here, KanePL! You are damn right in your assessment. The campaign needs to be consistent, and maintain its own internal consistency. Sometimes, lots of variety can be appropriate. Other campaigns, or different regions or time periods within such a campaign setting, may be more tightly focused. Nothing wrong with that, at all. In my own Asian areas of my world, if everyone is starting in that area, they get to pick from different Asian-themed colours and cultures. And so on, as you mentioned.

This seems to be such an obvious and reasonable position, and yet with many in the hobby it somehow becomes interpreted as some terrible, racist and colonialist heresy. More of that Happy Rainbow Barney nonsense.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

I kinda regret asking to play a Norman style knight in an Al Qadim game. It's a strong indication the player has not really bought in to the game premise. Same with the black Viking.

Quote from: deadDMwalking;1086571Player's choice.

If you want to play a white dude in an Asian setting (Shogun, Last Samurai), that's cool - the GM should work with the player to find a way to make it work.  If the player wants to play a black dude in a Viking setting, the GM should work with the player to find a way to make it work.

From a historical perspective, it isn't hard.  Vikings sailed throughout Europe and the Mediterranean, including North Africa.  They traded in slaves primarily in Europe, but not exclusively.  It would be possible for an African to have come to the frozen North (or an Arab, or an Indian, or a Cambodian) one way or another, so there's no reason not to support your players playing the character they want to play.

A campaign can tolerate a certain amount of that, for certain items, depending upon a host of factors.  Not least is how much it messes with the sensibilities of everyone else at the table--i.e. radically changes what the campaign was supposed to be about into something else.  The idea that any particular thing that the player wants should just be worked out?  That can die in a fire.

Once, I had a player ask to play a sentient monkey creature who used a sling and couldn't talk very well.  We made up a whole new creature type just for that character.  For that particular campaign, it wasn't a problem.  I've also had a player ask to play a human, pacifistic healer.  We rejected it as too outside the campaign parameters.  Every such decision depends upon context.  It's rare for a player to fully understand the context of the campaign, let alone to predict how their crazy thing is going to mess with it.  (There are also those players that deliberately try to mess with the campaign.  But that's an easy fix.  Don't reject the character.  Toss the player permanently.  Problem solved for the current and all future campaigns.)

Within the limits of what I'm willing to run at all, I will definitely encourage wacky ideas for characters be brought into the campaign planning session.  If there is an itch to play something that won't go away, maybe we see to it that the next campaign has a good fit for that.  But no, you don't get to dictate the parameters of my setting and campaign by anything that pops into your player head.  If it means that much to you, run your own damn campaign.

To be honest, SJW's are not known for consistency or logic.

The based and anime-pilled computer genius Terry A. Davis (RIP) was more sound in his logic than most SJW's and he was a severely schizophrenic meth addict.

When you're an indoctrinated Millennial hipster whose socio-political ideology is informed by Harry Potter, the MCU, punk rock, and general contrarianism, this literal insanity sounds relatively logical and calm by comparison.

[video=youtube;S75DN0joNPU]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S75DN0joNPU[/youtube]

Of course, unlike the lazy and spoiled SJW's, Terry A. Davis worked hard despite his crippling mental illness. The dude was able to build the Third Temple of Jerusalem by himself using only a winch, a cinder block, and a Commodore 64.

The spoiled middle-class SJW's have no excuse for their failures.

Quote from: Doc Sammy;1086601To be honest, SJW's are not known for consistency or logic.
[...]
The spoiled middle-class SJW's have no excuse for their failures.

Um sweetie, no. Are you a white male? Figures. Can someone please ban this fucking patriarchal alt-right fascism-supporting racist?

Quote from: deadDMwalking;1086571Player's choice. If you want to play a white dude in an Asian setting (Shogun, Last Samurai), that's cool - the GM should work with the player to find a way to make it work.  If the player wants to play a black dude in a Viking setting, the GM should work with the player to find a way to make it work.

I kind of think it is the GM's choice, since he can solve the problem by telling the player no. If the GM wants to accommodate that, then fine.

It can be fun, or it can make the entire game unpleasant for everyone, just like the 'PC backstabbing loner' or 'My background says I hate this other PC' or other types of Dick Players.

Quote from: Antiquation!;1086619Um sweetie, no. Are you a white male? Figures. Can someone please ban this fucking patriarchal alt-right fascism-supporting racist?

This is what SJW's actually believe, unfortunately. You hit the nail right on the head, my good man.

SJW's over at RPGnet and Onyx Path Forums spew the most insane and zealous bullshit and for some goddamn reason, some people say that I am the crazy one...