Quote from: S'mon;1119195Berbers are extremely white - they're lighter than the great majority of Italians. Some Gulf Arabs are quite dark, but Caucasian of course (except a few descended from African slaves). But outside Arabia most cultural 'Arabs' aren't really of Arab ancestry. Plenty of Levantines look lighter than Italians, too - that whole 'black Jesus' thing was ridiculous.

Some, or even many, Berbers could pass for European sure, but many, especially the Tuareg Berbers, could pass for sub-saharan West African. It's a stretch to make a blanket claim that "Berbers are extremely white."

Anyhoo, once again, what's your point re rpgs?

Quote from: Zirunel;1119208Anyhoo, once again, what's your point re rpgs?

This thread basically has no point RE: RPGs other than pointing out the ridiculousness of trying to be inclusive to the point of ridiculous when presenting an implied campaign setting. Modern stupidity about "diversity" makes zero fucking sense when applied to the real world.

Quote from: Brad;1119223This thread basically has no point RE: RPGs other than pointing out the ridiculousness of trying to be inclusive to the point of ridiculous when presenting an implied campaign setting. Modern stupidity about "diversity" makes zero fucking sense when applied to the real world.

Yes.

Re fantasy, I'm pretty tolerant, and have included some Afrocentrist style black kingdoms in my own fantasy settings, eg Neria in my Willow Vale/Yggsburgh setting is a sort of Rastafarian fantasy version of Ethiopia meets Prester John, with plate armoured West African looking Knights of the Unconquered Sun. But I like some kind of nod to it making sense. No one complains about the black/London-mixed race characters in A Game of Thrones, because they are explained as a particular ethnicity in-universe. Whereas in Netflix Witcher the random black human peasants, dryad (queen only, lesser dryads white), elves etc is jarring because it doesn't appear to make any sense.

Quote from: S'mon;1119196Certainly not Cleopatra, though. Cleopatra was Greek, and Greeks are, again, lighter skinned than most Italians, never mind lighter than Beyonce.

Cleopatra's patriline was pure Macedonian, but aren't both her mother and grandmother uncertain-but-likely-Egyptian? (Both father and grandfather are known to have multiple concubines, and there are arguments I find plausible that some weren't Greek; more generally there's supposedly a history of intermarriage between the Macedonian ruling classes and the Egyptian religious classes?)

Quote from: Naburimannu;1119260Cleopatra's patriline was pure Macedonian, but aren't both her mother and grandmother uncertain-but-likely-Egyptian? (Both father and grandfather are known to have multiple concubines, and there are arguments I find plausible that some weren't Greek; more generally there's supposedly a history of intermarriage between the Macedonian ruling classes and the Egyptian religious classes?)

If you want to know what Roman era Egyptians looked like, we have plenty of depictions, esp funerary. They looked a lot like modern Egyptians, a bit lighter on average going by the art. Thus is supported by DNA testing of remains which shows less sub-Saharan introgression than today.

Quote from: lordmalachdrim;1119146You and Omega are talking about different things.
He was talking about what could be found in the D&D books (which is not the topic of this thread).

You are talking about social media posts by the developers of C&S5.

Let's get back on topic again.  I encourage anyone to go on their FB site and experience first hand their fanaticism for political correctness and accusative attitude.

Better still, can anyone give me a run down on the mechanical changes?  It's still skillscape right BSC + PSC = TSC with opposition's PSC subtracted for parries.  If you want to know why I try so hard to avoid abreviations and jargon in my games you need look no farther than C&S 3e.

Quote from: Iron Cross;1119262Let's get back on topic again.  I encourage anyone to go on their FB site and experience first hand their fanaticism for political correctness and accusative attitude.

Well I looked, but saw no evidence for fanatical political correctness or accusative attitude. Mind you, I don't do the Facebook thing, so there is a lot I can't view. Maybe the stuff you are complaining about is in comments or their private C&S group?

Screen grabs or something would be helpful.

Quote from: Zirunel;1119269Well I looked, but saw no evidence for fanatical political correctness or accusative attitude. Mind you, I don't do the Facebook thing, so there is a lot I can't view. Maybe the stuff you are complaining about is in comments or their private C&S group?

Screen grabs or something would be helpful.

It's in their Facebook forum.

Are you talking about the Chivalry & Sorcery 5th Edition group on facebook? Because I can't find anything on the Brittannia Game Designs Ltd facebook page.

Ignoring the controversy for a moment...

What do they mean exactly by "diversity"? Ethnic diversity, sexual diversity, neurodiversity?

That's all well and good, but how does this distinguish the campaign setting from every other campaign setting?

If you change at the straight white male characters to something else but everything otherwise plays out exactly the same, then how is that anything other than superficial/cosmetic paintjob/window dressing/etc?

I'm seeing this odd trend to "normalize" "diversity." I totally support equal rights for everyone, but I question the utility of pretending that differences don't exist at all. I feel like it does people a disservice to treat us all like colorless sexless loveless blobs. Firstly, it feels way too early to start acting so utopian when we are still far from reaching a utopia and injustice still runs rampant worldwide. Secondly, I fear this attitude will result in harmful cultural erasure against marginalized groups.

To some degree we already have that problem in fiction right now. E.g. "why did you have to write this character as a [insert sexual orientation] [insert physical phenotype] [insert sex and/gender]?" Why do we have to write characters with the qualities of a sexual orientation, a physical phenotype, and a sex and/or a gender identity? If the choices are all equally arbitrary and you might as well roll dice, then why not just write all characters as grey sexless loveless blobs?

If you're writing a character who ticks a diversity check box, then you're implicitly doing so either to attract that demographic per Marketing 101, to change the trajectory of the plot compared to a different trait in the same story's context, or to make a political statement.

In my estimation, it's logically impossible to normalize differences between people. Either you acknowledge differences or not. You can't have it both ways. In some cases it can be outright dangerous, such as in gynecology. We have gynecologists because women have different health needs than men. The relative minority of people with DSDs (differences of sexual development) have even more particular needs. In fact, genetic testing has shown that all different phenotypical populations on this planet have slightly different health needs. If it's important enough to need specialized fields of medicine, then it probably needs acknowledgement by society whenever it would be relevant.

These differences cause people to think and behave differently, too. A lot of that difference is due to environmental circumstances (e.g. prejudice, social class, wealth, culture, education, nutrition, etc), but some of it is due to neurological differences. It is estimated at 15% of the population is neurodivergent, depending on what you count. That's not including the differences in cognition due to gender, sexual attraction, romantic attraction (which is a distinct attraction), etc.

People from different backgrounds don't experience and consider the world in the same way. You can't "normalize" those differences. That's why a lot of writing guides say you need to do research or consult a consultant if you want to accurately represent the lives of people whose backgrounds are very different from your own. Note I said "accurately," and depending on what you're writing then your audience may not care about the inaccuracies. Realistic contemporary fiction is where this would be most important since your audience lives in the modern reality, and thus this falls into marketing toward specific demographics. Historical fiction with inaccuracies and anachronisms will earn ire only from people who know enough to notice it.

These are many different desires, not one size fits all. A desire for diversity to be normalized, i.e. treated as purely cosmetic. A desire for the lives of people from different backgrounds to be represented accurately. A desire for historically marginalized groups to have increased representation compared to historical averages. Etc. Notice how there's potential conflicts between some of these desires?

People aren't identical. While everyone deserves equality under law, that doesn't equate to forcing everyone to confirm to some abstract ideal of "normality." Forcing square pegs into round holes is a recipe for alienating your citizens, not making them happy.

And now I'm rambling incoherent nonsense. I hope somebody manages to find a message buried in all that. Sorry for that, I'm tired from a long day and a lack of sleep.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1119391What do they mean exactly by "diversity"?

Skin color, gender and sexuality. AKA, diversity as defined by modern identity politics.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1119391That's all well and good, but how does this distinguish the campaign setting from every other campaign setting?

Allegedly, this campaign setting won't trigger the freakjobs in Portland, Seattle or Twitter.

But of course, such a goal is impossible. The Twitterati will always find transgressions against ideological purity.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1119391If you change at the straight white male characters to something else but everything otherwise plays out exactly the same, then how is that anything other than superficial/cosmetic paintjob/window dressing/etc?

Stop talking sense. It's totally waaaaaycist to suggest that turning Bob the Dwarf into Gay Bob the Berber Dwarf is anything less than STUNNING AND BRAVE which must be capitalized entirely to show how profoundly progressive their changes affect not just their pissant RPG, but entire known universe beyond.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1119391Ignoring the controversy for a moment...

What do they mean exactly by "diversity"? Ethnic diversity, sexual diversity, neurodiversity?

That's all well and good, but how does this distinguish the campaign setting from every other campaign setting?

If you change at the straight white male characters to something else but everything otherwise plays out exactly the same, then how is that anything other than superficial/cosmetic paintjob/window dressing/etc?

I'm seeing this odd trend to "normalize" "diversity." I totally support equal rights for everyone, but I question the utility of pretending that differences don't exist at all. I feel like it does people a disservice to treat us all like colorless sexless loveless blobs. Firstly, it feels way too early to start acting so utopian when we are still far from reaching a utopia and injustice still runs rampant worldwide. Secondly, I fear this attitude will result in harmful cultural erasure against marginalized groups.

To some degree we already have that problem in fiction right now. E.g. "why did you have to write this character as a [insert sexual orientation] [insert physical phenotype] [insert sex and/gender]?" Why do we have to write characters with the qualities of a sexual orientation, a physical phenotype, and a sex and/or a gender identity? If the choices are all equally arbitrary and you might as well roll dice, then why not just write all characters as grey sexless loveless blobs?

If you're writing a character who ticks a diversity check box, then you're implicitly doing so either to attract that demographic per Marketing 101, to change the trajectory of the plot compared to a different trait in the same story's context, or to make a political statement.

In my estimation, it's logically impossible to normalize differences between people. Either you acknowledge differences or not. You can't have it both ways. In some cases it can be outright dangerous, such as in gynecology. We have gynecologists because women have different health needs than men. The relative minority of people with DSDs (differences of sexual development) have even more particular needs. In fact, genetic testing has shown that all different phenotypical populations on this planet have slightly different health needs. If it's important enough to need specialized fields of medicine, then it probably needs acknowledgement by society whenever it would be relevant.

These differences cause people to think and behave differently, too. A lot of that difference is due to environmental circumstances (e.g. prejudice, social class, wealth, culture, education, nutrition, etc), but some of it is due to neurological differences. It is estimated at 15% of the population is neurodivergent, depending on what you count. That's not including the differences in cognition due to gender, sexual attraction, romantic attraction (which is a distinct attraction), etc.

People from different backgrounds don't experience and consider the world in the same way. You can't "normalize" those differences. That's why a lot of writing guides say you need to do research or consult a consultant if you want to accurately represent the lives of people whose backgrounds are very different from your own. Note I said "accurately," and depending on what you're writing then your audience may not care about the inaccuracies. Realistic contemporary fiction is where this would be most important since your audience lives in the modern reality, and thus this falls into marketing toward specific demographics. Historical fiction with inaccuracies and anachronisms will earn ire only from people who know enough to notice it.

These are many different desires, not one size fits all. A desire for diversity to be normalized, i.e. treated as purely cosmetic. A desire for the lives of people from different backgrounds to be represented accurately. A desire for historically marginalized groups to have increased representation compared to historical averages. Etc. Notice how there's potential conflicts between some of these desires?

People aren't identical. While everyone deserves equality under law, that doesn't equate to forcing everyone to confirm to some abstract ideal of "normality." Forcing square pegs into round holes is a recipe for alienating your citizens, not making them happy.

And now I'm rambling incoherent nonsense. I hope somebody manages to find a message buried in all that. Sorry for that, I'm tired from a long day and a lack of sleep.

I don't think you're just rambling. We can argue about whether, say, a black character is potentially plausible in a quasi-realistic C&S European setting (and I believe the answer is broadly yes), but at the end of the day it has to matter. Somehow. If it really doesnt matter in the setting, then insisting that your character is black is as meaningful as insisting they are blood type B-, or have a third nipple, or a certain anal circumference rating.  Who cares. It only matters if the setting (and/or the game mechanics) makes it matter.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1119391Ignoring the controversy for a moment...

What do they mean exactly by "diversity"? Ethnic diversity, sexual diversity, neurodiversity?

We have no idea what "they" mean, or even if they mean anything at all.

This whole thread is built on a weak foundation. We are supposed to believe that the developers of the latest edition of C&S are taking some kind of outrageous stand on "diversity, " and yet, despite multiple requests from multiple posters (beginning with post #2) to document what stand these developers are taking, we have seen nothing. Nothing at all. Absent any corroboration, it seems likely this thread is only pretending to be about RPGs, and in reality is just a political post stirring the pot about "SJWs." In which case it belongs in another subforum.

I am genuinely interested in seeing and discussing what outrages the developers of C&S are promoting about their game, but so far, ain't no there there.

Quote from: TNMalt;1118979I got and did a quick scan of chivalry and sorcery 5e. I did notice sections on people of color and women. Will read those later, but real medieval history wasn't nearly as pale and mannish as media and some of the writings that date back to the 17th century would have you believe

It also  is not the poc  or feminist utopia the SJW NPCs want and want to retcon history into.  None of the settlers of Iceland were black lesbian paraplegics like they would have us believe nor demand from an RPG set in such a a setting.