Quote from: BedrockBrendan;480477See I disagree with this. I think racism, as most people use the term, is much more severe and intense than just walking around with a few stereotypes and generalizations. And I think the whole "everyone is racism" thing actually diminishes the significance of the term. So when true and hurtful racism does emerge and people try to draw attention to it, they are often ignored (i.e. oh, he is just being PC, etc).

Absolutely.  It's almost impossible to criticize anything but the most overt racism on right-leaning message boards without the criticism being dismissed as a PC overreaction and the net effect has been to create a safer haven for racists to spread propaganda.  When everything is racism, nothing is, and when everyone is a racist, nobody is.

As for stereotypes, the problem is not simply stereotyping.  There is ample research that most people generally hold reasonably accurate stereotypes and use them responsibly (see this chapter from the Handbook of Prejudice, Stereotyping, and Discrimination for details about the research).  Racism operates in the realm of inaccurate (and primarily negative) stereotypes and in an unwillingness to switch from a stereotype to individuating information when it becomes unavailable, which is what normal people do.  Racists have to lie to make the groups they hate appear monstrous and inhuman.  The solution is not declare anything that could possibly be used toward a racist end, be it IQ tests or role-playing games with monstrous races, off limits but to explain how the racists incorrectly misuse those things to promote lies.  Declaring certain topics and information off limits so it can't be misused by racists simply feeds into their narrative that the politically correct powers-that-be are hiding the truth from people.

Quote from: J Arcane;480633Not even a blog, a private Google+ post.  

Good point, I stand corrected.

Quote from: jhkim;480456When I last ran a Tolkien based game, it shook up the events of the story by an alternate plotline that also changed views of where the real danger lay - cf. All Shall Love Me and Despair....

Quote from: jhkim;480502Sure, they're all set up here:

http://www.darkshire.net/jhkim/rpg/vinland/

Not the best organization, but there is at least a lot of material there.

As the saying goes, it's an ill wind indeed that blows no good. This thread may be several zillion pages of self-indulgent first year university masturbation, but at least it (a) inspired me to run a game again Sunday week, and (2) drew our attention to your interesting and fun campaign settings.

Quote from: jhkim;480568does anyone agree with me that Robert E. Howard, H.P. Lovecraft, and Edgar Rice Burroughs were racists?  Or do people think that I'm also just crazy reading racism into their writing as well?

They were totally racist motherfuckers.

But I mean, when Howard said that blacks were inherently more barbaric, he thought that was a good thing. Howard was unemployed and living at home with his parents in his 30s, and killed himself because his mother was going to die and he'd have to do his own laundry. He was basically a loser, if he were born eighty years later he'd be in the basement with copies of Soldier of Fortune magazine, playing WoW and Magic cards, and arguing on the internet about how GURPS doesn't model the difference between 45 and 9mm properly.

So he was bound to have some silly ideas. But they were at least entertaining silly ideas.

Quote from: Benoist;480631(1) I created the thread.

We will never forget this, Benoist. Never.

Quote from: jibbajibba;480472We are all racist (as one of my professors used to remind me). We all make judgements about people based on racial and cultural stereo-types. It's all about recognising it and dealing with it.

Your professor was a small-minded twat. People like to project their weaknesses on to others to make them feel more a part of a group and not having to face individual weakness.

Lots of people are not racist. Christ, you sound like Somethingelse over on RPGnet, whining about "privilege" and how all white middle class males are responsible for hundreds of deaths every day and every time a women stubs her toe.

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;480643We will never forget this, Benoist. Never.

If you're having a blast on Sunday you sure as hell shouldn't.

I think Pundit should put badges on the signatures for people that start threads that go over 1000.

Quote from: jhkim;480494There are many different versions of orcs - especially when you get into how they are implemented in different people's games.  I would start with Tolkien since that is where D&D's orcs come from.  Like I said, hobbits, dwarves, elves, and men were identified with Western and Northern Europeans - while orcs were identified with Eastern Europeans and Near Easterners - mongol types.  I think Tolkien was on the level when he said he didn't intend any symbolism, but I think that some things subconsciously shine through quite clearly.  His mythic clash was a war between races with exaggerated traits, not a war between rival kings or political powers.  That is not specific racial hatred, but it does glorify a worldview of seeing some people and races as inherently superior or inferior to others.

I'm afraid your interpretation there is way off. In fact, I find it very hard to believe who has actually read (*and comprehended) Lord of the Rings could come to that conclusion. You do realize there were eastern european/near easteners actually in Lord of the Rings? Mongol people , not orcs? Of whom Samwise, speaking for Tollers, had this to say:

Quote from: J.R.R. TolkienIt was Sam's first view of a battle of Men against Men, and he did not like it much. He was glad that he could not see the dead face. He wondered what the man's name was and where he came from; and if he was really evil of heart, or what lies or threats had led him on the long march from his home; and if he would not really rather have stayed there in peace.
 

Quote from: Tolkien FAQa few people have mistaken the symbolic conflict between "darkness" and "light" in the books for a conflict between "black" and "white", which they then interpret racially (which is already a stretch). They seem to overlook the ghastly white corpse-light of Minas Morgul, the White Hand of Saruman, and Isildur's black Stone of Erech, to name a few exceptions.

As for specific claims that Tolkien linked skin color to good and evil, there are simply too many exceptions for that to hold up. Light skinned characters who did evil things include Saruman, Grima, Gollum, Boromir, Denethor, and the Numenoreans as mentioned above. And it is notable that Tolkien described Forlong's people of Gondor and even the men of Bree as "swarthy", the same term he used for example of the Southrons who were ambushed by Faramir (though to be fair, he may have imagined different degrees of "swarthiness" for those groups). For that matter, Sam's flash of empathy for the fallen Southron he saw during the ambush indicates that many of Sauron's soldiers were likely unwilling slaves, not evil at heart.

Tolkien's mythic battle was drawn upon a very deeply ingrained part of his culture and beliefs, but it had jack all to do with war between grossly exaggerated races. The "reason" orcs are created rather than born was not an afterthought, for Tolkien. Nothing in those books were just "casual details": everything had a very specific purpose, every turn of phrase Tolkien laboured over. It is because Tolkien genuinely believed that no person (meaning no human being of any race, indeed no sentient creature) was born evil. Evil cannot create, it can only corrupt. This isn't a magical prohibition, it is the very nature of how Tolkien defined Evil. Orcs arten't one people, even the Nazis...they are anyone, of any race, who has become so tainted that they delight in mindless cruelty and savagrey. Orcs are the Manson girls, and the cops at Tinnamon Square; orcs are any soldier, from the Nazis to U.S. Blackwater troops, who engage in mindless slaughter and make war into a nihilistic game.

Orcs aren't "born", except in the same way that Ted Bundy or Josef Mengele were "born". They were corrupted.

In other words, Orcs don't represent any human race or culture, orcs represent a side of humanity.  

Quote from: J.R.R. TolkienI should regret giving any colour to the notion that I subscribed to the wholly pernicious and unscientific race-doctrine.

Quote from: TristramEvans;480658In other words, Orcs don't represent any human race or culture, orcs represent a side of humanity.

See, that's a perfectly valid interpretation for a D&D game as well. So why is it that some people here just can't get past that one projection that orcs would been black people or jews? Why is it that the responsibility, or part thereof, for this kind of retarded reading has to be put on the game's design itself?

Quote from: jhkim;480547but I think that his subconscious feelings about all of these worked their way in.

Of all the narcissistic pop-psychology bullshit...

Quote from: Benoist;480660See, that's a perfectly valid interpretation for a D&D game as well. So why is it that some people here just can't get past that one projection that orcs would been black people or jews? Why is it that the responsibility, or part thereof, for this kind of retarded reading has to be put on the game's design itself?

It's like those people who get obsessed with the number 23. It's not that the number 23 has any significance or is more common than any other number or combination of numbers, it's just that they are ignoring all numbers/information except specifically what they are looking for.

Quote from: TristramEvans;480665It's like those people who get obsessed with the number 23. It's not that the number 23 has any significance or is more common than any other number or combination of numbers, it's just that they are ignoring all numbers/information except specifically what they are looking for.

http://summauniversalia.org/wiki/images/7/70/PrincipiaDiscordia_pg00016.png

Can't make it an image. Fills the whole page.

Quote from: StormBringer;480624So, you won't be addressing the self-contradiction then.  Unsurprising.

See below.

Quote from: StormBringer;480624But is the gun more or less efficient than a knife, or a whiffle bat?

As I said earlier, power of the tool does not create intent in the tool.  The tool is the what, the user brings the why.  If I wanted to exterminate all of Africa, using a nuclear weapon would be easier then using a tennis racket, however, I can use a tennis racket to beat a man to death because of his color, and I can drop a nuke for reasons that have nothing to do with race.  Are you really this stupid?

Quote from: StormBringer;480624RPGs cannot possibly be used for such purposes by anyone with a shred of sanity.

*Yawn*, freshman exaggeration technique again.  Stormfront can use it for whatever purposes they want, it says nothing about the tool, only about them.

Quote from: StormBringer;480624It's not like you were trying to argue against my points anyway.

From what I can tell, you have no actual point, other than...

"An imagined construct that contains races can be used by racists."  As I said...



In other news:
Books can be used for propaganda.
Plays may have an ulterior motive.
Movies can put forward political viewpoints - of all types! *gasp*.
Songs can be about religious intolerance.

Quote from: CRKrueger;480695As I said earlier, power of the tool does not create intent in the tool.  

Congratulations!  No one else is saying that either.  I mean...

QuoteAre you really this stupid?

Regardless of how many times I point out that you have created a virtual army of strawmen, you keep cranking them out.  For most people, it would behove them to cut back on those a little at that point.  Instead, you take the bold stance of doubling down on them!  Kudos!

Quote*Yawn*, freshman exaggeration technique again.  Stormfront can use it for whatever purposes they want, it says nothing about the tool, only about them.

So, we are back to the original question.  Why aren't they using Monopoly, Backgammon or Arkham Horror instead?

Except, you then provide the answer (again):

Quote"An imagined construct that contains races can be used by racists."

Yeah, weird thing about that is that you claimed earlier that there was no element or aspect unique to RPGs that would facilitate that.  According to you, every single element that could be used for racism was brought to the table and only existed in the players and had nothing to do with anything in the nature of RPGs.

So, we have a quandry.  Either board games and RPGs have a common theme of "An imagined construct that contains races" and Stormfront (and RaHoWa, and whoever else out there) all randomly picked RPGs over some other form of game to express racist ideas in the most unlikely co-incidence in the universe, or you are disingenuously dancing around the issue and moving the goalposts (you know, suddenly adding 'intent' to the argument?) in a frantic effort to save face.  Wait, sorry, there is one more option:  "An imagined construct that contains races can be used by racists" is the aspect of RPGs that make them easier to adapt for that purpose; the aspect that is missing from boardgames and leading to the complete dearth of "Black-ham Whorer".

By the way, Benoist completely loses his shit when the goalposts are moved.  I would expect him to be in here to bitch you out over that soon.

Quote from: StormBringer;480697Regardless of how many times I point out that you have created a virtual army of strawmen, you keep cranking them out.

You're making yourself look absurd.

Quote from: Sigmund;480399Of course not, the games are inanimate, unthinking objects. The real question you're asking is, do we think EGG was racist or reflecting racist attitudes from fiction authors, and my answer is no.

And I wholly agree with that.

QuoteAs has been shown, they are.

Wait, what?  I think I missed something.  I was saying that they use RPGs over boardgames for a reason, but your response seems to indicate they are using boardgames as well.  Am I reading that correctly, and if so, did I miss a link somewhere?