Quote from: beejazz;478679Have not fully caught up.

but few responses anyway...

He's saying the only reason that something otherwise like people would be inherently evil is to justify the killing of innocents. He's still wrong, but you can at least get his position right.

Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;478517Yes, if one gets rid of the need for child-rearing and social cohesion it becomes plausible, if still unlikely, to have a gang of murder-machines.

and then some more...

My opinion is...

Quote from: Benoist;478682I PM'd John about this. You should edit the link out of your quote dude.

Good point

Quote from: jhkim;478674I don't think anyone is claiming that gamers in general make a connection between orcs and minorities.  Even Adam Dray as quoted in the original post of this thread said that it didn't make you racist and most people simply didn't think about it.  

On the other hand, it would be equally absurd to make the opposite extreme of claiming that no RPG gamer is ever racist.  For example, I know there have been a few threads on the white supremacy website Storm Front like:

The guy in the OP, IMO, was trying to have it both ways. To me it sounded like he was saying "it doesn't make you a racist, but it does make you a racist."

He was also stating that there is a problem which needs to be addressed and its related to the way things like orcs are handled. I just disagree with him strongly. If he wants to be on the look out for hidden forms of oppression and racism in his own game fine, but his post clearly made it a broader issue than just his own game.

No one is claiming gaming is a hobby devoid of racists. Of course there are racist gamers just like there are racists in all walks of life. And I expect that a racist would let his racism into the game somehow. But that doesn't mean the door swings both ways. Just because a racist may use orcs to promote his views on race that doesn't mean killing or mistreating orcs in game have some corrupting influence on players.

Quote from: Sigmund;478664Heh, no problem bro I just have a hard time taking all this colonial and racism junk seriously in the context of RPG orcs. Does anyone honestly believe orcs were originally meant to be fantasy stand-ins for black people, or any other single real world racial/cultural group? Now a mish-mash of the darkest sides of humans I could believe, but then that's why they're evil and make good enemies, because they can symbolize our conquering of our own dark side. That's the usefulness of including absolute good and evil in RPGs, if one is so inclined. They can act as interactive mythology, allowing us to celebrate what we see as "good" and defeat that which we see as "evil" in a less passive manner than just reading stories.

I do think there was a tendency to use gobinoids as a way to allow players to run hack and slash games without having to worry about their noble heroes killing real people. Not quite the same thing I know but ...

Quote from: Benoist;478656But whatever the PCs then hear through NPCs when the DM doesn't say anything still doesn't mean the orcs can't be, in fact, from a cosmological point of view, irredeemably evil. Would you have a problem if that were the case? (Your last sentence seems to say you'd be OK with it. I just want a confirmation)

Like I said from the start I have no problem with orcs being irredeemibly evil so long as the GM has thought about it and has a reason for it. If that is the case then fine but I want consistency. I would certainly start to get irked if there were loads of irredeemily evil races that all had similar justifications.

In my games creatures with free will and intelligence should be able to choose not to be evil. Someone asked me is Orcus could choose not to be evil and of course the answer is totally yes he could. He chooses to be evil that is kind of the point of Orcus.

Now I have no issues with orcs being evil because they choose to be evil as that implies they could choose not to be and I have no problem with orcs are evil because they are in thrall to a big glowing crystal or they are bred out of the ground etc etc .

Equally I have no problem with PCs that kill all orcs on site, children at al. I would want them to question that behaviour if they claimed to be good though, just like I would want them to debate what to do with the evil assasin if they catch him and he throws down his sword and surrenders.

OK Jibba. That I'm totally cool with.

Quote from: Peregrin;477848Poison'd doesn't force that content on you, either.

What it does force you to deal with is objectionable moral situations.

I'm not apologizing for Poison'd, I'm saying that some implementations of ideas in D&D can be just as objectionable.

If you want to have monsters, that's fine.  But once you give those things families, culture, language, and a functioning social unit?  They're no longer monsters.  So either treat them as literal fucking monsters of chaos or treat them as a developed race.  Trying to do it both ways doesn't work.  If they're truly Evil, mindlessly violent creatures, the fact that they can fuck and have kids shouldn't even be important, so why include it?

If you want to deal with situations that involve orc babies and what to do with them, D&D is not the game to do it.

As often as you and I seem to lock horns, this is a red letter day.  I wholly agree!

First round is on me!

Quicky follow up:

The human mind works really well with metaphors.  Part of why our chimp ancestors were able to start making tools and building Ford Pintos.

For all those that think equating orcs with the peoples traditionally slaughtered by colonials:  That's how the brain fucking works, retards.  That is why we no longer shit in our hands and fling it at that asshole in the other tree.  That is why we aren't sitting around picking bugs out of each other's back hair.  That is why we don't sleep in our own filth any more.

Disagree with the premise or the arguments all you want, but stop pretending like the mere association is some kind of alien concept that has never happened in human history until this very point.

Quote from: StormBringer;478715Disagree with the premise or the arguments all you want, but stop pretending like the mere association is some kind of alien concept that has never happened in human history until this very point.

The problem is, I can think of a whole host of metaphors for what Orcs represent without ever once thinking of them in terms of other races. People who think of them in those terms are bringing that to the table themselves. It never even would have occurred to me before I started going online.

The reason for this is pretty simple: orcs were invented by Tolkien (watch, someone will argue that point, but the creatures in Beowulf he took the name from bear no resemblance to Orcs as we know them), who also specifically defined what they were and where they came from. Tolkien defined Evil as being unable to create, merely pervert creations of God; there were no orc women or babies, because orcs were corrupted elves or humans, now only capable of hate and lashing out violently. This is the default, unless a GM creates a world in which it's otherwise.

So, what happens? a bunch of GMs come along, don't bother taking the effort to actually research the fantasy creatures they're dropping into their worlds, give orcs a "culture" or "society" like they are simply a humanoid race, patting themselves on the back for their world-creating skills, and then suddenly, later, have a moral crisis about it and go to lengths to blame the game system they were using for putting themselves in that position.

"Orc" does not equal by default "human minority". It's not simply a faulty conclusion, it's a conclusion one could only come to if one was already engaged in seeing the world in those terms. It's just someone super-imposing their politics into their hobby.

Just like all that Jar Jar Binks crap.

Quote from: TristramEvans;478724The problem is, I can think of a whole host of metaphors for what Orcs represent without ever once thinking of them in terms of other races.

But you can think of them as metaphors.

The rest is just details.  Perhaps you think of them as metaphors for vector based pathogens.  Someone else thinks of them as metaphors for man's struggle against inhumanity.  Someone else thinks of them as metaphors for the victims of historical colonialism.

None of those is inherently wrong simply because it's a metaphor.  Yours is no better than someone else's, and they aren't crazy because theirs is different than yours.  Stop doing that.

The concept of metaphor, yeah I'm familiar with that one.

The metaphors of orcs=niggers, goblins=spics, ogres=rednecks, hobgoblins=Japs, kobolds=chinks...wait who are the jews again?  or since they are all "noble savages" should they all be injuns?...Anyway, that metaphor I must have missed at my White Boy Indoctrination Camp seminars.  I was always skipping those classes, too busy playing D&D I guess.

I see where you're coming from Storm, but when you drop an "ist" bomb that always includes with it the sleazy insinuation that if you disagree you must be one.

Quote from: TristramEvans;478724So, what happens? a bunch of GMs come along, don't bother taking the effort to actually research the fantasy creatures they're dropping into their worlds, give orcs a "culture" or "society" like they are simply a humanoid race, patting themselves on the back for their world-creating skills, and then suddenly, later, have a moral crisis about it and go to lengths to blame the game system they were using for putting themselves in that position.

Fucking Gygax. What a hack.


(over half way there!)

Quote from: Vmerc@;478660Me, being a gamer, periodic GM, not a habitual forums-reader, nor an expert poster, just your average joe gamer - having been pointed in the direction of this site by a friend, have a question.

I come to this site, again - at the behest of a friend, speaking highly of it, and having registered go first to the site stickies for info, rules, and such, where I read about Swine gamers.  I take this as an underlying premise - an interesting idea - not one I had heard before but makes sense and when I think about it, partially explains why my former pokes into the world of game posting never took.  

"Interesting" I tell myself, whereon I proceed to my first non-stickied post - a monstrous ramble of some several thousand views, where the first thing to hit me in the face is some well-informed and supremely confident gamers defining what type of cosmological alignment structures are the "rich and hearty" kind and which are the "puerile hack and slash" kind.  Yes...someone actually used the word puerile in his critique of a game.  

After a whiff of this familiar scent - I have to ask my natural next thought:

Doesn't the "swine gamer" philosophy factor into the minds of those who are proclaiming that an absolute good/evil cosmological scheme is the mark of a lesser mind?

I ask, because the swine idea seemed to be a hallmark of this site, and in 50 some odd pages of thread I havent noticed a single use of the word "swine."

The people who hold to the depiction you gave in the above post might very well be Swine, yes.  

RPGPundit

Quote from: StormBringer;478726None of those is inherently wrong simply because it's a metaphor.

If we ignore author intention, sure.


 

QuoteYours is no better than someone else's,

Sure they are. Mine are superior to any metaphor that makes a fun game less enjoyable.

Quoteand they aren't crazy because theirs is different than yours.  Stop doing that.

The blogger quoted by the OP gave reason to question his mental stability or sanity, but it's nothing to do with having a differing opinion. I don't think someone is "Crazy" for interpreting metaphors one way or another. My point was that ultimately, since the metaphor is something they are inferring, a person can only blame themselves for a metaphor that they don't like.

What I'm disagreeing on is that orcs imply racial minorities. They don't; a person interpreting them in that way is, as I said, bringing that to the table themselves.

Quote from: jibbajibba;478696I do think there was a tendency to use gobinoids as a way to allow players to run hack and slash games without having to worry about their noble heroes killing real people. Not quite the same thing I know but ...

This makes no sense. The "noble heroes" aren't real. The "real people" you're referring to aren't real. There's absolutely nothing to worry about either way. This is exactly why I also don't like the misery tourism or the high-minded "experience" some games and players espouse. These are games of imagination. None of the people in the imagined settings are real, the experiences of playing a "real pirate" or "slave" are not real either. There is no possible way to even approximate the experience of being a pirate or slave (or anything else) through these or any other games that are played while sitting around the kitchen table sipping pepsi and eating doritos. The reason for that is because this shit is all imaginary. How is someone going to experience a moral dilemma over killing "orc babies" that don't exist and never will, and aren't even imaginary constructs of things that do really exist? I could have my imaginary character "slaughter" orc babies, puppies, unicorns, faeries, God, and tiny little kittens and not have even a momentary flicker of actual moral conflict, because nothing is actually being slaughtered... nothing is being hurt... nothing is doing the slaughtering... it's all imaginary. I mean really....