Quote from: StormBringer;478726But 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.

Metaphors don't equal reality. Just because the numbnuts OP sees oppressed minorities in every poor put upon imaginary orc and goblin in someone's imaginary game doesn't mean that's what Tolkien, Gygax, and everyone else on the planet means them to represent everytime they write about them or use them in a game. Plus, Using orcs in a game of D&D can be a metaphor for something, but doesn't automatically have to be. It is what we make it in our heads, and if all that is is convenient targets for our character's shiny new imaginary vorpal sword then that's what it is., no matter how much the OP weeps and tears at his hair over the "moral" horror of it all.

Quote from: CRKrueger;478727The concept of metaphor, yeah I'm familiar with that one.

Sure, I wasn't directing this screed at absolutely everyone in the thread.  I am just seeing this trend that using metaphors is just crazy talk.  Any individual metaphor could be wildly inaccurate or completely off the wall.  But acting like defining a metaphor in some way is stupid in and of itself is kinda dumb.

QuoteThe 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.

Yeah, don't think I am supporting this guy's argument whole cloth.  It's probably a bit silly, really, but even Tolkien describes them (albeit privately) as "squat, broad, flat-nosed, sallow-skinned, with wide mouths and slant eyes ... degraded and repulsive versions of the (to Europeans) least lovely Mongol-types".

Racist today?  Yeah, that isn't hard to show.  Racist at the time?  It was the 40s.  China and Japan were already at war, and Japan was fighting Americans in the Pacific.  This is probably the least racist version of Asians, and Japanese in particular, that one was likely to see at the time.

Inherent to the metaphoring of orcs is the idea that you are free to reject his reality and replace it with your own.

QuoteI 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.

Sure, no argument there.  I hope I didn't appear to support the idea that extending the metaphors one creates to then cite any kind of -ism is valid as well.  The metaphor can be made and disputed, made and proved, or made and ridiculed.  But the premise can't be negated just because orcs as a metaphor is crazy-retard Swine storygaming bullshit lol.

Quote from: TristramEvans;478732

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 [Iinferring[/I], 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.

Well said... much better than I've been saying it.

Quote from: StormBringer;478739Yeah, don't think I am supporting this guy's argument whole cloth.  It's probably a bit silly, really, but even Tolkien describes them (albeit privately) as "squat, broad, flat-nosed, sallow-skinned, with wide mouths and slant eyes ... degraded and repulsive versions of the (to Europeans) least lovely Mongol-types".

Racist today?  Yeah, that isn't hard to show.  Racist at the time?  It was the 40s.  China and Japan were already at war, and Japan was fighting Americans in the Pacific.  This is probably the least racist version of Asians, and Japanese in particular, that one was likely to see at the time.

Honestly, regardless of the physical characteristics they were described as having, I always saw Sauron and Tolkien's orcs as symbolizing the nazi war machine myself, given the times Tolkien lived in.

Quote from: Sigmund;478738Metaphors don't equal reality. Just because the numbnuts OP sees oppressed minorities in every poor put upon imaginary orc and goblin in someone's imaginary game doesn't mean that's what Tolkien, Gygax, and everyone else on the planet means them to represent everytime they write about them or use them in a game. Plus, Using orcs in a game of D&D can be a metaphor for something, but doesn't automatically have to be. It is what we make it in our heads, and if all that is is convenient targets for our character's shiny new imaginary vorpal sword then that's what it is., no matter how much the OP weeps and tears at his hair over the "moral" horror of it all.

Look, you can ridicule the OP's metaphor all you want.  I think he is stretching things more than a bit.  But no one is holding a gun to your head and making you agree with him.  You are continuing the argument that because orcs aren't a metaphor in one game, it's just crazy-stupid for them to be a metaphor anywhere.

And the OP isn't wailing and gnashing his teeth.  The post is very liberally peppered with "I think...".  He isn't telling you how to play, he is presenting his recent change of heart about how he wants to play.

Quote from: Sigmund;478742Honestly, regardless of the physical characteristics they were described as having, I always saw Sauron and Tolkien's orcs as symbolizing the nazi war machine myself, given the times Tolkien lived in.

Likely.  I would even go further and say the 'common' orc (and possibly the goblins) could be interpreted as Japanese soldiers, and the Uruk-Hai were the Germans.  Were someone inclined to make that association, that is.  

Quote from: TristramEvans;478732If we ignore author intention, sure.

Which author?

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

...for you.  Why is it so fucking difficult not to extrapolate one's own experience to a general axiom?

QuoteThe 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.

No, the OP is not inferring anything.  A metaphor is the association of one symbol for another.  "Inferring" is something else altogether, which may be where your confusion arises.  The OP simply states that - for him - ruthlessly killing Evil monsters (for example, orcs) has uncomfortable historic parallels.

This entire thread has been an exercise in 'inference', however.  Everyone seems to have mystically inferred that the OP is calling everyone a horrible racist.  That didn't happen.

QuoteWhat 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.

Then you are disagreeing with a straw-man.  The OP didn't say that orcs imply minorities.

Quote from: StormBringer;478748This entire thread has been an exercise in 'inference', however.  Everyone seems to have mystically inferred that the OP is calling everyone a horrible racist.  That didn't happen.

That's right. He's saying that when you are using absolute evil orcs, you're either racist, or you're not thinking too much about what this means. Hell, I'm so relieved now! I'm not a racist! I'm just not thinking as deeply as this guy is! :rolleyes:

Note that the guy talks about "at this point of my life, I just can't ignore this anymore". So maybe it isn't that I'm just not thinking as deeply as he is, maybe it's because I'm too immature? That's a relief! :rolleyes:

Quote from: StormBringer;478748Then you are disagreeing with a straw-man.  The OP didn't say that orcs imply minorities.

I suppose it is a subjective call but my reading is this is exactly what he is saying. Especially when he said this kind of gaming promotes racial stereotyping and that it stunk to high-heaven of colonialism. The guy says a lot of stuff in his post, and he does backtrack a bit toward the end, but this is still my interpretation of his words.

Yeah, sorry SB, but Ben and Bren are right, the boy's preachin'.  He's seen the light and the error of his ways and he's here to set us on the straight and narrow.

Quote from: jibbajibba;478635My issue would just be how the characters in the setting behave towards the evil. And I don't think teh DM should make statements like 'All orcs in my game are evil', I think he should tell players what their PCs have heard about orcs and then when they encounter orcs they will think 'these guys are all evil (or whatever)' and they maybe or they may not be depending on whatever the GM has set up.

The D&D game I ran was run in a bit of a kitchen sink setting on purpose because that's what the players asked for.  As such, I figured that the main Good religion, which had been around for hundreds of years, would have spent a great deal of time investigating who and what they could or couldn't save and as part of a Paladin's training, they would be told when it's OK to kill with impunity and when they were obliged to detect alignment and otherwise give an opponent and opportunity for redemption.  Of course there were also a lot of creatures that they eventually ran into that weren't thoroughly investigated by their religion so they had to figure those creatures out on their own.

In a setting with the ability to detect alignments, compel honesty, scry, read minds, teleport around the globe, travel to the outer planes, cast wish spells, and so on, I felt the basic structure of the world and cosmos wouldn't be a mystery.  In the civilized world in my setting, there were no elaborate, quaint, and wrong mythological theories about what happened to souls when they died or why the sun moved across the sky or the seasons changed or things like that because there were enough magic users and clerics over the years who would have been powerful enough to figure it out.  Clerics knew exactly what was going to happen to your soul when you died.

The mysteries in the setting revolved around the end game of the cosmos (and whether there should either be one), where one fit into that cosmology, and whether there was anything beyond the outer planes or not, thus making religion largely a matter of faith.  Everyone understood, in pretty much the same objective way, where Good, Neutral, and Evil souls went after death and even how they could be reincarnated but the way each interpreted that journey and thought it should all end (if it should end) differed from religion to religion.

The Neutral Druid character, on the other hand, had a different objective and at one point a vision of the Spirit of the World let him know, outright, that he might have to fight against the others in the party who followed the Good religion if they started eliminating too many of the evil creatures in the setting, including the irredeemably Evil goblinoids, because they were an important part of the ecosystem that prevented the expansion of humans into the wilderness.  As such, the Druid and his religion didn't care so much about Good, Evil, or redemption but about keeping the world healthy and in balance and defending it from outside invaders.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;478644I agree. Pseudo's pictures of his campaign recently looked awesome, so I am sure his campaign rocks.

I could be wrong but I didn't think Pseudo was saying evil orcs were racist or an indication of racism (I think some others made that argument but I didn't see Pseudo make it), just that he felt it created problems with internal consistency and believability (he seemed to be saying IMO that he had trouble with the concepts of irredemediably evil orcs because he foud the whole concept hard to swallow). I think that is all a matter of personal preference and can conceive of a setting where evil orcs are explained in a believable fashion.

This is an accurate summary. While racist beliefs are usually essentialist prejudices about groups, not all essentialist beliefs are racist.

I'd be willing to buy the "personal preference; live and let live" thing more if this were a different audience. Many, though not all, of the posters on this thread calling the OP an idiot have bitched and moaned about games like 4e breaking their immersion because of their gamey elements, and arguing in favour of a style of play that strives to emulate the real world and encourage
PCs interacting with the world in a way that is fundamentally similar to the way a similar person in the real world would interact with the challenge.

That is, they acclaim and laud the same paradigm I advocate (if anything, I am more willing to accept games like 4e than most of them), until it can be shown that within its context, certain ideas about how to build worlds are inferior to others.

In a game that values verisimilitude paying attention to the consequences of particular interactions between your premises are critical.

Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;478777I'd be willing to buy the "personal preference; live and let live" thing more if this were a different audience. Many, though not all, of the posters on this thread calling the OP an idiot have bitched and moaned about games like 4e breaking their immersion because of their gamey elements, and arguing in favour of a style of play that strives to emulate the real world and encourage PCs interacting with the world in a way that is fundamentally similar to the way a similar person in the real world would interact with the challenge.

And I'd be willing to buy that explanation if you weren't telling me that that I couldn't possibly have run the actual campaign that I ran for over a year with the choices that I made and had it work the way it did.  I ran the players through the precise scenario that seems to be causing the most angst here, the characters justifiably slaughtering evil humanoid women and children after getting a good look at exactly how their society was structured, and rather than being simplistic and uninteresting, those scenes produces some of the most intense deliberation and pathos among the players in the entire campaign played by players more interested in deep in character role-playing than hack-and-slash.  So please excuse me if I think that you are confusing your own opinions with objective fact and confusing the limits of your imagination with the limits of what's possible.

The problem here is not verisimilitude, world building craftsmanship, complexity of interactions, or a failure to pay attention to how choices interact, all issues that I raised in my first two replies to this thread and problems that I never encountered running a campaign in a setting that contained those elements.  Instead of addressing that, you'd rather keep beating your straw man.

Admittedly off topic, though the thought's spurs ride on the boots of many in this thread, is my surprise that during my long absence from the politics of forum posting, the use of the word "retard" has emerged from the dungeons of disuse, free of its fetters, bathed now in the bright light of a new millennium and enjoying once again it's place at the table of adult conversation.  And here I am, poor rube, struggling as always to remain relevant and abreast of linguistic ebbs and flows and the like.

Quote from: Benoist;478749That's right. He's saying that when you are using absolute evil orcs, you're either racist, or you're not thinking too much about what this means. Hell, I'm so relieved now! I'm not a racist! I'm just not thinking as deeply as this guy is! :rolleyes:

Note that the guy talks about "at this point of my life, I just can't ignore this anymore". So maybe it isn't that I'm just not thinking as deeply as he is, maybe it's because I'm too immature? That's a relief! :rolleyes:

Well, maybe it is because your style of gaming is sacrosanct, and anyone who poses the slightest question is a heretic that must be ridiculed and silenced at all costs.

I mean, the possibilities are endless, really.