Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1037960Don't forget, we all had multiple characters as well.  None of this "band of heroes welded together at the hip."

This is something that rarely is discussed that is an artifact of that era. Whether it was intentional or not (you'd know before I would) - it was exactly accurate for my group in the late 70's as well. We all had folders full of characters of various levels that we'd pull out for the "adventure".  To what degree these characters knew one another was dependent on what previous adventures those particular characters went on before. Otherwise you worked it out in game.

And we killed all the orcs and goblins with little reservation. Because.

My OD&D games have max 10th level and are humanocentric. As elves and dwarves live freaking forever, the vast majority of elves and dwarves you meet are 10th level and they're scary badasses with often crazy magical goodies as gear. Of course, just because they live a long time doesn't mean they're able to procreate that whole time...thus their numbers are few.

Quote from: Ratman_tf;1037772I compromised and said that after the demihuman level limits, they take double xp to level up. And elves that live for hundreds of years hit a kind of plateau, where leveling gets harder because there's not much left to learn. If you assume that only a small percentage of people are adventurers with a class, and only a small percentage of them get to be high level, then it rarely becomes an issue.

As a side note on level limits, what I always thought was funny was the unlimited level in thief. We would often joke about the presence of centuries-old umpteenth-level elven thieves as a secret presence everywhere in the world.  ("Didn't there used to be a bar on this side of town?"   "Yeah - the elven thieves must have stolen it!")

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;1037778Elves and dwarves don't live past 150 because adventurers come along. They're killed once we run out of orcs. Your level limit is my sword.

Probably the best thing I have heard in a long time!

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1036823The Dothraki, who are human (played by a rag-tag bunch of actors of various skin colors), are portrayed in a way that is completely at odds with any society that has existed in history on Earth and generally resembles the orcs of D&D. The Dothraki believe agriculture and construction is satanic, they always have sex in public, murder is common and normalized, women are treated as chattel, they destroy everything in their path, have no sense of tactics or warcraft, etc.

So, like San Franciscans?

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1036823... This is a problem inherent to all fictional cultures that are loosely modeled after stereotypes of real cultures, if care is not taken to depict the fictitious culture as having actual depth.

Yes. It also makes them not particularly interesting or human during play. Somewhat helpful for providing lots of quick foes you can kill, which I'd say is often the role wanted by the designer/GM and is at least part of why it happens.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1036823That was actually a big problem with Game of Thrones that took me right out of the story. The Dothraki, who are human (played by a rag-tag bunch of actors of various skin colors), are portrayed in a way that is completely at odds with any society that has existed in history on Earth and generally resembles the orcs of D&D. The Dothraki believe agriculture and construction is satanic, they always have sex in public, murder is common and normalized, women are treated as chattel, they destroy everything in their path, have no sense of tactics or warcraft, etc. They are not remotely believable as a culture.

Interesting. I didn't find the Dothraki particularly believable, but I didn't find them that bad, either. I didn't think of them as orcs, but I don't play D&D or Warcraft. I didn't notice the Dothraki always having sex in public? Their attitude towards women didn't seem all that worse than some historical agricultural civilized cultures (or even some modern people). "Satanic" seems a Christiany misnomer. Certainly there have been historical violent nomadic people who don't do agriculture or permanent construction, and loot the same. Murder is common and normalized? Particularly moreso than in historical human cultures?

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1036823... The hobby is intrinsically violent, since the typical party is a band of murderous hobos. That can be said of most media, actually. Almost all humanoids, the typical target of murderous hobos, are guys in makeup or fursuits wearing tribal getup. The barbarian character class, depending on the player's preferences, is some variety of scotsman, viking, native american or other tribal/clannish ethnic group in history or present time. ...

I think many people have an inner nomad warrior chafing at modern settled law/social-bound biases, and fantasy RPGs tend to offer a bit of cathartic outlet.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1036823... (drow being cursed with black skin, a la the "curse of Ham" historically used to denigrate black people, then being excessively fetishized by gamers as a weird matriarchal BDSM mafia)

Yeah, well I started avoiding D&D long before I heard of Drow, but Drow have always seemed especially preposterous teenage boy fantasy pandering to me.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1036823... but the game is not intentionally promoting racist attitudes. I would argue that it promotes racial harmony, if very clumsily, since the typical party consists of characters of different races who fulfill different vital roles.

I mostly agree.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1036823Really, I think we should just be honest that the game is a vehicle for our fantasies and that our fantasies are really twisted. Let's cut to the heart: as human beings, we want to kill other human beings. That is nothing to be ashamed of and we should own up to it.

Yes! (Though different people have different fantasies that aren't always compatible...)

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1036823...D&D is a game where you kill other people in order to loot their corpses and advance yourself, except that you dress it up as heroic and moral by painting them as evil orcs who deserved it because you are a scared little baby who cannot accept the truth that you love violence for its own sake.

Discard your pretensions and delusions of morality! Play evil campaigns as the default. I guarantee that a campaign where the party are literally murderous hobos who butcher villages with impunity will be vastly more entertaining and cathartic than those lame goody-two-shoes campaigns where paladins mow down orcs with impunity. Orcs are just humans in makeup, so why equivocate?

Well not all games are D&D or have alignments or even orcs. Many of my games (especially as a teenager) involved PCs who didn't identify as Evil but did kill and loot other people without regard to race.

Typically the games I and my friends have run have featured one form or another of supporting PCs being adult warriors with some license to choose whom to fight, and a variety of potential opponents with varying degrees of dislikability and power level, and choosing what to do in the situations that come up. Often there are hateful people in positions of lawful authority, but as a warrior you can see if you can deal with them violently, and that's socially and often legally acceptable... if you win.

The grey line of who the PCs (and their NPC allies) will kill starts to come up, particularly when some PCs would suggest or do things such as betray or kill hirelings or not-particularly-dislikable people, or conduct night attacks/slaughters on other adventurer camps in the wilderness.

And then there was the campaign I briefly ran that was created to satisfy the desire of players for a game where they could loot people in a futuristic setting, and one PC's goal was to run people down with an air car.

I find that for me at some point a line comes up of what I want to run for players. The comedic anti-hero vigilante air car game was ok for variety to scratch a player itch but I started hating the PCs. Similar with games where players want to play officially evil/terrible characters such as murderous vampires. Some characters are so awful to me that I don't want to GM for them.

Quote from: Skarg;1038594Interesting. I didn't find the Dothraki particularly believable, but I didn't find them that bad, either. I didn't think of them as orcs, but I don't play D&D or Warcraft.

I spent years reading articles about them. G.R.R. Martin's world building is terrible as a rule, but the Dothraki are probably the most obvious example. They are a bunch of caricatures based on stereotypes of barbarians and nomadic horsemen.

Quote from: Skarg;1038594I didn't notice the Dothraki always having sex in public?

Rutting like animals under the stars in front of everyone is stated as part of their culture several times in the books. A taboo against public sex is present in every real culture known to exist.

Quote from: Skarg;1038594Their attitude towards women didn't seem all that worse than some historical agricultural civilized cultures (or even some modern people).

The Dothraki pimp their own wives and consider women deformed. Human males in every real culture are hardwired to desire sexual exclusivity to ensure that they are not cuckolded, with one of the exceedingly rare exceptions being environmentally-pressured fraternal polyandry (where brothers marry the same woman). Furthermore, pre-agricultural cultures did not display sexism on that level if at all (and the Dothraki do not practice agriculture). The Hun, Mongol and Sioux the Dothraki were explicitly "inspired by" according to Martin were known for having female warriors like Khutulun and Tashenamani.

Quote from: Skarg;1038594"Satanic" seems a Christiany misnomer. Certainly there have been historical violent nomadic people who don't do agriculture or permanent construction, and loot the same.

No, the Dothraki literally believe that agriculture and civilization are evil for desecrating the "earth mother." That is militant anarcho-primitivism and no pre-modern culture has ever believed in anything like that.

Quote from: Skarg;1038594Murder is common and normalized? Particularly moreso than in historical human cultures?

At one point it is stated that a wedding reception without several murders is considered a dull affair. Even the vikings, whose berserkers were known to take drugs before battle, were not that violent.

Their economy makes no sense, as they supposedly cannot comprehend buying and selling. The concept of buying and selling (whether bartering or currency) is so simple than even monkeys understand it. Martin cannot even keep himself consistent as right afterward the Dothraki are shown to run a protection racket.

To say nothing of their (lack of) tactics. The Dothraki somehow sack cities despite wearing no armor, having no siege weapons, and are never mentioned to employ any tactics. Every realistic analysis of their invasion of Westeros results in them getting their asses handed to them. It is a pretty common conclusion on the Alternate History forums that a battle between any real nomadic horsemen culture versus the Dothraki would result in the latter being slaughtered like defenseless sheep.

Basically, the Dothraki do not make any sense as human beings. Every single aspect of their culture violates basic human psychology and they are literally stupider than monkeys. They are just caricatures for Dany, the main character of that story thread, to contrast against.

Drow are ancient Norse Svartelfs D&D-ized.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1038605Drow are ancient Norse Svartelfs D&D-ized.

Svartálfar also known as myrkálfar. "Both the svartálfar and Svartálfaheimr are primarily attested in the Prose Edda, written in the 13th century by Snorri Sturluson." They are also dwarves.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1038603Basically, the Dothraki do not make any sense as human beings. Every single aspect of their culture violates basic human psychology and they are literally stupider than monkeys. They are just caricatures for Dany, the main character of that story thread, to contrast against.

Well, is this the face of a scholar? No, it's just some guy who was too lazy to research the Wars of the Roses properly. He shouldn't be writing books, he should be DMing an AD&D1e open game table, where lazy plagiarism, cliches and silliness are welcomed. And I speak as such a DM.

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;1038624Well, is this the face of a scholar? No, it's just some guy who was too lazy to research the Wars of the Roses properly. He shouldn't be writing books, he should be DMing an AD&D1e open game table, where lazy plagiarism, cliches and silliness are welcomed. And I speak as such a DM.

DMing AD&D doesn't give you a net worth of $65 Million.

Quote from: Krimson;1038625DMing AD&D doesn't give you a net worth of $65 Million.

This is true. But I don't think he'll get to enjoy it for long. If he just wanted to sit around talking shit and eating lots of junk food while getting obese, then DMing is just what he needed to do.

You can't be properly racist if you don't have the slurs to go with it!

https://www.reddit.com/r/DnD/comments/6na3hi/i_compiled_a_list_of_racial_slurs_for_you_to_use/

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;1038626This is true. But I don't think he'll get to enjoy it for long. If he just wanted to sit around talking shit and eating lots of junk food while getting obese, then DMing is just what he needed to do.

Wow. Jealous much?

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1038603I spent years reading articles about them. G.R.R. Martin's world building is terrible as a rule, but the Dothraki are probably the most obvious example. They are a bunch of caricatures based on stereotypes of barbarians and nomadic horsemen. ...

Wow, well I'll defer somewhat to your superior time investment in thinking about how implausible they are!

I was willing to cut Martin a little bit of slack as with the rest of his world which seems to be only aiming for slightly more credibility than a typical RPG fantasy world... it is after all a different (yet remarkably Earth-derivative) planet, with a bizarrely variable seasonal system, impossible populations & logistics unless the people and plants and admitted to be rather non-human (or probably even if they are) and at least in the TV show and art, ridiculously tall vertical constructions, dragons that grow from eggs to enormous in a few years, etc.

It still does better than most fantasy RPG & film settings I've seen at being somewhat self-consistent.

Quote from: Krimson;1038622Svartálfar also known as myrkálfar. "Both the svartálfar and Svartálfaheimr are primarily attested in the Prose Edda, written in the 13th century by Snorri Sturluson." They are also dwarves.

Dwarf, Drow, who can tell them apart?