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From tenbones' post #62 (https://www.therpgsite.com/showthread.php?39589-Politically-Incorrect-Stuff-in-Your-Gaming-Worlds&p=1057919&viewfull=1#post1057919) in the "Politically Incorrect Stuff in Your Gaming Worlds", there was this:

Quote from: tenbones;1057919I've said for some time - an SJW RPG would be one of dystopian authoritarian nightmares. The fact that SJW's whether overtly or out of ignorance view the world's issues through a pathological post-modernist view point, where language and dialogue "create objective reality" - which is where the insane idea that "words are violence", makes it very difficult for them to understand the difference between being heroic and villainous.

Quote from: tenbones;1057919In fantasy - Sauron was just trying to establish world order where everyone would be equal under his Administration. All those pesky white-patriarchal humans and elves were denying resources to those Humanoids of Color. Sauron embraces diversity in his forces to prove that diversity is strength - Orcs, Goblins, Trolls and Southrons all worked together to smash the Imperial Colonialists from Valinor. It's all relative! Heh

Huh. I'm running an upcoming game like the latter one. I'm curious what you'd think of it, but from this view it's the opposite of politically incorrect (hence the thread title).

It's called "Out from the Temple", and the convention description goes like:

QuoteFor ages, the Temple of the Elements has been in near ruins, with the few poor souls trying to keep alive this once-great spiritual center. But now the temple is threatened by the gathering forces of evil lurking in nearby camps and strongholds. As adventurous new visitors to the temple, you are recruited to push back the encroaching evil.

This is a classic D&D game using 5th edition, but playing so-called monsters defending their underground homes and places of worship.

I thought of it as a twist on the usual mode of play. The PCs band together and interact socially in the dungeon, and then go out to an evil town and fight. It's not in Middle Earth or a typical D&D world, but instead one where the good / civilized races are the ones that are evil in standard D&D.

Some of the character descriptions for the premade characters I have are below:

QuoteOrc paladin
Your people, the orcs, have always lived simply and plainly. They work hard and shun the fancy trappings of other races. An orcish tool will never be as beautiful as drow handiwork, but it will do its job dependably. Orcs till the soil and make a living even in places that other races avoid as wastelands. The elves have their green forests, the dwarves the rich mountains, and the gnomes their fertile hills. Meanwhile, orcs make a simple living in among trackless jungle, treacherous crags, and barren rocky fields.
But you are different than most. You have seen the injustices too often against your people and others. When orcs prosper, then the evil races make war on them and take the fields they cleared and the wilderness they tamed. You are a holy warrior of Gruumsh, and cannot stand to see wrongs unpunished.
Goblin bard
The merry little goblins are often dismissed as frivolous jokers. The caverns rings with their songs - and they prize humor especially. "Where there's a wit, there's a way" goes the old goblin song. But there is more to them than that. Goblins also prize stories, and keep a rich oral tradition. They are also quick and sly. Sometimes they will play pranks on others, but they also sometimes give unseen help to those in need - like mending tools or shoes.
You are a storyteller and loremaster among your people. One of the oldest stories was of the great Temple of the Elements - a structure to many gods grouped by all the elements of the world. There was cooperation between all the civilized races, and its good influence spread wide across both the Underdark and the surface world. But armies of humans and other evil races massed to destroy the temple long ago, and it passed from memory. You have worked to gather others in your quest to find and help restore the temple.
Kobold sorcerer
The inscrutable kobolds are short of stature, but they try to live up to their draconic heritage with their industry and culture. Kobolds ceaselessly build great works honoring their heritage. Dragons are revered not just for their power, but for the variety of virtues they represent. The cool calm of white, the dark rumination of black, the clean purity of green, the sudden inspiration of blue, and the righteous fire of red. Kobolds are particularly known for their deep philosophy and cunning engineering.
You grew up in a family of spider silk weavers, creating beautiful tapestries of dragons and their wonders. So when your sorcerous talent arose as you neared adulthood, it was natural that you wanted to use it to honor draconic values. You had heard for ages of the Temple of the Elements, and set off to find it on your own.

I hadn't thought of this as "SJW" or "politically correct" - but maybe to some people it is. Feel free to post about any of your games that others might regard as politically correct, or commenting about this game and its category.

I have players who come up with reasons - and really mean it - why the Lawful humans are the Real Monsters who need to Die Horribly. And there's my son, who thinks kobolds are cool - the Stonehell kobolds actually are pretty decent overall.

I don't really think of "Kill all Humans" type games as Politically Correct. Politically Correct content IMCs would be stuff like in my Forgotten Realms 'Loudwater' game ca 2013, the local wizard Curuar the Brazen, and the local priest whose name escapes me, 'came out' as a male homosexual couple at Lady Moonfire's Midsummer Ball, to generally positive reaction/mild indifference. I think Lady Moonfire might have taken this opportunity to also be more open about her own relationship with her Tiefling girlfriend, whose name I think was something pornstarish like Tawni Kytten. The latter lesbian couple would be un-PC 'male gaze' on its own, but I think gets a pass for being ancillary to the male couple's announcement.

My mostly left-liberal players really loved that session, just going to a Ball and dancing with their love interests. I think it was the only session in 5.5 years of running that 4e D&D campaign without any combat. Now that's PC. :)

Please tell me that this is set in the temple of elemental evil. It's just too perfect

For years a very major theme in my Wilderlands campaign was battling the explicitly Neo-Nazi-esque Black Sun network, genocidal racial supremacists seeking to gain influence over the ethnic Nerathi people and restore the Empire of Nerath. The initial situation was set up so that, depending on player action, it could either go all Star Trek TNG peace & understanding, or go all 1990s Balkan Civil War.
It went the bad way.
Towards the end of the first phase of the campaign ca 2011/12, a player Jasper had an epiphany - that the violence his PC Varek Tigerclaw was visiting on the Neo-Nerathi and their families in the name of fighting the Black Sun was itself strengthening the Black Sun, by providing both moral justification for their outlook and aggrieved victims looking for revenge.

He said:
"There are no good guys here."

That was great.

I have to say, I think nowadays, with the rise of Antifa and the mainstream media openly promoting "Punch a Nazi", I might well be reluctant to run that game.

Quote from: Azraele;1057970Please tell me that this is set in the temple of elemental evil. It's just too perfect

Well, duh. :-)

Yes, I am using the 1E "Temple of Elemental Evil" module for maps and material - adapted to the alternate world.

Quote from: jhkim;1057964From tenbones' post #62 (https://www.therpgsite.com/showthread.php?39589-Politically-Incorrect-Stuff-in-Your-Gaming-Worlds&p=1057919&viewfull=1#post1057919) in the "Politically Incorrect Stuff in Your Gaming Worlds", there was this:



Huh. I'm running an upcoming game like the latter one. I'm curious what you'd think of it, but from this view it's the opposite of politically incorrect (hence the thread title).

It's called "Out from the Temple", and the convention description goes like:


I thought of it as a twist on the usual mode of play. The PCs band together and interact socially in the dungeon, and then go out to an evil town and fight. It's not in Middle Earth or a typical D&D world, but instead one where the good / civilized races are the ones that are evil in standard D&D.

Some of the character descriptions for the premade characters I have are below:



I hadn't thought of this as "SJW" or "politically correct" - but maybe to some people it is. Feel free to post about any of your games that others might regard as politically correct, or commenting about this game and its category.

I wouldn't consider those setting elements to be politically correct. I find them rather interesting and I think that I would enjoy playing an orc (or goblin or kobold) in a game like that. Playing or running a game where the savage races are the protagonists is something that has interested me for a while and I have written up some setting elements along those lines, though I've never played in such a game.

As for my own games, settings, or characters that might be considered politically correct - there could be a few of them. I don't consider them to be politically correct or SJW, and I'm pretty hyperaware of that sort of thing, but maybe somebody would especially without context.

I played in and helped develop a setting with a nation that had warrior women. These women shaved their heads and had tattoos. This nation also tolerated homosexuality and promiscuity. I played a character from this nation, she was a fighter-rogue and was bisexual. On the topic of warrior women, I have a number of combat oriented female characters over the years - including a warrior priestess of a pagan-like religion and a Pathfinder Skald.

One game I ran a while ago was set in the aftermath of a civil war where a nation ruled by magic users was overthrown by the non-magical peasants and many of the resulting countries (the original nation split up) were far more egalitarian and less hierarchal than typical fantasy or medieval nations.

I have an idea for an upcoming game where there is a dark lord kind of ruler who was defeated years ago and who the players learn wasn't nearly as bad as they were lead to believe.

I once played a lesbian scientist character in a game set in the Firefly universe.

I once created a nation in a RPG setting (it was a collaborative effort by several people) which was entirely black, basically a nation of grassland archers in a hot savannah (like parts of Africa) rather than hot steppes like we see more often.

I don't consider any of these things particularly PC or leftist, at least not in the modern meaning, though.

What makes what I posted pertinent was the implication BY SJW's that this perspective was "politically correct". Your premise isn't "SJW" based on what you wrote, it's becomes so if you're trying to perpetrate that ideology as a method for pushing that ideology for ulterior motives.

I *love* the idea of a Goblinoid game against Humans! I don't find it politically transgressive at all. My god, how long have we been playing RPG's and I've seen it time and again the justification for killing orcs and hobgoblins on sight. Why *couldn't* they be "more" than just XP-pinatas for murder-hoboing "good races"?

SJW's that use this argument are making real-world analogies to fantasy elements to justify their beliefs that the real world is just like Imperial Colonialism and free of context, everyone is just like everyone else. The degree to which this is the actual case is on the world-building side. SJW's don't tend to get this.

This is why in Supers games (and in comics themselves) people that follow this ideology don't *really* seem to understand what being 'heroic' is. Because their views of their beliefs are very surface level and contextually empty. Put into context - their heroes are the worst kind of authoritarian and identity-politics driven characters that will justify their actions by those views. Classic villain stuff. Magneto *is* the apotheosis of a perfectly contextual SJW in practice.


In your example above - all of those things are perfectly fine. Once you add in the deeper cultural context you can really play around with the ethical dilemmas. Threading the needle is establishing the fact that Orcs, Goblins, Trolls etc. are their own distinct cultures that do as general practices.

Define objectively, and you'll know how to do the setup for your Player-Character Humanoids in order to determine what is Politically Correct/Not-Politically Correct. Political correctness is relative. Ethics and Morality aren't.

Monsters! Monsters! is from 1976 and its all about playing Monsters dealing with a world of humans taking our stuff and killing our peeps.
The fantasy genre has loads of stories where traditional power structures are overthrown or flipped from default "good" to default "bad".

Also, as there are plenty of LGBT across the political spectrum so there's no reason for Gay = Leftist. Milo the Lawful Cleric could be an entertaining character.

Quote from: ShieldWife;1057978I wouldn't consider those setting elements to be politically correct.
I don't consider any of these things particularly PC or leftist, at least not in the modern meaning, though.

I'm with Shieldwife here, jhkim. Why would you consider your setting politically correct? I mean, it sounds a lot like the D&D Gazetteer "Orcs of Thar".

Quote from: jhkim;1057972Well, duh. :-)

Yes, I am using the 1E "Temple of Elemental Evil" module for maps and material - adapted to the alternate world.

Jesus dude you've got to share this thing with us. It's *PERFECT*

I don't consider your idea politically correct nor incorrect.

Do you WANT to make it politically correct? Because we could brainstorm the "problematic" parts of your idea into a nice colorless pasty sanitized conforming blank-staring hollow shell of its former self. I'm pretty confident we could (hilariously I might add) fix this shit post-haste. You just hollar bro. I feel like theRPGsite is up to this task.

Quote from: Spinachcat;1057982Monsters! Monsters! is from 1976 and its all about playing Monsters dealing with a world of humans taking our stuff and killing our peeps.
The fantasy genre has loads of stories where traditional power structures are overthrown or flipped from default "good" to default "bad".

The fantasy genre has a lot of variety. I would distinguish between playing the bad guys versus flipping good to bad.

Something like Maleficent or Wicked is more like flipping good to bad. The traditional villain turns out to really a true hero when you see them fully. That's more the genre of my Out from the Temple game.

On the other hand, Monsters! Monsters! as well as similar RPG supplements like RuneQuest's Trollpak or AD&D's Orcs of Thar are about playing the bad guys. It's more like a gangster movie - I can't think of a fantasy film reference, but the novel Grendel would be an example. Monsters! Monsters!  has bits like: "Monsters get experience points for wanton cruelty and destruction above and beyond the call of duty." The setting is unchanged - and the monsters really are evil, and the twist is just who the PCs are.

Nothing wrong with either of these in RPGs, from my view. As for whether it's politically correct - again, I was reacting to tenbones' description of an SJW fantasy game,

Quote from: tenbonesIn fantasy - Sauron was just trying to establish world order where everyone would be equal under his Administration. All those pesky white-patriarchal humans and elves were denying resources to those Humanoids of Color. Sauron embraces diversity in his forces to prove that diversity is strength - Orcs, Goblins, Trolls and Southrons all worked together to smash the Imperial Colonialists from Valinor. It's all relative! Heh

We're now agreed, but that does sound a lot like my game.

Quote from: jhkim;1058014We're now agreed, but that does sound a lot like my game.

The premise of good guys as bad guys and vice versa isn't PC. But Tenbone's description of the "propoganda" does sound PC. Especially the part about them blaming the white patriarchy and claiming diversity of race instead of thought.

Quote from: jhkim;1058014Monsters! Monsters!  has bits like: "Monsters get experience points for wanton cruelty and destruction above and beyond the call of duty." The setting is unchanged - and the monsters really are evil, and the twist is just who the PCs are.

True, but in actual play, players identify with their PCs and quickly want to go from playing villains to playing anti-heroes. You see that with Vampire too.

Also, remember the whole "Can Paladins kill Orc babies?" wankery? I've played in multiple M!M! events where the PCs are trying to save the ugly orc babies from the paladins.  

Few groups can maintain We Be Evil! week after week. Even the Darkblade novels in Warhammer only work because the utterly evil Dark Elf protagonist is constantly dealing with foes that make his vileness look almost acceptable.

AKA, I think your Defend the Temple is a great idea, but I suspect your players may need "positive" motivations long term. In my experience, things in an Evil PC group get wobbly when 1-2 players are really getting into We Be Evil and the other players aren't fully aboard with the wanton cruelty.

But I'm the guy who opened his last M!M! game with "You're all sitting around the lair cooking human babies..." and had the PCs introduce each other as my "Evil Tavern Intro."

Quote from: Spinachcat;1058083Few groups can maintain We Be Evil! week after week. Even the Darkblade novels in Warhammer only work because the utterly evil Dark Elf protagonist is constantly dealing with foes that make his vileness look almost acceptable.

AKA, I think your Defend the Temple is a great idea, but I suspect your players may need "positive" motivations long term. In my experience, things in an Evil PC group get wobbly when 1-2 players are really getting into We Be Evil and the other players aren't fully aboard with the wanton cruelty.

Actually, if you read the background descriptions, the PCs are all very positive. I'm slightly worried that the characters will seem too goody-two-shoes. Here are the other character backgrounds, for a sample -

QuoteDrow wizard
The drow are sometimes accused of too much pride, but you have much to be proud of. Your people have woven swaths of the Underdark into elegant wonderlands, and your society is a model of equality and interdependence. Within the drow's web of social relations, everyone has a part to play. On the other hand, drow can be insular from outsiders, and are often misunderstood. Short-lived races can have trouble seeing time as the drow do.
You are a delver into the mysteries of magic, and are active in breaking out of the drow's insular culture to bring their magic and learning to the rest of civilization. You are free to do this, but have not been supported the way you like. It is your hope that if the Temple of the Elements can be restored, that it will be a place where drow learning is shared with the learning of other races.

Bugbear barbarian
Bugbears are sometimes seen as feral animals, which is partly true. You have wild instincts, but you also have a strong culture of ethics. Your people are built strong and tough compared to your goblin cousins, but you are also known for your honesty and loyalty. You have a strong oral tradition of laws, starting from "Bugbear shall not kill bugbear". You build tools and shelter, but their construction is primitive compared to most civilized races.
You are a classic defender of bugbear values, raised in their traditions and learned in the ways of the wild.

Gnoll ranger
Gnolls are a nomadic people - very tall and thin, resembling a hybrid of orc and hyena. For you as a gnoll, family is everything. From birth, you are known for your affection not only to your immediate family, but to all in your clan. Like your animal cousins, you will often sleep in piles nestled against each other lovingly. Clans are nomadic, wandering from one hunting ground to another. Your people have well-developed crafts and metalworking, but you will also use whatever you find and build only what is strictly necessary. In a gnoll clan, everything is shared and nothing is wasted.
You are a oddity among gnolls, one who goes out alone to scout, find new territory, and recover those who are lost. You still have the affection of your clan that carries you, but you don't need their presence for a long time. Still, it can become lonely - and you are glad for companions. For years, you have believed the lore that the Temple of the Elements is still out there, and can be restored to be a beacon to all the good races. Finally, three months ago you left your clan to prove your claim.

Hobgoblin fighter
Many have commented on the stark contrast of the short, comedic goblins and the tall, stoic hobgoblins. As a hobgoblin, your life revolves around honor and there is little of the goblins' frivolity. It is your duty to make life secure and free for all goblinoids so that frivolity is possible. You do not seek to rule, but all too often the ceaseless attacks of evil races demand military leadership of goblinoid communities. Hobgoblins also have their own fondness for art and esthetics, but it is both simpler and more refined. Hobgoblin poetry, for example, is measured stanzas of certain syllables compared to the goblins' bawdy rhymes and songs.
Personally, you are a knight errant - a staunch travelling defender of goblinoid values. You are trained in warfare but understand that it should only be the last resort. Your mentor instilled in you the seriousness of the endeavor, and you learned of historical battles. You grieved at the slaughter that followed once humans established a keep on the borderlands of your people. They cannot be allowed to gain a foothold, or war and death will inevitably follow.

Yuan-ti cleric
The yuan-ti have always been known for their wisdom and healing, such that their symbol - a staff with snakes winding around it - has become a universal symbol of medicine. The legend goes that ages ago, a wise healer helped a wounded mother snake, and in return the snakes granted him their aid and lore. You, his descendants, bear the gifts of the snake. Each yuan ti has some serpentine features, ranging from minor reptilian features to almost fully snakelike. All forms of yuan-ti, though, continue the founder's tradition. You mostly dwell in temples in safe remote regions, but are known to go out and bring aid to other races.
You are a cleric of the ancient god Merrshaulk, dedicated to helping not just his worshippers, but all those in need of healing and guidance.

I'm still editing these, but I'm mostly satisfied with the takes. The characters are all good and want to help others, for the most part.

The one bit of conflict I foresee is the protective bossiness of the hobgoblin.

This doesnt sound very PC at all.

Its a recurring theme in D&D and other RPGs that goes way way the hell back.

And bemusingly there have been one or two old modules that were PC parodies with Orcs protesting their right to pillage and kobolds standing up to their halfling oppressors or whatnod. There was even an old article introducing "Thought Police" which I believe eventually became a part of Forgotten Realms.

But playing from a "monsters" perspective is in no way PC.

You have the seed of a good idea but need to retool it as others have suggested.

Quote from: Omega;1058137This doesnt sound very PC at all.

If the Drow are described as:

The drow are sometimes accused of too much pride, but you have much to be proud of. Your people have woven swaths of the Underdark into elegant wonderlands, and your society is a model of equality and interdependence. Within the drow's web of social relations, everyone has a part to play. On the other hand, drow can be insular from outsiders, and are often misunderstood. Short-lived races can have trouble seeing time as the drow do.

But actually behave in-game exactly like regular drow, that evokes the PC trope of denying the actuality of other cultures (while demonising the white Western PC advocate's own culture). But if that is the case in game then it's a satire. Traditionally a straight PC setting is something more like Blue Rose or Star Trek: The Next Generation, where the PC worldview is true. Nowadays now that PC has become more hate-filled, it may be one of those Punch A Nazi settings - but that can easily slide over to standard right wing strength-through-violence, crush-our-enemies tropes. Being an Orc crushing Humans is really not much different from being a Human crushing Orcs.

At this point, I'm more interested in feedback on the specific "Out from the Temple" game idea than in the label of political correctness. That is, regardless of the politics, does it sound like a fun game to you?  Azraele seemed to like the idea a lot as-is.

Quote from: Omega;1058137But playing from a "monsters" perspective is in no way PC.

You have the seed of a good idea but need to retool it as others have suggested.

Do you have any specific suggestions for retooling? Spinachcat suggested more positive motivations, but that's based on a misunderstanding, I think. As I see it, the PCs have plenty of positive motivations. I'll try to post more about the scenario and action later.

Quote from: S'mon;1058161If the Drow are described as:

The drow are sometimes accused of too much pride, but you have much to be proud of. Your people have woven swaths of the Underdark into elegant wonderlands, and your society is a model of equality and interdependence. Within the drow's web of social relations, everyone has a part to play. On the other hand, drow can be insular from outsiders, and are often misunderstood. Short-lived races can have trouble seeing time as the drow do.

But actually behave in-game exactly like regular drow, that evokes the PC trope of denying the actuality of other cultures (while demonising the white Western PC advocate's own culture). But if that is the case in game then it's a satire. Traditionally a straight PC setting is something more like Blue Rose or Star Trek: The Next Generation, where the PC worldview is true. Nowadays now that PC has become more hate-filled, it may be one of those Punch A Nazi settings - but that can easily slide over to standard right wing strength-through-violence, crush-our-enemies tropes. Being an Orc crushing Humans is really not much different from being a Human crushing Orcs.

Just for clarity, my intent is that the descriptions are all honest. There might be some bias in presentation (hobgoblins see goblins as silly, goblins see hobgoblins as bossy), but the facts are correct. I wanted to keep the association of spiders and dark of the drow, along with general elfin qualities like long life and elegant grace - but dropping evil traits like slavery and so forth. I considered modeling them more on Amazons, but I thought that didn't fit well with the imagery of spiders, dark, and elves.

Being an orc crushing humans is pretty similar to being a human crushing orcs, I'd agree - but I think it should be an interesting change of pace. In particular, I think these reversed races will be more interesting to play than some other mix of non-standard races (like say aarakocra, aasimar, genasi, goliath, shifter, tabaxi).

In my Traveller universe, in Imperial society gender stereotypes are nonexistent. For example, for "white tie" events you either wear your full dress uniform or (if you work in an occupation that has no uniforms and aren't even a reservist, poor you) a floor-length evening gown - no matter your gender.
But these folks are still exploitative, militaristic, imperialistic (who would have thought!), and a lot of other -istic, too!

Quote from: jhkim;1058216I think it should be an interesting change of pace. In particular, I think these reversed races will be more interesting to play than some other mix of non-standard races (like say aarakocra, aasimar, genasi, goliath, shifter, tabaxi).

Sure, I think your idea should work well. If the drow, goblins etc believe that Not All Humans Are Like That and look for the One Good Human then to my mind that reflects the PC left-liberal views of eg STTNG better than a Kill All Humans/Kill All White Men type settings. Inglorious Basterds, for instance, may be all about slaughtering Nazis, but is a very long way from being Politically Correct. Like Starship Troopers, it seemed more aimed at exposing the dark heart of every man and drawing a moral equivalence between Nazi and Anti-Nazi, and getting away with it too.

I think this kind of thing works best when the players have a real moral choice of how to play it, like my Black Sun campaign supra.Will they seek peaceful coexistence with the humans, or try to annihilate them? Which is best?

Quote from: jhkimI think it should be an interesting change of pace. In particular, I think these reversed races will be more interesting to play than some other mix of non-standard races (like say aarakocra, aasimar, genasi, goliath, shifter, tabaxi).

Quote from: S'mon;1058220Sure, I think your idea should work well. If the drow, goblins etc believe that Not All Humans Are Like That and look for the One Good Human then to my mind that reflects the PC left-liberal views of eg STTNG better than a Kill All Humans/Kill All White Men type settings. Inglorious Basterds, for instance, may be all about slaughtering Nazis, but is a very long way from being Politically Correct. Like Starship Troopers, it seemed more aimed at exposing the dark heart of every man and drawing a moral equivalence between Nazi and Anti-Nazi, and getting away with it too.

I think this kind of thing works best when the players have a real moral choice of how to play it, like my Black Sun campaign supra.Will they seek peaceful coexistence with the humans, or try to annihilate them? Which is best?

In my experience of standard medieval fantasy, moral dilemmas over whether to kill orcs or peacefully coexist with them have often gone over really flat. Sometimes the players just want to kill things, and then the GM feels slighted for their ignoring the depth of his setting. Alternately, it becomes a foregone conclusion that of course peace is the best answer, and play lacks satisfying action or resolution. I've seen moral dilemmas work well in other settings / genres, but it hasn't gone over well for me in the context of orcs and similar.

Based on this, my plan was to go with this as more straight. Humans are evil and warlike, and the way to solve things is to fight them off.

Jhkim, are you flipping the alignments? AKA, the humans are evil alignments and the monsters are good alignments? If so, that solves much of the "problem" of an evil party since you're playing a Mirror Universe Fantasy which would be cool.

Or are the alignments the same, but the perspective changed? AKA, taking human slaves and sacrificing them to Lolth is the right thing to do.

BTW, the character briefs are good.

Quote from: Spinachcat;1058230Jhkim, are you flipping the alignments? AKA, the humans are evil alignments and the monsters are good alignments? If so, that solves much of the "problem" of an evil party since you're playing a Mirror Universe Fantasy which would be cool.

Or are the alignments the same, but the perspective changed? AKA, taking human slaves and sacrificing them to Lolth is the right thing to do.

BTW, the character briefs are good.

Yes, I'm flipping the alignments. I thought that was implied by the descriptions, but just to be explicit - orcs and goblins really are mostly peaceful and good aligned. I refer to them as the "civilized races" in general. Individuals or small groups can be evil, and even good-aligned people they can have major flaws - but as a whole their society is usually good-aligned.

Humans and demi-humans are generally evil aligned. They takes slaves, torture, and are constantly warring - plus other evil tendencies.

I was not sure if the descriptions were simply their perspectives on their justified actions or whether it was a Mirror Universe.

It sounds like a fun campaign.

Quote from: jhkim;1058229In my experience of standard medieval fantasy, moral dilemmas over whether to kill orcs or peacefully coexist with them have often gone over really flat. Sometimes the players just want to kill things, and then the GM feels slighted for their ignoring the depth of his setting. Alternately, it becomes a foregone conclusion that of course peace is the best answer, and play lacks satisfying action or resolution. I've seen moral dilemmas work well in other settings / genres, but it hasn't gone over well for me in the context of orcs and similar.

It worked well for me, but the PCs were fighting humans who were their former friends, neighbours and allies. Not orcs. Seeing them as orcs was what caused the PCs to lose the campaign; but it was still a very satisfying experience.

Quote from: jhkimIn my experience of standard medieval fantasy, moral dilemmas over whether to kill orcs or peacefully coexist with them have often gone over really flat. Sometimes the players just want to kill things, and then the GM feels slighted for their ignoring the depth of his setting. Alternately, it becomes a foregone conclusion that of course peace is the best answer, and play lacks satisfying action or resolution. I've seen moral dilemmas work well in other settings / genres, but it hasn't gone over well for me in the context of orcs and similar.

Quote from: S'mon;1058241It worked well for me, but the PCs were fighting humans who were their former friends, neighbours and allies. Not orcs. Seeing them as orcs was what caused the PCs to lose the campaign; but it was still a very satisfying experience.

OK, I can see that working. But in the case of my game, I've got a setup of orcs vs humans. I feel like it wouldn't be fitting for the humans to be former friends, neighbors, and allies to the orcs. It seems opposed to the whole reversal theme.

Given a setup of humans vs. orcs, my plan was for it to be more about killing the bad guys. There can be roleplay opportunities and/or moral dilemmas like sacrifices made, conflicting priorities, and so forth. However, the bad guys aren't misunderstood, they're just bad.

I'd still be curious about your thoughts.

Quote from: jhkim;1058245Given a setup of humans vs. orcs, my plan was for it to be more about killing the bad guys. There can be roleplay opportunities and/or moral dilemmas like sacrifices made, conflicting priorities, and so forth. However, the bad guys aren't misunderstood, they're just bad.

I'd still be curious about your thoughts.

I think you'll have a fun campaign? :)

You can use all that stuff like Village of Hommlet and Keep on the Borderlands in reverse - PCs gather at the Moat House, are briefed by the goodly renegade human Lolthist Lareth the Beautiful, and go attack the evil Realm of Man, driving the forces of Chaos back from the Borderlands even to the walls of their foul pestilent cities.

Quote from: jhkim;1057964Orc paladin
Your people, the orcs, have always lived simply and plainly. They work hard and shun the fancy trappings of other races. An orcish tool will never be as beautiful as drow handiwork, but it will do its job dependably. Orcs till the soil and make a living even in places that other races avoid as wastelands. The elves have their green forests, the dwarves the rich mountains, and the gnomes their fertile hills. Meanwhile, orcs make a simple living in among trackless jungle, treacherous crags, and barren rocky fields.
But you are different than most. You have seen the injustices too often against your people and others. When orcs prosper, then the evil races make war on them and take the fields they cleared and the wilderness they tamed. You are a holy warrior of Gruumsh, and cannot stand to see wrongs unpunished.

Goblin bard
The merry little goblins are often dismissed as frivolous jokers. The caverns rings with their songs - and they prize humor especially. "Where there's a wit, there's a way" goes the old goblin song. But there is more to them than that. Goblins also prize stories, and keep a rich oral tradition. They are also quick and sly. Sometimes they will play pranks on others, but they also sometimes give unseen help to those in need - like mending tools or shoes.
You are a storyteller and loremaster among your people. One of the oldest stories was of the great Temple of the Elements - a structure to many gods grouped by all the elements of the world. There was cooperation between all the civilized races, and its good influence spread wide across both the Underdark and the surface world. But armies of humans and other evil races massed to destroy the temple long ago, and it passed from memory. You have worked to gather others in your quest to find and help restore the temple.

Kobold sorcerer
The inscrutable kobolds are short of stature, but they try to live up to their draconic heritage with their industry and culture. Kobolds ceaselessly build great works honoring their heritage. Dragons are revered not just for their power, but for the variety of virtues they represent. The cool calm of white, the dark rumination of black, the clean purity of green, the sudden inspiration of blue, and the righteous fire of red. Kobolds are particularly known for their deep philosophy and cunning engineering.
You grew up in a family of spider silk weavers, creating beautiful tapestries of dragons and their wonders. So when your sorcerous talent arose as you neared adulthood, it was natural that you wanted to use it to honor draconic values. You had heard for ages of the Temple of the Elements, and set off to find it on your own.

Drow wizard
The drow are sometimes accused of too much pride, but you have much to be proud of. Your people have woven swaths of the Underdark into elegant wonderlands, and your society is a model of equality and interdependence. Within the drow's web of social relations, everyone has a part to play. On the other hand, drow can be insular from outsiders, and are often misunderstood. Short-lived races can have trouble seeing time as the drow do.
You are a delver into the mysteries of magic, and are active in breaking out of the drow's insular culture to bring their magic and learning to the rest of civilization. You are free to do this, but have not been supported the way you like. It is your hope that if the Temple of the Elements can be restored, that it will be a place where drow learning is shared with the learning of other races.

Bugbear barbarian
Bugbears are sometimes seen as feral animals, which is partly true. You have wild instincts, but you also have a strong culture of ethics. Your people are built strong and tough compared to your goblin cousins, but you are also known for your honesty and loyalty. You have a strong oral tradition of laws, starting from "Bugbear shall not kill bugbear". You build tools and shelter, but their construction is primitive compared to most civilized races.
You are a classic defender of bugbear values, raised in their traditions and learned in the ways of the wild.

Gnoll ranger
Gnolls are a nomadic people - very tall and thin, resembling a hybrid of orc and hyena. For you as a gnoll, family is everything. From birth, you are known for your affection not only to your immediate family, but to all in your clan. Like your animal cousins, you will often sleep in piles nestled against each other lovingly. Clans are nomadic, wandering from one hunting ground to another. Your people have well-developed crafts and metalworking, but you will also use whatever you find and build only what is strictly necessary. In a gnoll clan, everything is shared and nothing is wasted.
You are a oddity among gnolls, one who goes out alone to scout, find new territory, and recover those who are lost. You still have the affection of your clan that carries you, but you don't need their presence for a long time. Still, it can become lonely - and you are glad for companions. For years, you have believed the lore that the Temple of the Elements is still out there, and can be restored to be a beacon to all the good races. Finally, three months ago you left your clan to prove your claim.

Hobgoblin fighter
Many have commented on the stark contrast of the short, comedic goblins and the tall, stoic hobgoblins. As a hobgoblin, your life revolves around honor and there is little of the goblins' frivolity. It is your duty to make life secure and free for all goblinoids so that frivolity is possible. You do not seek to rule, but all too often the ceaseless attacks of evil races demand military leadership of goblinoid communities. Hobgoblins also have their own fondness for art and esthetics, but it is both simpler and more refined. Hobgoblin poetry, for example, is measured stanzas of certain syllables compared to the goblins' bawdy rhymes and songs.
Personally, you are a knight errant - a staunch travelling defender of goblinoid values. You are trained in warfare but understand that it should only be the last resort. Your mentor instilled in you the seriousness of the endeavor, and you learned of historical battles. You grieved at the slaughter that followed once humans established a keep on the borderlands of your people. They cannot be allowed to gain a foothold, or war and death will inevitably follow.

Yuan-ti cleric
The yuan-ti have always been known for their wisdom and healing, such that their symbol - a staff with snakes winding around it - has become a universal symbol of medicine. The legend goes that ages ago, a wise healer helped a wounded mother snake, and in return the snakes granted him their aid and lore. You, his descendants, bear the gifts of the snake. Each yuan ti has some serpentine features, ranging from minor reptilian features to almost fully snakelike. All forms of yuan-ti, though, continue the founder's tradition. You mostly dwell in temples in safe remote regions, but are known to go out and bring aid to other races.
You are a cleric of the ancient god Merrshaulk, dedicated to helping not just his worshippers, but all those in need of healing and guidance.

Thank you for some great ideas to liven up areas of my game.

If you have Democrats in your game setting, then it's PC for all your players who may be sick of the 1984-esque genre by now.

as a palladium fan I have to say my system of choice ended up being the polar opposite of sjw... Its got like an entire slave race of blind women, the near entirity of humanity as a slave class in some parts of the world, and our own nazi analogue.  Players cant fight for social justice if your world is already full of it?  Not a problem.  Its got glittergirls... Because of COURSE you need a special redesign of the glitterboy from the ground up if you're a female pilot.

Pretty much all of my campaigns, and I think a majority of all RPG campaigns period, involve a significantly diverse group of people of varied genders and races working together to protect innocents against destructive evil.

This is essentially the premise behind revisionist Tolkien fanfiction like The Last Ringbearer, Morlindale and The Black Book of Arda. It is also the motivation of the sympathetic villains in the Japanese comic/cartoon Drifters. I love the idea myself because it completely upends fantasy cliches.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1058527This is essentially the premise behind revisionist Tolkien fanfiction like The Last Ringbearer, Morlindale and The Black Book of Arda. It is also the motivation of the sympathetic villains in the Japanese comic/cartoon Drifters. I love the idea myself because it completely upends fantasy cliches.

I've never heard of that; in what way do you mean it 'upends fantasy cliches'?  Because at this point, both 'anti-hero' and "the villain actually has some kind of sympathetic motive for what he's doing because we need to show that no one is truly evil" ARE fantasy cliches. Which have been done to death.

Quote from: RPGPundit;1058769"the villain actually has some kind of sympathetic motive for what he's doing because we need to show that no one is truly evil" ARE fantasy cliches.

Oh, my villains are truly evil, but they think they're good. I actually have good fun with the players when the villain has a chance to monologue - it becomes a dialogue, and he explains why kidnapping and enslaving people and sacrificing them to his god is actually Right and Proper, and they are actually the bad guys. "You broke into my house, stole my property, murdered my servants, and my pets! and that is what grieves me the most... you killed my snake."

Ever listen to some murderer in prison talk about themselves? They're self-serving, self-pitying motherfuckers. I play that up! Occasionally a player will go, "Well actually... no, wait! Fuck that guy!" It's great fun.

Quote from: RPGPundit;1058769I've never heard of that; in what way do you mean it 'upends fantasy cliches'?  Because at this point, both 'anti-hero' and "the villain actually has some kind of sympathetic motive for what he's doing because we need to show that no one is truly evil" ARE fantasy cliches. Which have been done to death.

Really? In that case, I am unsure what constitutes a cliche anymore.

The Tolkien fanfics are historical revisionist propaganda which reverse the morality of the original story. Beyond the Dawn by Olga Chigirinskaya, Ring of Darkness by Nick Perumov, Black Book of Arda by Nataliya Vasilieva, The Last Ringbearer by Kirill Eskov and The Great Game by Nataliya Nekrasova are the five most prominent Russian Tolkien fanfics. Since copyright law is lax over there, they have been professionally published in paperback format. They generally depict Morgoth and Sauron as the heroes or even flawed human beings and claims The Lord of the Rings is heavily embellished propaganda. Morlindale: Song of Illuminate Darkness by Aldona Kalinowska is an English fanfic written in the same vein, which was published professionally as a parody of Tolkien to avoid claims of copyright infringement.

Drifters by Kouta Hirano, originally a comic and later adapted to a cartoon, depicts historical figures like Hannibal and Oda Nobunaga transported into a generic D&D setting and forced into a conflict with other historical figures like Rasputin and Joan of Arc over the fate of humanity. Like the Tolkien parodies, it depicts orcs and goblins as oppressed peoples being led to salvation by a messianic figure. Basically it is the sort of thing that alternate history fans would go crazy over.

I wouldn't go crazy over any of those.

You know what would REALLY be an "upending of a cliche" in 2018? A series that presented priests as basically good, most knights as basically decent, and crusades as motivated by religion.

Based on your character descriptions, which are great, you should have a fun campaign. But I don't know that you've done anything PC by simply turning the cliché on its head. In the gaming world I run Goblins and Hobgoblins are evil because their religion and society make it impossible to tolerate them as neighbors. It isn't any more genetic than the Aztec propensity to capture and sacrifice your men. Just as many descendants of the Aztecs live unexceptionable lives today, there have been Hobgoblins and Goblins who are, for one reason or another, have left their societies and, if they survived, made their way into the wider world. Several have been player characters.

I am reminded of "Your enemy is never a villain in his own eyes" but I also remember that the character who said that acknowledged that you still might have to kill him. I think it was Lazarus Long; I know that the author was Robert Heinlein.

Quote from: RPGPundit;1058986I wouldn't go crazy over any of those.

You know what would REALLY be an "upending of a cliche" in 2018? A series that presented priests as basically good, most knights as basically decent, and crusades as motivated by religion.

Sooooo, what I've been trying to write for nearly two years now.

Quote from: RPGPundit;1058986I wouldn't go crazy over any of those.

You know what would REALLY be an "upending of a cliche" in 2018? A series that presented priests as basically good, most knights as basically decent, and crusades as motivated by religion.

RPGPundit - that's exactly what my game is doing, I feel. All of the characters - including the knight and priest - are portrayed as fundamentally good, decent people. And they're engaged in defending and restoring the temple because of genuine religious faith. So while it's not historical or traditional fantasy, I think it otherwise fits what you're saying.

Your reply mildly implies a political spin on this reversal, when most of the other posters have agreed that there isn't anything politically correct about it. (Which I've concurred with.) I'm not familiar with the specific fiction that BoxCrayonTales cites, but would you be interested in playing a game like I pitched?

The OP sounds like a lot of good ideas to me to shake up a campaign. I don't have anything PC in mine that I can think of, at least I hope I don't have anything that boring.

Quote from: RPGPundit;1058986I wouldn't go crazy over any of those.

You know what would REALLY be an "upending of a cliche" in 2018? A series that presented priests as basically good, most knights as basically decent, and crusades as motivated by religion.

The priests as basically good, most knights as basically decent are the way we play since it is the opposite of the real world and we do play to escape the dystopia that the world has always been. Haven't had any crusades and don't plan too.

Update - I'll be running the one-shot game at Big Bad Con this Sunday, and I've also convinced some friends to give the concept a try as a new group. We're still working out scheduling, so I'm not sure how often or how long it will run yet. We'll start out and see.

Quote from: wranderson;1059441The OP sounds like a lot of good ideas to me to shake up a campaign. I don't have anything PC in mine that I can think of, at least I hope I don't have anything that boring.

Thanks.

Everyone is a hero is their own story. The orks on a crusade to drive the humans back out of orcish territory will be full of righteousness and moral certainty, just like the humans who rally to ensure that humans can expand where they wish to and drive the orcs out of lands that they want.

Lawful good people on both sides, but lawful and good depend on which side you're on and who's good you are working for.

Quote from: Altheus;1060052Everyone is a hero is their own story. The orks on a crusade to drive the humans back out of orcish territory will be full of righteousness and moral certainty, just like the humans who rally to ensure that humans can expand where they wish to and drive the orcs out of lands that they want.

Lawful good people on both sides, but lawful and good depend on which side you're on and who's good you are working for.

reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

Good and evil are is not relative or culturally defined in D&D. They're primal, cosmic forces.

Quote from: fearsomepirate;1060174Good and evil are is not relative or culturally defined in D&D. They're primal, cosmic forces.

They CAN be, but they don't HAVE to be.

You could be playing B/X for example, where there is only Law and Chaos as cosmic forces and good/evil is just a point of view.

More to the point, "Every Character is the Hero of His Own Story" isn't saying there are no bad guys. It's actually a piece of professional writing advice stating that every character in the story is engaging in actions they are able to justify as right to themselves. It's a means of ensuring your story isn't a crappy 80's fantasy novel like Dragonlance was.

GRRM reworded the advice to make it seem like something profound he came up with himself, but the message is essentially the same; "The villain is the hero of the other side."

Put in terms of cosmic forces; people don't just decide I'm going to devote myself to the principle of cosmic evil for shits and giggles (unless they're an utter psychopath). There's some "good" benefit they see that they are able to justify as being worth the price of that devotion to cosmic evil, be it the ability to punish those they feel have wronged them (even if others get hurt in the process) or institute their utopian vision (at the cost of some broken eggs).

Honestly, this goes right back to my previous point about the biggest problem with the SJW crew isn't even them directly; it's the way they provoke kneejerk reactions for or against things just because they're the opposite of what they're for. The SJWs drive those opposed to them towards hatred because hatred leads their opponents to make stupid decisions just like they do. They don't care that they're hypocrites, they'll hammer you over every stupid decision your hatred of them leads you to embrace and laugh as as your hatred splits you apart from others who might share 80% of the same sentiments because they don't share that other 20%. Divide and conquer is how they win.

The idea that you can only do D&D if good and evil (and/or law and chaos) are actual cosmic forces instead of  just moral/ethical principles in an uncertain world (ex. one with distant, even silent, gods whose only interaction with the mortal world is the granting of spells and divinations just get agents of the gods who might know much about the mortal world, but are as in the dark about the actual motives of the gods as the mortals are... i.e. the setup in the Eberron and Arcanis settings) is every bit as restrictive a viewpoint as the SJW's moral relativism.

There's plenty of room in the tent for people who want more or less cosmic good/evil in their fantasy RPGs. Just because someone wants a game where it's more shades of grey doesn't automatically make them a SJW, but the SJWs would love for the people they want to destroy to divide themselves up by denying those people a place in the non-SJW part of the hobby; because that's how they win... get people to divide into small enough factions that they can pick them off one at a time.

I do like writing stuff that might be considered politically correct. I like changing some monsters to be less racist, sexist or whatever the problem is.

For example, I changed hags from a race to the result of a ritual or pact. Anyone may technically become a hag, although since the ritual was created by the Queen of the Witches it will work the best on humanoid women. The various hexed creatures created by the ritual are used as servants and family substitutes by the hags. Some hags are good, like Granny Pitchbottom who pinches the bottoms of misbehaving children and heals injured travelers who get lost in the forest. The hags that get attention are evil, like the Sorceress Thaegan who turns cities into cursed lakes out of envy and creates monstrous man-eating children to terrorize the land.

For example, I changed goblinoids to resemble fictional portrayals like Disney's Sleeping Beauty, Jim Henson's Labyrinth, The Princess and the Goblin, and Secrets of Elvendale. Goblins themselves come in countless varieties, from kindly hearth goblins to powerful monarchs who outwardly resemble elves. Goblin communities generally reflect the proclivities and means of their reigning monarch. Maleficent's goblins are morons who mindlessly follow her orders and never consider rebellion when she mistreats them. Jareth's goblins are whimsical bohemians created from all the children he kidnapped over the centuries who follow him seemingly because he bursts into an enjoyable song and dance number every five minutes. Cronan's goblins are innocent villagers he compels to perform his dirty work with his cursed crown.

Convention Report -

So I ran a four-hour convention game at Big Bad Con using these characters I described. I had four players, and they picked the Gnoll Ranger, Hobgoblin Fighter, Orc Paladin, and Yuan-Ti Cleric. Everyone had fun and liked it a lot, I think. The four players were all reasonably experienced D&D5 players.

Based on the character selection, I paired them up - so the hobgoblin was a soldier stationed at a goblinoid fortress on the edge of civilization, where the gnoll was an irregular scout / native guide they traded with. I pulled from The Red Hand of Doom and made it Vraath Keep. The hobgoblin was an officer in the troops there, and the gnoll was a temporarily employed scout. Meanwhile, the yuan-ti had found ancient scrolls in his own temple that pieced together where the Temple of the Elements was. He knew of the orc paladin, and they went together to find it.

I played out the yuan-ti and orc arriving at the keep and being greeted by the goblin guards, who were silly and teased them with a lot of jokes. The keep commander was then very apologetic to the holy men who were visiting, and welcomed them in. Since they didn't know for sure where they were, the commander offered his best officer to accompany them, and the scout volunteered.

They followed the yuan-ti's notes, searching through the wilderness for two weeks, and at one point in the camp were attacked by human bandits. We played out the fight, and some bandits escaped - but they captured one. He told them about the human lairs at Hommlet and at Nulb, but didn't know anything about the temple. The gnoll ranger eventually became protective of the prisoner, but the orc paladin was always outraged by his misdeeds and hit him a few times, and was the bad cop to the yuan-ti's good cop.

They went on to eventually find the temple deep in what is now wilderness. There were only a few refugee kobolds there maintaining the temple, at least on the surface, and they talked to them. Their leader informed the party that they were planning to start evacuating the temple, because it was only a matter of time before humans and other evil races came to destroy it. They told the story that there was a remote commune that the temple was in communication with. They had been lured in by a human named Lareth who promised peace with them, but they were betrayed and almost all were killed and captured by the warlord Rufus of Hommlet. The temple kobolds felt it was only a matter of time before one of the prisoners was forced to tell of the temple and its location, and then the evil races would come and destroy them for good.

However, their human prisoner Ramos told them that while Rufus was fearsome, he was isolated and had no army. If he were silenced and the prisoners freed, then the temple might remain a secret from the wider tribes of humans and others. So they scouted out Hommlet, and prepared an assault on Rufus' tower. First they went to the slave pens and freed a bunch of them. The freed slaves made a distraction that drew most of the troops out of the tower, then they burst in and finally took out Rufus and Burne.

At that point, we were out of time, and I thanked them. I had some good role-playing at the keep and at the temple, two setpiece fights (the bandit attack and the tower assault), and some partly hand-waved exploration like the scouting of Hommlet, planning the attack, and freeing the slaves. I thought it did pretty well what I was setting out for, being a classic D&D role-playing and action that was more interesting and fresh (for us, at least) for the change of setting.

Hope you didn't mention that any Yuan-Ti temples were "aztec-like".  Nowadays apparently that's a Hate Crime.

Quote from: RPGPundit;1060810Hope you didn't mention that any Yuan-Ti temples were "aztec-like".  Nowadays apparently that's a Hate Crime.

TIL the Aztecs had no distinct architecture.

Quote from: RPGPundit;1060810Hope you didn't mention that any Yuan-Ti temples were "aztec-like".  Nowadays apparently that's a Hate Crime.

LOL yeah... pretty soon geometric shapes will be assigned cultures or rendered outright racist as a descriptor. Think of the poor dice.

Quote from: tenbones;1060828LOL yeah... pretty soon geometric shapes will be assigned cultures or rendered outright racist as a descriptor. Think of the poor dice.

- Dice are based on the Platonic Solids which were were developed by a European so are automatically racist.

- Cards are cultural appropriation of Tarot Cards.

- Rock, Paper, Scissors is ableist against people without functioning hands.

- Spending resources to gain benefits is promoting Capitalism and therefore the oppression of all peoples.

The saddest part about the above list is that life's little NPCs will see the above as helpful suggestions rather than as mockery.

Quote from: Chris24601;1060840- Dice are based on the Platonic Solids which were were developed by a European so are automatically racist.

- Cards are cultural appropriation of Tarot Cards.

- Rock, Paper, Scissors is ableist against people without functioning hands.

- Spending resources to gain benefits is promoting Capitalism and therefore the oppression of all peoples.

The saddest part about the above list is that life's little NPCs will see the above as helpful suggestions rather than as mockery.

Pundit will have his day - Diceless RPG's to rule them all.

As more of a throwaway line than anything else... that kiiiind of gained a life of its own, my orcs ended up being all about replacing the racist society of men with the egalitarian society of the orc! (A society that views only one thing as good and suppresses, via murder, everyone who disagrees.)

It felt like a fitting analogy for PC.

Quote from: RPGPundit;1060810Hope you didn't mention that any Yuan-Ti temples were "aztec-like".  Nowadays apparently that's a Hate Crime.

Unless the modern descendants of the Aztecs make an attempt to reclaim their ancestors' ethnic identity (and they have an equal claim on the Paleohispanic and possibly Celtic cultures due to intermarriage with conquistadors), it is not possible to be prejudiced against a dead civilization. That's like saying that fictional cultures inspired by the vikings are racist against modern day Scandinavian peoples even though most modern Scandinavians would probably consider vikings (who represent just one profession of ancient Norse culture) to be highly immoral at best.

As long as a fictional culture is written with respect, I do not see how it can be racist because racism by definition is a lack of respect.

For example, the Dothraki are racist because they are written as caricatures very loosely based on actual cultures according to George Martin. The fanfiction that rewrites them into a fully-fleshed out culture who do things like wear armor and write poetry are not racist.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1061041As long as a fictional culture is written with respect, I do not see how it can be racist because racism by definition is a lack of respect.

For example, the Dothraki are racist because they are written as caricatures very loosely based on actual cultures according to George Martin. The fanfiction that rewrites them into a fully-fleshed out culture who do things like wear armor and write poetry are not racist.

Wait... because you subjectively find them a caricature - that's "racist"? Sounds a little extreme. Especially considering the entire premise of the Dothraki is essentially *spoiler* a big hollow MacGuffin (at least up to the last book). Why can't they be just what they are - a fictional creation? I don't see what exactly the Dothraki impugns upon horse-steppe cultures.

Or are you saying other people feel this way?

What am I missing?

Quote from: tenbones;1061044What am I missing?

The racism, apparently.

Quote from: tenbones;1060857Pundit will have his day - Diceless RPG's to rule them all.

Those aren't RPGs, they're storygames. ;)

Quote from: tenbones;1060857Pundit will have his day - Diceless RPG's to rule them all.

Those aren't RPGs, they're storygames. ;)

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1061041For example, the Dothraki are racist because they are written as caricatures very loosely based on actual cultures according to George Martin.

So any fiction that is loosely based on reality is wicked and leads young souls astray. Well, at least our society's almost completely gotten rid of dancing and card-playing.

Quote from: tenbones;1061044Wait... because you subjectively find them a caricature - that's "racist"? Sounds a little extreme. Especially considering the entire premise of the Dothraki is essentially *spoiler* a big hollow MacGuffin (at least up to the last book). Why can't they be just what they are - a fictional creation? I don't see what exactly the Dothraki impugns upon horse-steppe cultures.

Or are you saying other people feel this way?

What am I missing?

This is something lots of people have complained about since the show started airing. Especially because the white cultures in the books are given more depth in comparison.

I tried to frame it as an example of lack of depth equaling lack of respect. That's why I noted elsewhere that the Amazonian orc fiction I read was not racist because it treated the orcs as logical beings with a moral framework.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1061342This is something lots of people have complained about since the show started airing. Especially because the white cultures in the books are given more depth in comparison.

I tried to frame it as an example of lack of depth equaling lack of respect. That's why I noted elsewhere that the Amazonian orc fiction I read was not racist because it treated the orcs as logical beings with a moral framework.

It's extremely judgmental to assume some fictional people in some story-book or TV show is lacking in the kinds of details you'd like to see because of the author's moral turpitude. I don't think you thought through what you said about the Aztecs, either. If someone meaningfully tried to reclaim Aztec heritage, meaning the core structures of Aztec society, and not whatever sanitized version would make white liberals happy, the United States would drop a MOAB on them.

Exactly. Fiction is fiction. It serves itself (the story). To the degree that someone subjectively wants to "read into" any work of fiction and surreptitiously decide that it's "racist" propaganda by not meeting some purity test of representative measure is... crazy.

What *isn't* racist by those standards?

Quote from: fearsomepirate;1061344It's extremely judgmental to assume some fictional people in some story-book or TV show is lacking in the kinds of details you'd like to see because of the author's moral turpitude. I don't think you thought through what you said about the Aztecs, either. If someone meaningfully tried to reclaim Aztec heritage, meaning the core structures of Aztec society, and not whatever sanitized version would make white liberals happy, the United States would drop a MOAB on them.

I do not believe that shallow fantasy cultures exist because of the author is actively malevolent. In my experience most such authors are simply ignorant.

What I said may not be very eloquent, but I was trying to say that writing fictional cultures inspired by historical cultures is not inherently racist so long as the fictional cultures are written with depth and not as an exotic theme park of caricatures for a white protagonist to enjoy.

Quote from: tenbones;1061351Exactly. Fiction is fiction. It serves itself (the story). To the degree that someone subjectively wants to "read into" any work of fiction and surreptitiously decide that it's "racist" propaganda by not meeting some purity test of representative measure is... crazy.

What *isn't* racist by those standards?

There is a difference between deliberately writing racist propaganda and simply writing something insensitive because it is an expected cliche without any self-awareness.

At this point I am considering writing a satire of fantasy cliches in which the protagonist is a dark-skinned prince-in-exile who goes on adventures in the exotic White Continent and brings civilization to the northern barbarians. Assuming that hasn't already been done, has it?

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1061342This is something lots of people have complained about since the show started airing. Especially because the white cultures in the books are given more depth in comparison.

So... since it's a story-vehicle, if Martin decided to coddle the feelings of people that would find his depictions of his fictional MacGuffin to not pass their purity test and scrapped it - he'd still be "racist" because he didn't put them in at all?

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1061342I tried to frame it as an example of lack of depth equaling lack of respect. That's why I noted elsewhere that the Amazonian orc fiction I read was not racist because it treated the orcs as logical beings with a moral framework.

Respect to whom? Dothraki are fictional. They're not strictly Mongolian horsemen. They're not strictly Russian Cossaks. They're not any of them because they're not real and based specifically on a real culture. Borrowed elements? WHO is exactly complaining about this? Mongolians? Russians? Yeah I don't think so.

Curiously - how do you feel about Netflix race-swapping people in Troy? Do you think it's great for the show that Achilles is black or is that racist?

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1061352I do not believe that shallow fantasy cultures exist because of the author is actively malevolent. In my experience most such authors are simply ignorant.

But in the final outcome there is no effective difference. Since when are people in America today that are labeled "racist" treated differently due to ignorance vs. intentionally being racist? That is precisely why we should be a lot more discerning about how we qualify things.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1061352What I said may not be very eloquent, but I was trying to say that writing fictional cultures inspired by historical cultures is not inherently racist so long as the fictional cultures are written with depth and not as an exotic theme park of caricatures for a white protagonist to enjoy.

/sigh. Who gets to make that call? Why we as individuals do. You're literally dancing around the actual problem - you *want* to call him a racist, because you don't like how the fictional Dothraki don't quite meet whatever murky criteria you'd call "respectful". But then you're implying that there is some middle-ground that ignorance can mitigate this "racist" zone... without meeting this "respectful" representation mark - as long as the white-protagonists can't interact with them? That's a lot of unspoken claims for a fictional work.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1061352There is a difference between deliberately writing racist propaganda and simply writing something insensitive because it is an expected cliche without any self-awareness.

Is there? I don't know anyone, personally, that enjoys consuming racist propaganda. I'm sure they're out there. But there are tens of millions of people that enjoy Game of Thrones. I know many of them are Asian. Anecdotally I have an office-worker that is Mongolian/Nepalese and she's a big fan of the series - not once has she ever complained about the Dothraki. Clearly this is a small sample-size, but I'm willing to bet that the only people thinking the Dothraki are a racist representation of *something* are probably liberals from the US/EU.

Which means either we people of color are too stupid to know we're being mocked by racist writers, or we don't know that our cultures are being raped and pillaged for the benefit of fictional white-characters's benefit (which Asians do in their pop-culture NON-STOP... and that's not racist either). OR maybe the cigar is just a cigar?

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1061352At this point I am considering writing a satire of fantasy cliches in which the protagonist is a dark-skinned prince-in-exile who goes on adventures in the exotic White Continent and brings civilization to the northern barbarians. Assuming that hasn't already been done, has it?

So you're saying that if *you* want to commit the very thing your accusing someone else of - on purpose - that's *not* racist?

That is a very curious mental state that seems to be prevalent among those that make these kinds of accusations. Again - it's anecdotal. But literally *every* single person that has made these kinds of claims seem to possess this very same belief.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1061352What I said may not be very eloquent, but I was trying to say that writing fictional cultures inspired by historical cultures is not inherently racist so long as the fictional cultures are written with depth and not as an exotic theme park of caricatures for a white protagonist to enjoy.

So shallow, pulpy fiction is "inherently racist." All fiction must have deep, realistic depictions of cultures that aren't based on northern Europe, or else it's "inherently racist." This is an impossibly idiotic standard. Basically you are claiming that literature that fails to meet some arbitrary quality threshold is a moral failure. You sound like some schoolmarm sternly condemning Treasure Island because it doesn't have any moral lessons about the sinfulness of piracy and lacks any educational value whatsoever.

QuoteThere is a difference between deliberately writing racist propaganda and simply writing something insensitive because it is an expected cliche without any self-awareness.

Are all cliches wicked? Or just cliches involving foreigners? I mean, the hero riding out on his horse to slay the dragon is a thousand-year-old cliche. Is it wicked and naughty to include it? Sturm Brightblade, for example, is a cringey cliche of a tropey version of medieval chivalry that never was. Is that a moral failure on the part of Margaret Weis?

QuoteAt this point I am considering writing a satire of fantasy cliches in which the protagonist is a dark-skinned prince-in-exile who goes on adventures in the exotic White Continent and brings civilization to the northern barbarians. Assuming that hasn't already been done, has it?

You should give him a really weird-sounding name, like "Drizz't Do'Urden."

Quote from: fearsomepirate;1061359You should give him a really weird-sounding name, like "Drizz't Do'Urden."

Drizz't uses scimitars. Culturally appropriated from brown people in another dimension. #YouTooDrizzt

It seems to be in the same vein of accusing someone of racism for being unable to correctly pronounce a name with unfamiliar syllables.

Quote from: tenbones;1061354So... since it's a story-vehicle, if Martin decided to coddle the feelings of people that would find his depictions of his fictional MacGuffin to not pass their purity test and scrapped it - he'd still be "racist" because he didn't put them in at all?

When fans of color wrote Martin to ask why he did not include characters of color in order to appeal to readers of color using the fantasy world history as an excuse, his response was essentially that he was lazy. It never occurred to him to include characters of color beyond the Dothraki, and he's so far along that he cannot be bothered to make up for it now.

Quote from: tenbones;1061354Respect to whom? Dothraki are fictional. They're not strictly Mongolian horsemen. They're not strictly Russian Cossaks. They're not any of them because they're not real and based specifically on a real culture. Borrowed elements? WHO is exactly complaining about this? Mongolians? Russians? Yeah I don't think so.

These people with names from Semitic languages complained:
http://duckofminerva.com/2012/04/dothraki-complaint.html
https://www.salon.com/2012/04/01/is_game_of_thrones_too_white/

Quote from: tenbones;1061354Curiously - how do you feel about Netflix race-swapping people in Troy? Do you think it's great for the show that Achilles is black or is that racist?

That is an excellent example of how complicated this issue is. The Trojan War narrative already had black characters like Ethiopian King Memnon who made major contributions. By definition he would have a court, an army, etc that could set the stage for a mythic depiction of black African culture and its interaction with the Trojan War.  Rather than featuring that, Troy decided to race-swap a few characters who were clearly not African in the original texts and are considered folk heroes. This clearly shows that the people working on the show don't know anything about the original writings and don't care to feature African civilizations at all much less in a positive light. I would think that is extremely racist against black Africans.

Quote from: tenbones;1061356But in the final outcome there is no effective difference. Since when are people in America today that are labeled "racist" treated differently due to ignorance vs. intentionally being racist? That is precisely why we should be a lot more discerning about how we qualify things.

Yes, we should. That I why I prefer to educate and speak in shades of grey when I get the chance rather than mindlessly demonizing everything. Everybody is flawed, yes, but we can always improve and we should strive to. We shouldn't give up or refuse.

Quote from: tenbones;1061356/sigh. Who gets to make that call? Why we as individuals do. You're literally dancing around the actual problem - you *want* to call him a racist, because you don't like how the fictional Dothraki don't quite meet whatever murky criteria you'd call "respectful". But then you're implying that there is some middle-ground that ignorance can mitigate this "racist" zone... without meeting this "respectful" representation mark - as long as the white-protagonists can't interact with them? That's a lot of unspoken claims for a fictional work.

I am not an expert on this. I agree that the middle ground is fallacious. Authors should just take some college courses on race and gender to get at least a basic understanding of what to avoid. I took some courses before the SJWs took off and it really helped me to understand the plight of so-called minorities. It also helps that I grew up among black folks in my childhood so I'm comfortable interacting with them as people rather than suffering white guilt. One of my ancestors fought for the South so I have reason to feel guilt, but that wouldn't accomplish anything.

Quote from: tenbones;1061356Is there? I don't know anyone, personally, that enjoys consuming racist propaganda. I'm sure they're out there. But there are tens of millions of people that enjoy Game of Thrones. I know many of them are Asian. Anecdotally I have an office-worker that is Mongolian/Nepalese and she's a big fan of the series - not once has she ever complained about the Dothraki. Clearly this is a small sample-size, but I'm willing to bet that the only people thinking the Dothraki are a racist representation of *something* are probably liberals from the US/EU.

This is a false equivalency since the Dothraki are not played by actors of East Asian background. The hurdles faced by Asian American actors was discussed heavily when Ghost in the Shell cast a white woman to play a character who was Japanese. The articles I found about Dothraki were written by people with Semitic-sounding names.

Quote from: tenbones;1061356Which means either we people of color are too stupid to know we're being mocked by racist writers, or we don't know that our cultures are being raped and pillaged for the benefit of fictional white-characters's benefit (which Asians do in their pop-culture NON-STOP... and that's not racist either). OR maybe the cigar is just a cigar?

People of color do complain a lot and they get denigrated for it a lot. Both my links above were written by authors with Semitic names.

Quote from: tenbones;1061356So you're saying that if *you* want to commit the very thing your accusing someone else of - on purpose - that's *not* racist?

That is a very curious mental state that seems to be prevalent among those that make these kinds of accusations. Again - it's anecdotal. But literally *every* single person that has made these kinds of claims seem to possess this very same belief.

In a purely technical sense it would be racist. The place of such fiction is complicated by the long history of colonialism the legacy of which still affects the world today. Racism is complicated and cannot be easily boiled to simple axioms; by nature racism is full of double standards due to its place in wider contexts. Both ends of the political spectrum tend to forget this and end up not accomplishing anything besides spewing vitriol.

I feel the best way I can improve things with my meager contribution is to write narratives about it that challenge the prevailing depictions. Right now I am writing a novel about an alien interstellar empire and colonialism and racism are key plot points.

Quote from: fearsomepirate;1061359So shallow, pulpy fiction is "inherently racist." All fiction must have deep, realistic depictions of cultures that aren't based on northern Europe, or else it's "inherently racist." This is an impossibly idiotic standard. Basically you are claiming that literature that fails to meet some arbitrary quality threshold is a moral failure. You sound like some schoolmarm sternly condemning Treasure Island because it doesn't have any moral lessons about the sinfulness of piracy and lacks any educational value whatsoever.

Are all cliches wicked? Or just cliches involving foreigners? I mean, the hero riding out on his horse to slay the dragon is a thousand-year-old cliche. Is it wicked and naughty to include it? Sturm Brightblade, for example, is a cringey cliche of a tropey version of medieval chivalry that never was. Is that a moral failure on the part of Margaret Weis?

I didn't say any of that. You are distorting my words into something unrecognizable.

Quote from: fearsomepirate;1061359You should give him a really weird-sounding name, like "Drizz't Do'Urden."

Quote from: tenbones;1061361Drizz't uses scimitars. Culturally appropriated from brown people in another dimension. #YouTooDrizzt

Quote from: fearsomepirate;1061362It seems to be in the same vein of accusing someone of racism for being unable to correctly pronounce a name with unfamiliar syllables.

Names that English speakers have trouble with present no difficulties for me. In fact, most of the names I have seen English speakers have trouble with are spelled exactly as they are pronounced. I believe the problem stems from the English language having nonsensical spelling which has no relation to actual pronunciation.

So fantasy names invented by English speakers usually end up looking really stupid to me. What is the point of the apostrophe?

Re Game of Thrones, none of the Essos cultures have any depth whatever their race. grrm is very consistent.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1061367I believe the problem stems from the English language having nonsensical spelling which has no relation to actual pronunciation.

This is a very stupid, cartoonish, stereotyping, insulting thing to say about somebody else's language.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1061364When fans of color wrote Martin to ask why he did not include characters of color in order to appeal to readers of color using the fantasy world history as an excuse, his response was essentially that he was lazy. It never occurred to him to include characters of color beyond the Dothraki, and he's so far along that he cannot be bothered to make up for it now.

These people with names from Semitic languages complained:
http://duckofminerva.com/2012/04/dothraki-complaint.html
https://www.salon.com/2012/04/01/is_game_of_thrones_too_white/

I'm happy to respond: This is fiction. The degree to which he needs to bring "authenticity" is commensurate to the degree that people are wading into his fiction looking for problems. I work with a professional fiction editor. Please believe me when I tell you that the only thing that matters in fiction is when it comes down to it - "is it entertaining? Yes? Take my money."

People can speak about the value of literary drivel and artistic nonsense that they want - but as the saying goes, if you're in there looking for problems, the odds are you'll find them. The degree to which you want to pontificate about it - where the links you posted, I could summarily blast because it's conflating the TV show with the BOOKS - two entirely different mediums - yet they make no distinctions between them at all, yet blame Martin for obvious reasons (blame for a thing that is not an actual issue). I mean - who has read the books and thought of the Dothraki as "backward"? Compared to WHOM? They controlled an entire *continent*. They had weapons proper to their lifestyle. Armor as well. These blogs are completely ill-considered. And Martin at least got that right. The assumption based on those links being that in order to show a non-European race they have to scour any potential reference that can be assumed based on GEOGRAPHY - you know, dark skinned people come from the equatorial regions of the world where mode of dress and warfare would EXEMPLIFY that reality? Are you serious? Or just being obtuse? And the author has to be a linguist - and create an entire language free of any resemblance for the sake of offending some white-liberal on behalf of people that don't care, or better - LIKE they have something that reminds them of their own culture in a popular work of fiction? Seems like the bigot is not the same person you think it is.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1061364That is an excellent example of how complicated this issue is. The Trojan War narrative already had black characters like Ethiopian King Memnon who made major contributions. By definition he would have a court, an army, etc that could set the stage for a mythic depiction of black African culture and its interaction with the Trojan War.  Rather than featuring that, Troy decided to race-swap a few characters who were clearly not African in the original texts and are considered folk heroes. This clearly shows that the people working on the show don't know anything about the original writings and don't care to feature African civilizations at all much less in a positive light. I would think that is extremely racist against black Africans.

No it's not complicated. The historical references to the Trojan War are quite clear that Achilles was a Greek. He's well described in every single work from antiquity for representing what the Greeks found to be "perfect" representation of Greek beauty. He was blond, white and physically perfect - because he's been given mythic qualities by the culture that spawned him. Period. There were Buddhists in ancient Rome - this doesn't mean the Julii family was secretly Chinese. So by race-swapping one of the most pivotal characters who is a *gigantic* folk-hero and legend of the *GREEKS* it's somehow okay - because King Memnon (who happened to be mentioned in the Illiad). Do you even see how bigotted this view actually is? You're dismissing the Greeks from their own cultural heritage in order to make yourself feel good to see a black person inserted in there over a white person.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1061364Yes, we should. That I why I prefer to educate and speak in shades of grey when I get the chance rather than mindlessly demonizing everything. Everybody is flawed, yes, but we can always improve and we should strive to. We shouldn't give up or refuse.

You're not speaking in shades of gray. You called it *racist*. I asked specifically how people who are called *racist* are treated differently if that label is assigned to them by action or unintended action? Racism/Bigotism/Prejudice/Bias are ALL different things. Interrelated sure, but they're not the same. The fact you don't use any but one, sort of shows that your sense of nuance is pretty much marginal at best. I mean if liberals want to redefine terms by simply removing all other nuanced terms out of the discussion - then what do you think the outcome of such discussions will actually be? The adoption of that mode of language pretty much speaks for itself, don't you think?

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1061364I am not an expert on this. I agree that the middle ground is fallacious. Authors should just take some college courses on race and gender to get at least a basic understanding of what to avoid. I took some courses before the SJWs took off and it really helped me to understand the plight of so-called minorities. It also helps that I grew up among black folks in my childhood so I'm comfortable interacting with them as people rather than suffering white guilt. One of my ancestors fought for the South so I have reason to feel guilt, but that wouldn't accomplish anything.

Well fortunately, I, the minority, already answered this: we as individuals decide. But the fact is your standard you're using *is* by definition racist. You're saying that only minorities *can't* be racist which defeats the whole purpose of what the terms means. I'm Asian - and I'd love to drop you into the middle of China and have you hold the MAJORITY population on the planet to the standard you're dancing around and pretend only caucasians are racist. LOLOLOLOL. Good luck with that. Speaking as a Jungle-Asian, the Fancy Asians will gawk at you and many will snicker and laugh at your naive view. Unless you're just racist/bigotted against white-people. Which could very well be the problem.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1061364This is a false equivalency since the Dothraki are not played by actors of East Asian background. The hurdles faced by Asian American actors was discussed heavily when Ghost in the Shell cast a white woman to play a character who was Japanese. The articles I found about Dothraki were written by people with Semitic-sounding names.

Gird yourself. I'm going to show you what a dumb argument this is. 1) Dothraki are a fictional people in a work of fiction about a fictional place that doesn't exist. The TV show was cast by people OTHER than the author for a variety of purposes that no in this discussion can speak to, but at some point, money was probably the bottom line.  2) Ghost in the Shell is fictional animated movie SET in Japan where the premise is that a consciousness and the body are mutually exclusive. THE MOVIE was created for American audiences. Could they have gone with an Asian actor - sure. I would have. But they didn't. You know why? It's an American movie - and Scarlet Johanson is the biggest female action-movie star *ON THE PLANET*. If you're a studio and going to bank $100-million+ on a movie, Scarlet Johanson is as good as a bet as you're going to get to make a profit, strictly on name-power. If you're a movie producer... the studio isn't going to give $100-million+ on a movie with a no-name actor.

Here is your litmus test: go to the Chinese, Indian, and Japanese movie industry. And I want you to ask why they don't put Americans in their lead roles of *THEIR* major motion pictures in their countries?

Does it happen? Sure. It's pretty rare. But think of those poor anglo-actors and the hurdles they have to face in order to get those parts. That whole in-group preference thing is just pasted as "racism" here. Which it isn't. Over there - it's just business. No hard feelings. You can call it racism - but you'd be wrong.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1061364People of color do complain a lot and they get denigrated for it a lot. Both my links above were written by authors with Semitic names.

So that's your evidence that people of Mongolian and Central-Asian steppes, are all offended and feel it's racist? Because three Americans that happens to think it - did you critically ask yourself whether they were actually right? I'm a person of color - probably closer genetically and culturally than *any* of these linked writers and probably know more about the history of the cultures Martin skimmed inspiration from than they do - I'm not offended at all. I rather like the Dothraki. I liked their place in the book. It worked well. For the reasons I pointed out here - WHO GETS TO MAKE THE CALL? Individuals do. Not individuals deciding on behalf of entire cultures that they don't even understand or know nothing about. More importantly - these are individuals speaking from WITHIN a culture they do know something about, white-liberal SJW bubbles, and they do know these co-opted phrases, and fake outrage generates traffic for them. But it's a horrible way to run a business. Hence SJW's don't understand marketing reality - things like, you know, in-group preference.

Which is why the phrase "Get woke. Go broke." is a thing. They're only marketing to their own choir about offenses that are offensive only to themselves for monetary benefit, it appears. That you and others might *believe* this stuff... well that's your problem. And I don't think these outraged writers care. Nor does Martin. Nor should they but for different reasons. 1) the blog writers already assume you believe - they just need your clicks. 2) Martin doesn't care because he's not writing to coddle the feelings of people perpetually outraged at their own projected self-loathing over things their ancestors might have done. /gasp.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1061364In a purely technical sense it would be racist. The place of such fiction is complicated by the long history of colonialism the legacy of which still affects the world today. Racism is complicated and cannot be easily boiled to simple axioms; by nature racism is full of double standards due to its place in wider contexts. Both ends of the political spectrum tend to forget this and end up not accomplishing anything besides spewing vitriol.

Well it sounds like you have your work set out before you. Do it. Make it good and entertaining. Don't be trite. Don't be cliche. Same shit my wife tells our clients.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1061364I feel the best way I can improve things with my meager contribution is to write narratives about it that challenge the prevailing depictions. Right now I am writing a novel about an alien interstellar empire and colonialism and racism are key plot points.

Based on what? RACE isn't the pivotal thing a culture hangs itself on. Thousands of years of history kinda shows you this. You need to create an actual culture with beliefs that everyone within the culture largely believes in one form or another. Chinese, Japanese, Europeans writ-large, have all spent CENTURIES killing themselves internally are all of the same race. That's not enough.

Quote from: tenbones;1061356Which means either we people of color are too stupid to know we're being mocked by racist writers, or we don't know that our cultures are being raped and pillaged for the benefit of fictional white-characters's benefit (which Asians do in their pop-culture NON-STOP... and that's not racist either). OR maybe the cigar is just a cigar?

Burn the heretic:D!
And how dare you make such statements regarding Asians without having presented certificates of your college classes on race and gender?

Quote from: fearsomepirate;1061370This is a very stupid, cartoonish, stereotyping, insulting thing to say about somebody else's language.

It's also untrue.
But that's not my language, so what do I know;)?

Quote from: AsenRG;1061378Burn the heretic:D!
And how dare you make such statements regarding Asians without having presented certificates of your college classes on race and gender?

I know! I'm so politically incorrect. But it's probably that new Asian Privilege that SJW's are moaning about now. I guess I'll never see another Kara-Tur book from WotC. Dang.

But if you don't see another Kara-Tur book, aren't you being marginalized and excluded?

Quote from: fearsomepirate;1061370This is a very stupid, cartoonish, stereotyping, insulting thing to say about somebody else's language.

Yes it would be, if I said it about somebody else's language. English is my mother tongue and it never had a spelling reform. I remember struggling in school with all the crazy spelling rules, like "I before E except after C unless it's "weird science"."

Seriously, English is really complicated to read: https://www.logicofenglish.com/resources/phonogram-list

Quote from: tenbones;1061377I'm happy to respond: This is fiction. The degree to which he needs to bring "authenticity" is commensurate to the degree that people are wading into his fiction looking for problems. I work with a professional fiction editor. Please believe me when I tell you that the only thing that matters in fiction is when it comes down to it - "is it entertaining? Yes? Take my money."

People can speak about the value of literary drivel and artistic nonsense that they want - but as the saying goes, if you're in there looking for problems, the odds are you'll find them. The degree to which you want to pontificate about it - where the links you posted, I could summarily blast because it's conflating the TV show with the BOOKS - two entirely different mediums - yet they make no distinctions between them at all, yet blame Martin for obvious reasons (blame for a thing that is not an actual issue). I mean - who has read the books and thought of the Dothraki as "backward"? Compared to WHOM? They controlled an entire *continent*. They had weapons proper to their lifestyle. Armor as well. These blogs are completely ill-considered. And Martin at least got that right. The assumption based on those links being that in order to show a non-European race they have to scour any potential reference that can be assumed based on GEOGRAPHY - you know, dark skinned people come from the equatorial regions of the world where mode of dress and warfare would EXEMPLIFY that reality? Are you serious? Or just being obtuse? And the author has to be a linguist - and create an entire language free of any resemblance for the sake of offending some white-liberal on behalf of people that don't care, or better - LIKE they have something that reminds them of their own culture in a popular work of fiction? Seems like the bigot is not the same person you think it is.

If you say so. I was never particularly invested since the Dothraki are a giant red herring anyway.

That said... I frequent the alternatehistory.com boards which are full of military and history buffs who adore the Mongol and Hun, and hosts a thriving GOT fanfic community. They all agree that, ignoring the racial angle, the Dothraki are an unrealistic caricature with bad tactics, armor, weapons and pretty much everything else. They take potshots at the Dothraki all the time and seem to take almost sadistic glee in depicting the Dothraki being slaughtered and conquered by actual Mongol and Hun hordes transported to Essos by acts of God.

Quote from: tenbones;1061377No it's not complicated. The historical references to the Trojan War are quite clear that Achilles was a Greek. He's well described in every single work from antiquity for representing what the Greeks found to be "perfect" representation of Greek beauty. He was blond, white and physically perfect - because he's been given mythic qualities by the culture that spawned him. Period. There were Buddhists in ancient Rome - this doesn't mean the Julii family was secretly Chinese. So by race-swapping one of the most pivotal characters who is a *gigantic* folk-hero and legend of the *GREEKS* it's somehow okay - because King Memnon (who happened to be mentioned in the Illiad). Do you even see how bigotted this view actually is? You're dismissing the Greeks from their own cultural heritage in order to make yourself feel good to see a black person inserted in there over a white person.

Did you even read what I said? I was actually agreeing with you.

I literally said Memnon was the reason that race-swapping Achilles was stupid.

Quote from: tenbones;1061377You're not speaking in shades of gray. You called it *racist*. I asked specifically how people who are called *racist* are treated differently if that label is assigned to them by action or unintended action? Racism/Bigotism/Prejudice/Bias are ALL different things. Interrelated sure, but they're not the same. The fact you don't use any but one, sort of shows that your sense of nuance is pretty much marginal at best. I mean if liberals want to redefine terms by simply removing all other nuanced terms out of the discussion - then what do you think the outcome of such discussions will actually be? The adoption of that mode of language pretty much speaks for itself, don't you think?



Well fortunately, I, the minority, already answered this: we as individuals decide. But the fact is your standard you're using *is* by definition racist. You're saying that only minorities *can't* be racist which defeats the whole purpose of what the terms means. I'm Asian - and I'd love to drop you into the middle of China and have you hold the MAJORITY population on the planet to the standard you're dancing around and pretend only caucasians are racist. LOLOLOLOL. Good luck with that. Speaking as a Jungle-Asian, the Fancy Asians will gawk at you and many will snicker and laugh at your naive view. Unless you're just racist/bigotted against white-people. Which could very well be the problem.



Gird yourself. I'm going to show you what a dumb argument this is. 1) Dothraki are a fictional people in a work of fiction about a fictional place that doesn't exist. The TV show was cast by people OTHER than the author for a variety of purposes that no in this discussion can speak to, but at some point, money was probably the bottom line.  2) Ghost in the Shell is fictional animated movie SET in Japan where the premise is that a consciousness and the body are mutually exclusive. THE MOVIE was created for American audiences. Could they have gone with an Asian actor - sure. I would have. But they didn't. You know why? It's an American movie - and Scarlet Johanson is the biggest female action-movie star *ON THE PLANET*. If you're a studio and going to bank $100-million+ on a movie, Scarlet Johanson is as good as a bet as you're going to get to make a profit, strictly on name-power. If you're a movie producer... the studio isn't going to give $100-million+ on a movie with a no-name actor.

Here is your litmus test: go to the Chinese, Indian, and Japanese movie industry. And I want you to ask why they don't put Americans in their lead roles of *THEIR* major motion pictures in their countries?

Does it happen? Sure. It's pretty rare. But think of those poor anglo-actors and the hurdles they have to face in order to get those parts. That whole in-group preference thing is just pasted as "racism" here. Which it isn't. Over there - it's just business. No hard feelings. You can call it racism - but you'd be wrong.



So that's your evidence that people of Mongolian and Central-Asian steppes, are all offended and feel it's racist? Because three Americans that happens to think it - did you critically ask yourself whether they were actually right? I'm a person of color - probably closer genetically and culturally than *any* of these linked writers and probably know more about the history of the cultures Martin skimmed inspiration from than they do - I'm not offended at all. I rather like the Dothraki. I liked their place in the book. It worked well. For the reasons I pointed out here - WHO GETS TO MAKE THE CALL? Individuals do. Not individuals deciding on behalf of entire cultures that they don't even understand or know nothing about. More importantly - these are individuals speaking from WITHIN a culture they do know something about, white-liberal SJW bubbles, and they do know these co-opted phrases, and fake outrage generates traffic for them. But it's a horrible way to run a business. Hence SJW's don't understand marketing reality - things like, you know, in-group preference.

Which is why the phrase "Get woke. Go broke." is a thing. They're only marketing to their own choir about offenses that are offensive only to themselves for monetary benefit, it appears. That you and others might *believe* this stuff... well that's your problem. And I don't think these outraged writers care. Nor does Martin. Nor should they but for different reasons. 1) the blog writers already assume you believe - they just need your clicks. 2) Martin doesn't care because he's not writing to coddle the feelings of people perpetually outraged at their own projected self-loathing over things their ancestors might have done. /gasp.



Well it sounds like you have your work set out before you. Do it. Make it good and entertaining. Don't be trite. Don't be cliche. Same shit my wife tells our clients.



Based on what? RACE isn't the pivotal thing a culture hangs itself on. Thousands of years of history kinda shows you this. You need to create an actual culture with beliefs that everyone within the culture largely believes in one form or another. Chinese, Japanese, Europeans writ-large, have all spent CENTURIES killing themselves internally are all of the same race. That's not enough.

Now you are just projecting. I don't care enough to go through this point by point. I don't believe any of the bullshit you're ascribing to me.

Look, I understand that everybody is racist/bigoted/prejudiced/biased. I studied the Rape of Nanking and I know Japan has been trying to ignore their own history of war crimes. I know about the Century of Humiliation and the Maoist genocides. Yes, humans are bastards, I know.

The United States has a huge problem with prejudice. BlackLivesMatter? MeToo? GamerGate? You might not think it's a big deal and that all the naysayers are just crazy white liberals, but to US citizens this is a big deal.

To put this in the most reductionist manner possible so that you will be far less likely to misunderstand...

I'm tired of the bazillion stories about a blonde blue-eyed farmboy saving the universe. I genuinely want to see narratives about different people who are not white, male, able-bodied and heterosexual. I want to see good narratives with effort behind them, not SJW dreck. I don't want to see tokenism or queer baiting. I just want to see stories where the author carefully constructed everything including the presence of major characters who are not white, male, able-bodied and heterosexual.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1061400I'm tired of the bazillion stories about a blonde blue-eyed farmboy saving the universe.

Conversely my blond, blue-eyed, 95%* white son would like to see some stories about blond blue-eyed farmboys saving the universe, and not have the Star Wars films of his generation ruined by SJWs.

*Apparently being able to say he's a few % black by DNA has come in quite handy to avoid trouble at the tough London schools I've been sending him to!

Quote from: S'mon;1061402Conversely my blond, blue-eyed, 95%* white son would like to see some stories about blond blue-eyed farmboys saving the universe, and not have the Star Wars films of his generation ruined by SJWs.

*Apparently being able to say he's a few % black by DNA has come in quite handy to avoid trouble at the tough London schools I've been sending him to!

I didn't say to stop making them. We still need those farmboys to signal our virtue by including them in interracial relationships.

Like Perseus and Andromeda. Literally, the myths said Andromeda was a princess of Africa. You wouldn't know that from the movies.

That's why I view Troy as a lost opportunity. They could have included Memnon and the other black characters, but did the stupid thing and race-swapped a Greek culture hero.

I actually studied the original myths and I can see loads of opportunities to insert black characters without disrupting the culture heroes. Hercules alone probably had like two or three black gay lovers since every Greek hero was bisexual, which gives us double on our diversity quota.

Quote from: fearsomepirate;1061382But if you don't see another Kara-Tur book, aren't you being marginalized and excluded?

  WotC has been marginalizing and excluding me from the D&D game, and appropriating my cultural mythos, since the launch of 3rd Edition.

  Find me a Christian in one of their D&D products. And yet they cheerfully make use of (serial numbers filed off) versions of Dante's Heaven, Purgatory (combining the first two) and Hell, and numerous devils out of Christian legend, as well as the archetypes of the paladin and cleric and the whole faux-medieval esthetic cheerfully whitewashed of the Cross ...

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1061405That's why I view Troy as a lost opportunity. They could have included Memnon and the other black characters, but did the stupid thing and race-swapped a Greek culture hero.

They could have included the Amazons too.

Troy was a weird film, an attempt to turn myth into history.

Edit: Of course North Africans aren't black, and while Ethiopians are on average a sort of greyish brown tone, IRL they are really closer to Europeans than to what Anglospherians think of as black. But a mythic version of Troy could certainly have included black allies for the Trojans.

Quote from: Armchair Gamer;1061407WotC has been marginalizing and excluding me from the D&D game, and appropriating my cultural mythos, since the launch of 3rd Edition.

  Find me a Christian in one of their D&D products. And yet they cheerfully make use of (serial numbers filed off) versions of Dante's Heaven, Purgatory (combining the first two) and Hell, and numerous devils out of Christian legend, as well as the archetypes of the paladin and cleric and the whole faux-medieval esthetic cheerfully whitewashed of the Cross ...

That's why my campaign settings explicitly make clerics and paladins Christian.

Whenever they turn demons and undead, they chant "The power of Christ compels you!" like in The Exorcist and Coppola's Dracula.

Quote from: S'mon;1061413They could have included the Amazons too.

Troy was a weird film, an attempt to turn myth into history.

Edit: Of course North Africans aren't black, and while Ethiopians are on average a sort of greyish brown tone, IRL they are really closer to Europeans than to what Anglospherians think of as black. But a mythic version of Troy could certainly have included black allies for the Trojans.

In Greek myth, "Abyssinia" and "Ethiopia" referred generically to Africa and India. Not the modern Ethiopia.

Quote from: Armchair Gamer;1061407WotC has been marginalizing and excluding me from the D&D game, and appropriating my cultural mythos, since the launch of 3rd Edition.

  Find me a Christian in one of their D&D products. And yet they cheerfully make use of (serial numbers filed off) versions of Dante's Heaven, Purgatory (combining the first two) and Hell, and numerous devils out of Christian legend, as well as the archetypes of the paladin and cleric and the whole faux-medieval esthetic cheerfully whitewashed of the Cross ...

Indeed, D&D is not a rich, authentic, deep expression of my people's medieval history and culture. When I look at the Forgotten Realms; I don't see my true cultural experience; I see naught but a caricature. It is extremely racist. Come to think of it, most Hollywood narratives of farm boys saving the world fail to provide a rich, authentic, deep expression of rural, Midwestern culture and life, i.e. they are so racist that it might be time time to march on Burbank in protest.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1061400If you say so. I was never particularly invested since the Dothraki are a giant red herring anyway.

But that's precisely why I asked why you called their use *racist*. That's a pretty heavy thing to lay on a work of fiction with the further hedging you're implying Martin himself is *racist* by overt intent OR ignorance. I'm wondering how you square that? That's why I say there is a lot of nuance missing before you step on the pedal and gun it.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1061400That said... I frequent the alternatehistory.com boards which are full of military and history buffs who adore the Mongol and Hun, and hosts a thriving GOT fanfic community. They all agree that, ignoring the racial angle, the Dothraki are an unrealistic caricature with bad tactics, armor, weapons and pretty much everything else. They take potshots at the Dothraki all the time and seem to take almost sadistic glee in depicting the Dothraki being slaughtered and conquered by actual Mongol and Hun hordes transported to Essos by acts of God.

That's great! They can agree all they want. And why aren't they writing a new Game of Thrones? WHAT writer meets these magical standards? I'll give you one better: The Dothraki fought in only ONE major battle IN Game of Thrones - they attacked a phalanx of Unsullied head on (stupid tactic) but they already established that Dothraki think nothing of infantry and had never fought the Unsullied. Makes perfect narrative sense... History is FULL of huge tactical blunders. So a bunch of armchair FanFic Generals clearly are in the wrong business. They should be leading our armies instead of writing fiction.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1061400I literally said Memnon was the reason that race-swapping Achilles was stupid.

I did read what you said. I disagreed that it's *complicated*. It's not. It's only complicated if you believe in collective identity supersedes individual ones. /shrug. I don't see you saying that. By the standards of your previous post I asked the questions specifically whether it was racist or not. You seem to think it's complicated.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1061400Now you are just projecting. I don't care enough to go through this point by point. I don't believe any of the bullshit you're ascribing to me.

Look, I understand that everybody is racist/bigoted/prejudiced/biased. I studied the Rape of Nanking and I know Japan has been trying to ignore their own history of war crimes. I know about the Century of Humiliation and the Maoist genocides. Yes, humans are bastards, I know.

No, see, I'm not projecting. I'm merely calling for nuance. I'm not telling you what to believe. I'm trying to make sure you don't consolidate your ideas under these umbrella terms that don't apply. You don't have to like the place where you end up - you don't have to like that living in America or Europe you're going to have to suffer through their cultural stories told and retold for time immemorial - but don't demonize people because they like it. BECAUSE if you go to *any* other culture in the world you will find the *exact* same thing. Only here in America you can do it with reasonable assumption you won't be harmed for it (but ironically because of this kind of thinking you're advocating for - that's getting murkier).

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1061400The United States has a huge problem with prejudice. BlackLivesMatter? MeToo? GamerGate? You might not think it's a big deal and that all the naysayers are just crazy white liberals, but to US citizens this is a big deal.

Does it? Compared to WHOM? Which culture that likely is more culturally homogenous doesn't have these prejudices? Sweet Buddha on a Beanbag! Dude, you need to travel more. Go to South America, go to Asia - prejudice and bigotry is EVERYWHERE. Hell Europe is known for hating one another - you know... thousands of years of conflict kinda breeds that. Asia? Worse. If you think the US "has a problem" you simply don't really understand what real problems are relative to... uhh hashtags. Trust me - motherfuckers in Africa aren't giving a flying fuck about BLM here in the US. They don't know wtf Gamergate is. Hell most of AMERICA doesn't know what Gamergate is.

There is a staggering lack of scale of priorities in conflating "these huge problems" with the actual huge problems - which likely are the real issues causing your issues.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1061400To put this in the most reductionist manner possible so that you will be far less likely to misunderstand...

I'm tired of the bazillion stories about a blonde blue-eyed farmboy saving the universe. I genuinely want to see narratives about different people who are not white, male, able-bodied and heterosexual. I want to see good narratives with effort behind them, not SJW dreck. I don't want to see tokenism or queer baiting. I just want to see stories where the author carefully constructed everything including the presence of major characters who are not white, male, able-bodied and heterosexual.

Charitably I think you're definitely being reductionist. You've reduced one of the most primal storytelling motifs we know of - the Heroes Journey to just a skin-color as if white people invented it. That motif exists in nearly *every* culture that exists, only scaled and molded for those respective cultures. It's an incredible amount... lack of awareness that allows your dislike for a skin color to disregard *why* these things exist while you live in the culture in question. Its bewildering. It's like the fish living in the sea complaining about being sick of all this water.

The solution to your problem is before you (and I agree with you on this) - write that story. I have this piece about a quasi-analog fantasy where my Egyptian analog actually conquered my Europe analog and I play with the race/cultural differences as a side-issue but not the main issue, but it's an issue. Characters drive story - not the politics that the characters go through. The moment you put those ahead of the fiction, it becomes propganda and is weak. So yes - go write that story and make it good.

Quote from: tenbones;1061438But that's precisely why I asked why you called their use *racist*. That's a pretty heavy thing to lay on a work of fiction with the further hedging you're implying Martin himself is *racist* by overt intent OR ignorance. I'm wondering how you square that? That's why I say there is a lot of nuance missing before you step on the pedal and gun it.



That's great! They can agree all they want. And why aren't they writing a new Game of Thrones? WHAT writer meets these magical standards? I'll give you one better: The Dothraki fought in only ONE major battle IN Game of Thrones - they attacked a phalanx of Unsullied head on (stupid tactic) but they already established that Dothraki think nothing of infantry and had never fought the Unsullied. Makes perfect narrative sense... History is FULL of huge tactical blunders. So a bunch of armchair FanFic Generals clearly are in the wrong business. They should be leading our armies instead of writing fiction.



I did read what you said. I disagreed that it's *complicated*. It's not. It's only complicated if you believe in collective identity supersedes individual ones. /shrug. I don't see you saying that. By the standards of your previous post I asked the questions specifically whether it was racist or not. You seem to think it's complicated.




No, see, I'm not projecting. I'm merely calling for nuance. I'm not telling you what to believe. I'm trying to make sure you don't consolidate your ideas under these umbrella terms that don't apply. You don't have to like the place where you end up - you don't have to like that living in America or Europe you're going to have to suffer through their cultural stories told and retold for time immemorial - but don't demonize people because they like it. BECAUSE if you go to *any* other culture in the world you will find the *exact* same thing. Only here in America you can do it with reasonable assumption you won't be harmed for it (but ironically because of this kind of thinking you're advocating for - that's getting murkier).



Does it? Compared to WHOM? Which culture that likely is more culturally homogenous doesn't have these prejudices? Sweet Buddha on a Beanbag! Dude, you need to travel more. Go to South America, go to Asia - prejudice and bigotry is EVERYWHERE. Hell Europe is known for hating one another - you know... thousands of years of conflict kinda breeds that. Asia? Worse. If you think the US "has a problem" you simply don't really understand what real problems are relative to... uhh hashtags. Trust me - motherfuckers in Africa aren't giving a flying fuck about BLM here in the US. They don't know wtf Gamergate is. Hell most of AMERICA doesn't know what Gamergate is.

There is a staggering lack of scale of priorities in conflating "these huge problems" with the actual huge problems - which likely are the real issues causing your issues.



Charitably I think you're definitely being reductionist. You've reduced one of the most primal storytelling motifs we know of - the Heroes Journey to just a skin-color as if white people invented it. That motif exists in nearly *every* culture that exists, only scaled and molded for those respective cultures. It's an incredible amount... lack of awareness that allows your dislike for a skin color to disregard *why* these things exist while you live in the culture in question. Its bewildering. It's like the fish living in the sea complaining about being sick of all this water.

The solution to your problem is before you (and I agree with you on this) - write that story. I have this piece about a quasi-analog fantasy where my Egyptian analog actually conquered my Europe analog and I play with the race/cultural differences as a side-issue but not the main issue, but it's an issue. Characters drive story - not the politics that the characters go through. The moment you put those ahead of the fiction, it becomes propganda and is weak. So yes - go write that story and make it good.

Greetings!

Outstanding commentary, Tenbones! I'm reminded of how stupid we appear to be here in America. Us, racist? Please. In comparison, like you said--travel and talk to folks from Europe, Africa, the Middle East, South America and Asia. Racism and bigotry is *everywhere*. I was talking to some different folks--great people, too--from many of the places I mentioned. Again, us, Racist? Hell, here in the states it's largely isolated to strong, identifiable *colours*. That's about it. In other places? Holy smokes...southern Indians don't like northern Indians; Chinese don't like Vietnamese. Egyptians don't like Turks. I asked an Egyptian woman...I'm sorry...how can you tell a Turk...from a Bulgarian, a Syrian, or someone from the melting pot in the Levant? Oh, she says..that's very easy! You can always tell a Turk by their noses. Syrians, yeah, by their eyes, and the way they smell. ?????????

Same stuff I've heard from all over the world. MINUTE differences...oh yeah, My daughter would never marry one of *those* scum! It's mind boggling, and yet here we are in America fighting over fucking *words* for god's sake. Having foreign experience really opens your eyes to how millions and millions of people in X hate people from B because...they put a different kind of sauce on their rice, or something. It gets very crazy. I can see why MILLIONS of foreign folks from all over the world--like my friend Padrom, who's from Iran--said to me,

"I brought my wife and myself here to America because here we can be free, work where we want, go where we want--and be accepted for who we are. As American citizens, we have rights, just like other Americans. America is great, my friend! You have freedom and acceptance here like you just can't find anywhere else in the whole world!"

So many liberals are so clueless about this kind of stuff.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Quote from: fearsomepirate;1061362It seems to be in the same vein of accusing someone of racism for being unable to correctly pronounce a name with unfamiliar syllables.

I worked the census once and this fellow had a first name and last name that both exceeded IIRC the 22 available spaces to enter the name on the forms. And IIRC there were up to 6 or 7 consonants without a vowel. I would have to practice a lot to maybe be able to make the sounds correctly, maybe (and that is giving it a lot of effort). Other languages have sounds that we didn't learn when we were young and many of them the best we can hope for is to approximate the sound. I have yet to see anyone offer classes on how to pronounce names not common to your home culture.

Quote from: tenbones;1060828LOL yeah... pretty soon geometric shapes will be assigned cultures or rendered outright racist as a descriptor. Think of the poor dice.

Pretty much the Orwellian "newspeak" the SJW crowd keep coming up with. Orc = Negro = Oppressed. Drow = Negro = Racist. etc ad nausium.

Quote from: tenbones;1061351Exactly. Fiction is fiction. It serves itself (the story). To the degree that someone subjectively wants to "read into" any work of fiction and surreptitiously decide that it's "racist" propaganda by not meeting some purity test of representative measure is... crazy.

What *isn't* racist by those standards?

Exactly. This is why you can never win with SJWs. Everything IS racist, sexist, whateverist.

The USA has racism between different groups of "white" people too. That is most of the racism since whites make up the majority of the population right now. Politics, religion, socioeconomic class, etc all inform this.

But I prefer to talk about how to insert more black and indian characters into the Trojan War without race swapping. Did you know that the Odyssey describes Odysseus as a black man with sandy blonde hair? I was surprised to learn that too.

Casting Zeus as black, though? Did the BBC not know that Zeus was a psychopathic serial rapist and mass murderer?

But back to the topic of RPGs.

I have been generally averse to the idea of always evil races, so I like to change things up.

Rather than killing everything in sight I would offer experience for non-violent resolution as well.

For example, if the party intrudes on the territory of a tribe of gnolls, they get the same amount of XP from convincing the gnolls to let them pass peacefully. The more elaborate and comedic the scheme described by the players the more XP they get.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1061535But back to the topic of RPGs.

I have been generally averse to the idea of always evil races, so I like to change things up.

Rather than killing everything in sight I would offer experience for non-violent resolution as well.

For example, if the party intrudes on the territory of a tribe of gnolls, they get the same amount of XP from convincing the gnolls to let them pass peacefully. The more elaborate and comedic the scheme described by the players the more XP they get.

That's pretty much how I prefer it too. I much prefer Lawful vs Chaotic races/cultures, so Gnolls may be Chaotic, but you can't just say they're Evil and drop a MOAB on them (& claim you're the good guys) unless they're actually threatening you.

Quote from: S'mon;1061561That's pretty much how I prefer it too. I much prefer Lawful vs Chaotic races/cultures, so Gnolls may be Chaotic, but you can't just say they're Evil and drop a MOAB on them (& claim you're the good guys) unless they're actually threatening you.

Speaking of law/chaos, I had a fair amount of difficulty understanding their relevance in a social context. I figured the easiest way to represent them in the mortal world is that "chaos" is represented by small tribes who are essentially communist, whereas "law" is represented by larger communities who require variations of capitalism and feudalism to function. Ultimately law and chaos are defined against one another, otherwise they become indistinguishable.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1061535But back to the topic of RPGs.

I have been generally averse to the idea of always evil races, so I like to change things up.

Rather than killing everything in sight I would offer experience for non-violent resolution as well.

For example, if the party intrudes on the territory of a tribe of gnolls, they get the same amount of XP from convincing the gnolls to let them pass peacefully. The more elaborate and comedic the scheme described by the players the more XP they get.

That's how I do it, too.

I don't use concepts like "good" and "evil" for entire species.  They are all individuals acting within the cultural context in which they live.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1061579Speaking of law/chaos, I had a fair amount of difficulty understanding their relevance in a social context. I figured the easiest way to represent them in the mortal world is that "chaos" is represented by small tribes who are essentially communist, whereas "law" is represented by larger communities who require variations of capitalism and feudalism to function. Ultimately law and chaos are defined against one another, otherwise they become indistinguishable.

Just the way I do it: I tend to say you're Chaotic if you serve Lords of Chaos, and it's generally easy to know it when I see it. And it quite often comes close to Evil, since violence tends to be associated with Chaos. So large organised states like Nazi Germany and the Aztec Empire can be Chaotic. Communism tends towards Chaos in practice if not in theory, and people who adhere to Communist ideologies tend to be Chaotic, but this rarely comes up in an FRPG. Law tends to value peace, order and rationality; Enlightenment Liberalism like John Locke tends to Lawful, but so does Catholic Scholasticism; Aquinas is as Lawful as Locke, the way I peg it. Feudalism per se is probably Neutral, but may have a Lawful church.

I don't tend to say small tribal societies are inherently Chaotic, though the more violent ones probably are (so goblinoid types definitely are). The more peaceful ones are likely Neutral, with Lawful individuals.

Quote from: S'mon;1061589Just the way I do it: I tend to say you're Chaotic if you serve Lords of Chaos, and it's generally easy to know it when I see it. And it quite often comes close to Evil, since violence tends to be associated with Chaos. So large organised states like Nazi Germany and the Aztec Empire can be Chaotic. Communism tends towards Chaos in practice if not in theory, and people who adhere to Communist ideologies tend to be Chaotic, but this rarely comes up in an FRPG. Law tends to value peace, order and rationality; Enlightenment Liberalism like John Locke tends to Lawful, but so does Catholic Scholasticism; Aquinas is as Lawful as Locke, the way I peg it. Feudalism per se is probably Neutral, but may have a Lawful church.

I don't tend to say small tribal societies are inherently Chaotic, though the more violent ones probably are (so goblinoid types definitely are). The more peaceful ones are likely Neutral, with Lawful individuals.

Neutrality is probably what most mortals actually are, with chaotic or lawful tendencies. The Cosmic Balance is an inherently orderly concept, but the Grey Lords recognize that both order and chaos are necessary. Law and Chaos proper are likely terrorists. And their relative power varies by world. The Elric comics go into more detail on this IIRC.

In terms of real world myth, concepts like Ma'at, Aesir/Vanir, etc are probably Neutral. Apep and August Star of Heaven are Chaotic. Hellraiser's Leviathan and the Auditors of Reality are Lawful (I couldn't find examples of extreme Order in mythology).

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1061599In terms of real world myth, concepts like Ma'at, Aesir/Vanir, etc are probably Neutral. Apep and August Star of Heaven are Chaotic. Hellraiser's Leviathan and the Auditors of Reality are Lawful (I couldn't find examples of extreme Order in mythology).

That would be because the concepts like Ma'at are actually Lawful; its the proper order of the world opposed to the Chaos of Apep (and depending on the era; Set). Ra, Horus, Osirus, Isis, Hathor, etc. embody the properly ordered Egyptian cosmos.

The thing is that, mythologically speaking, just about every story of Creation is one of Order (i.e. Law) overcoming Chaos. Zeus, despite his often lusty and capricious nature, is the embodiment of law and order in Greek mythology... having overcome the Titans and Typhon to bring order to the cosmos. So too Poseidon and Hades represent cosmic order as rulers over the seas and the underworld (Hades would be exceptionally lawful given his intractable nature).

The same goes for Marduk (Order) and Tiamat (Chaos).

The closest thing to Neutral in terms of mythology would be mortals who have to ride out these mythic clashes between Order and Chaos.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1061579Speaking of law/chaos, I had a fair amount of difficulty understanding their relevance in a social context.

There was some blog article a while back that basically argued Law was the Roman empire and Chaos was the barbarian Britons. I think Michael Moorcock's work was mentioned.

So that's one way to think of it.

Quote from: S'mon;1061561That's pretty much how I prefer it too. I much prefer Lawful vs Chaotic races/cultures, so Gnolls may be Chaotic, but you can't just say they're Evil and drop a MOAB on them (& claim you're the good guys) unless they're actually threatening you.

I sometimes like shades of grey - but equally, sometimes I just want to kill the bad guys rather than discussing the morality and ethics of what proper social treatment of the bad guys is. The real world might be shades of grey, but in a fantasy game, we can be righteous paladins who really are actual good slaying truly evil monsters.

When I'm doing the latter, I just make sure that the bad guys always are threatening you. So, to take my game as an example, humans are the bad guys. They're not necessarily theologically defined as always evil - but in practice, the humans that PCs encounter will always be up to something evil, and the right thing to do is to fight them.

Quote from: Chris24601;1061614Zeus, despite his often lusty and capricious nature, is the embodiment of law and order in Greek mythology... having overcome the Titans and Typhon to bring order to the cosmos.

Zeus and Odin may be Kings, but I don't find that they represent Law in an Anderson/Moorcock/D&D sense; they contain both Law and Chaos. The Right Order of the Multiverse in Moorcock is represented by the Cosmic Balance between Law & Chaos, not by Law. I definitely peg Zeus and Odin as Neutral. Odin has Lawful Tyr and mostly-Lawful Heimdall at his court, he also has Chaotic Loki. Judging by Neil Gaiman's versions of the Norse myths, Odin and Thor in their behaviour are as much Chaotic as Lawful; Odin in particular murders cheats and steals without provocation, while Thor massacres droves of giant non-combatants at the drop of a hat. My son called the Neil Gaiman book "The Big Book of Norse God War Atrocities" (he may have said War Crimes) :)

Quote from: jhkim;1061618I sometimes like shades of grey - but equally, sometimes I just want to kill the bad guys rather than discussing the morality and ethics of what proper social treatment of the bad guys is. The real world might be shades of grey, but in a fantasy game, we can be righteous paladins who really are actual good slaying truly evil monsters.

There's plenty of slaying evil monsters IMCs. But there's also the non-aggressive Stonehell Kobolds who the PCs got in a feud with after ambushing one of their work teams, and the non-evil goblins who were converted away from evilness by one of my son's old PCs in a previous campaign. All the local orcs hobgoblins and gnolls have been pretty evil, but I do like to roll those 2d6 Reaction checks and see where it goes. The Stonehell megadungeon default for most of the organised factions is that they are pretty nasty but can often be negotiated with - IMC the PCs are at war with the Mountain Trolls and have established relations with the Vrilya, but it could have gone the other way. OTOH there are completely hostile groups like the Depraved Cannibal Berserkers and most of the Undead - though not the Gentleman Ghouls. For me one of the most interesting bits is the Ogre tribes who demand small tolls to pass through their territory, and have so far been tolerated by the PCs because they have trade relations with the kobolds.

I don't think I would like your Kill all Humans game, and I might not be too keen on Kill all Orcs/Goblins either, if they're presented as actual cultures the way you do with your humans/elves/dwarves. I prefer to restrict Kill Them All to demons, undead, and stuff which acts like demons, even if it's called an Orc. 'Genocide Bad, M'Kay?' has tended to be a theme IMCs. :)

To me, Law is adherence to tradition, sometimes blindly so. Chaos is rejecting it, sometimes to your own detriment. Neutral is either trying to update the tradition, or not having a bias in favour of following or rejecting it:).

And yes, that means that Law is like this forum, Chaos is TBP, and Neutrality is what TBP wants to be:p!


Of course, when running a Stormbringer-inspired game, that's going to change, too;). But then, anything can change with the right setting!

The argument that the portrayal of non-European cultures in fantasy is stereotypical is just stupid, given that in almost all cases the portrayal of European cultures are equally stereotypical.

Quote from: RPGPundit;1062198The argument that the portrayal of non-European cultures in fantasy is stereotypical is just stupid, given that in almost all cases the portrayal of European cultures are equally stereotypical.

I believe that the argument is more along the lines that the stereotypes of non-European cultures are seen as racist because they needlessly objectify those cultures as strange and foreign rather than emphasizing their shared humanity.

Here's an old livejournal post by J. H. Kim on the subject that remains just as relevant: https://jhkimrpg.livejournal.com/45360.html

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1062214I believe that the argument is more along the lines that the stereotypes of non-European cultures are seen as racist because they needlessly objectify those cultures as strange and foreign rather than emphasizing their shared humanity.

Here's an old livejournal post by J. H. Kim on the subject that remains just as relevant: https://jhkimrpg.livejournal.com/45360.html

The topic and at least half the comments are made of stupidium and just continues to exemplar how racist, and bigoted SJWs are and how heavily they screech for segregation under the veil of "protect them from appropriation!"

I always feel guilty when I skip over a hundred or so posts to reply to the OP, but here goes...

In the main I find 'PC' to be a tragic, even insulting, idea... the concept that we should ever be vigilant to prevent giving offense is both destructively self limiting and patently offensive to one's interlocutors in that you are paternalistically assuming they have no ability to make up their own minds or have their own opinions...

Broadening it up, arbitrary restrictions on creativity.. be it 'PC' codes, attempts to shove in ideological messages of any sort where the don't belong, or simply using genre conventions as an arbitrary restriction inevitably creates bad 'art'... even 'industry best practicies that have been focus grouped'..., if only due to the narrow confines of 'acceptable' reducing the number of variables allowing for differences between different works.  The human mind is an excellent pattern recognition machine, and more importantly it has a very powerful filter to weed out 'sameness', which means that too much copying, too few variables in the creative mix ends up with all of it fading into an indistinguishable mass of white noise fading inevitably into the background to be forgotten.

Then too, I am a fairly serious history buff, as well as a student of culture, bordering on amatuer anthropology (how does one define the skills/scope and ability of amateur anthropology? Let me know...). As such I would be embarrassed to limit myself to the rules of PC when it comes to creating cultures and worlds.  Then again: I was embarrassed on behalf of WOTC when I realized all their fantasy alphabets had 26 characters, so a very low bar to cross indeed.  Indeed, you might say that when creating a new culture (be it fantasy historical, racial (Dwarves, orcs, ethnically different humans, monster races, what have you...) its is far more profitable to focus on the ways that they differ from the culture of the reader... ways that are likely to seem odd or even offensive... than it is to focus on how 'they are just like us!'.  This is inescapable.  

In reference to another popular thread ATM, the fact that the Drow are a Matriarchy gives them much more 'feel' than pointing out they have indoor (incave?) plumbing.  Trying to plumb the depths of how a society built on assassinations and backstabbing can function is much more productive than working out how their lawyers write contracts and and what color ties they prefer with their pinstripe suits.  

Eh. Weak analogies, but I think I got the point across.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1062214I believe that the argument is more along the lines that the stereotypes of non-European cultures are seen as racist because they needlessly objectify those cultures as strange and foreign rather than emphasizing their shared humanity.

Not sure why 'needless'.

Playing a campaign set in a fantasy version of medieval Japan, the GM does a good job giving us an internal aspect on many of the very different Japanese cultural norms, rather than whitewash it and pretend they're the same as modern Europeans. Sometimes we find stuff a bit shocking - like the demon created from people being too nice to their cat - but it works well.

OTOH if we were playing medieval Europeans dumped in fantasy Japan then it ought to appear weird and exotic to our PCs, at least until/unless we 'went native' and acquired an internal aspect on the culture.

Concern with every setting emphasising 'shared humanity' like (pre-Abrams) Star Trek seems a uniquely 1960s+ Western trait, whereas seeing your own culture as superior and the other culture as inferior is close to universal. I would say that dividing the world racially (rather than culturally) as into White and non-White was and is also largely just a European thing though, which only started in the 18th century; your quasi-medieval Europeans could have no trouble with a hyena-headed Gnoll being a Saint. :) The idea developed that whites were superior to everyone else, reaching its apogee in the second half of the 19th century; then this flipped after WW2 into whites being inferior to everyone else. But that's different from home culture > alien culture.

Quote from: Spike;1062313Trying to plumb the depths of how a society built on assassinations and backstabbing can function is much more productive than working out how their lawyers write contracts and and what color ties they prefer with their pinstripe suits.

Well, the Imperial sourcebook for Mutant Chronicles 3e actually did go into how the lawyers write their contracts and how their suits differ from other corporations. It was fascinating... No, what's that other word that means the exact opposite? It was that.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1062214I believe that the argument is more along the lines that the stereotypes of non-European cultures are seen as racist because they needlessly objectify those cultures as strange and foreign rather than emphasizing their shared humanity.

Emphasizing "shared humanity" usually means projecting Western center-left progressivism onto people who would have found it strange and foreign.

Quote from: S'mon;1062315I would say that dividing the world racially (rather than culturally) as into White and non-White was and is also largely just a European thing though, which only started in the 18th century; your quasi-medieval Europeans could have no trouble with a hyena-headed Gnoll being a Saint. :)

I don't think that's quite right. "Culture" and "race" are Enlightenment notions. They're born of an attempt to try and categorize what we see in humanity without resorting to religious or mythological terms. What we tend to see more often than not in premodern culture is Those People Over There were created by different gods, or perhaps were cursed by the river demons, or descended from the wicked brother of our people's progenitor, or whatever (i.e. "Curse of Ham" mythology has much more in common with how premodern/non-European people viewed outsiders). For example, the Aztecs saw themselves as the People of the Fifth Sun, responsible to keep the sun moving via the sacrifices of other peoples. "You're different from us because the gods appointed us to sacrifice you to keep the sun moving" doesn't really fit into the modern race vs culture dichotomy.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1062214I believe that the argument is more along the lines that the stereotypes of non-European cultures are seen as racist because they needlessly objectify those cultures as strange and foreign rather than emphasizing their shared humanity.

Here's an old livejournal post by J. H. Kim on the subject that remains just as relevant: https://jhkimrpg.livejournal.com/45360.html

I believe that Pundit would disagree with the 'needlessly' qualifier;).

Quote from: fearsomepirate;1062341I don't think that's quite right. "Culture" and "race" are Enlightenment notions. They're born of an attempt to try and categorize what we see in humanity without resorting to religious or mythological terms. What we tend to see more often than not in premodern culture is Those People Over There were created by different gods, or perhaps were cursed by the river demons, or descended from the wicked brother of our people's progenitor, or whatever (i.e. "Curse of Ham" mythology has much more in common with how premodern/non-European people viewed outsiders). For example, the Aztecs saw themselves as the People of the Fifth Sun, responsible to keep the sun moving via the sacrifices of other peoples. "You're different from us because the gods appointed us to sacrifice you to keep the sun moving" doesn't really fit into the modern race vs culture dichotomy.

Actually, the Aztec were sacrificing their own, too, because it was a great honor!
Which doesn't fit your theory at all.

I don't think culture is an Enlightenment notion. At any rate there are similar antecedents. The Roman attitude to culture feels pretty modern to me. They even had a bit of a Noble Savage myth thing going. :)

Quote from: S'mon;1062355I don't think culture is an Enlightenment notion. At any rate there are similar antecedents. The Roman attitude to culture feels pretty modern to me. They even had a bit of a Noble Savage myth thing going. :)

Well, the Enlightenment cribbed heavily from classical sources. That said, the Romans were prone to believing that different peoples were created by different gods, or at least directly governed by them. The modern notion of "culture" as a matrix of morals and values imprinted on blank-slate humans isn't really the same thing. Basically any kind of naturalistic explanation of human differences is almost uniquely modern (I say almost because you can find exceptional thinkers here and there), precisely because a materialistic understanding of reality is so rare.

What you are describing is precisely the opposite of the exoticism that critics often criticize.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1062214I believe that the argument is more along the lines that the stereotypes of non-European cultures are seen as racist because they needlessly objectify those cultures as strange and foreign rather than emphasizing their shared humanity.

Here's an old livejournal post by J. H. Kim on the subject that remains just as relevant: https://jhkimrpg.livejournal.com/45360.html

Yeah, I think that's a stupid argument.

Obviously, you could make, say, an "African" setting that was full of ridiculous and shallow stereotypes. You could also make one that doesn't have that.  My Arrows of Indra setting is not stereotypical, much less 'dehumanizing'.

And these days, if anything, what you get is "medieval fantasy" that plays off of modern Leftist prejudices, where all Aristocrats are cruel and vicious (except maybe a few token Woke Heroes for white leftists to identify), priests are all corrupt, institutional religion is oppressive, everyone is brutally sexist/racist/homophobic, etc etc.  That is to say, a dystopian "fantasy Europe" made for and by people who think that Western Culture is the most evil thing ever devised by man.

Quote from: RPGPundit;1063355Yeah, I think that's a stupid argument.

Obviously, you could make, say, an "African" setting that was full of ridiculous and shallow stereotypes. You could also make one that doesn't have that.  My Arrows of Indra setting is not stereotypical, much less 'dehumanizing'.

And these days, if anything, what you get is "medieval fantasy" that plays off of modern Leftist prejudices, where all Aristocrats are cruel and vicious (except maybe a few token Woke Heroes for white leftists to identify), priests are all corrupt, institutional religion is oppressive, everyone is brutally sexist/racist/homophobic, etc etc.  That is to say, a dystopian "fantasy Europe" made for and by people who think that Western Culture is the most evil thing ever devised by man.

Unfortunately... shallow settings, on both sides of the spectrum mind you, are more common in fiction than more nuanced world building. The fantasy you are talking about in the last paragraph is a perfect description of the "grimdark" genre that took off a few years ago due to the popularity of Game of Thrones.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1063360Unfortunately... shallow settings, on both sides of the spectrum mind you, are more common in fiction than more nuanced world building.

There is nothing wrong with this.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1062214I believe that the argument is more along the lines that the stereotypes of non-European cultures are seen as racist because they needlessly objectify those cultures as strange and foreign rather than emphasizing their shared humanity.

Here's an old livejournal post by J. H. Kim on the subject that remains just as relevant: https://jhkimrpg.livejournal.com/45360.html

Quote from: RPGPundit;1063355Yeah, I think that's a stupid argument.

Obviously, you could make, say, an "African" setting that was full of ridiculous and shallow stereotypes. You could also make one that doesn't have that.  My Arrows of Indra setting is not stereotypical, much less 'dehumanizing'.

And these days, if anything, what you get is "medieval fantasy" that plays off of modern Leftist prejudices, where all Aristocrats are cruel and vicious (except maybe a few token Woke Heroes for white leftists to identify), priests are all corrupt, institutional religion is oppressive, everyone is brutally sexist/racist/homophobic, etc etc.  That is to say, a dystopian "fantasy Europe" made for and by people who think that Western Culture is the most evil thing ever devised by man.

Ooh. Now I feel old.

To boil down the 2012 post - shallow stereotypes can be racist, but they aren't necessarily so. I also just reread the 2012 thread (https://www.therpgsite.com/showthread.php?3307-Orientalism-Bullshit!) here, which was interesting.

For example, I like the Imaro stories a lot - and they use plenty of stereotypes to portray African people, but they are different stereotypes than are used by the many racist stories of Africans. The setting of Imaro would be an African setting that has plenty of stereotypes without being racist.

I still think that the GURPS Fantasy Sahud were fucking racist bullshit.

I don't mind shallow stereotyping. Because normally in my games I always strive to give depth to whatever the setting demands.

It's unavoidable to give the full deep-dive into a fantasy analog culture that will satisfy someone looking to be outraged. But stereotyping is *unavoidable*. I can't possibly cover my own culture and expect to make it *desirable* to engage in for RP purposes without emphasizing some good/bad stereotypes.

Hence even D&D is filled with European stereotypes - both good and bad to engage those desires of players already consciously/unconsciously familiar with the culture(s) in order to engage with the game.

Is it more interesting to have Euro-centric PC's engage with an uninteresting passive Asian culture that has adopted more or less, the very Euro-centric traditions overlayed over their own? Or some pastiche of their own historical past made gameable?

It's easy to pull the trigger on "racism" without context. My people had head-hunting, dog-eating, grass-skirt, bone-in-nose savages running around the jungles *less* than a century ago. Some of those sterotypes *still* exist for a good reason. Do I expect modern Western European players to understand why? Of course not.

As a GM and a game-designer it's my job to present those things for entertaining context and attempt to give it meaning worth players enjoying and *maybe* learn a little something of value (but this is optional). The problem with people that believe in Political Correctness is that they want to pass judgement on people engaging in the material - however well/poorly constructed in order to judge them over their very engagement in things they feel ashamed of.

Like "It's a problem to play a game where Bawa in Kara-tur, that are vague amalgams of Java/Phillippines as a bunch of savages while PC's have a rich civilized culture that is obviously European." When in reality by comparison - yes, relative to Feudal-Renaissance era fantasy Europeans they would be pretty "savage". But that's really worth being offended at - speaking as someone that comes from there. What is offensive is the idea that in a fantasy game that's *all* there is to those locations *because* you as a GM do nothing with them other than that.

Calling people or implying a work is racist in a work of fiction implies the writers are trying to do something actionable. Stereotyped? Sure, but racist? That has a higher bar of evidence required.

And ultimately - it comes down to what you do with it at your table.

Quote from: tenbones;1063402Calling people or implying a work is racist in a work of fiction implies the writers are trying to do something actionable. Stereotyped? Sure, but racist? That has a higher bar of evidence required.

I'm not sure I get what you mean by "actionable" here. I would agree that it is a higher bar to call something racist than to say that something is stereotyped.

But there are still things that really are racist, in my opinion. I will stake out that "Sahudese Fire Drill" is racist. Can I objectively prove it, like a mathematical theorem or scientific law? No, I can't - but not everything is math and science.

Quote from: jhkim;1063435I'm not sure I get what you mean by "actionable" here. I would agree that it is a higher bar to call something racist than to say that something is stereotyped.

But there are still things that really are racist, in my opinion. I will stake out that "Sahudese Fire Drill" is racist. Can I objectively prove it, like a mathematical theorem or scientific law? No, I can't - but not everything is math and science.

"Actionable" meaning - the writers are indeed purporting propaganda for a specific sentiment they intend to win people's beliefs over to, or worse - to act on.


I'm not familiar with the "Sahudese Fire Drill" - I assume it's a reference to "Chinese Fire Drill"? Is what makes it racist? The fact that the word "Chinese" is in it and they swapped out "Sahud" for it? I'm willing to believe this is the author being "guilty" of general ignorance rather than racism.

Like you - this is not science. And even at my most cynicial I don't think it's meant to denigrate Chinese people (insofar as the adventure title is concerned), at most it appears on the surface to be a co-option of a term that means "clusterfuck". Do I think it's racist? I don't think it's meant to be. That he might be a little insensitive? Perhaps.

The real question is how sensitive is someone to such things like this? That it calls on something that was a racial jab from many years ago, means literally nothing to me. No more than my dumb uncles that loved eating at Sambo's before it got shut down. Or us adults that enjoyed Warner Bros. cartoons with their caricatures of races, sexes and other things now deemed "problematic".

Is there something other than the name itself that is actual racist propaganda in the adventure?

Quote from: tenbones;1063484I'm not familiar with the "Sahudese Fire Drill" - I assume it's a reference to "Chinese Fire Drill"? Is what makes it racist? The fact that the word "Chinese" is in it and they swapped out "Sahud" for it? I'm willing to believe this is the author being "guilty" of general ignorance rather than racism.

Like you - this is not science. And even at my most cynicial I don't think it's meant to denigrate Chinese people (insofar as the adventure title is concerned), at most it appears on the surface to be a co-option of a term that means "clusterfuck". Do I think it's racist? I don't think it's meant to be. That he might be a little insensitive? Perhaps.

What the fuck? So you haven't read the adventure, have no clue what it is even about - but you've got a definite opinion that it isn't racist and maybe it's just a little insensitive?

Look, I can understand having disagreements about stuff that we've actually read. But what is clear here is that you are just reflexively saying that nothing is ever racist, even if you know nothing about it.

Out of curiousity, do you have an opinion on World of Darkness: Gypsies?  Is it perhaps a little insensitive but definitely not racist?

Quote from: tenbones;1063484Is there something other than the name itself that is actual racist propaganda in the adventure?

OK, I meant what I said about my rant earlier. I don't have time for a detailed review of Sahudese Fire Drill at this point, but I can give you a sample of text from it. Here's one:

QuoteShortly after the Sahudese arrive, the clan head approaches the leader of his escort. "We go visit Empelol. Have gift." He calls out something in his own language. The characters will catch "Chu-Chu" from the gabble of syllables. The little rag-mop dog scampers around a corner and sits, panting, at Shimota's feet. "Plince Chu-Chu is gualdian dog -- spilit of honolable ancestol rives in him. Velly gleat honol, have one of Chu-Chu. Onry may get flom oul Heavenking. Gift flom him to youl Empelol."

Presumably the characters will have become acquainted with Chu-Chu's more irritating habits by this time, and will have second thoughts about giving this creature to Emperor Diophrates. On the other hand, offending the Sahudese Heavenking might not be such a good idea, either.

It is a wacky comedy adventure, where the whole point of the comedy is how ridiculous and irrational the Sahudese are.

Quote from: jhkim;1063486What the fuck? So you haven't read the adventure, have no clue what it is even about - but you've got a definite opinion that it isn't racist and maybe it's just a little insensitive?

"What the fuck". Yes, you brought it up. I didn't. I don't own it. How in the world am I suppose to judge anything without owning it. Worse: how am I supposed to assume motives of an author based on work I don't own or haven't read? Isn't it a safer assumption to give someone the benefit of the doubt?

What is the problem with that?

Quote from: jhkim;1063486Look, I can understand having disagreements about stuff that we've actually read. But what is clear here is that you are just reflexively saying that nothing is ever racist, even if you know nothing about it.

Out of curiousity, do you have an opinion on World of Darkness: Gypsies?  Is it perhaps a little insensitive but definitely not racist?

OR... conversely - you might have a much narrower idea of what "racism" is vs. what I think racism is. Racism is the overt act of *acting* against another person for the purposes of causing them harm based on the belief YOU are superior because of your race.

That means you can make fun of someone. Be made fun of. Consider a cultural proclivity to be positive/negative stereotype. BELIEVE those stereotypes to even be true. That doesn't make you a *racist*. It makes you bigoted, prejudiced, or biased in some descending order. And *all* of those things can be folded into Racist, without making you racist. Maybe you're an ignorant person that simply doesn't know better? Or you're insensitive? I'm not in the business of attributing motive to people's thoughts and beliefs. I'll *generally* give people the benefit of the doubt until they prove they don't deserve it.

So why would I agree with you that "Chinese Fire Drill" as a presumed phrase is racist, because someone I don't know, wrote something that I haven't read, that co-opted the term presumably to mean what "Chinese Fire Drill" means - a clusterfuck, when I *expressly* am asking you what in the adventure aside from the title of it is racist?

You're using a singular example of something I don't have familiarity with. Do you know the author?

As for Gypsy - Kind of funny. At the time that book came out I was studying Greek Orthodoxy and living with a Greek family, our neighbors who lived next door and gamed with me were Afghani and Rom, and they loved that book simply because it was a Gypsy book. I learned a bit about Rom culture from them - they didn't give a flying fuck about it and loved it. So /shrug. Neither did I. The book wasn't telling people to oppress Gypsies. Sure they got a lot of shit blatantly wrong in the book... but who in the hell is looking at WoD books for authenticity in *anything*?

Is your point that because cultural Marxists are offended - that aren't Rom, I should be too? Why? I don't treat Rom, or anyone else different because of an RPG book.

The important thing to avoid racism in your fantasy setting is to understand that other ethnic groups have no negative or funny characteristics that make them different from us. In fact, they really don't have characteristics at all that you can define (positive stereotyping is still racist).

For example, one really interesting thing about human beings is all our languages are based on the exact same set of phonemes, so we have no trouble whatsoever speaking each others' languages with perfect clarity. Racist stereotypes of foreigners having trouble with certain consonants and dipthongs arose for reasons inscrutable. On a similar note, all human cultures are grounded in the same morals and broad customs. When, in the past, humans have encountered a person from an alien civilization, they immediately recognize their common humanity and start talking about ways to enact positive change to liberate marginalized people from structures of oppression. They never appear inscrutable and wacky to each other.

At heart, pretty much every person is just a white progressive with a different shade of skin. If you don't portray everyone as a white liberal in a shell of color (do NOT say "c****** shell," you bigot) your soul has been corrupted by hate, and I want no part of that.

Quote from: jhkim;1063490OK, I meant what I said about my rant earlier. I don't have time for a detailed review of Sahudese Fire Drill at this point, but I can give you a sample of text from it. Here's one:



It is a wacky comedy adventure, where the whole point of the comedy is how ridiculous and irrational the Sahudese are.

Yeah that's pretty bad. Caricaturist for sure. Racist? Not sure what the author thinks of Asians... but I read this and I had this image of a crowd of Micky Rooney's circa Breakfast at Tiffany's.

I'll go as far as saying the writer is likely an ignorant jackass. Racist? I dunno. I'd have to talk to him. I have a lot of friends and family that say ignorant jackass things. I don't count any of them as "racist". And I do know actual racists. Most of them are Asian.

Here's the thing... that they're using Asians as idiotic comic-relief... doesn't hurt *my* feelings. I'm Asian, I'm successful, I honestly don't give a shit. I don't find this Sahudese Fire Drill funny, as the writer intended - not because he's making fun of Asians (I assume the Sahudese are Asian) - I find it not "wacky and funny" because it's so low-brow, and dumb it loses any sense of humor.

Let's do a thought-experiment -

The Engrish text for example - could be a pantomime of any kind of culture attempting to speak English. So if these Sahudese were monkey-people (like Hadozee in Spelljammer), would it still be a problem? World of Warcraft has an Asian monkey race that is VERY close to how these Sahudese are portrayed, the only difference is they're monkey-people. They use the word "dook" a LOT. They throw their shit at people (or threaten to). They're idiotic. They make bad choices. They exist largely for comic-relief Etc. But they're part of the Asian expansion of WoW. Is it that racist? They qualify for everything you are stating in your text above - and far more, they're a fairly big part of that expansion. Or do you think they're given cover because they're "expressly" shown as monkey-people? And hey - everyone knows monkeys fling poo right?

Hozen Quotes
https://youtu.be/fVURPs0o4To

Does this mean they're equating Asian (chinese no less) to being shit-tossing monkeys? Alongside the wizened Panda Asians? Because if we're to say that it's because they're animals - well all the races represented in the Pandaria expansion are animals. That would mean they're representative of a specific part of Asia. Is it that, by your standards, racist? Because this expansion was HUGE in China. They loved it.

Shit-tossing Asian-monkey-people and all. (and largely because the Hozen are pretty funny).

Does it MEAN Blizzard developers are racist because they caricature around stereotypes? My answer is: no. It's a work of fiction not advocating that someone is lesser for their race. Stereotyped? Sure. But what ISN'T a stereotype when it comes to discussions about any group?

And more to the point - to what degree do I as an individual have to own someone else's definition of me based on my appearance? My answer to that is - none.

Quote from: fearsomepirate;1063493The important thing to avoid racism in your fantasy setting is to understand that other ethnic groups have no negative or funny characteristics that make them different from us. In fact, they really don't have characteristics at all that you can define (positive stereotyping is still racist).

For example, one really interesting thing about human beings is all our languages are based on the exact same set of phonemes, so we have no trouble whatsoever speaking each others' languages with perfect clarity. Racist stereotypes of foreigners having trouble with certain consonants and dipthongs arose for reasons inscrutable. On a similar note, all human cultures are grounded in the same morals and broad customs. When, in the past, humans have encountered a person from an alien civilization, they immediately recognize their common humanity and start talking about ways to enact positive change to liberate marginalized people from structures of oppression. They never appear inscrutable and wacky to each other.

At heart, pretty much every person is just a white progressive with a different shade of skin. If you don't portray everyone as a white liberal in a shell of color (do NOT say "c****** shell," you bigot) your soul has been corrupted by hate, and I want no part of that.

This is the most woke game design advice ever offered.

Quote from: tenbones;1063494Does it MEAN Blizzard developers are racist because they caricature around stereotypes? My answer is: no. It's a work of fiction not advocating that someone is lesser for their race. Stereotyped? Sure. But what ISN'T a stereotype when it comes to discussions about any group?

racism = stereotyping + privilege & power

asians have absolutely no power anywhere on the planet, nor have they ever, that's why it's okay for pretty much anyone to engage in stereotypes except American nerds (who rule the globe with an iron fist)

Quote from: fearsomepirate;1063505racism = stereotyping + privilege & power

asians have absolutely no power anywhere on the planet, nor have they ever

Apparently only on the coasts of the US.

it's honestly getting pretty hard to figure out how to pretend to be an elf in a magical fantasy kingdom without being a bad person.

Quote from: RPGPundit;1063355Yeah, I think that's a stupid argument.

Obviously, you could make, say, an "African" setting that was full of ridiculous and shallow stereotypes. You could also make one that doesn't have that.  My Arrows of Indra setting is not stereotypical, much less 'dehumanizing'.

And these days, if anything, what you get is "medieval fantasy" that plays off of modern Leftist prejudices, where all Aristocrats are cruel and vicious (except maybe a few token Woke Heroes for white leftists to identify), priests are all corrupt, institutional religion is oppressive, everyone is brutally sexist/racist/homophobic, etc etc.  That is to say, a dystopian "fantasy Europe" made for and by people who think that Western Culture is the most evil thing ever devised by man.

I blame Game of Thrones (and by extension, the books which only nerds had read until HBO made their popular show) for really  bringing back into the public consciousness of the fantasy genre the idea that nobles are always power-hungry, petty schoolyard bullies. Sure, European (or any, for that matter) nobility were hardly saints by any means but people seem to have forgotten the medieval mindset and responsibilities. What I find amusing is that this modern image of medieval nobility, oddly (or not so oddly enough) seemingly draw more from the image of corrupt politicians, albeit without the voting part. Of course a lot of the people who imagine a world like that are themselves spoiled brats in ivory towers.

Of course that's ignoring inbreeding-related insanity but that's another topic...

Quote from: jhkimI don't have time for a detailed review of Sahudese Fire Drill at this point, but I can give you a sample of text from it. Here's one:

Shortly after the Sahudese arrive, the clan head approaches the leader of his escort. "We go visit Empelol. Have gift." He calls out something in his own language. The characters will catch "Chu-Chu" from the gabble of syllables. The little rag-mop dog scampers around a corner and sits, panting, at Shimota's feet. "Plince Chu-Chu is gualdian dog -- spilit of honolable ancestol rives in him. Velly gleat honol, have one of Chu-Chu. Onry may get flom oul Heavenking. Gift flom him to youl Empelol."

Presumably the characters will have become acquainted with Chu-Chu's more irritating habits by this time, and will have second thoughts about giving this creature to Emperor Diophrates. On the other hand, offending the Sahudese Heavenking might not be such a good idea, either.

It is a wacky comedy adventure, where the whole point of the comedy is how ridiculous and irrational the Sahudese are.

Quote from: tenbones;1063494Yeah that's pretty bad. Caricaturist for sure. Racist? Not sure what the author thinks of Asians... but I read this and I had this image of a crowd of Micky Rooney's circa Breakfast at Tiffany's.

I'll go as far as saying the writer is likely an ignorant jackass. Racist? I dunno. I'd have to talk to him. I have a lot of friends and family that say ignorant jackass things. I don't count any of them as "racist".

I don't know the module author at all. Likewise, I don't really know anything about Micky Rooney or the creators of Breakfast at Tiffany's as people. I don't think I have to know them personally to judge their work. I can watch Breakfast at Tiffany's and still enjoy it - but the portrayal of Mr. Yunioshi is going to detract from that some - and yes, I am going to call it racist.

Likewise, I watched Disney's _Song of the South_ a few months ago with my son. It was interesting to see the 1940s take on race relations, and it was a well-done movie that I was able to enjoy. But I will also go out on a limb and say that it is a little racist.

Quote from: tenbones;1063494Here's the thing... that they're using Asians as idiotic comic-relief... doesn't hurt *my* feelings. I'm Asian, I'm successful, I honestly don't give a shit. I don't find this Sahudese Fire Drill funny, as the writer intended - not because he's making fun of Asians (I assume the Sahudese are Asian) - I find it not "wacky and funny" because it's so low-brow, and dumb it loses any sense of humor.

Let's do a thought-experiment -

The Engrish text for example - could be a pantomime of any kind of culture attempting to speak English. So if these Sahudese were monkey-people (like Hadozee in Spelljammer), would it still be a problem? World of Warcraft has an Asian monkey race that is VERY close to how these Sahudese are portrayed, the only difference is they're monkey-people.

Regarding your feelings, I'm also an Asian who is successful - and my feelings aren't hurt that there is some racist shit in some obscure module. Likewise, my feelings aren't hurt by MyFAROG. But that doesn't mean that MyFAROG isn't racist.

I don't know World of Warcraft. I'm not going to have an opinion on its monkey-people without knowing about it. Maybe I'd be fine with it - maybe not. I don't know at this point.

More broadly speaking, it seems like you're trying to isolate individual bits of a portrayal in order to argue that the whole thing isn't racist. So, to take the portrayal of Mr. Yunioshi which we're both familiar with. He talks in exaggerated Engrish. But just talking in Engrish isn't so bad, you argue, thus the portrayal of Mr. Yunioshi isn't racist. But really, there are a lot of ways that his accent, his personality, his body language, and so forth that all contribute to a negative caricature of Japanese people.

Quote from: fearsomepirate;1063493The important thing to avoid racism in your fantasy setting is to understand that other ethnic groups have no negative or funny characteristics that make them different from us. In fact, they really don't have characteristics at all that you can define (positive stereotyping is still racist).

So...  It seems like what you're arguing that because it's OK to have some negative and funny characteristics in a portrayal without being racist, thus therefore no portrayal is ever racist because it's just negative or funny characteristics. That's just knee-jerk reductionism.

To be concrete - there are differences between portrayals. Say, Charlie Chan often gets a lot of flak - but overall I like many of the Charlie Chan movies. There are some racist bits in the movies - but it's more against black people rather than Chinese.

Quote from: fearsomepirate;1063508it's honestly getting pretty hard to figure out how to pretend to be an elf in a magical fantasy kingdom without being a bad person.

  One of RPGNet's mods once said this in all sincerity.

Quote from: Armchair Gamer;1063515One of RPGNet's mods once said this in all sincerity.

Really, it's simple: from here on we should only play characters which are us in sex/ethnicity/background/abilities. That way we never risk misrepresenting some group.

Quote from: Bob Something;1063516Really, it's simple: from here on we should only play characters which are us in sex/ethnicity/background/abilities. That way we never risk misrepresenting some group.

I think there is some reasonable position between:

1) Any portrayal of a different ethnicity than you is racist

and

2) Nothing in any game is ever racist

I'm going to stick by my characterization of Sahudese Fire Drill along with World of Darkness: Gypsies and MyFAROG as all being racist.

Personally, my games frequently have players portraying different ethnicities from ourselves. I was just at AmberCon NorthWest, and I had East Asian players playing Middle Eastern character, white players playing West African characters, white players playing fantasy East-Asian themed characters, and plenty more.

It's called sarcasm, by the way.

Quote from: Bob Something;1063519It's called sarcasm, by the way.

Is it? :D

Quote from: jhkim;1063518I think there is some reasonable position between:

1) Any portrayal of a different ethnicity than you is racist

and

2) Nothing in any game is ever racist

I'm going to stick by my characterization of Sahudese Fire Drill along with World of Darkness: Gypsies and MyFAROG as all being racist.

Personally, my games frequently have players portraying different ethnicities from ourselves. I was just at AmberCon NorthWest, and I had East Asian players playing Middle Eastern character, white players playing West African characters, white players playing fantasy East-Asian themed characters, and plenty more.

And what if one of those players did something that is a stereotype in your game? Does that make them a racist (to you)? How many stereotype/caricature tripwires need to be set off before the R-word is in play?

I'm not saying it's impossibru, I'm just asking, because I find it weird to mention it as if it's thing that needs to be qualified somehow? Is playing a greedy dwarf racist? Or a fey-acting elf? A voracious halfling? Or does it only apply to real people playing make-believe analogs in a fictional game?

Where precisely do you draw the line (I have no lines outside of the real world).

Quote from: jhkim;1063513I don't know the module author at all. Likewise, I don't really know anything about Micky Rooney or the creators of Breakfast at Tiffany's as people. I don't think I have to know them personally to judge their work. I can watch Breakfast at Tiffany's and still enjoy it - but the portrayal of Mr. Yunioshi is going to detract from that some - and yes, I am going to call it racist.

Likewise, I watched Disney's _Song of the South_ a few months ago with my son. It was interesting to see the 1940s take on race relations, and it was a well-done movie that I was able to enjoy. But I will also go out on a limb and say that it is a little racist.

But this is cultural relativism. It might be "racist" by today's standards - but back then it wasn't. What is missing here is intent. And the intent of the people involved. If someone *wants* to be offended... they will.

Quote from: jhkim;1063513Regarding your feelings, I'm also an Asian who is successful - and my feelings aren't hurt that there is some racist shit in some obscure module. Likewise, my feelings aren't hurt by MyFAROG. But that doesn't mean that MyFAROG isn't racist.

I don't know World of Warcraft. I'm not going to have an opinion on its monkey-people without knowing about it. Maybe I'd be fine with it - maybe not. I don't know at this point.

But you just had a WTF moment for me saying the same thing to your example. As if I had committed some social faux paux based on your own example which gave less "evidence" than I provided for mine. Unless you're under the belief I'm not discussing this in good faith (I am).

I generally don't say "things" are racist. People are racist. They may use items in the act of being racist, or they might symbolically represent racist ideas, but the bar is set moderately high and always subject to context.

Quote from: jhkim;1063513More broadly speaking, it seems like you're trying to isolate individual bits of a portrayal in order to argue that the whole thing isn't racist. So, to take the portrayal of Mr. Yunioshi which we're both familiar with. He talks in exaggerated Engrish. But just talking in Engrish isn't so bad, you argue, thus the portrayal of Mr. Yunioshi isn't racist. But really, there are a lot of ways that his accent, his personality, his body language, and so forth that all contribute to a negative caricature of Japanese people.

Yes, that's exactly what I'm saying. I don't assume Eddie Murphy is a homophobe when he pretends to be Ralph Kramden and asks Ed Norton to come around and screw him in the butt, in his stand-up act either ('Delirious' soooo good!). The intent of the stand-up act is not the intent of the writer or actor necessarily, and without casting ESP or having a body of evidence (which doesn't take a whole lot to figure out) - labeling someone a racist by other terms (like yours) comes predicatively easy. TOO easy.

And one merely looks at what *isn't* considered racist now, because of those very standards, that have very little nuance except the "feels". There is the real problem.

What value comes from it? Endless purity tests? Endless resentment. Endless self-loathing. Endless self-victimization. Endless blaming others for not measuring up to some invisible standard that recedes ever downward with each new co-options of a phrase, every new definition to hold others accountable to that makes little logical sense.

So... what makes more sense? Splitting rocks of offensiveness until we're splitting grains of sand and pretending we're splitting mountains? Or worse - actually accusing people of doing things they didn't intend or mean, but have no way of proving otherwise because the invisible sin has been committed to which there is NO atonement? That's what this game is.

Yeah, I think the tried and true definitions of words matter. Not these new watered down illogical ones. And sure, people's feelings matter - only insofar as they're consistent with what they're being activated for. Context matters. Self-awareness matters. When you miss out on one or the other - you're done.

Quote from: jhkim;1063513But just talking in Engrish isn't so bad, you argue, thus the portrayal of Mr. Yunioshi isn't racist. But really, there are a lot of ways that his accent, his personality, his body language, and so forth that all contribute to a negative caricature of Japanese people.

Is a negative caricature of an American (common in British fiction) racist? Eg the guy in A Fish Called Wanda. Or a negative caricature of a Brit in a Bollywood movie? Not rhetorical, just to be clear where you're coming from.

AFAICS there are many different definitions of 'racist', eg the quip I made to my son on the train coming home after dinner this evening involved a negative caricature of an ethnic group. But no one filmed me on their smartphone and called the police; because I was making fun of the French.

Quote from: jhkim;1063513More broadly speaking, it seems like you're trying to isolate individual bits of a portrayal in order to argue that the whole thing isn't racist. So, to take the portrayal of Mr. Yunioshi which we're both familiar with. He talks in exaggerated Engrish. But just talking in Engrish isn't so bad, you argue, thus the portrayal of Mr. Yunioshi isn't racist. But really, there are a lot of ways that his accent, his personality, his body language, and so forth that all contribute to a negative caricature of Japanese people.

There doesn't seem to be a word to quite express a horrible reminder of how people would enjoy caricatures. While the portrayals are often racial or ethnic, they aren't intended to harm, but to elicit a laugh without considering someone of that type might also be in the audience and take great offense (and showing that Hollywood doesn't give a damn). But these are the sort of norms that do change.

I watched this with my Japanese wife, and she thought his portrayal was really quite good. I have known many Japanese men that fit this caricature or worse, and even Japanese portrayal of old weird guys (usually bosses) on TV and in movies that fit it exactly.

Similarly, I went to the University where Animal House was filmed, and 'back in the day' it was a tradition to watch it on campus at the the beginning of the year. Yet there was a showing that coincided with its 40th anniversary (https://www.usatoday.com/story/life/movies/2018/07/27/animal-house-turns-40-can-we-still-laugh/822642002/) and, a lot of the students really had a hard time with various portrayals.

I wonder if perhaps there isn't something else at work that isn't necessarily only racism but a collective 'we should be moving beyond this small mindedness'. And a great many things we enjoy now likely go that way.

For me, Mr. Yunioshi was the best part of the movie. The main characters were opportunistic sleeze-bags that just happen to be somewhat funny and good looking.

In the broader cultural sense, there are a few ways that people use "racist".

1) Anyone who uses "racist" is a leftist snowflake
2) "Racist" should only be used to describe self-described nazis, neo-nazis, and white supremacists
3) "Racist" should also apply to some negative caricatures like minstrel shows, Amos & Andy, and Mr. Yunioshi
4) "Racist" should apply to modern mainstream political positions, like the caravan-related Trump ad recently pulled from Fox networks

I would put myself into #3.

Quote from: tenbones;1063522And what if one of those players did something that is a stereotype in your game? Does that make them a racist (to you)? How many stereotype/caricature tripwires need to be set off before the R-word is in play?

My players do stuff that is stereotyped all the time in my games, as do I. I think I've already been clear about this. There can be racist portrayals that use stereotypes (like minstrel shows or Mr. Yunioshi), but that doesn't mean that any stereotyping is racist.

The overwhelming majority of gaming products are at most somewhat prejudiced and I wouldn't use the term racist for them. Likewise, the overwhelming majority of my players - including at conventions - are at most somewhat prejudiced and I wouldn't use the term. Still, there are a handful of gaming products that I would openly term racist that I singled out - like MyFAROG, World of Darkness: Gypsies, and Sahudese Fire Drill. There are probably a few players like this - but I don't play with them except maybe unknowingly at conventions.

Quote from: jhkimLikewise, I watched Disney's _Song of the South_ a few months ago with my son. It was interesting to see the 1940s take on race relations, and it was a well-done movie that I was able to enjoy. But I will also go out on a limb and say that it is a little racist.

Quote from: tenbones;1063526But this is cultural relativism. It might be "racist" by today's standards - but back then it wasn't. What is missing here is intent. And the intent of the people involved. If someone *wants* to be offended... they will.

My position is the exact opposite of cultural relativism. It sounds to me like you're arguing for cultural relativism. i.e. Something should be judged racist only if it is considered racist by the society of the time.

Quote from: jhkimI don't know World of Warcraft. I'm not going to have an opinion on its monkey-people without knowing about it. Maybe I'd be fine with it - maybe not. I don't know at this point.

Quote from: tenbones;1063526But you just had a WTF moment for me saying the same thing to your example. As if I had committed some social faux paux based on your own example which gave less "evidence" than I provided for mine. Unless you're under the belief I'm not discussing this in good faith (I am).

tenbones, here's what you wrote:

Quote from: tenbonesI'm not familiar with the "Sahudese Fire Drill" - I assume it's a reference to "Chinese Fire Drill"? Is what makes it racist? The fact that the word "Chinese" is in it and they swapped out "Sahud" for it? I'm willing to believe this is the author being "guilty" of general ignorance rather than racism.

Like you - this is not science. And even at my most cynicial I don't think it's meant to denigrate Chinese people (insofar as the adventure title is concerned), at most it appears on the surface to be a co-option of a term that means "clusterfuck". Do I think it's racist? I don't think it's meant to be. That he might be a little insensitive? Perhaps.

Compare what I said, and what you said. You said you didn't know Sahudese Fire Drill - then went on to express an opinion that you didn't think it was meant to denigrate Chinese people. I just said "I don't know either way."

Quote from: S'mon;1063528Is a negative caricature of an American (common in British fiction) racist? Eg the guy in A Fish Called Wanda. Or a negative caricature of a Brit in a Bollywood movie? Not rhetorical, just to be clear where you're coming from.

AFAICS there are many different definitions of 'racist', eg the quip I made to my son on the train coming home after dinner this evening involved a negative caricature of an ethnic group. But no one filmed me on their smartphone and called the police; because I was making fun of the French.

The short answer is no, I don't think that caricatures of Americans are racist.

There is certainly a blending of racial stereotypes and cultural stereotypes. Still, essentially no one thinks that Americans are genetically different from English as an explanation of their shortcomings. On the other hand, particularly in the past, a lot of people have believed that there is a primarily genetic component for what is captured in caricatures of the Chinese, blacks, and other races.

I guess my question back to you would be - Do you think the caricatures in Amos & Andy are harmless fun like your poking fun at the French? Or do you think that there was good reason for American blacks to take offense at it?

Quote from: jhkim;1063513So...  It seems like what you're arguing that because it's OK to have some negative and funny characteristics in a portrayal without being racist, thus therefore no portrayal is ever racist because it's just negative or funny characteristics. That's just knee-jerk reductionism.

Am I arguing something? Am I being ironic?  Because here's the thing, we now know it is racist to describe a pyramid as "Aztec-looking." It is now conventional wisdom that if you believe that Aztec architecture had readily identifiable characteristics, you are a racist. Hey, I remember when Passion of the Christ was criticized for its racist casting choices, because casting Italians to play Levantines is racist, because they look, uh, too much like Levantines, what with them, uh, having a lot in common with other Mediterranean peoples.

So it's racist for people to have faces, like who knows anything anymore.

Quote from: fearsomepirate;1063560So it's racist for people to have faces, like who knows anything anymore.

This is why it is pointless to try to appease these lunatics. Because nothing ever will. If you concede drow are really misogynist misrepresentations of the matriarchy and remove them then tomorrow they will demand something new and equally or more insane. Now you have to remove orcs because those are really africans! And tomorrow you have to remove the colour red because you are appropriating native american culture!

Quote from: jhkim;1063546I guess my question back to you would be - Do you think the caricatures in Amos & Andy are harmless fun like your poking fun at the French? Or do you think that there was good reason for American blacks to take offense at it?

I haven't seen Amos & Andy so I can't comment on that. I do know I wouldn't put MYFAROG, WoD: Gypsies, and your description of the stereotypically Chinese setting, in the same category. The last one seems offensive without being racist to me, but I'm from a culture which never had anti-Chinese racism the way the USA did so I can see why cultural perspectives would affect that view. MYFAROG is intentionally racist or racialist from everything I've heard. I doubt WoD: Gypsies was trying to be offensive but I've not seen it (or any of your three examples) either.

The problem is that calling something "racist" has over the years gone from a way to identify something mean-spirited and hateful to a means of exercising social control over other people. The meaning is now slippery, what makes something "racist" is mostly if I can successfully humiliate someone else or elevate myself by calling it that.

The most offensive thing about MYFAROG, following a cursory examination of a scan found off 4chan (after nearly a year of people wanting to see it out of bile fascination yet the game never manifesting), is the font and Varg's horrific misunderstanding of maths and ancient history. Okay maybe there's (obviously) more but I could not get over the damn thing being set in what appears to be the Papyrus font: I looked at it expecting FATAL 2.0 but could not get bad the hilarious bad font, formatting and structure. I'm sure there is more offensive stuff in there but I doubt anyone would bother looking into it without their eyeballs falling off. The thing doesn't even need to get into it's 'lore' and 'setting' to be yet another ugly, useless fantasy heart breaker. The fact people talked about it for a year or more on /tg/ without any scan manifesting shows that beyond the odd fascination with it's origin, in reality, nobody bought MYFAROG. The thing was a ghost for a long time and when it did manifest it just wasn't as hilarious as FATAL was.

At least FATAL is disturbingly hilarious in a black comedy sense.

Fatal is not hilarious in anyway shape or form imo.

Made worse by the devs trying to defend their game. It's such a disturbing thing to read. Even more than the rpg itself. It's how they go out of their way not to understand or even remotely accept that their rpg is so terrible and flawed.

Quote from: sureshot;1063656Fatal is not hilarious in anyway shape or form imo.

Made worse by the devs trying to defend their game. It's such a disturbing thing to read. Even more than the rpg itself. It's how they go out of their way not to understand or even remotely accept that their rpg is so terrible and flawed.

The devs going out of their way not to understand or even remotely accept that their rpg is so terrible and flawed is precisely what makes it hilarious IMO.

Quote from: jhkim;1063535In the broader cultural sense, there are a few ways that people use "racist".

1) Anyone who uses "racist" is a leftist snowflake
2) "Racist" should only be used to describe self-described nazis, neo-nazis, and white supremacists
3) "Racist" should also apply to some negative caricatures like minstrel shows, Amos & Andy, and Mr. Yunioshi
4) "Racist" should apply to modern mainstream political positions, like the caravan-related Trump ad recently pulled from Fox networks

I would put myself into #3.


My players do stuff that is stereotyped all the time in my games, as do I. I think I've already been clear about this. There can be racist portrayals that use stereotypes (like minstrel shows or Mr. Yunioshi), but that doesn't mean that any stereotyping is racist.

So the only one that matters is #2. Those are actual people that actually believe their race is superior and they advocate/do actionable things against other races.

Everything else is purely periphery. To the *DEGREE* that one conflates those peripheral positions to become "racist" is the degree of snowflakiness that has infected the brains of otherwise normal people. And this is by the intent of those that believe such nonsense to perpetuate the nonsense to create an orthodoxy of thought. Much like a religion.

Quote from: jhkim;1063535The overwhelming majority of gaming products are at most somewhat prejudiced and I wouldn't use the term racist for them. Likewise, the overwhelming majority of my players - including at conventions - are at most somewhat prejudiced and I wouldn't use the term. Still, there are a handful of gaming products that I would openly term racist that I singled out - like MyFAROG, World of Darkness: Gypsies, and Sahudese Fire Drill. There are probably a few players like this - but I don't play with them except maybe unknowingly at conventions.

So again - where do you draw the line? If you believe you're #3 what is the effective difference about someone doing a caricature of a fantasy analog race (that could be based on a real-world culture) and Mr. Yunioshi? This is why the standard definition is *better*. It puts Mr. Yunioshi into context. The only way Mr. Yunioshi is negative is if you FEEL some connection to that stereotype as if YOU are being made fun of. And even then if you're willing to admit Stereotypes have a kernel of truth to them... then you miss the point that is at the heart of comedy and satire.

Quote from: jhkim;1063537My position is the exact opposite of cultural relativism. It sounds to me like you're arguing for cultural relativism. i.e. Something should be judged racist only if it is considered racist by the society of the time.

Nope. I'm pointing out the term RACISM has been elongated out to encompass things that *aren't* racist. I'm not changing the definition of racism. Your position is changing the standard of the culture. Racism hasn't changed. People's definition of Racism has changed to include things that aren't actually racist.

You tell me - when the dwarf stereotype of dissing all things not of "Dwarven Craftsmenship" or talking trash of "elf-culture" - is that racism? Because on its face value it's pretty close, but not necessarily. Depends on the take of the character from the player. But everyone just laughs about it because it's a "gruff dwarven stereotype". But if you tell that to most players they'll freak out at being called a "racist".

Test yourself -  imagine you were playing real-world analog race and your Asian character called a black character's culturally crafted sword "black trash - everyone knows Asian katana are superior weapons. As are all our techniques over yours."

Quote from: jhkim;1063537Compare what I said, and what you said. You said you didn't know Sahudese Fire Drill - then went on to express an opinion that you didn't think it was meant to denigrate Chinese people. I just said "I don't know either way."

No. You conveniently *ignored* what I responded to. Which was this:

Quote from: jhkim;1063537What the fuck? So you haven't read the adventure, have no clue what it is even about - but you've got a definite opinion that it isn't racist and maybe it's just a little insensitive?

Are you not taking this conversation in good faith? I'm not trying to parse words, but given the subject matter and your broad definitions, I feel like I have to in order to speak on the same plane. I asked for clarification - you gave some. I gave you an equal example with the ASSUMPTION you didn't know what I was talking about - and I included clarification pro-actively - and you dodged the question.

*I still responded to your clarification based on what you told me.* Nothing about my position has changed, but I'm open for you to try. I see your over-broad and use of the term "racism" to be at the heart of the matter here.

I dunno man (jhkim) I think you're a good guy and you certainly mean well. I feel like you're trying to have your cake and eat it too. It appears you play fast-and-loose with what "stereotypes" are okay in some arbitrary fashion without context. And I believe this stems from these new "definitions" lefties have created to justify their feelings and beliefs which do not exist in reality.

When people give you context - you seem to err on the side of "minorities in the west" are never wrong about their feelings of a stereotype (presumably if they come from white people). The reverse of this rarely seems to be true for you on this matter.

Where this notion intersects (I want to go on the record for saying I'm using this term CORRECTLY) with gaming, you still seem to apply this definition in a broad general manner - and THAT IS THE PROBLEM.

In game terms - the only value to this kind of political correctness IS to create conflict for the players to resolve. But I see that being a Politically Correct Person approaching their gaming in a PC manner... would be sub-optimal.

Blue Rose is probably a good example of that on many levels.

I think I must have something broken, because I'm not offended by MYFAROG. I don't know how to be "offended" by the fact that a murderous lunatic who burns churches also wrote an RPG that seems to be overall the sort of thing a murderous, church-burning lunatic would write. The fact that neo-Nazis like it doesn't "offend" or "upset" me, because I expect neo-Nazis to like stupid things like MYFAROG.

"MY GOD, FEARESOMEPIRATE, HAVE YOU HEARD?!?!"
Heard what, my hysterical, media-addicted friend?
"THE NEO-NAZIS!"
What have they done this time?
"THEY LIKE THIS RPG!"
Oh really? Is it D&D? Savage Worlds? Vampire?
"NO! THEY LIKE THIS PREACHY NEO-PAGAN BULLSHIT RPG WRITTEN BY A CHURCH-MURDERING LUNATIC!"
Great scott! That sounds nothing at all like something I would expect a neo-Nazi to like! Truly we are in a time of crisis and panic!

Quote from: fearsomepirate;1063661The devs going out of their way not to understand or even remotely accept that their rpg is so terrible and flawed is precisely what makes it hilarious IMO.

Exactly. That's what made Fatal even more hilarious. I might put Synnibarr in there too.

Quote from: fearsomepirate;1063675I think I must have something broken, because I'm not offended by MYFAROG. I don't know how to be "offended" by the fact that a murderous lunatic who burns churches also wrote an RPG that seems to be overall the sort of thing a murderous, church-burning lunatic would write. The fact that neo-Nazis like it doesn't "offend" or "upset" me, because I expect neo-Nazis to like stupid things like MYFAROG.

"MY GOD, FEARESOMEPIRATE, HAVE YOU HEARD?!?!"
Heard what, my hysterical, media-addicted friend?
"THE NEO-NAZIS!"
What have they done this time?
"THEY LIKE THIS RPG!"
Oh really? Is it D&D? Savage Worlds? Vampire?
"NO! THEY LIKE THIS PREACHY NEO-PAGAN BULLSHIT RPG WRITTEN BY A CHURCH-MURDERING LUNATIC!"
Great scott! That sounds nothing at all like something I would expect a neo-Nazi to like! Truly we are in a time of crisis and panic!

The problem here is that people work themselves up into a state of offense that becomes a sport.

It's not enough that this guy is a nutbag, stipulated. It's that everything associated with him suddenly becomes this radioactive waste where it infects anything it connects to, even on the most superficial levels free of any real context, other than what exists in the offended person's mind.

To make matters worse - those offended people *insist* it has some real world implications beyond the mere existence of the offensive object.

How is this *any* different than the moral outrages of the "Satanic Panic"?

Quote from: fearsomepirate;1063675I think I must have something broken, because I'm not offended by MYFAROG. I don't know how to be "offended" by the fact that a murderous lunatic who burns churches also wrote an RPG that seems to be overall the sort of thing a murderous, church-burning lunatic would write. The fact that neo-Nazis like it doesn't "offend" or "upset" me, because I expect neo-Nazis to like stupid things like MYFAROG.

Regardless of whether you are offended by it, do you think that MyFAROG is racist? Or would you say it is not racist? I think it is pretty clearly racist. Here is a link for the full rules scan, by the way:

(EDITED BY MOD)

Now, if you want to argue that it isn't important - that seems more reasonable. But I don't think one can reasonably argue that it isn't racist.

To summarize a bit - I have taken the position that there do exist some examples of racism in RPG works. I called out Sahudese Fire Drill, World of Darkness: Gypsies, and MYFAROG. I added to this some parallels in mainstream culture including Amos & Andy, Disney's Song of the South, and Mr. Yunioshi (from Breakfast at Tiffany's) are racist. To expand a little more on this. Earlier I said,

Quote from: jhkimIn the broader cultural sense, there are a few ways that people use "racist".

1) Anyone who uses "racist" is a leftist snowflake
2) "Racist" should only be used to describe self-described nazis, neo-nazis, and white supremacists
3) "Racist" should also apply to some negative caricatures like minstrel shows, Amos & Andy, and Mr. Yunioshi
4) "Racist" should apply to modern mainstream political positions, like the caravan-related Trump ad recently pulled from Fox networks

I would put myself into #3.

Quote from: tenbonesSo the only one that matters is #2. Those are actual people that actually believe their race is superior and they advocate/do actionable things against other races.

Everything else is purely periphery. To the *DEGREE* that one conflates those peripheral positions to become "racist" is the degree of snowflakiness that has infected the brains of otherwise normal people. And this is by the intent of those that believe such nonsense to perpetuate the nonsense to create an orthodoxy of thought. Much like a religion.

I think that people other than nazis do in fact to actionable things against other races. For example, in the 1940s, the U.S. military was not pro-nazi. Far from it. Nevertheless, they had a policy of segregating blacks to only be in all-black units or as cooks for white soldiers. I would say that this policy was racist.

I don't consider this an attack or mischaracterization of the U.S. military at the time. They were not evil - they just had attitudes that at the time were mainstream in American society. Mainstream 1940s Americans weren't nazis - they did not advocate violent race war, and they opposed the Germans and Japanese who were far more racist. Still, they often held racist positions - like supporting segregation, and opposing inter-racial marriage.

I don't think it is a stretch to say that in a time when segregation was mainstream, that some mainstream entertainment reflected that view. This includes things like Song of the South and Amos & Andy. I would put Mr. Yuniochi in the same category as that.

Quote from: tenbones;1063673Nope. I'm pointing out the term RACISM has been elongated out to encompass things that *aren't* racist. I'm not changing the definition of racism. Your position is changing the standard of the culture. Racism hasn't changed. People's definition of Racism has changed to include things that aren't actually racist.

I disagree that this is changing the definition of racism. Back in the 1940s, there were lots of people who complained about Amos & Andy along with Song of the South - and considered them racist.

Quote from: sureshot;1063656Fatal is not hilarious in anyway shape or form imo.

Made worse by the devs trying to defend their game. It's such a disturbing thing to read. Even more than the rpg itself. It's how they go out of their way not to understand or even remotely accept that their rpg is so terrible and flawed.

FATAL is hilariously bad on a mechanical level and even more so on the basis that they seemingly wrote this thing 100% with a serious face on. That someone made something this bad, released it, got mocked for it and said with a straight face they were serious is priceless.

Quote from: Bob Something;1063723FATAL is hilariously bad on a mechanical level and even more so on the basis that they seemingly wrote this thing 100% with a serious face on. That someone made something this bad, released it, got mocked for it and said with a straight face they were serious is priceless.

praise the lord, somebody else on this forum is capable of laughing at clown shows

Quote from: jhkim;1063705To summarize a bit - I have taken the position that there do exist some examples of racism in RPG works. I called out Sahudese Fire Drill, World of Darkness: Gypsies, and MYFAROG. I added to this some parallels in mainstream culture including Amos & Andy, Disney's Song of the South, and Mr. Yunioshi (from Breakfast at Tiffany's) are racist. To expand a little more on this. Earlier I said...

Stipulated. But in and of themselves - those things are *not* racist. They are the products of other people's attempts to illicit something in others. To the *degree* that those PEOPLE are themselves racist is the issue here. To the degree that these "things" offend people - is subjective depending directly on how they feel based on their identification with those ideas.

Someone that is a bigot (a person who is obstinately or intolerantly devoted to his or her own opinions and prejudices) - may look down on your culture. But they may also hold no particular esteem for those of their own culture. This *is* a hallmark of all racists. But not all bigots are racists. And whatever expression that comes from those people may support those views, but by themselves there needs to be context.

WoD Gypsies - lefties love calling this book "racist" without contextualizing the fact that the book makes a super-hero out of a stereotype.

Why is WoD Gypsies singled out and say... Get of Fenris are not singled-out for having a strain of Neo-Nazis in their midst? Why are the Giovanni not singled out for being Mobsters? Why are Fianna not singled out for portraying Irish as drunks? I could go on. The point being - these are *all* stereotypes where the conceits of the game acknowledge and hyperbolically extend those things to their supernatural elements. Is IT racism? I don't think so.

In fact - if there is a real bigotry here, it's the non-stop assumption that *only* minorities here in America, or when abroad those that fall under "former Colony" status, are the only ones that are targets of bigotry and racism. Which is ridiculous. THAT itself is a form of bigotry - as if these cultures don't have their own stereotypes about other people that are *horrendous*.  But for the purposes of the here and now - it only seems fair to do to white people. It's *that* very sentiment that allows people on the left to commit their own bigotry under the auspices of "social-justice".

Sorry I'm not buying it.

Quote from: jhkim;1063705I think that people other than nazis do in fact to actionable things against other races. For example, in the 1940s, the U.S. military was not pro-nazi. Far from it. Nevertheless, they had a policy of segregating blacks to only be in all-black units or as cooks for white soldiers. I would say that this policy was racist.

I don't consider this an attack or mischaracterization of the U.S. military at the time. They were not evil - they just had attitudes that at the time were mainstream in American society. Mainstream 1940s Americans weren't nazis - they did not advocate violent race war, and they opposed the Germans and Japanese who were far more racist. Still, they often held racist positions - like supporting segregation, and opposing inter-racial marriage.

So again - racist or bigoted? It's a bigoted policy. But it should bear noting that those were Democratic policies created by avowed racists. Those same Democrats that blocked all attempts for blacks to join the Army because *the* racists thought blacks were sub-human. The policy is bigoted, not itself racist. When it was overturned - it kept blacks in their own units which makes sense given their attitudes of the time around 1917 when WWI demanded military cohesion. It was an unknown. I'm going to keep trying to make this game-related...

If you were a in a campaign and running an army of a particular race - say Dwarves, and all Dwarves got a unit-bonus for melee because they're axe-wielding Dwarves, and Elves got a unit bonus for Archery - because they're bow-plucking Elves. Both are acknowledged fantasy stereotypes of each race. It would be tactically and probably strategically stupid to integrate those units.

The assumption everyone is going to behave and be as effective in some egalitarian meritocratic fashion is a modern view that military people, regardless of their background, do not have the luxury to entertain when a known quantity is in play. You go with what you know works in warfare. Yes, it's sad we have had to go through that, but that's *always* been true. Since the dawn of organized military this has been done until proven otherwise - Greeks, Egyptians, Romans, Mongols, etc... all have done this with foreign units in some fashion.

I don't think this is a good example for you: this is an example of expediency of the present circumstances. I should add: they're ones that were *proven to be wrong*.

Quote from: jhkim;1063705I don't think it is a stretch to say that in a time when segregation was mainstream, that some mainstream entertainment reflected that view. This includes things like Song of the South and Amos & Andy. I would put Mr. Yuniochi in the same category as that.

I disagree that this is changing the definition of racism. Back in the 1940s, there were lots of people who complained about Amos & Andy along with Song of the South - and considered them racist.

I don't think its a stretch to say that the purveyors of Segregation and Jim Crow, and Slavery writ-large in America is the same party full of people *still* playing with these ideas under the guise of Identity Politics that are so drunk on their own Kool-Aid they can't see their own soft-bigotry as they commit it under the guise of fancy-schmancy dogmatic terms like "Equity" instead of... you know... equality.

You can downplay the value of nuance all you want. All it will get you is more "problemitized" issues. Why is it that I, and those that don't acknowledge any of these redefinitions of terms, can clearly identify actionable problems without much issue? We're able to discuss those issues without having to resort to rhetorical hijinks of arguing from unspoken claims on definitions of terms we don't agree with. Why do you think that is? And further, how are we to expect people to telepathically understand the emotional states of others *and value* those unknowable states over and above the reality we're presented including the solutions to those aforementioned problems, without being punished for wrongthink? How is that *remotely* possible?

Case in point. You think these things are racist. I think depending on which item in question there are several possibilities - up to and including racist - but probably not likely *because* the intent of these things do not apparently dictate to me that they're intended for the purpose of what "racism" is as any primary goal.

Yuniochi is played by Mickey Rooney. White-washed character - absolutley. Bigoted? Sure for the purposes of making money. No one in Hollywood in the 60's was willing to risk tens of thousands of dollars on an Asian guy in that role. Racist against Asians? Nah, not really. It's America. The in-group culture is largely white. If this is racist... are you going to accuse the entire movie industry of China and India and Japan as being racist - RIGHT NOW? Try shooting for diversity there. Their stereotypes of westerners are almost always villains doing bad shit. Are they racist too because of their in-group preference? And keep in mind - I'm not talking about 1960's. I'm talking about *today*.

Or do they get a pass on their "cultural" mores, but we don't because we're more "enlightened"? <---- there's your passive-racist litmus test.

The new ANARCH guide has caused a minor flame war with RUDI'S GANG that is basically either (according to who you ask):

1. Making fun of social justice warriors and antifa wannabes

2. Making fun of people who can't stand social justice warriors and antifa wannabes

Quote from: CTPhipps;1063748The new ANARCH guide has caused a minor flame war with RUDI'S GANG that is basically either (according to who you ask):

1. Making fun of social justice warriors and antifa wannabes

2. Making fun of people who can't stand social justice warriors and antifa wannabes

I'm still mulling over my Vampire 5e purchasing desires... The irony of Vampire and WoD writ-large being occupied by SJW snowflakes in their own minds, until recently, is a natural fuel-source for many flame-wars to come I'm sure.

Quote from: jhkim;1063694Regardless of whether you are offended by it, do you think that MyFAROG is racist? Or would you say it is not racist? I think it is pretty clearly racist. Here is a link for the full rules scan, by the way:

(EDITED BY MOD)

Now, if you want to argue that it isn't important - that seems more reasonable. But I don't think one can reasonably argue that it isn't racist.

Hey JhKim,

Your post was in violation of two rules of the site: posting pirated material (I'm assuming that link on the mega.nz site was not a legally authorized download point), and posting neo-nazi material.

Now, in principle, I do agree with the spirit of your post, of exposing the rules as what they are (because they are absolutely, unquestionably racist) to people who might be arguing in ignorance not realizing the nature of that game.

But in practice, I can't let that link be here.

Obviously, do not post it again.

Quote from: tenbones;1063750I'm still mulling over my Vampire 5e purchasing desires... The irony of Vampire and WoD writ-large being occupied by SJW snowflakes in their own minds, until recently, is a natural fuel-source for many flame-wars to come I'm sure.

It's kind of a weird thing because vampire has always been Gothic PUNK.

Which is anti-fascist and anti-The Man.

It's also extremely cynical and edgy.

It has no room for either political correctness or bigotry in any form.

Quote from: RPGPundit;1063752Now, in principle, I do agree with the spirit of your post, of exposing the rules as what they are (because they are absolutely, unquestionably racist) to people who might be arguing in ignorance not realizing the nature of that game.

But in practice, I can't let that link be here.

Sorry. My apologies for the mistake, and I'll keep it in mind for future postings.

I'm glad you agree with me about the racist nature of the game.

Quote from: RPGPundit;1063752Your post was in violation of two rules of the site: posting pirated material (I'm assuming that link on the mega.nz site was not a legally authorized download point), and posting neo-nazi material.

Man, people say it's a free market, but just you try to make a living writing RaHoWa modules.

In all seriousness, RaHoWa, MYFAROG, Beast the Primordial and their ilk aren't worth anyone's time. We're better off just ignoring them after a quick, cheap laugh and moving on with our lives. There are only two reasons to bring these games: either you're an offendatron trying to prove RPG are secretly-coded neo-nazi propaganda or you're a tabletop player and you want to laugh at a bad game and use it as a punchline. Seriously, nobody bought these games in any reasonable capacity (except maybe Beast).

Random factoid but Ed Greenwood wrote the Forgotten Realms to have equality between the sexes, no taboo against homosexuality, and to be multiracial with people from many places on Earth having settled it.

It also was a free love-esque setting with numerous poly relationships and casual sex.

TSR *REALLLLLY* rolled that all bad.

Quote from: CTPhipps;1063772Random factoid but Ed Greenwood wrote the Forgotten Realms to have equality between the sexes, no taboo against homosexuality, and to be multiracial with people from many places on Earth having settled it.

It also was a free love-esque setting with numerous poly relationships and casual sex.

TSR *REALLLLLY* rolled that all bad.

Well, this is hardly surprising given who Greenwood was and his era.

Quote from: Bob Something;1063773Well, this is hardly surprising given who Greenwood was and his era.

Yep, he was a big ole hippie.

And TSR was SCARED OF SOCCER MOMS.

Greenwood is, in internet parlance, a "horrorcow."

Not familiar with that terminology.

Quote from: Bob Something;1063769In all seriousness, RaHoWa, MYFAROG, Beast the Primordial and their ilk aren't worth anyone's time. We're better off just ignoring them after a quick, cheap laugh and moving on with our lives.

I would be happy to agree that MYFAROG is both racist and unimportant. It was just a passing mention for me earlier.

For that matter, I don't think my other two examples are important for RPGs. (Sahudese Fire Drill and World of Darkness: Gypsies) But apparently some people really want to argue that even these edge cases.

Quote from: jhkim;1063783I would be happy to agree that MYFAROG is both racist and unimportant. It was just a passing mention for me earlier.

For that matter, I don't think my other two examples are important for RPGs. (Sahudese Fire Drill and World of Darkness: Gypsies) But apparently some people really want to argue that even these edge cases.

I've said it a couple of posts already. I'm discussing things in good faith. I've already pointed out a couple of times where it seems you're not. *You* brought these up as examples. No one else.

So the only person that apparently thought they were worthy of discussion as examples of your perspective - was you. If these are only "edge cases" then bring up better grist for the mill. Unless of course you're engaging in the topic for other reasons which appear to be unstated.

 - and yes I want to be clear - I'm ignorant of the content of MyFAROG - I know the author is a racist, but I don't know that the game is. I'll defer to those more knowledgeable about the content than myself. Part of the reason for the discussion was the assumption someone was going to actually cite some examples.

Quote from: CTPhipps;1063764It's kind of a weird thing because vampire has always been Gothic PUNK.

Which is anti-fascist and anti-The Man.

It's also extremely cynical and edgy.

It has no room for either political correctness or bigotry in any form.

"Punks" sold out years ago became aging, crusty moral guardians. The rest probably became bitter skinheads or something.

Public Image Limited. Oh Johnny!

Quote from: CTPhipps;1063782Not familiar with that terminology.

His life, person, and work can always be milked for horror.

Quote from: tenbones;1063803- and yes I want to be clear - I'm ignorant of the content of MyFAROG - I know the author is a racist, but I don't know that the game is. I'll defer to those more knowledgeable about the content than myself. Part of the reason for the discussion was the assumption someone was going to actually cite some examples.

It's definitely racist. I feel like if jhkim and I agree something is racist, it probably is.

Quote from: jhkim;1063694Regardless of whether you are offended by it, do you think that MyFAROG is racist? Or would you say it is not racist? I think it is pretty clearly racist. Here is a link for the full rules scan, by the way:

(EDITED BY MOD)

Now, if you want to argue that it isn't important - that seems more reasonable. But I don't think one can reasonably argue that it isn't racist.

The setting, as far as I have gone into it, looks racist. The rules (which are nothing to write home about) don't enforce or even imply any racism. Of course, I have been playing in a campaign that is set it ancient Mesopotamia and has no relationship to the ancient north of the suggested setting.

tenbones - I apologize for making things more ad hominem, starting from when we first talked about Sahudese Fire Drill. I would prefer to talk about the issues, and I'm sorry about implying anything about you personally and criticizing your approach.


I use the term racist for encouraging explicit false and derogatory views based on race. I consider this wider than just violent neo-nazis. A mild-mannered mother who warns her daughter against marrying a black man based on race is still racist, even if she isn't promoting violence. Within gaming discussions, we had a poster here (threestonegames) who explicitly thought that Africans genetically had lower IQ. If somone thinks that blacks are genetically dumber and more suited for manual labor, sports, and music - that's still racist, even if they aren't calling for a violent race war.

Notably, segregation and anti-miscegenation laws were along the lines of "separate but equal" which supposedly didn't promote inequality or violence. However, in practice they certainly were denigrating. You write:

(Re: segregation in the military)

Quote from: tenbones;1063746So again - racist or bigoted? It's a bigoted policy. But it should bear noting that those were Democratic policies created by avowed racists. Those same Democrats that blocked all attempts for blacks to join the Army because *the* racists thought blacks were sub-human. The policy is bigoted, not itself racist. When it was overturned - it kept blacks in their own units which makes sense given their attitudes of the time around 1917 when WWI demanded military cohesion. It was an unknown.

Quote from: tenbones;1063746The assumption everyone is going to behave and be as effective in some egalitarian meritocratic fashion is a modern view that military people, regardless of their background, do not have the luxury to entertain when a known quantity is in play. You go with what you know works in warfare. Yes, it's sad we have had to go through that, but that's *always* been true. Since the dawn of organized military this has been done until proven otherwise - Greeks, Egyptians, Romans, Mongols, etc... all have done this with foreign units in some fashion.

African-Americans weren't "foreign units", though, and in any case, being done since the dawn of organized military doesn't mean it isn't racist. As I would phrase it, we have had to go through racism in order to get to better and more reasonable policies. The ancient Greeks, Egyptians, Romans, and Mongols were racist, unscientific, undemocratic, and otherwise wrong in many ways. This begins to even seem like more of a semantic issue - in that you agree that segregation was a policy enacted by racist Democrats. You just don't like calling the policy itself racist, as I read it.


Getting into entertainment and gaming, I think it's really about message. Disney's Song of the South, for example, portrays a harmonious life between the white plantation owners and the happy blacks who work for them. The villains of the piece are the bullying poor white kids. That's really a blueprint for an ideal of how segregation is supposed to be good for everyone. It's not just a single facet of the story that is the problem - it is the overall message.

Likewise, minstrel shows were comedy that is very much of the time and attitudes of segregationist racist Democrats. The problem with its adaptation in Amos & Andy wasn't that it's invalid to have comedic black characters, but that the center of its comedy is to mock African-Americans along the lines of racist attitudes.

Yes, the message of something isn't an exact science, but that doesn't mean that it doesn't exist. Works of fiction really do have messages, and they have a real effect. Birth of a Nation was a fictional movie, but it had a tangible effect of boosting KKK membership. Song of the South helped make segregation seem more palatable by its positive portrayal.

Quote from: WillInNewHaven;1063953The setting, as far as I have gone into it, looks racist. The rules (which are nothing to write home about) don't enforce or even imply any racism. Of course, I have been playing in a campaign that is set it ancient Mesopotamia and has no relationship to the ancient north of the suggested setting.

From my reading, it seems to me that the rules include a bunch of setting. Just like I think the stat blocks for dwarves are part of the D&D rules, the stats for Arbi Darkling or Arbi Weakling are part of the rules. i.e. Arbi Darkling males have -2 CHA, -2 INT, -2 WIL. I'd call that part of the rules, and I think it reflects racism. Yes, the Arbi Darklings are a fictional construct in a game, but it has a clear message about real-world races.

QuoteWithin gaming discussions, we had a poster here (threestonegames) who explicitly thought that Africans genetically had lower IQ.

See, this is where you start to confirm what people are saying. If being correct or incorrect about an entirely empirical matter like the heritability of cognitive traits and their geographic distribution is a priori "racist," the term "racist" doesn't mean much any more. The reductio ad absurdem of this is saying Italians have racist faces that Aztec pyramids were racist, except real lefties actually say that nonsense.

You're basically changing being a non-racist from a morality of how you treat people to applying a moral filter to empirical questions. A racist is, in your telling, not someone who treats people like shit because of their race, or somebody who thinks somebody of upright behavior and bearing should be excluded from basic participation in his society due to his lineage, but somebody who thinks different groups of people have observable, heritable traits. This is exactly where "Italians have racist faces" comes from.

The problem is that the whole premise of Western science is that empirical questions are not moral questions, and cannot be settled by moral reasoning. Why do Germans do better at math than the Spanish? Is it culture? Biology? Geography? Economics? A mix? Science says you can't exclude an option by identifying it as morally wicked. Maybe German excellence in mathematics has nothing to do whatsoever with biology, but the point is you can't answer that question by saying, "Only an evil person would think that it could be at all due to biology, therefore we know it is not."

As to whether or not this should apply to a game...well IMO, it's not "racist" to give different races different attributes. It would be "racist" perhaps to do that as a way of demeaning real-life races, or structure narratives and messages of racial supremacist morality into your game, which is what MYFAROG does.

Quote from: fearsomepirate;1063982A racist is, in your telling, not someone who treats people like shit because of their race, or somebody who thinks somebody of upright behavior and bearing should be excluded from basic participation in his society due to his lineage, but somebody who thinks different groups of people have observable, heritable traits. This is exactly where "Italians have racist faces" comes from.

Having argued with threestonegames for a while, I should say that there are a bunch of other things that he argued about race - of which this was a sample. They did not include calling for violent race war, but they included a lot of attitudes about race.

I might accept that technically someone could think that blacks are fundamentally dumber than whites because of their genetics, without being racist. In practice, though, I don't think this belief is the result of morally neutral thinking. I think people come by this belief as a result of prejudice.

Likewise, what about people who say that the Holocaust didn't happen? That's just a factual disagreement, then, right? It doesn't intrinsically mean they hate Jews, but in practice, I do think that Holocaust deniers are anti-Semitic.

Quote from: fearsomepirate;1063982See, this is where you start to confirm what people are saying. If being correct or incorrect about an entirely empirical matter like the heritability of cognitive traits and their geographic distribution is a priori "racist," the term "racist" doesn't mean much any more. The reductio ad absurdem of this is saying Italians have racist faces that Aztec pyramids were racist, except real lefties actually say that nonsense.

You're basically changing being a non-racist from a morality of how you treat people to applying a moral filter to empirical questions. A racist is, in your telling, not someone who treats people like shit because of their race, or somebody who thinks somebody of upright behavior and bearing should be excluded from basic participation in his society due to his lineage, but somebody who thinks different groups of people have observable, heritable traits. This is exactly where "Italians have racist faces" comes from.

The problem is that the whole premise of Western science is that empirical questions are not moral questions, and cannot be settled by moral reasoning. Why do Germans do better at math than the Spanish? Is it culture? Biology? Geography? Economics? A mix? Science says you can't exclude an option by identifying it as morally wicked. Maybe German excellence in mathematics has nothing to do whatsoever with biology, but the point is you can't answer that question by saying, "Only an evil person would think that it could be at all due to biology, therefore we know it is not."

As to whether or not this should apply to a game...well IMO, it's not "racist" to give different races different attributes. It would be "racist" perhaps to do that as a way of demeaning real-life races, or structure narratives and messages of racial supremacist morality into your game, which is what MYFAROG does.

Greetings!

Interesting analyisis, Fearsomepirate! You got me thinking--you're right; anytime anyone suggests that there are distinct racial traits--the liberals go fucking nuts screeching Racism! Racism!

I'm always reminded of the acedmic, biological studies that have been done which prove several things; Europeans, Russians, Americans, etc. typically and consistently score higher than others in regards to engineering, and financial skills. Blacks generally are superior in athletics, over others. It's not a specifically scientific measurement, though certainly an irrefutable sociological analysis that blacks are fantastically skilled in creative performance and musical abilities; Asians, while multi-talented in a variety of areas, just like white and black people, still demonstrate a consistent superiority in mathematic skills, and similar in scientific scoring with whites. These findings are consistent with a variety of scientific studies encompassing a variety of disciplines which suggest such talents, while influenced by exteriors such as education and culture--fundamentally are rooted in a biological foundation.

I don't think a person needs to have a PHD in anything to come to the same reasonable conclusions. As far as racism goes--even referencing such gets the Liberals all frothing like baboons. The liberals typically INSIST that human beings, of whatever colour or ethnicity, are EXACTLY THE SAME, or EXACTLY EQUAL. Sad to burst the liberal's bubble, but SCIENCE shows that there are some talents and tendencies that are genetically favoured by different races or ethnicities.

Interesting stuff for sure.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Can I just say: "Whatever happened to dealing with drama at the game table only if/when it shows up on a case by case basis?"

Quote from: jhkim;1063984I might accept that technically someone could think that blacks are fundamentally dumber than whites because of their genetics, without being racist. In practice, though, I don't think this belief is the result of morally neutral thinking. I think people come by this belief as a result of prejudice.

IME:
1. An anti-racist rejects all data which don't give the results they want.
2. An empiricist looks at the data and checks its reliability, but does not reject it just because the result is unwanted.
3. A racist rejects all data which don't give the results they want.

On #3, someone racist against Africans will accept evidence of low African IQ, but reject evidence of high African IQ. The reverse of #1.

Quote from: S'mon;1064022IME:
1. An anti-racist rejects all data which don't give the results they want.
2. An empiricist looks at the data and checks its reliability, but does not reject it just because the result is unwanted.
3. A racist rejects all data which don't give the results they want.

On #3, someone racist against Africans will accept evidence of low African IQ, but reject evidence of high African IQ. The reverse of #1.

The problem is that "racist" is usually very poorly defined and is an accusation that can be leveled at nearly anybody for making a claim which someone is offended by. If someone is making a statement about differences between races, then to say that such a claim is "racist" is rather nonsensical, the question is whether or not the claim is true and what evidence exists to support or reject that claim.

Quote from: ShieldWife;1064025The problem is that "racist" is usually very poorly defined and is an accusation that can be leveled at nearly anybody for making a claim which someone is offended by. If someone is making a statement about differences between races, then to say that such a claim is "racist" is rather nonsensical, the question is whether or not the claim is true and what evidence exists to support or reject that claim.

I agree, obviously a #1 will call a #2 racist if the evidence doesn't fit with their beliefs. A #3 will also call a #2 derogatory names if the evidence doesn't fit with their own beliefs, but those lack social power currently in mainstream culture.

Anyway we better get off this topic!

Coming full circle to the OP, "PC" is not about this or that element. PC is about normalizing left-wing morals and ideas by policing people's language and socially shaming them. It's about using whatever medium you have as a vehicle for enforcement and propaganda. If you're not doing that, you don't have PC in your game. It's not about whether your game world reflects some or all of the ideas and beliefs you have, but about this overall behavior of enforcement and propaganda. PC in a game makes it intolerably stuffy, it very quickly becomes apparent that the purpose of this adventure is not to have fun, but preach sermons and harangue the morally wayward.

Quote from: fearsomepirate;1064036Coming full circle to the OP, "PC" is not about this or that element. PC is about normalizing left-wing morals and ideas by policing people's language and socially shaming them. It's about using whatever medium you have as a vehicle for enforcement and propaganda. If you're not doing that, you don't have PC in your game. It's not about whether your game world reflects some or all of the ideas and beliefs you have, but about this overall behavior of enforcement and propaganda. PC in a game makes it intolerably stuffy, it very quickly becomes apparent that the purpose of this adventure is not to have fun, but preach sermons and harangue the morally wayward.

Thanks for bringing this around. What if players have fun with morals-related play, though?

In particular - for the D&D5e game that I referred to in the OP where orcs and other are good...  I have a player who has made a paladin of vengeance - an orc whose parents were killed by humans, and she now takes particular delight in killing evil humans. I should say that the player is also a liberal proponent of "punch a nazi" memes - and killing evil seems to be particularly cathartic fun for her.

I don't think this contradicts anything you said, but it seems like a notable extra wrinkle in the mix.


As far as the use of "racism" goes - a bunch of this seems to be semantic over using the term "racist" versus less extreme terms like "prejudiced" or "bigoted" that still imply bias. I'm less interested in that semantic distinction. I think the more important issue is this:

Quote from: SHARK;1063995I'm always reminded of the acedmic, biological studies that have been done which prove several things; Europeans, Russians, Americans, etc. typically and consistently score higher than others in regards to engineering, and financial skills. Blacks generally are superior in athletics, over others. It's not a specifically scientific measurement, though certainly an irrefutable sociological analysis that blacks are fantastically skilled in creative performance and musical abilities; Asians, while multi-talented in a variety of areas, just like white and black people, still demonstrate a consistent superiority in mathematic skills, and similar in scientific scoring with whites. These findings are consistent with a variety of scientific studies encompassing a variety of disciplines which suggest such talents, while influenced by exteriors such as education and culture--fundamentally are rooted in a biological foundation.

I don't think a person needs to have a PHD in anything to come to the same reasonable conclusions.

Actually, I think the difference between biology, education, and culture is extremely difficult to tangle out within humans. It is ethically impossible to raise human children under controlled conditions. And in practice, it is extremely difficult to even run controlled experiments between significantly different cultures. A group can run a psych experiment on some college campuses in South Korea, South Africa, and the UK - but those have more similarities than differences, and it's unclear that their conclusions will correctly apply to a !Kung tribe member (for example).

So no, I don't think that those conclusions are reasonable. The findings of genetics over the past two decades has been that genetic variation is large within regions - so it's very likely that an Asian has more genetics overall in common with a European than with another Asian. cf.

http://sitn.hms.harvard.edu/flash/2017/science-genetics-reshaping-race-debate-21st-century/

My secondary field is education studies - and I have a strong skepticism for the validity of any education studies, let alone that they reveal the pure division between genetics and environment/culture.

Short form - this is very difficult science to pursue. Still, genetics has already contradicted previous views of racial variation, that it's also quite likely that science will overturn the view that blacks are genetically good at athletics and music but bad in engineering, finance, and math compared to other races. Belief in that comes from older prejudices, not science.

Quote from: jhkim;1064054Thanks for bringing this around. What if players have fun with morals-related play, though?

It's fine.  Heck, a lot of D&D is that. Can't save people from evil if you don't define "evil" at all. One recent event I would consider majorly PC is when Paizo revised the Golarion setting so that some lawful good deity would no longer be the god of hearth and home. Why? Because a good deity wouldn't support society having gender roles. I don't remember what they changed specifically, because Pathfinder is stupid and I don't pay too close attention. But Paizo's gotten extremely preachy, and there's a growing subtext of "if you don't agree with our fringe morality, you're a wicked person."

Quoteso it's very likely that an Asian has more genetics overall in common with a European than with another Asian

Just as an aside, the number of genes two random individuals have in common is a useless measure, like trying to say there isn't any global warming because Chicago had a record cold winter (the probability that nowhere on the planet has an extremely cold winter in any given year is close to zero). What researchers look at are allele clusters within populations. That's how 23andMe can narrow down which regions of Europe and wherever else your ancestors are from by looking at your genome. The variance in clusters can be quantified, and thus visualized. That's how we get images like this:

(https://abc102.files.wordpress.com/2011/03/unrooted-phylogenic-tree.png?w=427&h=498&zoom=2)

We're now entering a new era of behavioral genetics, in which we are discovering to what degree your genes play a role in your personality and behavior. Spoiler: it's high, but attempts to quantify it are crude. The other big discovery of the last 10 years is that in addition to nature and nurture, we need to add gut bacteria. The little guys that make you poop have a huge role in shaping your personality.

That was a long aside.

Quote from: fearsomepirate;1064116The other big discovery of the last 10 years is that in addition to nature and nurture, we need to add gut bacteria. The little guys that make you poop have a huge role in shaping your personality.

.

That gives new meaning to the term 'Shitlord', don't it...

Quote from: fearsomepirate;1064116Just as an aside, the number of genes two random individuals have in common is a useless measure, like trying to say there isn't any global warming because Chicago had a record cold winter (the probability that nowhere on the planet has an extremely cold winter in any given year is close to zero). What researchers look at are allele clusters within populations. That's how 23andMe can narrow down which regions of Europe and wherever else your ancestors are from by looking at your genome. The variance in clusters can be quantified, and thus visualized. That's how we get images like this:

(https://abc102.files.wordpress.com/2011/03/unrooted-phylogenic-tree.png?w=427&h=498&zoom=2)

This is explained in more detail in the link I gave earlier. If the intent is to identify what continent your ancestors were from, then yes, modern genetics can do that because there are a handful of distinctive alleles for a given region. But if geneticists want to do something *other* than geolocation of ancestors, then these maps aren't much use.

The older presumption of race is that there would be a lot of alleles in common between Africans, between Europeans, and so forth. However, as you can see from the graphic you posted - there are actually only a handful of alleles that distinguish these groups, compared to hundreds of allele differences between individuals. And most of those are going to be ones for skin color, hair, sickle-cell anemia, and so forth. There isn't a lot of room to picture that there are gene clusters for dancing, financial planning, or math that are distinct between these groups. Given that connection of alleles to behavior is still in its infancy, I will allow that there is the possibility that one of these genes does have some behavioral effect, but I strongly suspect the eventual finding will bear little resemblance to historical racial stereotypes.

Quote from: fearsomepirate;1064116We're now entering a new era of behavioral genetics, in which we are discovering to what degree your genes play a role in your personality and behavior. Spoiler: it's high, but attempts to quantify it are crude. The other big discovery of the last 10 years is that in addition to nature and nurture, we need to add gut bacteria. The little guys that make you poop have a huge role in shaping your personality.

I agree that it is advancing, but behavioral genetics is still in its infancy - and psychology and behavioral science in general still have problems in reproducibility.

Quote from: jhkim;1064188This is explained in more detail in the link I gave earlier.

No, it really wasn't. That was a massive exercise in Lewontonin's fallacy.

To keep this vaguely RPG-relevant, consider a d20 and a d14. The average of a d20 roll is 10.5; the average of a d14 is 7.5. The average difference between two individual d20 rolls is 6.65, more than double the average difference between all d20 rolls and all d14 rolls. On top of that, the average difference between a d20 roll and a d14 roll is 6.25!

Lewontonin's fallacy says, "the average between two random, individual d20 rolls is almost the same as the average between an individual d14 roll and an individual d20 roll, therefore there is not a meaningful statistical difference between a d20 and a d14." If you believe that, then you'll be happy to let me switch your d20 for a d14 at the table.

QuoteThe older presumption of race is that there would be a lot of alleles in common between Africans, between Europeans, and so forth.

The older concept of race was invented in the 19th century by people who didn't know what DNA was. There's not really anything you can say about its genetic implications at all.

QuoteHowever, as you can see from the graphic you posted - there are actually only a handful of alleles that distinguish these groups, compared to hundreds of allele differences between individuals. And most of those are going to be ones for skin color, hair, sickle-cell anemia, and so forth. There isn't a lot of room to picture that there are gene clusters for dancing, financial planning, or math that are distinct between these groups.

You should read Robert Plomin's "Blueprint." Twin studies have revealed that everything from how much you like to read to your likelihood of divorce are strongly influenced by genetics. What is outdated is the "nature vs nurture" concept, and the concept of DNA as deterministic programming. It's not an either/or. The effort now is how to quantify the effect nurture has on the expression of nature.

Sticking to the dice comparison, the environment is the rules system. If we use the 5e rules, but swap out our d20 for a d14, your fighter's damage drops by about half, depending on target AC. The "average difference" metric says they're not that different, but drop the two fighters into an environment explicitly designed for the d20, and the d14 fighter can't keep up.

Of course, change the rules environment to favor the d14, and it's an entirely different story!

Quote from: ShieldWife;1064025The problem is that "racist" is usually very poorly defined and is an accusation that can be leveled at nearly anybody for making a claim which someone is offended by. If someone is making a statement about differences between races, then to say that such a claim is "racist" is rather nonsensical, the question is whether or not the claim is true and what evidence exists to support or reject that claim.

And this is precisely why I don't lightly use term lightly. There are a LOT of other terms that cover most of the assertions people use as "racist" that are more appropriate. Racism/Racists are, by the classic definition of the use: people in the act of things they do to others for the perception of some bigoted view of that other race *and* because they believe their race is superior. Otherwise it's just bigotry.

That's a large distinction. No one is saying people don't do heinous shit to one another *because* of their perception of race. That alone *isn't* racism without the superiority point.

I'm not saying this to justify "racism" or "bigotry" - I'm saying it matters because people CAN and DO look down on others for *whatever* reason their culture dictates to them of "the other" without necessarily thinking themselves somehow superior. That illusion is in the minds of people that want to be offended because they find that sense of inferiority in themselves.

I find it quite magical that someone (not you Shieldwife) say with remarkable non-selfawarenes that one "simply doesn't want to use the term" when it clearly means something worse than another term that is bad, but more appropriate. The very act of doing so makes one a bigot - which ironically is exactly the problem we're really talking about. Not racism.


And it's these same self-flagellating bigots that are blind to their own bigotry - looking to cast their demons elsewhere on others that don't agree with them, all because by admission - they want to label people and things, and objects and thoughts as "racist" out of proper context.

where can I get me one of these d14's?  

#shityoudidntknowyouneededuntilyoudid

Quote from: jhkimHowever, as you can see from the graphic you posted - there are actually only a handful of alleles that distinguish these groups, compared to hundreds of allele differences between individuals. And most of those are going to be ones for skin color, hair, sickle-cell anemia, and so forth. There isn't a lot of room to picture that there are gene clusters for dancing, financial planning, or math that are distinct between these groups.

Quote from: fearsomepirate;1064253You should read Robert Plomin's "Blueprint." Twin studies have revealed that everything from how much you like to read to your likelihood of divorce are strongly influenced by genetics. What is outdated is the "nature vs nurture" concept, and the concept of DNA as deterministic programming. It's not an either/or. The effort now is how to quantify the effect nurture has on the expression of nature.

OK, I'll check out Blueprint. Though nature vs nurture was never a binary either/or even prior to recent genetics. I agree that twin studies have shown the importance of genetics in general - and they also highlight the importance of individual variation - since they are generally about differences between identical twins and fraternal twins. However, twin studies don't address the importance of race. And many findings from twin studies are not obvious - like how genetics appears to affect your likelihood of divorce, but not your likelihood of marriage. In general, I think that modern medical studies often overturn traditional stereotypes. The main point I am disagreeing with is Shark's description of race studies -

Quote from: SHARKI'm always reminded of the acedmic, biological studies that have been done which prove several things; Europeans, Russians, Americans, etc. typically and consistently score higher than others in regards to engineering, and financial skills. Blacks generally are superior in athletics, over others. It's not a specifically scientific measurement, though certainly an irrefutable sociological analysis that blacks are fantastically skilled in creative performance and musical abilities; Asians, while multi-talented in a variety of areas, just like white and black people, still demonstrate a consistent superiority in mathematic skills, and similar in scientific scoring with whites. These findings are consistent with a variety of scientific studies encompassing a variety of disciplines which suggest such talents, while influenced by exteriors such as education and culture--fundamentally are rooted in a biological foundation.

I don't think a person needs to have a PHD in anything to come to the same reasonable conclusions.

fearsomepirate - Would you agree with Shark's overview?  Personally, I don't think this accurately reflects the status of modern genetic studies on race. There are population studies that Asians and Asian-Americans tend to be good in math, for example, but there is no good data to isolate that this is primarily genetic.

Quote from: jhkimThis is explained in more detail in the link I gave earlier.

Quote from: fearsomepirate;1064253No, it really wasn't. That was a massive exercise in Lewontonin's fallacy.

To keep this vaguely RPG-relevant, consider a d20 and a d14. The average of a d20 roll is 10.5; the average of a d14 is 7.5. The average difference between two individual d20 rolls is 6.65, more than double the average difference between all d20 rolls and all d14 rolls. On top of that, the average difference between a d20 roll and a d14 roll is 6.25!

Lewontonin's fallacy says, "the average between two random, individual d20 rolls is almost the same as the average between an individual d14 roll and an individual d20 roll, therefore there is not a meaningful statistical difference between a d20 and a d14." If you believe that, then you'll be happy to let me switch your d20 for a d14 at the table.

I don't think that the analogy here applies much. In your example, if you're looking at only absolute value of difference, then by switching in a d14 (why d14 BTW???) means you're trading off lower variance for higher average difference.

Genetics are different, though. If one posits that there is a singular "math gene" that Asians uniquely have, then yes, it is possible for there to be lots of overlap between Asians and Europeans while Asians still retaining genetically superior math skill. So in that sense, the overall genetic variation doesn't rule out specific racial stereotypes. From the research, though, it seems unlikely that there is such an allele.

As far as scholastic apptitude being linked to race my own personal experience makes me incredibly skeptical about that, to the point of strongly suspecting prejudice or thick headed ignorance on the part of people who seem sure that race determines, say, how good people are at math.

For example I've taught Korean kids for years now (own an English cram school in Korea) and for a long time I taught kids who'd spent years in American boarding schools but who had returned to Korea alongside Korean kids who'd only studied in Korea and the differences were night and day. They also lined up perfectly with what people say are the genetic differences between Asians and white people (the kids who never left Korea were better at math etc. etc. etc.). So is it just a coincidence that the cultural differences between less and more Americanized Koreans align perfectly with the supposed genetic differences between Asians and white people? Also I taught those kids how to do better on the SATs and a lot of the test taking skills I taught would carry over just fine to things like an IQ test. Would be pretty simple to teach someone to score 10 points higher on an IQ test.

Similarly while African-Americans tend get worse grades etc. than other Americans there's a huge amount of diversity within subsets of African-American demographics. For example the children of recent immigrants (depending a bit on country of origin) tend to do VASTLY better than among people whose ancestors have been in America for a long time. If genetics made a difference here you'd expect it to be the other way around since recent African immigrants have a loooooooot less white ancestry than other African-Americans.

Quote from: fearsomepirate;1063675Great scott! That sounds nothing at all like something I would expect a neo-Nazi to like! Truly we are in a time of crisis and panic!

Pretty much my reaction too. A great big "So fucking what?"

Not at the racist stuff. But that people act all surprised that it may have attracted the sorts of people it was written for. And personally I am dubious that it actually did in any significant numbers.

Quote from: Bob Something;1064002Can I just say: "Whatever happened to dealing with drama at the game table only if/when it shows up on a case by case basis?"

I think we are reaching the point where the drama is creeping into the RPGs themselves or where its becoming a good idea to be forewarned and prepared in case one of these lunatics comes your way.

It stopped being about bad players, rules lawyers, min maxers, or even storygamers. Its now about twisting anything and everything into a political agenda.

Like I said. At some point one of these maniacs will declare the color red an appropriation of native american culture. I mean a few have allready in the last year declared the rainbow racist. Soooooo...

Quote from: jhkim;1064274fearsomepirate - Would you agree with Shark's overview?  Personally, I don't think this accurately reflects the status of modern genetic studies on race. There are population studies that Asians and Asian-Americans tend to be good in math, for example, but there is no good data to isolate that this is primarily genetic.

There's a general rule of thumb that being good at something takes a lot of genes (usually, a lot of alleles) working together, whereas being bad at something only takes one defect. So you're not likely to see an 'Asian maths gene'.

I somewhat agree with you insasmuch as there is plenty of evidence that culture is very important and HBD types often ascribe much too much to genes. OTOH when the culture is similar and you still see big differences then genes  likely play a larger role. Again there is a useful rule of thumb, the 50-50 rule - that culture & genes, nurture & nature, both have an impact on variation, of similar magnitude. There are outliers - it's not culture that makes east Africans great distance runners and west Africans great sprinters - but those are exceptions. Furthermore genes can express differently in different environments - genes definitely affect height, but so does diet. People who thought the Japanese were naturally much shorter than Europeans were wrong; it turned out to be largely diet.

The way you determine something is heritable isn't by finding the genes; the way you find the genes is by determining something is heritable. The way you find something is heritable is by analyzing populations and controlling for variation.

Pretty much every single heritable trait varies by ethnic cohort. Lung capacity. Bone density. Lever Tendon length. Estrogen levels. First age of puberty. Color-sensitivity. And yes, problem-solving ability. Empathy. Compliance. You can do your own reading to find how much.

As S'mon pointed out, environment can profoundly affect gene expression (diet affects height, IQ, and a whole bunch of things...eye color not so much). But it can't overcome or neutralize genes.

That's all I've got to say about that.

Quote from: jhkim;1063765Sorry. My apologies for the mistake, and I'll keep it in mind for future postings.

I'm glad you agree with me about the racist nature of the game.

I certainly do. It's a shit game by a piece of shit human being. Fortunately, it's also entirely peripheral.

Also, everyone please get off the tangent of Race and genetics, except as related to RPGs.

OK, getting back to my current campaign - with good-aligned orcs, kobolds, and goblinoids as the PCs.

Quote from:  jhkimI sometimes like shades of grey - but equally, sometimes I just want to kill the bad guys rather than discussing the morality and ethics of what proper social treatment of the bad guys is. The real world might be shades of grey, but in a fantasy game, we can be righteous paladins who really are actual good slaying truly evil monsters.

Quote from: S'mon;1061638There's plenty of slaying evil monsters IMCs. But there's also the non-aggressive Stonehell Kobolds who the PCs got in a feud with after ambushing one of their work teams, and the non-evil goblins who were converted away from evilness by one of my son's old PCs in a previous campaign. All the local orcs hobgoblins and gnolls have been pretty evil, but I do like to roll those 2d6 Reaction checks and see where it goes. The Stonehell megadungeon default for most of the organised factions is that they are pretty nasty but can often be negotiated with - IMC the PCs are at war with the Mountain Trolls and have established relations with the Vrilya, but it could have gone the other way. OTOH there are completely hostile groups like the Depraved Cannibal Berserkers and most of the Undead - though not the Gentleman Ghouls. For me one of the most interesting bits is the Ogre tribes who demand small tolls to pass through their territory, and have so far been tolerated by the PCs because they have trade relations with the kobolds.

I don't think I would like your Kill all Humans game, and I might not be too keen on Kill all Orcs/Goblins either, if they're presented as actual cultures the way you do with your humans/elves/dwarves. I prefer to restrict Kill Them All to demons, undead, and stuff which acts like demons, even if it's called an Orc. 'Genocide Bad, M'Kay?' has tended to be a theme IMCs. :)

The campaign just started and is a work-in-progress. My intent is for humans to be over-the-top evil with no more actual culture than orcs or drow in standard D&D. They're just evil, and will do things just to be evil. The PCs for the most part are not intent on genocide per se - but the evil races are a constant threat and in general the response to that threat is to fight them.

I do have a planned situation where there is an ostensibly good human, Lareth the Beautiful, who convinces some good people that there can be peace with the humans - but it is a trap. Lareth is a unethical dupe used by other humans to find where potential victims are living so they can loot and kill them.

I have run plenty of campaigns similar to yours where the PCs make uneasy alliances with various factions. In my last campaign, the PCs had a number of goblin henchmen in their group, say. But this campaign is more black-and-white, what I would consider old school - along the lines of Tolkien, say.

With the race reversal it feels more like a deconstruction of Tolkien. And Tolkien had humans on both sides.

Quote from: S'mon;1064915With the race reversal it feels more like a deconstruction of Tolkien. And Tolkien had humans on both sides.

I guess that's a question. Is the race-reversal itself enough to make this a deconstruction in itself? I'm trying to have it be more-or-less straight D&D with the modified background. The adventure content is pretty normal - a bit of talking, exploration, random encounters, and fighting monsters.

I can see it being called a deconstruction just by the nature of the background. Personally, I'm not fond of the works typically called deconstruction because they're typically self-involved and overly analytical. I do like alternate takes on a genre, like Astro City on superheroes - or the Imaro stories compared to Conan and Tarzan.

In my setting, I think there's room for there to be traitorous orcs or others who work with the evil races like Wormtongue in Tolkien. I haven't introduced that so far, but it's a possibility. This isn't a setting that I worked out in detail in advance - I just had the concept and a rough adaptation of the first big adventure - the Temple of the Elements.

Quote from: sureshot;1063656Fatal is not hilarious in anyway shape or form imo.

Made worse by the devs trying to defend their game. It's such a disturbing thing to read. Even more than the rpg itself. It's how they go out of their way not to understand or even remotely accept that their rpg is so terrible and flawed.

I disagree. FATAL is unintentionally hilarious. The dev (term used loosely) defense just makes it better.

FATAL completely stops being hilarious when they get to the blatant and disgusting racism.