"My gut instinct is "

PPBBBBLLLBBBBBTTHHHTHTT.

"If these distinctions are lost on you as critical theory gobbledegook... whatever."

PPBBBBLLLBBBBBTTHHHTHTT.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on August 02, 2021, 09:38:40 PMI genuinely don't know what is the right and proper answer.

But you will almost always support one side and deny the other. This I find is where this falls into intelectual dishonesty or incompleteness.
As I said, 'Gut' is a awful measuring metric for what is 'OK' or not.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on August 02, 2021, 09:38:40 PM
I'm not saying you can't have monsters. But there's a nuanced difference between "monster" and "other." The other has human qualities, but is arbitrarily denied personhood. The monster lacks human qualities.

This presumes a definition not in evidence.  Monsters do not have to lack human qualities.  Far from it.  Monsters may violate human mores (see Grendel, who is an enemy not because he kills, but because he doesn't pay the weregild demanded of a murderer), but they are not totally non-human.  In fact, creatures that are completely alien to human motivation are more animal than monster.  The closeness to human, yet with a small but significant difference, is what make most classical "monsters" monsters.  So your definition of monster is unsupported at best...

Greetings!

I love "Othering" in my campaigns. "Othering" as I recall is just another quasi-Marxist concept developed by Edward Said. Some jackass that Liberals have loved forever. Fuck them.

Pulp stories use language that is offensive! Volo's Guide uses language that is reminiscent of colonialist descriptions!

Oh my God! SO WHAT? Use whatever language and words you want. Stop being led around by the nose by race-grifters and demagogues and fucking brainwashed.

Let them all sob and cry.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Quote from: Wrath of God on August 02, 2021, 04:33:01 PM
Also we should note that... greedy merchant is stereotype on itself. So there apparently  there always gonna be problem with it - show greedy merchants with big noses - OH THEY'RE JEWS, show greedy merchants with no-noses - oh they are Chinese, ah poor George, he should just leave banking of Galaxy in hands of Hutts. After all there are no more Phoenicians to whine about this.

The "money-grubbing X" racist statement is a thing I've seen applied to Jews, Arabs, Chinese, and White people.  Personally, I think it's a classist sentiment that gets mixed with a racist statement, to better "double-up" on why it's okay for a racist person to hate on The Other.

As for George Lucas... he was a genius.  Watto is clearly a racist stereotype, but which race?  Jewish?  Turkish?  Greek?  Personally, I'm betting on "indeterminate Mediterranean".  And the trade federation?  If you listen to them you can hear they're East Asian influenced (and you can see they have long robes and squinty eyes).  But which East Asian culture?  Chinese?  Korean?  Again, I'm betting on "indeterminate East Asian" and leaving it at that.  Jar Jar is clearly Caribbean black.  Or maybe clearly East Indian as some have said?  Or clearly making fun of blacks in urban America?  So let's just go with "indeterminate black" and leave it at that. 

But why all of these indeterminate ethnicities?  Because Lucas was referencing the pulp serials he grew up with.  Cultural Diversity as seen through the filter of 1940's adventure cinema.   You can't say he's making fun of a specific ethnicity because nobody can agree on which ethnicity he's referencing, but he's clearly referencing... something damn it!  Pretty clever.

Of course, that was before nerddom was willing to embrace the kind of thought that allows for "I can see orcs as equivalent to black people, so you're the racist" arguments.

Quote
I must say Predator had always for some reason Asian feel for me. Like monster-samurai or smth.

I think I'm the only person who thought "I wonder if the Predator is even male or some alien gender".  Trying to think of it in terms of human ethnicity never occurred to me once I was dwelling on its possibly foreign reproductive processes.  (I -think- they've since shown Predators with boobs, implying at least lactation and nursing (or a weird psychological hangup with mammaries), but that could still be something the "male" does, because "alien organism".)

Quote from: Habitual Gamer on August 03, 2021, 08:48:21 AM

Quote from: Wrath of God on August 02, 2021, 04:33:01 PM
Also we should note that... greedy merchant is stereotype on itself. So there apparently  there always gonna be problem with it - show greedy merchants with big noses - OH THEY'RE JEWS, show greedy merchants with no-noses - oh they are Chinese, ah poor George, he should just leave banking of Galaxy in hands of Hutts. After all there are no more Phoenicians to whine about this.

The "money-grubbing X" racist statement is a thing I've seen applied to Jews, Arabs, Chinese, and White people.  Personally, I think it's a classist sentiment that gets mixed with a racist statement, to better "double-up" on why it's okay for a racist person to hate on The Other.

As for George Lucas... he was a genius.  Watto is clearly a racist stereotype, but which race?  Jewish?  Turkish?  Greek?  Personally, I'm betting on "indeterminate Mediterranean".  And the trade federation?  If you listen to them you can hear they're East Asian influenced (and you can see they have long robes and squinty eyes).  But which East Asian culture?  Chinese?  Korean?  Again, I'm betting on "indeterminate East Asian" and leaving it at that.  Jar Jar is clearly Caribbean black.  Or maybe clearly East Indian as some have said?  Or clearly making fun of blacks in urban America?  So let's just go with "indeterminate black" and leave it at that. 

But why all of these indeterminate ethnicities?  Because Lucas was referencing the pulp serials he grew up with.  Cultural Diversity as seen through the filter of 1940's adventure cinema.   You can't say he's making fun of a specific ethnicity because nobody can agree on which ethnicity he's referencing, but he's clearly referencing... something damn it!  Pretty clever.

Of course, that was before nerddom was willing to embrace the kind of thought that allows for "I can see orcs as equivalent to black people, so you're the racist" arguments.

Quote
I must say Predator had always for some reason Asian feel for me. Like monster-samurai or smth.

I think I'm the only person who thought "I wonder if the Predator is even male or some alien gender".  Trying to think of it in terms of human ethnicity never occurred to me once I was dwelling on its possibly foreign reproductive processes.  (I -think- they've since shown Predators with boobs, implying at least lactation and nursing (or a weird psychological hangup with mammaries), but that could still be something the "male" does, because "alien organism".)

Predator always seemed like an inteligent sorta spider (or scorpion?) to me, don't know why such a species would need mamaries but hey!

Alien boobies!

Quote from: Habitual Gamer on August 03, 2021, 08:48:21 AM
I think I'm the only person who thought "I wonder if the Predator is even male or some alien gender".  Trying to think of it in terms of human ethnicity never occurred to me once I was dwelling on its possibly foreign reproductive processes.  (I -think- they've since shown Predators with boobs, implying at least lactation and nursing (or a weird psychological hangup with mammaries), but that could still be something the "male" does, because "alien organism".)

Just in the expanded universe created collaboratively by companies licensed to produce comics, novels, games, and merchandise. The movies never mentioned any sexual dimorphism. The predators seen in the movies may very well have included females.

Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on August 02, 2021, 10:01:30 PM
But you will almost always support one side and deny the other. This I find is where this falls into intelectual dishonesty or incompleteness.
As I said, 'Gut' is a awful measuring metric for what is 'OK' or not.

I know I pinball a lot. It's not fun.

Quote from: Pat on August 02, 2021, 09:42:41 PM
Then historical roleplaying is out, and anything based on historical roleplaying is out, meaning you're left with fictional creations that lack any real grounding. They'll tend to be superficial reflections of the modern world. So your choice is between creepy and vapid.

Is it? I mean, nowadays we know colonialist sentiment is... well, I personally don't support colonialism. But that doesn't you can't roleplay someone with different morals than you. Even if you think the historical colonization of the Americas was horrific, that doesn't prevent you from playing a colonists going around happily massacring the natives.

I can't stop people from playing Manifest Destiny, and I don't want to. That would be unethical. The moral quandary for me is that the acts of colonialism depicted in fiction are unethical, but denying people the freedom to create and play is also unethical. People should have free speech and therefore the freedom to depict fictional events that are unethical.

For me, othering is simply not within my comfort zone. I can depict a complex alien society that engages in horrific atrocities, but I can't go the step of othering them. I can write characters who other them, but I can't as an author with authorial authority do so.

So I can't write a story where orcs are subhuman and therefore it's morally justified to enslave and/or exterminate them. I can write orcs as being born from holes in the ground as adults holding weapons and driven to destroy civilization, as conquistadors from another world who treat humans the same way colonists treated natives, as a lot of things... but I refuse to enshrine colonialist rhetoric into my setting's law of physics.

I could totally write stories where the protagonists are colonists who go around murdering and raping the natives, but as the author I'm still going to consider their actions horrifically evil.

Quote from: SHARK on August 03, 2021, 02:17:42 AM
I love "Othering" in my campaigns. "Othering" as I recall is just another quasi-Marxist concept developed by Edward Said. Some jackass that Liberals have loved forever. Fuck them.

Hmmm.  If my memory serves, it's actually Jacques Derrida that popularized "othering."  But I'll have to check...

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on August 04, 2021, 04:14:59 PM
I know I pinball a lot. It's not fun.

Not being certain of something is alright, but you have to consider (and acknowledge) the ramifications of your perspectives in a longterm sense.
In metaphorical terms: you may not be advocating for driving off the edge of a cliff, but you advocate for driving towards it, and then say that slowing down or using the break is a bad idea. Maybe this car is evil and NEEDS to be driven off the edge of a cliff, but you gotta be honest with yourself and others.

You are effectively saying that there cannot be any theoretical ideas. We can't (or shouldn't) ever publish a story where a true evil species exist because even that idea existing is dangerous. You have another principle that advocates against control (which I respect), but I find your fear of theory to be misplaced.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on August 02, 2021, 09:38:40 PM
My gut instinct is that stuff like Volo's Guide's description of orcs using similar language to 19th century colonizers is... well, it's creepy colonialist language. It was originally devised by people who didn't think that certain other people deserved equal rights, or saw them as subhuman because of their skin color. Aka "othering."

In fantasy, you're potentially creating a world in which othering is in fact a true appraisal of reality rather than racist nonsense. There's nothing wrong with creating such a world, but my gut instinct is that it's still really creepy and gross.

If you feel this way, then absolutely I'd say, don't play in worlds like that. But if you're going to criticize anyone else for how they play, you should have something more than gut instinct. Othering is broader than racism or colonialism. Any group will have in-group vs out-of-group. Native freedom fighters who oppose colonial invaders will use language and pictures that treat the invaders as the Other. For example, in GURPS Fantasy II, humans have primitive technology and fight against various horrible monsters. The most organized monsters are the sophisticated, high-tech Soulless.

Literature and fantasy has a lot of power over how people think - but interpretations vary a lot, and it's a high bar to put any one interpretation as objectively true.

So I'd say play what you enjoy and are comfortable with, and don't worry so much about what other people play.

Quote from: SHARK on August 03, 2021, 02:17:42 AM
Pulp stories use language that is offensive! Volo's Guide uses language that is reminiscent of colonialist descriptions!

Oh my God! SO WHAT? Use whatever language and words you want. Stop being led around by the nose by race-grifters and demagogues and fucking brainwashed.

Agreed.

If what you enjoy playing is chopping up orcs, enjoy playing that.

If what you enjoy playing is adventures of rainbow hippo girls or proms at Harry-Potter-esque magical academies, enjoy playing that.

I think there's way too much taking offense at how other people play.