And in a world where the stranger in black could be a powerful wizard or polymorphed dragon, reacting negatively to him is an invitation to suicide.With human "races" it's a biological myth, but in fantasy worlds with orcs and elves, the different races actually ARE fundamentally different and some of them ARE out to get you, so reacting negatively to an orc/tiger man/guy with flaming locks walking into town is more like caution than discrimination.It's not even always bad in the real world. Although I suppose we call it a different name, so semantics.True. For example, if I accuse people of being prejudiced, they'll get... well, they won't be pleased. But if I ask them what they think of the Nazi Party, I can almost guarantee I'm gonna hear some hate speech. And then I'll agree with it. ;)
I think there's a BIT of a difference between assuming all orcs are at war with mankind and all robed strangers are powerful, evil wizards.
I honestly have no idea. It makes no sense in a world with magic and strange creatures that may well pull your plowshare that people point and go 'Look at that. It ain't doin' nothin', but we should kill it.'
This is the kind of things people encounter all the time. Just looking weird shouldn't mean squat; what matters is what you do.
We're not concerned, at the moment, with how people AHOULD act, but how people DO act.
In a world where people are used to seeing bizarre lookign humanoids walk in and out (like, say, a really high magic urban setting) no one will care because hey, i see something new every day.
In a world with only elves, humans, dwarves, and halfling living on the surface (i.e. all look pretty much like humans), weird beings may be feared or captured for study.
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I think there's a BIT of a difference between assuming all orcs are at war with mankind and all robed strangers are powerful, evil wizards.And in a world where the stranger in black could be a powerful wizard or polymorphed dragon, reacting negatively to him is an invitation to suicide.With human "races" it's a biological myth, but in fantasy worlds with orcs and elves, the different races actually ARE fundamentally different and some of them ARE out to get you, so reacting negatively to an orc/tiger man/guy with flaming locks walking into town is more like caution than discrimination.It's not even always bad in the real world. Although I suppose we call it a different name, so semantics.True. For example, if I accuse people of being prejudiced, they'll get... well, they won't be pleased. But if I ask them what they think of the Nazi Party, I can almost guarantee I'm gonna hear some hate speech. And then I'll agree with it. ;)
Not that it matters, since they are both extreme examples.
We play for the sake of the game. Currently the Wizard is a Cobalt Kobald :)
In our Freeport game, our group was mostly good (ie not evil) and one of the players was a Gnoll that used dead lizardmen as weapons.
I think in one 3.5 game a GM wanted all the players to be Fey creatures of one kind or another.
There has only been one time where we have had Racial negativity. It was based on something found on Youtube. Someone acting as a Dwarf and the other as an Elf and the Dwarf declared that Elves cause cancer.
From that point, our current Dwarf Inquisitor has decided that Elves of any kind cause cancer and can't be trusted! Of coarse the entire game is based around Elves, so....
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In that case, I would say yes, it is extremely prejudice, and borders on racism, to hold prejudice against individuals of those species, especially if they are encountered outside their race's homeland. If I encountered someone who was Russian in the U.S. or western Europe during the cold war, I wouldn't assume they were opposed to democracy just because their native country was (in fact, I would probably assume the opposite, because they left). To use an example from the game, in Golarion, if I encountered someone from Cheliax in Absalom, I would not assume they were Lawful Evil just because the government of their home country (which they left, potentially willingly, possibly BECAUSE they weren't LE) was. A drow or orc in human lands should be treated the same way. Again, a drow in human lands willingly left the evil civilization they grew up in (or were raised by another species, and hence were never part of the evil society in the first place). If anything, that's a reason to assume they are good.
You can assume that as an educated gentleman, with a globalized mindset and living in a country with law that protects you even if you are not rich or an important asset to a society, high sanitary standards and so on. In a medieval mindset how can you be sure that guy you've never seen before (same race as you) that is walking around is trustworthy? How can you tell if he shares the same morals as you?
He could be looking for (your) childs to sell them as slave. He could stab you and steal all your possessions leaving you there to bleed to death. Maybe is a spy from some nearby city that is plotting to conquer your county. Heck... he could even be a carrier of some illness you know nothing about. Now try to picture him with dark skin, pointed ears and in a world with magic... How can you be sure about anything?| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Keep in mind that the concept of "Personhood" does not necessarily have to exist in a fantasy world. Even in our world is a relatively new concept, having been formalized in the V century as a result of the Councils of Ephesus.
Prior to that, there was no single defining notion of what a person was. Instead, what you were was dependant on your social status, your racial origin, your culture, your religion, etc. Things like human rights and egalitarianism were not notions people wielded, because for most, the idea that you should be given a right just because you are a human being didn't make any sense.
Now imagine the same thing, but with even more levels of differentiation. Sure, there might be a fantasy society that developed a concept of personhood based on, say, sapience, in which all intelligent races would be, at least in principle, treated like equals (we have had that concept for 14 centuries and still we fail to apply it), but it would be more than likely that the majority of said world would adscribe to a more selective philosophy.
A civilization where everyone, even those from other civilizations, are treated as equals is actually a pretty challenging thing to achieve, and even in our case it is based on a large body of philosophical and theological notions that do not necessarily exist in a fantasy world.
LOL, I love how people take modern 21st century ideas about "prejudice" and "diversity" and assert how they would apply in a fantasy setting full of monsters, some of whom don't look like humanoids, and some of whom do look like humanoids, and where the vast majority of people are simple farmers or herdsman who typically don't travel more than a few miles from their birthplace, are barely literate and have to scrape for the few copper pieces they need to survive.
I also love how some people seem to think that comparing the differences between ideologically diverse members of the same species and race is relevant to the differences between completely different species with wildly divergent biological and environmental needs.
"Hey, why are you afraid of that black dragon? Why are you assuming all black dragons are evil? What are you, some sort of dracophobe?"
Heh.
Not that it matters, since they are both extreme examples.I think there's a BIT of a difference between assuming all orcs are at war with mankind and all robed strangers are powerful, evil wizards.And in a world where the stranger in black could be a powerful wizard or polymorphed dragon, reacting negatively to him is an invitation to suicide.With human "races" it's a biological myth, but in fantasy worlds with orcs and elves, the different races actually ARE fundamentally different and some of them ARE out to get you, so reacting negatively to an orc/tiger man/guy with flaming locks walking into town is more like caution than discrimination.It's not even always bad in the real world. Although I suppose we call it a different name, so semantics.True. For example, if I accuse people of being prejudiced, they'll get... well, they won't be pleased. But if I ask them what they think of the Nazi Party, I can almost guarantee I'm gonna hear some hate speech. And then I'll agree with it. ;)
It's hard to speak to the general of a genre because each one has it's own nuances, but generally speaking, if all orcs in the setting except the one good PC Orc want to Destroy All Humans, and the NPCs naturally don't see a PC Orc title floating above the character's head, I don't see a negative reaction as any less warranted than, say, watching an armed soldier dressed in the uniform of a hostile enemy nation walk into your village.
"Hey, why are you afraid of that black dragon?"Because it's the size of my HOUSE!"
dracophobe.
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It's hard to speak to the general of a genre because each one has it's own nuances, but generally speaking, if all orcs in the setting except the one good PC Orc want to Destroy All Humans, and the NPCs naturally don't see a PC Orc title floating above the character's head, I don't see a negative reaction as any less warranted than, say, watching an armed soldier dressed in the uniform of a hostile enemy nation walk into your village.
Which is much more political than racial.
It's hard to speak to the general of a genre because each one has it's own nuances, but generally speaking, if all orcs in the setting except the one good PC Orc want to Destroy All Humans, and the NPCs naturally don't see a PC Orc title floating above the character's head, I don't see a negative reaction as any less warranted than, say, watching an armed soldier dressed in the uniform of a hostile enemy nation walk into your village.Which is much more political than racial.
Couple of things.
One, D&D and PF use "racial" in a way that actually should be "speciesal". Orcs are not a different "race" than humans, they are a different species.
Second, the whole idea of accepting diversity between different groups of sentient beings assumes at least a fundamentally similar moral code.
If the moral code of orcs encourages eating human babies as snacks, it is highly unlikely that there will be any way that humans and orcs will overcome this "cultural difference" in such a way as to allow true "diversity" between the cultures.
Think of illithids, for example, who MUST EAT SENTIENT BRAINS to live. Sure, they're a sentient "race" in game, but do you think it is likely that there will ever be a "meeting of the minds" between illithid and human that doesn't involve satisfying hunger?
Racial and speciesal are just semantics.
Tri, they are not semantic when people take the term "racial" in game and assume somehow that modern real world "racial" attitudes apply to in game "races."
That's when the "semantics" ends up creating serious logical fallacies.
It all depends on your world assumptions.
That would be one of the fallacies I am talking about.
Update: Unless your world assumptions include the idea that sentient beings in your world don't actually act like the sentient beings in the real world do. Then I suppose you can make assumptions that vastly different beings with completely different needs, goals and history all basically just want to get along and none of their basic needs, goals or historical actions ever has, or ever will conflict significantly with any other "race's" basic needs, goals or historical actions.
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It all depends on your world assumptions.That would be one of the fallacies I am talking about.
Update: Unless your world assumptions include the idea that sentient beings in your world don't actually act like the sentient beings in the real world do.
It's a fantasy world, of course that can be an assumption.
It's a fantasy world, of course that can be an assumption.It all depends on your world assumptions.That would be one of the fallacies I am talking about.
Update: Unless your world assumptions include the idea that sentient beings in your world don't actually act like the sentient beings in the real world do.
Then you better tell your players so they can role-play their characters in some way that addresses your game world's assumptions.
Because I role play my characters as if they more or less act like real world sentient beings you know...
"What, NO, your character can't hate Orcs! That sort of thing isn't allowed in my world."
You tell your players how to roleplay their characters? Well, whatever adds buoyancy to your sea-going vessel.
Nice try Tri...
YOU are the one suggesting that GMs create worlds with assumptions baked in where players have to play their characters a certain way. Not me. My worlds assume that people play their characters as they want.
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You tell your players how to roleplay their characters? Well, whatever adds buoyancy to your sea-going vessel.Nice try Tri...
YOU are the one suggesting that GMs create worlds with assumptions baked in where players have to play their characters a certain way. Not me. My worlds assume that people play their characters as they want.
No, you're making assumptions about my suggestions.
Honestly, I think we should all just have let TriOmegaZero "win the thread" back at post #2.
Everything after that has just been small talk.
Nice Terquem, very nice. :)
No, you're making assumptions about my suggestions.
Everything after that has just been small talk.
Perhaps, perhaps...
But at least I don't misrepresent what you say to deliberately pretend it means the opposite of what you actually said.
So there's that.
Conversation moved beyond my last posts quicker than I was expecting but let's see if I can hop back in.
Which is much more political than racial.
I'm not entirely sure what this is replying to or what point it's making, if you could please clarify. Races in fantasy worlds have cultures/politics as different from eachother and different human cultures do, and their physical differences on top of that. The fact that one is identified by his skin and tusks and the other by his uniform doesn't change the fact that two cultures are at war and one has a reasonable expectation of hostility from an armed member of the other.
On another note, I don't think anyone was suggesting that PLAYERS are forced to roleplay a certain way, but that they have to understand that the world is a certain way according to the GM's design. How they act in it is their own choice, but the common ideology will not bend and sway according to one individual (the PC).
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I don't think that I said prejudice being the norm is a necessary thing. I said that conflict is necessary.
I'm not entirely sure what this is replying to or what point it's making, if you could please clarify.
Wasn't really making a point. I find your 'all orcs are DESTROY ALL HUMANS' example to be mostly irrelevant. My point was that negative reactions simply aren't the only reasonable response. I see that I worded it poorly before.
But at least I don't misrepresent what you say to deliberately pretend it means the opposite of what you actually said.Ooo, yeah I hate people that do that!
"What, NO, your character can't hate Orcs! That sort of thing isn't allowed in my world."
Tri, if you are truly saying that you could not recognize my quotation there as being a fictional GM implementing an extreme example of YOUR SUGGESTION (not MINE) then I truly and honestly don't know what to say. I assumed that you were being deliberately disingenuous because any other explanation is decidedly less flattering towards you.
Also, really... the game itself is built in such a way that says there actually ARE inherent differences between the various races. In the real world the differences are cultural and superficial. In Golarion (or other worlds), elves are PHYSICALLY very different from orcs and, which might include a predisposition toward being more/less aggressive, but that depends on the GM.
So I feel like all the prejudice makes a bit more sense, even if it isn't good.
Tri, if you are truly saying that you could not recognize my quotation there as being a fictional GM implementing an extreme example of YOUR SUGGESTIONNo, your quotation was a direct misrepresentation of what I am saying.
Ah, here is the disagreement then Tri, and I'll stop after this message.
What I did is take your suggestion to a logical extreme. This is a rather common rhetorical device and is generally considered to be a fair and reasonable one. You said that it was perfectly fine to have a GM create a world where sentient creatures did not act the way sentient creatures in our real world do.
Are we in agreement so far? Didn't your suggestion say exactly that?
My logical extension was that if the world in question required that sentient creatures not act the way sentient creatures in the real world do, then the GM has to provide guidelines for the players for how sentient creatures should act. Otherwise they will just act like regular old sentient creatures, which you have already stated is not how that world works.
My "quotation" was a simple example of how a GM might do that.
In other words, logical extension of your premise to an extreme conclusion for the sake of demonstrating it's logical fallacy.
You, on the other hand, took my post, which was arguing that you should NOT tell players how to play their characters and simply asserted that it said exactly the opposite.
Do you see the difference in our rhetorical techniques here?
I hope so.
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One of the most fundamental assumptions of virtually every fantasy game, novel, movie or video game is that there are evil sentient races. If a campaign world follows that model and the orcs in that campaign world are truly evil monsters, is it still "prejudice" to hate them?Not mortal races. Fiends, yes. Undead, maybe, but not always. Normal, mortal races are most definitely not always evil in spelljammer or Eberron. And other fantasy settings. It is an assumption in some fantasy settings, but certainly not all.
In many settings, there are evil mortal races, but they are evil largely because of culture (evil isn't somehow inherent in their biology, except in the case of evil-aligned outsiders).
In that case, I would say yes, it is extremely prejudice, and borders on racism, to hold prejudice against individuals of those species, especially if they are encountered outside their race's homeland. If I encountered someone who was Russian in the U.S. or western Europe during the cold war, I wouldn't assume they were opposed to democracy just because their native country was (in fact, I would probably assume the opposite, because they left). To use an example from the game, in Golarion, if I encountered someone from Cheliax in Absalom, I would not assume they were Lawful Evil just because the government of their home country (which they left, potentially willingly, possibly BECAUSE they weren't LE) was. A drow or orc in human lands should be treated the same way. Again, a drow in human lands willingly left the evil civilization they grew up in (or were raised by another species, and hence were never part of the evil society in the first place). If anything, that's a reason to assume they are good.
Though they could have been exiled or acting as a spy. Just saying. If I were exiled by a country and i were a bitter person, I'd go to that country's enemy and blurt all of the secrets i know out to anyone who'll listen. That won't make this hypothetical me higher north on the alignment axis than the rest of my kind. The distrust exists precisely because of this. Because it's a sign of that "bad" culture creeping in and taking root. And yes, i agree with you that it is indeed prejudice to make that assumption, but take fear and add ignorance and you have quite the bubbling brew...
My philosophy has always been that PC characters are exceptional. They're special. They can play the one orc with a heart of gold because of that, and they can also play humans that dont hate orcs.
Some people don't see PCs that way, and see them as a few ordinary citizens of the world the "camera" happens to be following. In that case, the GM might be more of a stickler for this sort of thing. I don't agree with it, but I can understand it.
My philosophy has always been that PC characters are exceptional. They're special. They can play the one orc with a heart of gold because of that, and they can also play humans that dont hate orcs.
Some people don't see PCs that way, and see them as a few ordinary citizens of the world the "camera" happens to be following. In that case, the GM might be more of a stickler for this sort of thing. I don't agree with it, but I can understand it.
Sure, that's reasonable, but "PC" is a meta-game construct that has no actual meaning within the context of the game itself. It's not like the town guards would be saying, "Sure, even though our town's been subject to orcish raids we'll like Bob the Orc Barbarian in the city because we can tell he's a player character and therefore here to save the town from the nearby dragon."
My philosophy has always been that PC characters are exceptional. They're special. They can play the one orc with a heart of gold because of that, and they can also play humans that dont hate orcs.
Some people don't see PCs that way, and see them as a few ordinary citizens of the world the "camera" happens to be following. In that case, the GM might be more of a stickler for this sort of thing. I don't agree with it, but I can understand it.
Sure, that's reasonable, but "PC" is a meta-game construct that has no actual meaning within the context of the game itself. It's not like the town guards would be saying, "Sure, even though our town's been subject to orcish raids we'll like Bob the Orc Barbarian in the city because we can tell he's a player character and therefore here to save the town from the nearby dragon."
To which I agree, as I mentioned in one earlier post (not sure how far back).
1. PCs can play their character anyway they want.
2. I WILL play NPCs as I see fit.
If we can agree to both than we will play.