The only outwardly aggressive racism I've seen in-game in my various groups, is from a few old-school 2e players who have an INTENSE hatred for drow, and a slight disdain for elves in general. Their hatred for drow comes from their original DM who glorified them as god-like, unkillable, ultimate DMPC monstrosities whom the players were constantly being thrown up against.
Even many years(and editions) later, they still harbor intense resentment for anything drow-related at all. On the flipside, my wife LOVES the drow race. Even before she ever played actual D&D, she had read many FR novels about Drizz't, Eliastree, etc.
So, my wife joined in a few smaller D&D games, alongside these old-school players, and of course, she wanted to make a drow. They warned her how much they hated all drow, to which I(as DM at the time) stepped in and informed them how I'd boot them from the game if they tried bullying another player, for ANY reason.
Thankfully they were smart enough to leave their baggage at home for those games. Not a great idea to bully another player, especially the DM's wife.
Well, speciesism, and elves aren't people.
Drow in 2nd ed were monsters, and their spell protection was uber high. Good on you for sticking up for your wife, but if they are despised in the setting, why couldn't the players play characters that despise drow?
Because it sucks when the players hate your character's race. Especially since they were carrying their 2e hatred of the race over into later editions.
This is player level prejudice, albeit against a fictional race, not the player looking at the setting and realizing their character's background suggests he would despise another player's character based on race. In which case, the best thing to do is probably talk to the other player about how to handle it. Whether you want to start with a feud or play exceptional characters who are above that.
Exactly. These guys were old-school, evil-only players who had just started to come around and "play nice." Known for outright killing other PC's in some games(but good friends outside of gaming).
They started getting their panties in a bunch when my wife mentioned playing a drow, so I pointed to the door. Their "characters" can hate drow all they want. It's when they start attacking and bullying other "PC's" I draw the line, especially since my wife was brand-new to the system, having only played other games prior.
So, my wife joined in a few smaller D&D games, alongside these old-school players, and of course, she wanted to make a drow. They warned her how much they hated all drow, to which I(as DM at the time) stepped in and informed them how I'd boot them from the game if they tried bullying another player, for ANY reason.Good. I think I remember you mentioning your wife's situation before, but never heard about the outcome. Glad to see that kind of behavior called out for what it is.
This game in particular was a one-off short adventure, that ended abruptly when the PC's killed off all of the quest-giving npc's(it was a prewritten module, and I'm guessing they weren't too interested).
She played another drow in a longer campaign that pitted the PC's against a drow army(The Drow Wars AP), but she played an albino drow(can't remember what they are called). So, later in the game, there was a big reveal as to what she "really" was. Had this cool "drow-rebel that isn't a Drizz't clone" thing going on.
Maybe I misread, but I think someone at some point said this ELEMENTARY school student was "pre op". Really? I'm sorry, but no one should be considered pre op at 11. If we made permanent decisions at that age I'd have a mohawk and my name would be 'Blaze'. That decision to permanently and drastically change your body should await the person on their own at 18, 16 and emancipated at the earliest.
I believe I was the one who first used that word. By using I was not trying to imply that young children should have whatever operations on their bodies that they feel a whimsy for. When I said "pre-op" I was thinking about EVERY case in which a transgender person wants to use a public restroom, children and adults included. Technically, regardless of age they are still "pre-op" even if they wouldn't actually start hormonal treatment or have surgery until they get older. They are transgender, and didn't have an operation Pre-op.
Also, being transgender shouldn't be equated the desire for a mohawk or cool nickname, which you may have unintentionally lumped it together with. Even if you didn't mean to say this, I want to emphasize that the realization that one is transgender is not a mere childhood whimsy.
I actually enjoy some in-character racial tension from my players when one chooses to be an unliked race. It makes for an interesting story. The only time I would have a problem is when the player chooses such a race and doesn't like the result of that choice. Everyone needs to be on the same table about this.
So, my wife joined in a few smaller D&D games, alongside these old-school players, and of course, she wanted to make a drow. They warned her how much they hated all drow, to which I(as DM at the time) stepped in and informed them how I'd boot them from the game if they tried bullying another player, for ANY reason.Good. I think I remember you mentioning your wife's situation before, but never heard about the outcome. Glad to see that kind of behavior called out for what it is.
The hobby has changed, it is true, not always for the better.
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Which is why I think players should discuss this ahead of time. If you're going to play a commonly despised character race, check with the other players and see if they're willing to play in a way that won't ruin the game for you. If you're going to play a character who hates another race, however justified that might be in game, it's your responsibility to make sure it doesn't ruin the game for other players.** spoiler omitted **
I actually enjoy some in-character racial tension from my players when one chooses to be an unliked race. It makes for an interesting story. The only time I would have a problem is when the player chooses such a race and doesn't like the result of that choice. Everyone needs to be on the same table about this.
Very good advice. The two humans against one drow could have been avoided:
"I want to play a drow."
"Well we don't like them, no one really likes them, our characters wouldn't like them because they are from Blarigh, which the Drow attacked. That won't make a smooth game."
"I want to play a small otyugh!"
And thus the adventures of the two heroes and one roving garbage can, began.
Spoiler:Using snow to wipe on a Himilayan peak (snow is *nice*).
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Which is why I think players should discuss this ahead of time. If you're going to play a commonly despised character race, check with the other players and see if they're willing to play in a way that won't ruin the game for you. If you're going to play a character who hates another race, however justified that might be in game, it's your responsibility to make sure it doesn't ruin the game for other players.** spoiler omitted **
I actually enjoy some in-character racial tension from my players when one chooses to be an unliked race. It makes for an interesting story. The only time I would have a problem is when the player chooses such a race and doesn't like the result of that choice. Everyone needs to be on the same table about this.
Very good advice. The two humans against one drow could have been avoided:
"I want to play a drow."
"Well we don't like them, no one really likes them, our characters wouldn't like them because they are from Blarigh, which the Drow attacked. That won't make a smooth game."
"I want to play a small otyugh!"And thus the adventures of the two heroes and one roving garbage can, began.
That's a misrepresentation of the actual situation.
What actually happened was two people were shoving their personal dislikes on everyone in every game they were involved in, regardless of what another gamer in those groups may have wanted to try out. They don't get to dictate what everyone isn't allowed to do in every game they show up in.
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And from what the OP said, it had nothing to do with anything in the game world. No existing background story or anything like that. The players just hated drow.
So what?
If we swapped Drow for Demon would you question the players saying their characters hated Demons?
That this Drow happens to be the ultra-rare but somehow ubiquitous 'good drow' that they have to accept for no reason (other than relationship to the GM) seems cheezy.
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And from what the OP said, it had nothing to do with anything in the game world. No existing background story or anything like that. The players just hated drow.So what?
If we swapped Drow for Demon would you question the players saying their characters hated Demons?
That this Drow happens to be the ultra-rare but somehow ubiquitous 'good drow' that they have to accept for no reason (other than relationship to the GM) seems cheezy.
Apples and A-bombs.
A more appropriate comparison would be tieflings. And those two players' behavior would still be bad in that case.
** spoiler omitted **** spoiler omitted **
I'm totally envious. There was no winter in TX, but now that I'm in PA, next snowfall I will try this forthwith.
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Apples and A-bombs.A more appropriate comparison would be tieflings.
I disagree.
Where do Drow originate from? They have a culture and civilisations steeped in nasty.
Tieflings aren't analogous to Drow at all.
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Honestly, (and I don't care at all about your oh-so-abused-and-misunderstood-cry me-a-rivers-but-I'm-neutral Tieflings), I hate them both pretty equally. I've been screwed over by both way to many times in game by the "but I'm not like the others", that they basically fall into the kill on site variety as a Good act, in my book. They are both extremely cliché race/concepts, but at least you know you can at least half-trust the ones that DO ping as Evil.
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And from what the OP said, it had nothing to do with anything in the game world. No existing background story or anything like that. The players just hated drow.So what?
If we swapped Drow for Demon would you question the players saying their characters hated Demons?
That this Drow happens to be the ultra-rare but somehow ubiquitous 'good drow' that they have to accept for no reason (other than relationship to the GM) seems cheezy.
OP said that the PLAYERS hated drow. Not just their characters.
OP said that the PLAYERS hated drow. Not just their characters.
So the players AND the characters hated drow, would it have been better or worse if the characters alone hated drow? Would the outcome have been even the slightest bit different?
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Oh cool.
Player 1 "Oh hi guys, I want to roll a drow"
Players 2 & 3 "Hey sure, go ahead, drow are cool, we got no beef".
***later
Player 1 "I walk into the bar, and sit on a stool looking about to see what is going on"
Player 2 "I move to the bar"
Player 3 "Me too, to right there"
Player 1 "Well met fellow travellers!"
Player 2 Sneak attack, shes flanked and flat footed.
Player 3 Yeah I will attack as well, hopefully she is dead before the next round.
Player 1 "Guys WTF?"
Players 2 & 3 "You're a Drow, just walked into our Elven village and sat down in the tavern, our characters HATE drow". Players shake their heads.
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Apples and A-bombs.A more appropriate comparison would be tieflings.
I disagree.
Where do Drow originate from? They have a culture and civilisations steeped in nasty.
Tieflings aren't analogous to Drow at all.
Drow and tieflings are mortals that can easily walk down different paths. Demons are immortal manifestations of evil. I'd say drow have more in common with tiefs than demons.
And those two players are still being jerks with their bullying. If they have bad history with certain fictional races, that's their problem. They have no right to dump on someone who is trying to do their own thing with that race.
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Oh cool.
Player 1 "Oh hi guys, I want to roll a drow"
Players 2 & 3 "Hey sure, go ahead, drow are cool, we got no beef".***later
Player 1 "I walk into the bar, and sit on a stool looking about to see what is going on"
Player 2 "I move to the bar"
Player 3 "Me too, to right there"Player 1 "Well met fellow travellers!"
Player 2 Sneak attack, shes flanked and flat footed.
Player 3 Yeah I will attack as well, hopefully she is dead before the next round.Player 1 "Guys WTF?"
Players 2 & 3 "You're a Drow, just walked into our Elven village and sat down in the tavern, our characters HATE drow". Players shake their heads.
Who introduces their drow character this way?
Not everyone plays a caricature.
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Honestly, (and I don't care at all about your oh-so-abused-and-misunderstood-cry me-a-rivers-but-I'm-neutral Tieflings), I hate them both pretty equally. I've been screwed over by both way to many times in game by the "but I'm not like the others", that they basically fall into the kill on site variety as a Good act, in my book. They are both extremely cliché race/concepts, but at least you know you can at least half-trust the ones that DO ping as Evil.
>:(
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I had a, for us anyway, long running Scarred Lands campaign, where the characters ended up hating halflings.
It happened pretty organically. I was using a Necromancer Games module, The Vault of Larin Karr for its setting, Quail Valley, and the PCs ran into two evil halflings--Devlo, a death priest, and Harry Jack, an evil rogue. On top of that, my drunken anarcho-syndicalist player was, um, playing a halfling warrior named Tramora III who had his memory erased by pixies and fell under the sway of the CE Scarred Lands god, Vangal.
Irl, he was going through some hard times, with the death of his father and some other stuff that I won't go into, and he took it out in game and had Tramora III betray the party, kidnap the wizard's familiar, steal their magic items, ran off and slaughtered some innocent townsfolks.
I, as the DM, put the kibosh on that real quick, and took away his character. I then had Tramora III, as an NPC, link up with Devlo and Harry Jack and become a roving band of halfling evilness who continued to thwart the party's plans and goals.
They became vile anti-halfling racists. Like, maybe not Klansmen, but definitely they could have joined the Anti-Peck Citizens Council. Anyway, around this time, one of the other players decided to retire his paladin, Sir Piter the Pious, and introduced a new character, a halfling rogue.
Well, the rest of the party treated him terribly. I tried to get them to lay off, but they were convinced that that was how their characters would act towards any new halflings they met. We were also drinking quite heavily at that time, so, anyway, it got pretty ugly.
The campaign ended in a TPK not too long thereafter, and we played a couple of other games before the player of Piter the Pious dropped out (he was newly married and had moved to Lowell, MA), but I always thought that the beginning of the end for him was the way they treated his halfling.
Otoh, he had been playing right along through the Tramora, Harry Jack, and Devlo incidents, so he probably should have known better.
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Not sure if James or the Pathfinder Wiki say it best.
Playing a Drow is just going to be fraught with problems.
No it's not those players fault.
When there is thread after thread after thread about how disruptive playing a Paladin (no less) can be 'problematic for the group' and best approached with caution (or avoided), I find it curious that the notion that even more people might be concerned by a drow showing up would be out of order.
I had a, for us anyway, long running Scarred Lands campaign, where the characters ended up hating halflings.
It happened pretty organically. I was using a Necromancer Games module, The Vault of Larin Karr for its setting, Quail Valley, and the PCs ran into two evil halflings--Devlo, a death priest, and Harry Jack, an evil rogue. On top of that, my drunken anarcho-syndicalist player was, um, playing a halfling warrior named Tramora III who had his memory erased by pixies and fell under the sway of the CE Scarred Lands god, Vangal.
Irl, he was going through some hard times, with the death of his father and some other stuff that I won't go into, and he took it out in game and had Tramora III betray the party, kidnap the wizard's familiar, steal their magic items, ran off and slaughtered some innocent townsfolks.
I, as the DM, put the kibosh on that real quick, and took away his character. I then had Tramora III, as an NPC, link up with Devlo and Harry Jack and become a roving band of halfling evilness who continued to thwart the party's plans and goals.
They became vile anti-halfling racists. Like, maybe not Klansmen, but definitely they could have joined the Anti-Peck Citizens Council. Anyway, around this time, one of the other players decided to retire his paladin, Sir Piter the Pious, and introduced a new character, a halfling rogue.
Well, the rest of the party treated him terribly. I tried to get them to lay off, but they were convinced that that was how their characters would act towards any new halflings they met. We were also drinking quite heavily at that time, so, anyway, it got pretty ugly.
The campaign ended in a TPK not too long thereafter, and we played a couple of other games before the player of Piter the Pious dropped out (he was newly married and had moved to Lowell, MA), but I always thought that the beginning of the end for him was the way they treated his halfling.
Otoh, he had been playing right along through the Tramora, Harry Jack, and Devlo incidents, so he...
Klansmen against halflings. I cannot stop laughing.
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Honestly, (and I don't care at all about your oh-so-abused-and-misunderstood-cry me-a-rivers-but-I'm-neutral Tieflings), I hate them both pretty equally. I've been screwed over by both way to many times in game by the "but I'm not like the others", that they basically fall into the kill on site variety as a Good act, in my book. They are both extremely cliché race/concepts, but at least you know you can at least half-trust the ones that DO ping as Evil.Seriously?
As a GM, fine. Ban the races as PCs if you want. I'm not all that fond of them either.But as a player? If someone wants to play a drow and the GM is okay with it, your character will try to kill theirs on sight?
This is supposed to be a cooperative game. Work with the other players.
Yes, probably. (exaggerating a bit) Far to much history of them screwing us over again and again and hiding behind "but I'm not really evil" mentality, especially from NPC's.
If it was a player, different story, but its a huge red flag that they are probably looking specifically to be "that guy/gal" that ruins the mood for everyone else. It also seems like a pretty jerk move on the DM and other player's part if it's already established that they don't like drow. Not to mention that they have an extremely sexist history, as a race, and even in Golarion where that's changed a bit, it's pretty universally advised that Drow are both very vile, evil creatures as a race and that they are not intended for players, being pretty disruptive to play.
From what was said in the example, it looks like the DM really screwed up with that one, (ie not the players) trying to force introduce something that they should have know was going to be a problem for everyone else, and did it anyway. It seems like they had a discussion about it before it actually happened, and chose one player over everyone else, and then expected that that wouldn't kill the game.
Never choose family over elf-killing.
it's pretty universally advised that Drow are both very vile, evil creatures as a race and that they are not intended for players, being pretty disruptive to play.
but I wanted to play an exiled one from a noble family who dual wields scimitars! I just read a popular book about it my friend gave me. I mean turning on my race and proving to everyone how perfect and great and goodly I am while fighting my lineage is awesome and totally not cliché right?
Anyways, depending on your book, drow can be viable. Mechanically, I've seen them a little bit of everywhere, but usually the ones with spell resistance aren't that great for players. I would also would say not every player is trying to be an emo jerk, or drizzt, or disruptive, but I've met quiet a few immature players who definitely are, but definitely not everyone I've met would do that.
Ah yes, by Lamashtu, the love of that exile.
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I don't even really so much hate that. I kind of like redemption stories. It's more that Drow have an established history of being very evil and (and a lot of times people seeking to play them as well) disruptive to the game, (unless everyone is playing something like that) and both mechanically and flavor-wise are not cooperative or party friendly.
Oh cool.
Player 1 "Oh hi guys, I want to roll a drow"
Players 2 & 3 "Hey sure, go ahead, drow are cool, we got no beef".***later
Player 1 "I walk into the bar, and sit on a stool looking about to see what is going on"
Player 2 "I move to the bar"
Player 3 "Me too, to right there"Player 1 "Well met fellow travellers!"
Player 2 Sneak attack, shes flanked and flat footed.
Player 3 Yeah I will attack as well, hopefully she is dead before the next round.Player 1 "Guys WTF?"
Players 2 & 3 "You're a Drow, just walked into our Elven village and sat down in the tavern, our characters HATE drow". Players shake their heads.
Since my group uses a no PvP rule, players 2 & 3 now hand over their character sheets as evil NPCs and start new characters at one level lower. Meanwhile Player 1 and the town guard fight off the characters 2 & 3. Why the town guard? Because they obviously allowed the drow into town so the drow is to be treated as a friendly during her visit. Attacking her on site in a tavern will bring the wrath of the entire elven town upon these evil surface elves who dare draw steel in a peaceful tavern.
If players are capable of employing racism, sexism and various other prejudices for the purposes of role-play, with the understanding that their character will evolve into someone more understanding and cosmopolitan (quite rapidly if the other players are unwilling to go along with the gradual progression), then such behavior, in moderation, can actually enhance the game's verisimilitude. If instead it's used as a veil for the expression of hatred one lacks the courage to openly espouse, well ... I've rarely grouped with people incapable of separating player from character.
Equally, though, the PC police can become tremendously tiresome as well. I'm not interested either in imposing my weltanschauung on anyone, or the reverse.
I like what you say, except the idea that they will evolve into cosmopolitans. There is actually the idea in traditional cultures that cosmopolitanism is a form of cultural infiltration, and will erode and destroy foundations through pluralism. Some have termed this the cosmodespotism idea (which is funny, until you consider how many groups hate the west and its modernity).
So yeah, moderation, let people play their characters and develop as they see fit. I had a barb/fighter character that grew paranoid, a bit insane and fatalistic. So not any more cosmopolitan, but his experience with evil drove him away from loving and mixing with all cultures, and it was great.
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Oh cool.
Player 1 "Oh hi guys, I want to roll a drow"
Players 2 & 3 "Hey sure, go ahead, drow are cool, we got no beef".***later
Player 1 "I walk into the bar, and sit on a stool looking about to see what is going on"
Player 2 "I move to the bar"
Player 3 "Me too, to right there"Player 1 "Well met fellow travellers!"
Player 2 Sneak attack, shes flanked and flat footed.
Player 3 Yeah I will attack as well, hopefully she is dead before the next round.Player 1 "Guys WTF?"
Players 2 & 3 "You're a Drow, just walked into our Elven village and sat down in the tavern, our characters HATE drow". Players shake their heads.
Since my group uses a no PvP rule, players 2 & 3 now hand over their character sheets as evil NPCs and start new characters at one level lower. Meanwhile Player 1 and the town guard fight off the characters 2 & 3. Why the town guard? Because they obviously allowed the drow into town so the drow is to be treated as a friendly during her visit. Attacking her on site in a tavern will bring the wrath of the entire elven town upon these evil surface elves who dare draw steel in a peaceful tavern.
Killing fun for the two, siding with one over the two rping their characters, punishing attacks on drow and making a whole city obedient to how you think it would go, one mind, one purpose against the pc drow slayers. Pretty poor dming there. Very desperate to bring them to heel. That never goes well.
I like how the elves suddenly became defenders of the drow. Hilarious. Did you read second darkness?
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i have no problems with drow or tieflings.
i had a shy, timid, and socially akward tiefling wizard of succubus descent whom was too passive to inflict harm on her own. she used elementals to protect herself and her group, because elementals were one of few things she could truly open up to besides her teacher and employer; an anemic wizard librarian who was a master of shaping the elements.
she wasn't Emo or Abused and sure as heck didn't cry rivers. she was simply highly codependant, and so fearful of loneliness, that she never truly asserted herself, and learned all 4 elemental languages so she could nicely ask the elementals in their own tongue as best she could.
they responded out of a protective big brother complex.
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Oh cool.
Player 1 "Oh hi guys, I want to roll a drow"
Players 2 & 3 "Hey sure, go ahead, drow are cool, we got no beef".***later
Player 1 "I walk into the bar, and sit on a stool looking about to see what is going on"
Player 2 "I move to the bar"
Player 3 "Me too, to right there"Player 1 "Well met fellow travellers!"
Player 2 Sneak attack, shes flanked and flat footed.
Player 3 Yeah I will attack as well, hopefully she is dead before the next round.Player 1 "Guys WTF?"
Players 2 & 3 "You're a Drow, just walked into our Elven village and sat down in the tavern, our characters HATE drow". Players shake their heads.
Since my group uses a no PvP rule, players 2 & 3 now hand over their character sheets as evil NPCs and start new characters at one level lower. Meanwhile Player 1 and the town guard fight off the characters 2 & 3. Why the town guard? Because they obviously allowed the drow into town so the drow is to be treated as a friendly during her visit. Attacking her on site in a tavern will bring the wrath of the entire elven town upon these evil surface elves who dare draw steel in a peaceful tavern.
Killing fun for the two, siding with one over the two rping their characters, punishing attacks on drow and making a whole city obedient to how you think it would go, one mind, one purpose against the pc drow slayers. Pretty poor dming there. Very desperate to bring them to heel. That never goes well.
I like how the elves suddenly became defenders of the drow. Hilarious. Did you read second darkness?
If the GM says no PvP, then no PvP. If a player cannot fathom that, the door is there, ever open.
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Since my group uses a no PvP rule, players 2 & 3 now hand over their character sheets as evil NPCs and start new characters at one level lower. Meanwhile Player 1 and the town guard fight off the characters 2 & 3. Why the town guard? Because they obviously allowed the drow into town so the drow is to be treated as a friendly during her visit. Attacking her on site in a tavern will bring the wrath of the entire elven town upon these evil surface elves who dare draw steel in a peaceful tavern.
OK so in your town there are no evil creatures, no thieves, no anything possiblywrong and nocrimes ever happen. Gotcha.
I guess we should all just hand in our character sheets upon arrival, as in essence the GM has strict rails upon which we must roll, and deviation is not accepted. Is the dialogue scripted too?
Next stop, temple of Iomedae where the Paladins are inviting in the local Bugbears for a trivia night.
IOW, the problem with your example isn't just killing the PC on sight, it's saying "Sure, play a drow", and then killing the PC on sight.
That was in response to the players being told that they aren't allowed to hate the Drow, and not allowed to speak up against having a drow join the party, but their characters being allowed to hate drow.
I was pointing out how ridiculous it is to tell a player that they aren't allowed to object, or that they should be inclusive, when it runs contra to their characters point of view. It is and should always be a player discussion, and in this case I find it even more galling that just because it was the GM's SO with a pet drow fetish, the rest of the party just had to take it on the chin or be kicked from the game.
Why not just hand the SO a flying unicorn too?
it seems like it happens a lot in RPGs where people decide that their character should be a racist misogynistic d-bag, and then use the "but its in my backstory" card when i ask them about it
why does every Barbarian or other fringe type PC have to be like that?
i'm all for coming up with compelling backstories, it makes my job easier. racism and misogyny is not compelling, its just offensive and tends to put gamers in a bad mood when the Barbarian wont listen to the wizard PC because "she's a southern wench"my question is, is this a recurring problem with gamers as a whole or just in the midwest?
do gamers use their characters to act out their deep down racism and sexism, cause it kinda seems that way from my seat.and thats really, really disappointing because in my youth it seemed that gamers were a more liberal forward thinking bunch then the general populace.
do woman gamers run into this a lot, does it turn them off from gaming?
how as a GM do you deal with this?
Its could easily be a player who is getting very heavily into their character. Barbarians have a big distrust of magic and foreigners in most players minds. Its the stereotype of a barbarian and a lot of their rage powers reflect it. As a result the players have a vision of how a primitive culture and therefor their character should act. This combined with people making characters from widely different cultures encourages this behavior. This attitude was derived from Conan the Barbarian(Shwartzniger version), the father of the modern fantasy barbarian archtype.
Its also a side effect of allowing characters from widely different cultures. Its realistic and makes for interesting roleplaying. This is behavior that should mitigate over time.
Later in the campaign the barbarian may learn to trust the wizard and realize she is capable. Conversly it can also turn worse. It all depends of how both characters roleplay in relation to one another, and what the characters do to prove their worth. Thisis called character development. The characters from widely difference cultures should be a motly crew of 1st level misfits in the beginning who have personality clashes. Then later they become unlikely friends who learn to work flawlessly together once they learn what each other does and and respect for their capabilities.
If the wizard gets the barbarian in her spell areas, she may be dead meat. If she proves helpful without hindering him they may become good friends in the future.
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If you want party harmony, don't allow such a cultural variety. Have everyone from 1 small area, likely 1 town or village. Have them all make their characters as having been fiends in the past.
As a Dungeon Master its your responsibility to work with the player to make an acceptable background and personality. If you don't like the character at any step of the process tell them the character is not acceptable. This process should include the history, personality, and general appearance of the character and should go deep enough to root out racist sentiments and other hatreds or fears a character might possess.
Well here is the problem, numbers. Running a game is about getting players and keeping them with fun and entertainment. Punishing two players for acting out their characters (which could logically hate Drow from the setting) is a good way to get them both to leave (Dave, can you believe how much of a dick that dm was? Yeah John, they totally cramped our style, everyone knows you kill Drow. For the xp, I know brah).
They shouldn't be ganging up on the lone drow player, but playing drow is a pretty tall order. Especially if joining a very good party, lawful, paladins. An evil party? Sure, drow make sense. I still remember an old dragon edition that featured a team of drow assassins masquerading as Cantina performers. A evil drow is not going to be such a problem in an evil party, it fits, it is one of the gang:
"Welcome dark brother."
"Are you calling me black?"
"Is your heart truly dedicated to darkness, that is all that concerns me."
"Darker than a plague rat's a#&*~~&@"
"Goood, yesss, gooood."
Throwing a drow into a non evil, non drow friendly setting, it is just messy. Drow can seem sexy, mysterious, vengeful and all that, but what next? Ogres from the de raeep mountain range?
Some things just shouldn't be allowed to pass muster, but of course the dm is not going to tell his partner she can't play a dark elf after she read some Salvatore.
Too right 3.5
If a group of NPC Drow rocked up in town rolling with mail and blades it's called an 'encounter' and you are expected to roll right in there with sword and spell for xp. Magically though, your characters are supposed to know that the lone Drow they just encountered isn't really an advance scout, its the GM's SO, and you need to sling your blades or face extinction.
It's lucky that the PC's all walk around with their names in blue floating above their heads so you can tell the difference between a friendly PC and a MOB.
my question is, is this a recurring problem with gamers as a whole or just in the midwest?
do gamers use their characters to act out their deep down racism and sexism, cause it kinda seems that way from my seat.and thats really, really disappointing because in my youth it seemed that gamers were a more liberal forward thinking bunch then the general populace.
Most gamers come from the more intellectual side of society which is where your more of your liberal minded forward thinking people come from.
But now in the modern times of everyone being shoved through collage weather they should be their or not in order for the schools to make more money, you have the side effect of an increase presence of the evil side of humanity in the pool of people that gamers are attracted from.Their has also been a dumbing down and attempted mainstreaming of RPG games by some companies. D&D/Wizards of the Coast/Hasbro comes to mind. This has been an effort to attract more players from other, less traditional gamer walks of life, to expand the customer base.
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Players in Lensmans Game.
P1 - OK we walk into the dungeon.
GM - Cool there's four Orcs, they rush at you
P1 - Guys its a trap!
P2 - Good call, we sheathe our swords. No way he's going to punish us for fighting what looked like bad guys again!
P1 - High five guys! Remember, don't attack until we have given the enemy the initiative AND they have had time to attack us for a while, remember that Drow? I think these Orcs are the new party members.
Party dies.
Good game.