I was thinking "Looney Tunes" martians.
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All the shades of skin tone exist in our games, same as all sexual orientations. If Bob wants to play a (not)Asian or (not)African in (not)Viking land there is a very easy explanation for that - Vikings in reality raided Africa and the Middle East as far as Samarkand (Silk Road) and took home slaves, that they wed or set free eventually.
If a player wants to play a (not) Australian Aboriginal in (not) Viking land then that is a mystery that good DM would find a lot of interesting adventure hooks for.
I still love ya Paizo but...yeah watch that back-slide.Wouldn't that be a black-slide?
....I laughed my butt off just now at this. Kudos.
Very interesting, Inner Heru. I've always thought of D&D as inclusionary by its nature but it never occurred to me that 'pink is the standard color' would even occur to a group with a different RL complexion.
Heh yeah. There are little silly things that most would never give half a thought to, it's just like the topic of this thread, when you are passively taught that you are not an option things start to go wonky in your world view.
"Flesh" colored Band-Aids and Crayons make my friends and I chuckle.
Friends, Seinfeld, Girls and nearly all of the shows based in New York City surprise many us when we find out they are supposed to be in NYC.
My over all point was that the OP and I had been the victims of the same idea that it did not matter when it does.
Oh fun fact.
I play Chelaxians more than anything else when given the chance....unless it's a public forum then it's Garundi or Varisian. *shrug*
There are dark-skinned Halfings in the jungles of Mwangi. They are common in the Kaava Lands. Mwangi elves are also dark-skinned.
Hmm, Halflings of Golarion didn't mention that. Skin color there ranged "from ivory to mid-brown".
I do not know if I find it stranger that black versions of the non-human races exist at all or the fact that they are always some more or less primitive jungle-folk.
I forgot to add to my above - In a fantasy game where people can kill hundreds with the blade or a word... If a not African wants a ski lodge in not Viking land and has the power to make it so then why not.
Black people have lived in England since at least Shakespeare's time. (See: Othello) Probably a lot longer. Multiculturalism is not a recent invention no matter what some history books say.It's been a while since I've read or seen Othello, but it took place in Venice. Unless it specifically mentioned a black person living in England you can't exactly use that as evidence for black people living in England in Elizabethan times, even ignoring the fact that it's work of fiction.
Roman records of Africans in England and DNA traces of African heritage from that time are another matter, as well as other historical records from Elizabethan times. It wasn't common (rare enough that people were noted for being black, but there were some people.
At least if Wikipedia is to be trusted on the matter.
Romans were "colourblind" but if you weren't a citizen then you were fair game... There were a couple of African emperors, few Middle eastern emperors and a lot of emperors from the Balkans....
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What was that quote again? The one about White, Yellow and Black putting their differences aside to gang up on Green? I always thought it was a rather clever way to describe fantasy-racism.In my opinion there's lots of racism going on in a fantasy world, it's just that rather than between humans of different skin colour it's between humans and elves, elves and dwarves, etc.
Richard
This is true, but on the other hand there's a lot of real-world situations where two very similar ethnic, cultural, or religious groups are intensely antagonistic towards eachother - often to the confusion of outsiders. This has caused real problems for example when Americans or the Brits assume that people in Afghanistan or India & Pakistan will be homogeneous because they are all "brown people." I expect this is partly due to familiarity breeding contempt - it's easier to start a feud with your neighbour than with someone who lives on the other side of town and you only see a few times a year.
Mixing both racism and speciesism in fantasy can have interesting and realistic results. It can also be used to add variety to fantasy races that are sometimes portrayed as monolithic. For example, you might have one group of dwarves that hates elves, one that is staunch allies with elves against goblinoids, and another two that are engaged in constant war/rivalry with each other.
In one PF game I played, there were crow Tengu and raven Tengu and the Tengu PC was very touchy about being called a crow.
In my current campaign I have a vaguely Euro-style princedom where no one cares if you're an elf or a halfling, or a dark-skinned person from the desert down south. But they don't like to associate with fellow humans from the next fiefdom over, and half-orcs and goblinoids are considered sub-people - as are Tengu, who are conversely upper-class in more easterly lands.
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why does public matter?
I am the kind that is not just going to dislike something or talk about how it's wrong and then sit on my backside as I take no action. That makes me the second largest part of the problem.
The OP would not have even posted this if one of his players did not make a person of color. I would still be playing more Elves, Kayal, Gnomes and Undead but see my own people as too fantastic to consider if not for Chad.
Telling my story gave Lincoln Hills something to think about that he never considered.
So if I know that exclusion does so much damage and I hate that then "What am I going to do about it other than B**ch?"
Act to improve not just a simple hobby but at the same time maybe I can be a drop in the bucket, merge with a few more drops and improve how we look at things.
There is a lot of weight, power and momentum at the other end of this so people need to push back and why not me?
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Just going to leave this here:
N.K. Jemisin's WisCon 38 Guest of Honor Speech
Seems relevant.
Not really, or at least to me. Its down to "there needs to be X% of black writes in the field...."
How about you just all, of any stripe, just write good stories and we'll read them. I'd hazard most people who want to read good stories don't wonder what color the skin the author is. I don't care, I only want a good tale.
I don't worry about whether they are white, or black or jewish or atheist.....entertain me.
Maybe you're missing out on good stories and good authors because they get driven out of the business by discrimination. You'd never even know.
Maybe you'd be missing out on good stories and good authors that had replaced those who got driven out of the business by discrimination. You'd never even know.
Your argument works in both ways, don't attack him because he doesn't care for every author's backstory.
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I'd hazard most people who want to read good stories don't wonder what color the skin the author is. I don't care, I only want a good tale.
I'd add that I think you are right on the first point. Most don't wonder, they assume they are white. It's a safe assumption too because it's what we have been told and shown from cartoon to HIStory.
On your second point at times I envy that freedom.
Black people exist. That's how I deal with it.
I roll to disbelieve!
There are dark-skinned Halfings in the jungles of Mwangi. They are common in the Kaava Lands. Mwangi elves are also dark-skinned.Hmm, Halflings of Golarion didn't mention that. Skin color there ranged "from ivory to mid-brown".
Not to sound offended, but how dark do you consider "medium brown" to be?
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Carmachu: Really? You don't see any relevance from this?:
I can’t tell you how many times I was told, with great vehemence and hostility, that there was no chance of me having a career in SFF — by other people of color. Yeine, the protagonist of THE HUNDRED THOUSAND KINGDOMS, was almost a white man because I listened to some of what these people were saying. (Imagine if I’d listened to all of it.)
I can certainly see a parallel between that and what this thread is talking about in regards to gaming. If the authors themselves are having trouble with writing in non-white characters, I think something's wrong.
Either way, I'm backing out of it now. I was just reading that last night and thought it was topical and might interest some people here.
I can certainly see a parallel between that and what this thread is talking about in regards to gaming. If the authors themselves are having trouble with writing in non-white characters, I think something's wrong.
Either way, I'm backing out of it now. I was just reading that last night and thought it was topical and might interest some people here.
Thank you for your efforts. You were not wrong.
I run homebrew, and simply make skin tone a function of how close/far a region is from the equator, just like real life. For example, in the game I'm currently running, the PCs are from a country that's from the southern part of the continent, so the PCs have olive to dark complexion. The king of their country is black.
Furthermore, currently the PCs are adventuring in a country in the north that's a bit xenophobic; The PCs are occasionally called/referred to by the slur "javakoze", which means "dirty skin" in that country's language. They often have to make diplomacy rolls just to buy/sell gear because the local merchants either won't do business with them or refuse to give them a fair deal.
Needless to say the PCs aren't very big fans of this country.
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why does public matter?I am the kind that is not just going to dislike something or talk about how it's wrong and then sit on my backside as I take no action. That makes me the second largest part of the problem.
The OP would not have even posted this if one of his players did not make a person of color. I would still be playing more Elves, Kayal, Gnomes and Undead but see my own people as too fantastic to consider if not for Chad.
Telling my story gave Lincoln Hills something to think about that he never considered.
So if I know that exclusion does so much damage and I hate that then "What am I going to do about it other than B**ch?"
Act to improve not just a simple hobby but at the same time maybe I can be a drop in the bucket, merge with a few more drops and improve how we look at things.There is a lot of weight, power and momentum at the other end of this so people need to push back and why not me?
So now you feel that you must play a black character, especially were people can see you even if you might want to play a non-black one? that is kinda messed up racist in itself isn't it?
So now you feel that you must play a black character, especially were people can see you even if you might want to play a non-black one? that is kinda messed up racist in itself isn't it?
I can't tell if you are joking or if you really came to that conclusion based on everything I have written and the questions you asked before hand.
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So now you feel that you must play a black character, especially were people can see you even if you might want to play a non-black one? that is kinda messed up racist in itself isn't it?I can't tell if you are joking or if you really came to that conclusion based on everything I have written and the questions you asked before hand.
That is how it sounds from what you have wrote.
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One of the giant elephants in the room with regards to fantasy has always been race. This is almost certainly because the majority of fantasy settings are modeled after medieval Europe. Of course with the increasing egalitarianism of modern society and the ever growing number of gamers from all sorts of backgrounds we've seen a lot more representation of colored people in game materials.
How do you deal with race in your games if at all?
On earth we have racism as a major factor because we're not sharing the planet with other tool-using sentient species since we've killed off all the other human species that could have been our potential rivals.
Would it make sense for such niggling details to persist on Greyhawk, the Realms, or Golarion when you've got TONS of sentient races that you simply can't exterminate or brush aside? Many of them more powerful than you are?
That being said, I like the fact that we are now seeing elves, dwarves, and paladins in shades other than lily white.
Several times i have seen the book say that dwarves and gnomes were darker than lily white, people just assume they are
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@Andrew R
1: "I am the kind that is not just going to dislike something or talk about how it's wrong and then sit on my backside as I take no action. That makes me the second largest part of the problem."
1: I see it as a problem. I see the fact that the default of nearly all forms of this culture is SWM. The only thing I am finding more of an issue is the effect it has on NON-SWM. It can cause the creation of a Black Character in a game to stun the DM. The appearance of a Black person in a world with fire breathing dragons and the Gods themselves walk the land was enough of an oddity that it was described as "throwing a wrench" into his world. I do not say this to paint him in a negative light and in fact I understand the culture that caused this to happen.
The OP even was so moved by his own realization that he brought it here in the public forum to ask what others thought. That is what an impact this had on him.
This is wrong. I don't like this. Unlike many in this day in age I am going to do more than tweet it with a hashtag and rage against "The Man" in a small group of like minded people. No, I rather choose to take action. To be out there and seen so it is not so easy to forget we are out here. I have chosen to be evidence of the Big Foot in our hobby.
2: "The OP would not have even posted this if one of his players did not make a person of color. I would still be playing more Elves, Kayal, Gnomes and Undead but see my own people as too fantastic to consider if not for Chad."
2: I had a Chad to ask me a very basic question. If I am lucky some kid or better yet some adult will have an Inner Heru just by me being at the table with my character. If you can I really want you to look closer at this idea... I saw the idea of my own people in D&D as TOO fantastic to even consider. I did not come to that place of thinking as a child by chance. Yet something as simple as a question snapped me out of it. I think that is something amazing to do for another person.
3: "So if I know that exclusion does so much damage and I hate that then "What am I going to do about it other than B**ch?"
Act to improve not just a simple hobby but at the same time maybe I can be a drop in the bucket, merge with a few more drops and improve how we look at things.
There is a lot of weight, power and momentum at the other end of this so people need to push back and why not me?"
3: I have no idea how I can get more to the core of the idea that sparked this statement. I really thought you were joking at first when you took this to mean that I feel, in your words, that I must play a black character, especially were people can see you even if you might want to play a non-black one?
I never said I felt I had to, that I must. I WANT to play one when in public. It's never a case of wanting to play a non-white and saying to myself, "Shucks I'd love to play Arodus today but folks are looking better break out Moheed.". No my first attempt at a char in a pbp on this forum is a White Woman. My desire and my drive to play Black people more often while in public is due to the positive impact doing so can create and the wonderful feeling it gives me.
I have no idea how you found any of that racist and thus I assumed you were mocking the idea of exclusion as opposed to whatever it is you did mean by this.
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Here's something that I have been wondering. How do you deal with the race issue when playing games like Call of Cthulhu, set in the USA in the 20s and 30s?
I played in only a handful of games of Call and I had a blast as a man from Cairo stealing back artifacts.
A Jazz musician who saw something he wish he hadn't in an alley on his way back from a gig.
A young man out of New Orleans who's Mamu (Great Granny) felt he was old enough to pass on the family secret and show him why we never moved out of the swamp.
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Here's something that I have been wondering. How do you deal with the race issue when playing games like Call of Cthulhu, set in the USA in the 20s and 30s?
This is a slightly different issue than what the OP is discussing. When playing those games you have an existing cultural setting (since the games take place in the real world) from which to draw. With fantasy worlds having a blank slate, the tendency is to default to white because generally that's what happens when race isn't considered and most or all of the players are white.
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Who care what skin tone the new dwarven neighbors have, the important thing is that they are not gnomes or, even worse, half-orcs.
Half orcs? Half human is likely better than a 'monster race' like dwarf or gnome.
As to original post: it looks like dark skin in our humans is associated with mosquito transfer of certain tropical viruses over thousands of generations so feel free to identify large 'contaigon' zones with different generational genetic effects, also food enzymes, heavy metals. Fleas and lice are also potential carriers so if you want skin colour diversity like green, mottled, ash, pale, black so simply pick what you want.
They call them bronze Aussies because they get too much sun sitting on beaches drinking beer.
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The oldest European legends always present Africa in a positive light.
The ancient Greeks believed black Africans were the people most favored by the gods. Homer mentions that the gods regularly left Olympus to go feast with the blessed peoples of Ethiopia.
There is a reason that we have these records. Ancient African empires were some of the most advanced in the world (and let's keep in mind that Egypt is an African country). In the 12th century, Great Zimbabwe had a larger population than London. Why haven't you heard about Great Zimbabwe? This is because the ruins were the only thing left at the onset of the colonial onslaught of Africa (partly in ruins because of colonialism, check out the book "Guns, Germs and Steel" for a fascinating and accessible history lesson). The popular stereotype of Africa as a continent of "lost" civilizations is so prevalent that Paizo has utilized them in their background on the Mwangi Expanse.
This is not a critique of Paizo - as other posters have pointed out, they are acknowledging other human races in Golarion - but rather pointing out overarching issues of ignoring/ignorance of Africa's direct involvement and contribution to the rest of the world. Pottery shards from Chinese dynasties were found in the Great Zimbabwe ruins, demonstrating the active global trade networks before colonialism occurred. Although Paizo does a great job of representing fantasy worlds with all of the complications we deal with now, I'm hoping if they ever expand their world building into Garund the game designers will show us a more interesting picture than ruined civilizations.
What I find entertaining about the whole thing is that you rarely see a Moor playing the Moor.No... but I did see an adaptation that cast Anthony Hopkins as Othello.Black people have lived in England since at least Shakespeare's time. (See: Othello) Probably a lot longer. Multiculturalism is not a recent invention no matter what some history books say.Does anybody have that dream where you're a white Othello in a black cast?... No?... Just me?... Oh... okay.
Another Tangent/I was under the impression The Moors invaded Spain some time in the past by crossing the Straight of Gibraltar from Morocco and were never fully repulsed. That's why you see, among other things, such a shift of architectural styles along the Southern Spanish Coast. I could just be grossly misinterpreting or misremembering some things from Western Civilization classes, though.
And I will have to see this Anthony Hopkins movie. /Possible Tangent End.
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Huh, this thread has been a lot more in-topic and level-headed than I thought it would be. Something I'd like to point out, without being a dick or racist, is that your race does determine how easy it is for a person to live in a particular area.
Biologically speaking, humans need vitamin d. We can't make it on our own, we need to synthesize it with the help of the sun. But if we get too much sun, we can get some serious skin issues which can also lead to death. So if you live in a place that gets a lot of sun, you need to block some of it, but if you live in a place that gets a small amount of sun you need to absorb as much of that stuff as you can.
So, for all Caucasians out there, if you live in a place that gets a lot of sun, you need to keep yourself covered up all the time. There is a reason that some of the most vigorous skin cancer research is done in South Africa- there is a huge Caucasian population that is getting way more sun than there skin was designed to handle.
But darker-skinned people aren't in the clear either. Back in the fifties, Harlem had a huge epidemic of bone problems until someone figured out that they were all vitamin d deficient. Nowadays you can combat this with pills and supplements, but back in mideval times, the only way to get extra vitamin d was to eat sun-dried meats. Basically, sun drying meats causes some biochemical process (not exactly sure what) but he end result is that the jerky is high in vitamin d.
Huh, this thread has been a lot more in-topic and level-headed than I thought it would be.
It's only page two my man, give it time :)
Jokes aside I agree with you, for the most part.
I did not know about the situation in Harlem in the 50's or about jerky. Lucky for me Macho Man always told me to snap into it! Yeah...not the same thing but I miss Randy.
Thanks for the Data!
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As to original post: it looks like dark skin in our humans is associated with mosquito transfer of certain tropical viruses over thousands of generations so feel free to identify large 'contaigon' zones with different generational genetic effects, also food enzymes, heavy metals. Fleas and lice are also potential carriers so if you want skin colour diversity like green, mottled, ash, pale, black so simply pick what you want.
Not sure if joking, but melanin isn't about malaria (or other mosquito-borne diseases), it's about preventing UV radiation from damaging the skin, potentially causing skin cancer. The reason everyone isn't dark is because you need to absorb some sunlight in order to make Vitamin D, so the more sun = more melanin = darker skin and less sun = less melanin = lighter skin. See also this neat image.
Sickle-cell anemia is the trait associated with malarial resistance.
EDIT: VampByDay got this while I was gathering my references...
That said, in a fantasy you certainly could get all kinds of different skin colours due to magic or other environmental effects. Undines are blue because they're related to water elementals, ifrits can have brassy skin because of fire ancestors. Maybe goblinoids are green because it's good camouflage, or maybe in a different setting they actually have chlorophyll to compensate for fast metabolisms and/or help them go without food in harsh conditions. Another race might be bright pink or orange because of a diet rich in those pigments (and this colour will fade if they change diets).
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If it were just vitamin d and melanin production I wouldnt have dark skin where mosquitos have bit me during childhood.
That said, in a fantasy you certainly could get all kinds of different skin colours due to magic or other environmental effects. Undines are blue because they're related to water elementals, ifrits can have brassy skin because of fire ancestors. Maybe goblinoids are green because it's good camouflage, or maybe in a different setting they actually have chlorophyll to compensate for fast metabolisms and/or help them go without food in harsh conditions. Another race might be bright pink or orange because of a diet rich in those pigments (and this colour will fade if they change diets).
That might be interesting idea. Saw an experiment with ants. Their abdomens are translucent so depending on food dyes in their drink, they can be any colour.
Why I tend not to play humans other than whiteish.
I don't want anything I have the character say or do to be judged as anything other than what that one character says and does.
First: Everyone has the same amount of melanin. It is just distributed differently. As a consequence of this, we absorb different amounts of UV radiation, which activates our food-ingested vitamin D, which is necessary for the calcium metabolism, and deficiencies cause aches, pains, depression, and osteoporosis.
If you are dark skinned and live in a place with little sun, you get a deficiency of activated vit D, which gets worse if you are also covered. Veils and such are not good ideas far from the equator. That said, dark skin is not enough to protect you from the equator sun. Skin health care in those countries is a complicated field with many lethal conditions, far worse than further from the equator. Dark skin also sometimes carries the problem of cheloids, a tendency to build huge scars. It is a vulnerable structure in some ways.
However, another thing to be aware of is that the African population stands for the absolute highest degree of genetic variability in the human species. The groups that left Africa were homogenous, and their descendants still are.
Earth is rather culturally rich place. Hundreds and thousands of ethnicities, cultures, and hundreds and thousands of years of mindling and cohabitation.
For homebrew designers, this can be a heavy burden. Sure, you can have black people (native of country A) living in country B (where the adventure is happening) for generations, but country A HAS to exist somewhere.
This happened to me way back in my early AD&D days, where players asked to play a duo of middle-eastern inspired merchants. Despite the typical 1001 nights arabic adventure trope that exists in fantasy, I had not place for these characters to come from. Then someone wants to play japanese samurai, or a zulu warrior, or a tattooed maori sailor, or a siberian hunter, or a indian elephant trainer... Soon your homebrew world is bound to have a place of origin for every earth-related culture, and that can be a burden.
I can see why other races end-up being so strereotypical. "You want culturally diverse? Pick humans. Elves come in variety of white = good and black = evil because I don't have any time left to elaborate futrther..."