|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
If that title doesn't grab your attention, I don't know what will. Yeah, but no, this thread will be discussing very sensitive topics such as race and racism in gaming. I hope that we can all be mature adults and have a discussion about this topic without without it devolving into a cesspool.
I am happy to say that in terms of pathfinder, I believe there is little in the ways of racism. Elves and Dwarves share pints at taverns, Tieflings join crusaders alongside Aasimar and no one bats an eye when a Linnorn Kingdom Viking ends up in Tian Xia. This might be my own view, having run a large number of pathfinder society adventures and adventure paths, but the circumstances of your birth are rarely, if ever, a factor. And on the rare occasion when it is, the character being openly racist is always the villain. I haven't read every PFS adventure or adventure path, but this has been my general experience.
But this has not always been the case. In classical fantasy, the races usually dislike each other at best, openly hate each other at worst. The Elves and Dwarves always have an ancient feud, halflings are distrustful of the big folk and humans and orcs both seem to think "they aren't us, so they are bad." In some fantasies, the races might get together for the greater good (Lord of the Rings is a great example, where working together led to the defeat of Sauron and a new golden age) while in others, even in the face of almost assured destruction, they will fight each other (Warhammer seems like this, although, I know they sometimes team up).
So, my question is this: which is better? Of course, a significant part of that relies on your table and their own maturity about such things. But assuming all is equal, which table would you prefer to play at? The table where racial equality is a thing might seem like they obvious choice, but it might seem silly and contrived. After all, people in the real world often find minor reasons to hate others, such as supporting the wrong local team or being born on the wrong side of what is basically an imaginary line that we have invented. If those people are also longer lived, were magically inclined or one of the other many fantastical reasons to be jealous of, then it might seem strange that everyone gets along.
As compared to the alternative, it certainly seems better. But at the same time, it is a conflict that players can not overcome with weapons and spells. Conflict is what can create interesting stories and players and even educate people about prejudice. I have even seen this in one game, where a white player created an African American character during a world war 2 campaign. Both the GM and another player helped emphasize the mistreatment of African Americans during this period and while the player later admitted that he learned a lot, he stopped playing that character because the situation made him uncomfortable and frequently upset.
Another situation, I had three of my regular players (all female) turn down joining a campaign set in the 1920s because they felt bring female characters in this time period would be terrible. A situation that I never thought about while designing a game with zoot suits and magical mobsters. In fact, the entirety of this thread could replace race with gender, but "fun with gender slurs" didn't have the same catchy title.
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
I just don't see this as a good thing. Slurs by definition are meanspirited. Most of us (including me) have been the brunt of real-life slurs (ethnic, racial, religious, gender, even being called nerdy or stupid is a slur). I'm pretty sure I wouldn't want this in a game especially not in a game where feelings could potentially be hurt.
Being called "little lady" isn't nice; it's degrading. Ugh. I can't even imagine the worse language that would be used.
It's one thing to have this done with humorous intent such as when a kobold refers to humans as "big'uns" but that's because humans have the upper hand. It's never funny when it's used the other way around.
I really can't see the fun in this at all.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
We don't all have to be PC police. Of course, flavor can be mis-used but anything can be mis-used. Something can be technically polite and actually be abusive. So Kobolds refer to human as soft-pink-skins or maybe big uglies. But well kobolds don't care what humans think of them. In reference, to Koujouw's scenarios, just because something was commonly used doesn't mean sensible people used those terms. To consider, would a white male Christian WASP trust somebody (loan money) (lend tools) just because the other person was a white male Christian WASP? Eh, no. You'd trust somebody based on your personal assessment of his/her/its character. So, usage of the slur as a slur, gives you more of an idea about the mentality of the speaker than what he is speaking about. For role-play, you'd expect young people to have been stuck with the preconceptions and vocabulary they were stuck with growing up. They might not even know something is a slur. You'd have to have some serious confidence in your players' maturity to deal with this in an RPG.
Most "fantasy racism" is just carbon copied from the real world without much thought (other than racism, usually). Middle Earth is full of ugly stereotypes of cultures that Tolkien wasn't fond of. It's not a tradition we should ever look to incorporate unless you intend on alienating people at your table.
One of the most important things for this discussion is the fact that generally, your players will be killing A LOT of creatures for sometimes unspecified and vague reasons. Giving more specific reasons is not a bad thing.
So there is a place for racism in gaming. It is in the mouths of idiots who are about to have a spear or fireball shoved down their throat.
In more concrete terms, the role of "enemies" is to provide an existence that the players deny in a cathartic manner involving dice rolls and gory descriptions. You are perfectly justified for including such content on the side of 'enemies', and it helps to provide justifications, however small, for the players so they are not just murder hobos.
Enemies in this game already defile corpses, rape, torture, murder, rob, and all sorts of other manner of terrible, terrible things. Racism is practically jaywalking at this point. It is a nice little way of justifying random encounters near towns by having locals say 'oi- you look different and that is bad. Imma gonna shank ya'.
Racism also can be useful when applied to sorta neutral NPCs- you can include it in the story, providing a goal for the players anc create dramatic tension: they must prove that naysayer wrong by doing a ton of grand deeds for 'city/kingdom/group X', forcing them to begrudgingly accept the players and rethink their policies. Or they can use dominate spells and make the guy try to pants the king. Whatever works. Remember- denial and catharsis. Try to provide a way for players to accomplish that.
Now, once you understand the role of racism in your game...the question is: Do you want to be GOOD at racism? Which...obviously odd, but this touches back on the original problem- racial slurs. I am not going to deny- being clever always feels good, so making an impactuful adn concise racial slur can be an art in itself. So...I guess you should "Birth of a Nation" it (ie- provide masterful techniques and craft to something that is appalling to the modern audience). I mean...who here doesn't love Paizo's goblin songs about burning looting, and eating babies?
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Good point, Arachnofiend but there's a little more to it. Tolkien's stuff was seriously racist and elitist. True bloodlines were noble, elves were good. But, in a way, the main characters (hobbits) were a counterpoint. Hobbits were nobodies who did what all the high and mighty ones could not. And then there's the ents, "we're not on anybody's side; we're on OUR side." I think some of the treeish Ents (the Huorns) hated everything that walked. And the problem is also that racism is built into the Core rules. Races are not a biological identification. Species are defined in biology as sets of interbreeding populations. So technically, orcs and humans and elves and aasimars and tieflings and angels and demons are all the same species. And you can add most fey and probably other things.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Personally, I find the presence of such tensions adds to the verisimilitude in many cases. I'm not saying that racism has to be commonplace, but encountering the occasionally biased NPC contributes to the flavor every now and then and provides for some good role playing opportunities. I find this to be true not just in tabletop gaming but in video games as well like in Dragon Age and The Witcher series. Of course, that's just me; if others want each fantasy tavern to hang a "safe space" sign out below its placard, more power to them.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
As a mexican I have had my fair share of slur's thrown at me, and I can understand why some people feel this sort of talk has no place in this game. Personally though, I think it matters on the players and the setting. If this is your typical fantasy setting, and your players are all adults, I feel people can suck it up for the point of fun. The real world is not a nice place, and a fantasy setting even less so. It provides variety and realism that not all people can be reasoned with, not all people are nice, not all people are good. And it provided interesting situations.
Ex. An elven paladin having to save a dwarf. The dwarf can yell slurs and racial insensitivity at the player till the cows come home. But it says lots about that players ability to stick to his character and alignment to STILL save someone so vile (so long as that dwarf isnt evil of course.)
Idk, I think you get more out of your game when the world isn't all black and white, sunshine and rainbows.
Slurs and insults are a double-edged thing. Sometimes your enemies help you more than your friends. Enemies criticize every little thing -- which can be helpful. People screw over their friends by not telling them the truth, or telling them what they want to hear. So the fault can't be fixed and the problem isn't solved. A stupid person who likes you can do you a lot of harm -- sending you onwards when you're not prepared. Potential plot device. Think of how a coach or drill sergeant behaves -- it's not all encouragement and kisses.
I don't mind fantasy racism when it's a setting thing (elves and dwarves fought a bitter war centuries ago, and still hold a grudge against each other to this day), but I do mind it when it's used as a passive aggressive way to punish individual players for playing a race other than the standard (sure, you can be a tiefling, but every human peasant will cry out in terror and accuse you being a demon, making reasonable interaction impossible).
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
Whole lotta uppity slips in here...
Running a world where their are literally dozens of races, not to mention ethnicities and sub-races, I get a lot of player generated friction between the mish mash. Dwarves that clash with Elves are commonly the loggers and the Elves are the more judgmental. Several Draconic-humanoid peoples exist, each decrying the others as impure and false. Human cultural and ethnic groups abound and squabble amongst themselves. All (and more) have snide remarks and slurs based on game mechanics and Fluff. Humans from West Hamby are nomadic horse riders who dislike being afoot and wear shoes meant for stirrups, leading several dozen insulting words to be coined, each a variation on 'bad walkers'. Some insults are happily received, such as a common Lizard humanoid jab at male Dwarf beards, roughly translating to 'fur face'.
I end noting that players created most of the remarks as my brain was too looped into the storyline.
sometimes a given character in a story just has personality flaws
It is kinda topical right now considering current times isn't it?
How could one stat certain corn-color haired "politician"?
I play a Bekyar shapeshifter in a game set in Eleder. She sometimes acts as a counterpoint (being more ignorant about those she calls "slips" than anything), but is mostly a sort of parody or deconstruction. She's a wilderness guide who has in the past worked with slavers, and has a Neutral Evil alignment.
Sometimes I use Sunt the Shifter to mock real-life archetypes I've encountered, like the "benevolent racist"—she's big on moral relativism, too. Ultimately, she is a bad, bad person, and I always sort of weigh how far to take her. The only thing that makes her remotely tolerable is that she sincerely does want to help out and probably has the capacity to change (and she still benefits largely from PC privileges, which is something I'm working on). I rely heavily on feedback from my brother, the GM, to make sure she doesn't start making other players uncomfortable.
She's currently at the stage where she's realizing that "slip" makes her 'friends' get mad at her and is trying to not use the word around them anymore. She may grow more, recognizing that her way of thinking about the world is toxic and destructive, or she may end up getting a just death by virtue of being stuck as the party's only real meatshield. Only time will tell.
Incidentally, I made her Bekyar as sort of a joke about how for some reason or another all Bekyar in Golarion are these horrible evil demon-worshipers, which I always thought was a bit...awkward. Sure, there are plenty of cultures in Golarion that tend towards evil, but the Bekyar are the only one I know of that gets implied to be just universally evil in a lot of books. Cheliax sure doesn't get that treatment.
In the game I run there is a fair amount of bigotry. I play to the stereotypes and the group loves it! Sexism, racism, and classism are all a real thing and a type of encounter you cannot always beat with a sword or a fireball. Most of my group heavily favors the social over combat. The half orc loves that people treat him like an orc and then are confused at how he acts, he is rather well socialized better than some of the other PCs actually. The one female enjoys the idea. We are only girls at the table.
You should make sure the party is ok with it being in the game but it makes the world feel more real. Just like creating NPCs and locations that the PC cares deeply for.
The world of Golarion has dozens of examples or various forms of bigotry. So it is cannon. And so long as everyone is able to acknowledge that at the end of the day this is just a game and not a outlet to vent hatred on it can be fun. I do not think of my self as bigoted against ethnicities or genders but playing them is a fun challenge. It like crawling into the mind of something totally other and trying to understand it. I find it to be a fun learning experience.
It is the same as playing or running an evil person. People do not get upset at the evil rouge killing dozens of people while dodging the law. the PC is indignant but the player is fine with it, that's plot. Bigotry can be another form of plot, one that is far more challenging. Wither it is from a ethic, gender, or class position.
It's a fine line to tread. As mentioned by others here, sometimes it's a fun challenge to play through. But to some it's not as much 'playing a role' as it is 'dealing with even more of what I'm stuck with and I'm fed up with it!'. Monitor the feedback you get, of course.
That said, personally? I'm not a fan of it being in the game, aside from an occasional antagonist who can be fed their own words. I'll accept social victory, tho, if that's what's available. And I did enjoy the awkwardness at the Swallowtail Festival when the winner of the strength competition was my cute little human girl. (Randomly rolling height/weight can be fun!) Especially when the NPC organiser ended up awkwardly asking if she wanted to swap out the award-presenting girls.
I play a Bekyar shapeshifter in a game set in Eleder. She sometimes acts as a counterpoint (being more ignorant about those she calls "slips" than anything), but is mostly a sort of parody or deconstruction. She's a wilderness guide who has in the past worked with slavers, and has a Neutral Evil alignment.
Sometimes I use Sunt the Shifter to mock real-life archetypes I've encountered, like the "benevolent racist"—she's big on moral relativism, too. Ultimately, she is a bad, bad person, and I always sort of weigh how far to take her. The only thing that makes her remotely tolerable is that she sincerely does want to help out and probably has the capacity to change (and she still benefits largely from PC privileges, which is something I'm working on). I rely heavily on feedback from my brother, the GM, to make sure she doesn't start making other players uncomfortable.
She's currently at the stage where she's realizing that "slip" makes her 'friends' get mad at her and is trying to not use the word around them anymore. She may grow more, recognizing that her way of thinking about the world is toxic and destructive, or she may end up getting a just death by virtue of being stuck as the party's only real meatshield. Only time will tell.
Incidentally, I made her Bekyar as sort of a joke about how for some reason or another all Bekyar in Golarion are these horrible evil demon-worshipers, which I always thought was a bit...awkward. Sure, there are plenty of cultures in Golarion that tend towards evil, but the Bekyar are the only one I know of that gets implied to be just universally evil in a lot of books. Cheliax sure doesn't get that treatment.
From a purely anthropological point of view it sort of makes sense. Small sustenance level tribal cultures often have less tolerance for social deviations and since they're evil are more likely to just kill the offenders <in this case probably sacrificing them to said demon lords> then just exiling or ignoring... Cheliax is more a country of Snidely Whiplash mustache-twirling evil... Plus Asmodeus wants souls so corruption and assimilation is more important then straight out killing.
I find this topic interesting on the ever living question that how much of real world nastiness should fantasy worlds show to make them feel more real, yet still going overboard to guard the fun and relaxation of the entertainment.
Best when fantasy feels real but not too real. When all senses are stimulated, but in a way that does not get in the way of immersion.
Done and kept in a fantastical light, I think it adds to the game. What I mean by that is, stuff like discrimination against tiefling because of their fiend blood, or assumptions by villagers on how elves or dwarves act, isn't too bad.
Bringing real life racism into things is I don't think a good idea for a game, nor is taking a real world ethnicity and just giving their culture to a non human race, and keeping any elements of racism associated with that real world race.
I run each area of Golorian according to the race exposure in the guides or what I deem reasonable. I tend to go Core-Races centric unless there is obvious cosmopolitan exposure.
An obvious tiefling in Magnimar would not be a assumed demonic and met with immediate suspicion, but WOULD be an oddity that would attract stares and possibly some voluntary NPC interaction (out of curiosity.)
The same tiefling in Mendev would be subject to scrutiny and suspicion every time he entered a new locale until his/her name and reputation were settled and known.
Stereotypes exist because they are true...well, almost always true...well, generally true...well, maybe not even a majority of the time.
I think that's how I remember the line from Ethics decades ago. All Russian women become bag ladies by age 40. Not really, its just that photographers have selectively picked out those women and as their opposite, utter babes that show up in Playboy! In short, all '1s' and '10s'. A friend did this for a statistics paper, disproving it with Mrs Gorbachov (sp) and passport photos.
If I were to jibe Norwegians or Swedes for lacking tans, most people would agree, including most N and S. In light hearted jest, they would even join in with jokes they've heard (This happened at a Norwegian wedding in Atlanta with a ink-black class mate joking his 'pinky finger' had more tan than the 40+ Norwegians there. The matriarch joked that it was how they chased Polar Bears from Norway [PBs never lived in N.])
D&D from the start has featured alas.
I'd only be fine playing with racial prejudice in a game where all players understand the weight of those ideas. An awful lot of people still have a lot of underlying racial assumptions and prejudices themselves, and I don't want to be a part of reifying that.
I prefer to challenge peoples' perceptions of racial stereotypes and racial categories in roleplaying games. Example - I have a character who is mostly human but with some orc blood. He uses the human rules, but strongly identifies with his orc heritage and engages in orc ceremonies etc. (This is close to my own experience as someone whose family comes from a few very different cultures and backgrounds.)
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Sorry, real world crisis.
D&D has featured stereotypes, be they 'all orcs are evil' or the Elf/Dwarf tension, they have shifted by module, edition and such, but they persist. This is a good bit of the actual RP aspect of Pathfinder when you look at a Race's write-up, both in the 'relation's fluff' as a soft guideline for role play and in the gritty mechanics where some get hatred bonuses for others. Trust me, if you think micro-aggresions are a real thing, you need to open your eyes to the brutality and real hatred of the world.
All this blabbered: anything that helps create a stronger connection to a game world is a tool and all tools must be used carefully. If the issue of prejudice bothers one or more players, make it into a quest chain. read up on the numerous alternate fictions that have been written for nuggets. A long ago GM took a Star Trek episode where a planet developed a pair of races where both were half and half black and white, but on opposite halfs of the body. Great show.
A number of modules and newer settings have delved deep into this and are worth exploring. And of course I cannot remember a single one.
Here's another perspective from myself:
(1) I try not to rely too much on racial stereotypes in my game because it gets boring quick. If every Dwarf is a gruff ale-drinker there isn't much to work with.
(2) When there is racial tension in my games, I make sure it's not taken lightly and try to give my players ethical / moral decisions as much as possible. ie. If the mayor of a town is outspoken against non-humans, I won't smile when I talk about it, and will ensure that it's not taken as a joke or something to laugh about. (I'm not sure how I do that - maybe it's my tone or something, but it usually makes characters uncomfortable. They were happy when this mayor's face got eaten off by a goblin, so I feel like I did something right.) :)
(3) It's a game and a story so things should be exaggerated and used symbolically. However, racism is real and extremely damaging, so it is something to take seriously and be aware of.
Great conversation!
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
If you want to have a living setting, you need historical events, first as a background, then as a result of the campaign as it unfolds. These historical events are things that have a chance to spread into news, gossip and general thought, and will affect the world in turn. So, for example, if there is a war somewhere, there will be propaganda, bad blood, and a certain amount of antipathy for a long time. Say that this war was fought between an elven forest nation and an expansionist human empire neighbour, but eventually the elves beat back the humans. Both among the humans and the elves, then, there will be some, or many, who will conflate humans/elves they meet with "all humans/elves", and who will call them names, attribute untrustworthiness and maliciousness to them, deny them service, and so on. I would as GM see no problem in exposing elf and human PCs to this. However, it is vital that you don't go overboard with it, that you make it somewhat predictable or understandable (don't try to convince the old blacksmith there that elves are good people, he lost both his sons in the war), that it's not monolithic (you're quite welcome at this inn instead), and that you can from time to time both feed people their words and perhaps genuinely change people's views. It turns toxic when such things themselves get stereotyped and overwhelming and immutable. It doesn't ALL have to be about a message. If you do want a message, perhaps "isolation isn't generally a good idea" is one of the better ones.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Unless a form of oppression is critical to the setting, story and theme, I don't include it.
I have several campaigns going on, though most are on the back burner right now. One is a "sword and planet" style campaign, the game is more about the mystery of the world around them, the strange technology they find and odd monsters they encounter. I describe it as a world of owlbears, everything is strange combinations or altered variants. In the dungeon they're currently in, they've avoided a room so far, but there's a magical shield underwater, the water is infested sharks who have poisonous stingers on their tails (they saw one, but it was obscured).
Another campaign parallels strongly with the Christian crusades into the Middle-East. There are tons of differences, but that's the fastest way to describe it. In that case, we regularly use religious, class, ethnic and racial oppression. It's a place where the common folk get trampled on regularly and we show how different bad guys are doing it for different reasons or in different ways. The players have had to make choices on who their biggest threat is and how they want to solve it, while making alliances with people they don't like, but figure they can rein in later on.
In the first campaign, I don't care about religious, gender, class, ethnic or racial differences. Play what you want, be who you want, it's about the adventure of exploration of strange places. In the second campaign, who you are and what you are is highly important, players have to make detailed choices about what they're willing to deal with and have inflicted on them (or inflict on others).
I never include oppression just for the sake of "reality". It must serve a specific purpose within the game.
When I run games at conventions, I never include forms of oppression, unless they are universal (like the gods are just jerks and are mean to everyone).
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
There are different forms of adversity, and not every type of challenge is appropriate for every game.
In the real world, maintaining a healthy diet can be a challenge. Do you model the challenges of an imbalanced diet and lack of oral hygiene? Those were serious problems during medieval periods. If you're going to be realistic, you should keep track of the condition of every character's teeth.
Yes, this is hyperbolic, but it's to illustrate the point that not every form of adversity is appropriate for a game.
|
I don't think pathfinder is as open-minded as the OP suggested. I mean, don't get me wrong, it is WAY more open-minded than the actual middle ages/renisance, but that's not saying much.
Dwarves hate orcs. Like, they have a racial bonus because they are racist against orcs (even half-orcs). Gnomes against kobolds. Heck, even angel-kin aasimar are generally racist against all tieflings if you read their description (they don't get racials for it though.) The elves of Kyonin are pretty distrustful of everyone (thus the closed boarders) and Nagaji think humans are 'barbaric and expansionist.'
I think a lot of players downplay this just so that they can sit at the table and have fun. So when there's a dwarf and an orc in the party, instead of it being "Shoot, Steve's playing a half orc. I'm a Dwarf. Looks like I gotta make an issue of this and hold up the whole game, even though Steve has a well built character and he's my best friend." They can just say "Hey, Name's Brogarth Orcslayer . . . ooh, should change that name before we start playing."
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I don't think pathfinder is as open-minded as the OP suggested. I mean, don't get me wrong, it is WAY more open-minded than the actual middle ages/renisance, but that's not saying much.
At the same time, I find the bestiary entry for lizardfolk to be a fantastic example of postcolonialism, where their motivations are more portrayed as reactionary to human expansionism into their lands (and the sheer inability to compete with the human libido when it comes to restocking troops- we all know that is one of the strongest parts of the human race).
I am unsure of what extend the precense of racism in their world is on their views (as I mentioned- just because it is present, that doesn't mean it is portrayed as 'right', since it is often attributed to enemies). While the overarching portrayal of creatures like orcs as the 'other' is troubling, you also face various points where they discuss races adn generally attribute self agency when it comes to alignment.
I guess it is a mixed bag. You have tiefling entry that talks about how they can choose to overcome their heritage...but then the fiendish bloodlines go into excrutiating detail about how bloodline X is horrible, unable to feel happiness, and overall bitter at the world.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Note that kobolds get no Core bonus against gnomes. Why? We aren't racist like stinking racist gnomes. Literally every single gnome is racist. Every single one.
Except a few ARG ones. They're credits to their race, they are.
Political Correctness
*BZZZT*
Hm? Oh, I'm sorry, don't mind me. Just testing out my buzzword buzzer.
But I will say that nobody in this thread is currently coming off as being that offended about the topic. We aren't advocating banning racism from roleplaying or anything? We're mostly talking about comfort levels and discussing given groups' tendencies. I wouldn't try to conflate anyone here with those weirdos you gamed with. :P
*Checks clock*
Huh. I think I am up too late to be startin' somethin's. I'm going to instead go to bed like a smart little kobold and not pick arguments on charted terrain.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
It is good to remember that you cannot have war without dehumanization of your enemies.
I have racism in my settings, but it's not a major focus in the settings simply because I don't have enough knowledge on the subject to make it a theme or focus without me feeling as though I was doing it a disservice.
Note that kobolds get no Core bonus against gnomes. Why? We aren't racist like stinking racist gnomes. Literally every single gnome is racist. Every single one.
And yet the kobolds are the ones hunted down for by adventurers rather than the racists. Tsk. Tsk.
I tend to ignore it for the most part after a few "incidents". One of these ended up with me having to ban Strix as a player race because one of my player's played a Strix gunslinger who was extremely racist against humans. Now I know that's part of the race's fluff to a degree and I think it would be fine if it was reserved for NPCS. Although they played to character with such an utter disdain for humanity that they were backstabbing the party. Trying to frame a party member for a crime they didn't commit to remove them from the party because they were "human".
The part that I thought was the most ridiculous was that there wasn't a single human in the party yet that player with his Strix decided to act racist to all of the PCs. The party consisted of a Kitsune (who he was trying to frame), an Elf (who he described as close enough to human), a Slyph (of which that character knew and explained his heritage) and finally a Ifrit(They're bright red and their hair is fire, nuff said). If the end the Strix was retired under the grounds of arrested for slander along with the crimes he committed to frame the Kitsune and the party moved on.
My opinion on it is that you need to know your players, like everything else in the game. Talk to them and if they can handle it maturely and it improves their fun then enjoy your grittier world. Otherwise racism can get out of hand very quickly if not nipped in the bud.
As a side note, I no longer play with that Strix player and now things are so much more relaxed and fun.
I tend to ignore it for the most part after a few "incidents". One of these ended up with me having to ban Strix as a player race because one of my player's played a Strix gunslinger who was extremely racist against humans.
Question, do you allow people to play dwarves and gnomes (and some elves)?
I tend to ignore it for the most part after a few "incidents". One of these ended up with me having to ban Strix as a player race because one of my player's played a Strix gunslinger who was extremely racist against humans.Question, do you allow people to play dwarves and gnomes (and some elves)?
Yes, although they don't come up often in my group honestly. In my home game my players enjoy playing a lot of the less common races (Kobolds, Gillmen, Changelings, Catfolk, etc). There also never was any event with a Dwarven or Gnomish PC causing issues, racist or not. The strix ban has since been lifted because that player was removed from the group. It was more to avoid a repeat incident then anything else. The only other races I've ever banned were Drow Nobles and Svirfneblin, simply because I thought their power level would be disruptive. Although that is a different issue entirely.
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Tolkien's stuff was seriously racist and elitist. True bloodlines were noble, elves were good.
Not really. You note the hobbits, but there were also plenty of examples of 'true bloodlines' not being noble and elves not being good. Indeed, Tolkien's most direct fictional commentary on the issue can be found in the Kin-strife of Gondor, where the champions of 'Numenorean racial purity' were the villains... and the kingdom was redeemed and restored by a hero of mixed ancestry. His most direct non-fictional commentary on the issue is probably the letter where he calls Hitler a "ruddy little ignoramus".
The Lord of the Rings was first and foremost linguistic fanfiction. The languages came before the books, and I seem to recall that he wrote the books so there would be "legends" associated with the languages.
Actually, Tolkien's stories and languages developed in parallel over the course of decades... changes to the fictional history would result in changes to the languages, and vice versa. It is true that he operated on the (correct) principal that a living language is shaped by the culture and history of the people who speak it, but that doesn't make his stories "first and foremost linguistic fanfiction". Rather, his stated goal was to develop a 'mythology for England'.
Aw, and here I thought this thread would be about coming up with racial slurs for Golarion races. :(
I have a tengu ranger that drinks, smokes, and is terribly racist. He's an ass, but everyone has fun playing with him even if they don't like him.
I say this as a person who gets uncomfortable when any hints of actual racism/slurs come up in real-life conversation.
In the Elder Scrolls mythos, everyone is racist.
Isn't that mostly just a thing in Skyrim, though? I don't recall it being much of an issue in the other games. And the Nords in Skyrim are mostly xenophobic because they associate the presence of non-Nords in Skyrim with Imperial occupation. The Empire itself is implied to be cosmopolitan and fairly multicultural. And even among the Nords, the first Jarl you meet has a Dark Elf that he trusts as the head of his guards.
You occasionally overhear people talking about guys from Hammerfell and their "curved swords", but it doesn't seem all that derogatory. If anything, the Nords just seem amazed that someone would have a curved sword. The only real racists in Skyrim at the Altmer and the Nord insurgents.
Good point, Arachnofiend but there's a little more to it. Tolkien's stuff was seriously racist and elitist. True bloodlines were noble, elves were good.
The Elves in The Hobbit were complete a+&#*&*s. In the book they are flat-out antagonistic towards Bilbo and the Dwarves during their travels, and even in the film it's heavily implied that they abandoned their alliance with the dwarves during Smaug's initial attack.
Aw, and here I thought this thread would be about coming up with racial slurs for Golarion races. :(
I have a tengu ranger that drinks, smokes, and is terribly racist. He's an ass, but everyone has fun playing with him even if they don't like him.
I say this as a person who gets uncomfortable when any hints of actual racism/slurs come up in real-life conversation.
'You dirty rat!' 'Hey, I bathed this morning!'
Still, it's more 'high challenge' to do something like that tengu. It's a lot easier in a small group than if you had a larger audience, of course. Discretion is the better part of valor. Learn what your group is OK with before trying anything risky like that.
This kind'a reflects RL too. You're more likely to get away with stuff with a friend you've known for years rather than some guy off the street. There are ways to discover this for yourself but remember you likely don't have DR in reality.