If you are the one accusing someone else of racism, you do not have to justify yourself. He does. Period.  

(At least, this is how it works in the real world, and is used constantly in American politics).

Quote from: Killfuck Soulshitter;563657Also, the perps here are bigtime 4vengers who hate Paizo, and they're feeling their oats after last month's Desborough/Mongoose frenzy made them feel they have the power to actually harm a game company.

True.  Organization gives some power to the individual, however, it gives much more to the organizers.

Quote from: technoextreme;563719Its Africa.  How the hell do you not know about Africa?  Honestly I would have expected one to do Africa in an entirely different way than Golarion did because its got some of the most iconic symbols in the entire world.

i wasn't refering to africa. Someone mentioned mongols and I had that in mind when it when I mentioned equating ignorance of history with raciak stereotyping.

Quote from: technoextreme;563725How the hell do you not know this?

So you're not going to tell me what the "most obvious" part of a continent is?

Quote from: Sacrosanct;563724Wait a second.  I admit I am not familar with Golarion, but if I put out an rpg that talks about an African culture, and have someone from that culture depicted like this:



That makes me a racist?


Wow.  I can't help note the irony in that so many rpg gamers have become Tipper Gore, and Dee Snider's speech to congress would also fit perfectly without modification on rpg boards as well.

Looks like a Zulu warrior to me. Is traditional garb somehow now considered racist?

Quote from: Bill;563735Looks like a Zulu warrior to me. Is traditional garb somehow now considered racist?

Apparently.  That, or modeling your rpg cultures around real world historical accuracy is now lazy.

What's lazy is someone accusing you of something without doing any research to know what the context of the work they are criticizing is from.

I would add that "Africa" is a continent which has lots of VERY different cultures and countries in it anyway.
People from an African country don't really say "I'm African" they identify with the country in Africa they come from, such as Ghana, Gambia  whatever.
I've had this conversation with people from countries in Africa before and all of them found it odd to be identified as "African".
 
So saying the Mwangi is stereotypical of Africa is a pretty racist thing to say anyway, it's a bit like saying populating an area of Golarion with a Celtic style culture is representative of all European cultures.

I don't see any real problem with trying to introduce some depth to a setting, as opposed to cardboard cut-out stereotypes.

But Golarion certainly isn't worse than most other settings in this regard, and in any case it's pretty clear that the folks over at rpg.net aren't interested in any sort of good faith discussion of how to improve setting design.

Vaguely on topic, an acquaintance of mine who is an Anthropologist sometimes, in his more exasperated moments, defines Anthropology as "the science of accusing each other of racism."

Quote from: Sacrosanct;563738Apparently.  That, or modeling your rpg cultures around real world historical accuracy is now lazy.

What's lazy is someone accusing you of something without doing any research to know what the context of the work they are criticizing is from.

Uh oh!

I borrowed Japanese/British/Indian elements for an Elven nation in my homebrew setting!

Honor/Naval and Trade Power/Caste System.

I hope that's ok.

For the purposes of full transparency, this is why I'm taking this a bit personal.  I'm currently working on a game where the characters are intelligent synthetic beings.  The "races" (they are called clans) are inspired from their human ancestors, more specifically during a time when that ancestor's culture was renown.  Here are images of all the race/class combinations:



Note the bottom left and middle right, about 4 figures in each one.  That is the Inyoni clan.  It might be hard to see in the smaller pictures, but they are drawn from  central-southern African tribal inspiration (Inyoni is the Zulu word for bird).

So that makes the game lazy or racist?  Those types of accusations piss me off, to be honest.  Traits in the book for the clans highlight the greatness of each culture, and for someone  who is looking to be offended goes and flips through the book and decides to start an internet crusade about how I am racist makes me more than just a little upset.

Quote from: Dimitrios;563741I don't see any real problem with trying to introduce some depth to a setting, as opposed to cardboard cut-out stereotypes.."

there is certainly nothing wrong with more fleshed out and varied settings. That it was I tend to prefer myself. But many fantasy games boil down kingdoms, races, etc to a handful of traits, and if you are drawing from realworld cultures, i don't know that it is automatically racist to do so. Again, don't know Golarion so I can't really comment there. I mean if someone was drawing on early America they might create soething like: a rigid and strict puritanical culture, gun slinging cowboys or deistic revolutionaries. Doing so isn't neccesarily a commentary on modern day Americans, christians or white people.

Quote from: Sacrosanct;563743For the purposes of full transparency, this is why I'm taking this a bit personal.  I'm currently working on a game where the characters are intelligent synthetic beings.  The "races" (they are called clans) are inspired from their human ancestors, more specifically during a time when that ancestor's culture was renown.  Here are images of all the race/class combinations:



Note the bottom left and middle right, about 4 figures in each one.  That is the Inyoni clan.  It might be hard to see in the smaller pictures, but they are drawn from  central-southern African tribal inspiration (Inyoni is the Zulu word for bird).

So that makes the game lazy or racist?  Those types of accusations piss me off, to be honest.  Traits in the book for the clans highlight the greatness of each culture, and for someone  who is looking to be offended goes and flips through the book and decides to start an internet crusade about how I am racist makes me more than just a little upset.

Wonderful concept art!

Quote from: danskmacabre;563740So saying the Mwangi is stereotypical of Africa is a pretty racist thing to say anyway, it's a bit like saying populating an area of Golarion with a Celtic style culture is representative of all European cultures.

It may be incorrect, but I don't think it makes a person racist necessarily.  It could, sure, but not by default.  I mean, when people talk about mid-late 1800s United States, you're going to get imagery of cowboys and outlaws.  The truth is that most of the American white population were neither, and not even close to that.  As in your example, you're excluding a huge swath of geographical territory in those generalizations.  Just like many Europeans forget about the east coast in the US during the 1800s when talking about culture, many Americans forget about Northern Africa in the 1800s unless they are specifically talking about Egypt.

Quote from: Sacrosanct;563751It may be incorrect, but I don't think it makes a person racist necessarily.  It could, sure, but not by default.  I mean, when people talk about mid-late 1800s United States, you're going to get imagery of cowboys and outlaws.  The truth is that most of the American white population were neither, and not even close to that.  As in your example, you're excluding a huge swath of geographical territory in those generalizations.  Just like many Europeans forget about the east coast in the US during the 1800s when talking about culture, many Americans forget about Northern Africa in the 1800s unless they are specifically talking about Egypt.

I agree, I was kind of trying to be ironic against some of the "It's Racism!!"  statements.
Well put reply tho.  

Quote from: Sacrosanct;563751It may be incorrect, but I don't think it makes a person racist necessarily.  It Just like many Europeans forget about the east coast in the US during the 1800s when talking about culture, many Americans forget about Northern Africa in the 1800s unless they are specifically talking about Egypt.

I am very interested in medieval Ethiopia/Abyssinia, fantasy versions often appear in my games, and I might well buy a sourcebook on such.  It's a genuine black African civilisation that featured large in medieval European thought, due to its association with the Prester John myth - the Christian kingdom in the east that would save Europe from the Muslims. It seems to be completely off the radar for games designers, though.