Okay, this is probably a loaded question that will probably result in a loaded discussion on both sides of the aisle, but I have a serious question.

I've recently come up with an idea for a dark comedy RPG where the PC's are anthropomorphic woodland creatures in a World War I setting (I call it "Trench Critters"), but I'm afraid of actually doing anything with it because I don't want to be lumped in with the rather infamous furry fandom. And that got me thinking, in this day and age of internet culture, can you make a work with animal characters without being labeled as "furry"? I'm serious here, because I like my WWI idea, but I'm afraid of getting a lot of hatred and being labeled something I'm not.

There are actual dedicated furry RPG's such as Ironclaw and the Fursona series, and they are widely mocked and hated for the most part (generally justified in the case of the Fursona series, given the rest of Chris A. Field's work). I don't want Trench Critters to be lumped in with those works. It doesn't help that my idea was very loosely inspired by Looney Tunes, Sonic The Hedgehog, and Crash Bandicoot, so I'm afraid of even developing this idea as a campaign, let alone a full game. Even non-furry RPG's such as Werewolf: The Apocalypse and the TMNT game get a lot of flak because of the furries.

So, I ask you guys, is there any way one can make a game with animal PC's and not be considered "furry" and if so, what pitfalls should you avoid?

Please keep this discussion civil.

Was this one of your sources of inspiration, by any chance?
[video=youtube_share;pGNoPkygkzI]https://youtu.be/pGNoPkygkzI?list=PLUnbx1R7OWDTgtAOU2c0cQnIXJDNGx8m  e[/youtube]

Quote from: Cave Bear;935156Was this one of your sources of inspiration, by any chance?
[video=youtube_share;pGNoPkygkzI]https://youtu.be/pGNoPkygkzI?list=PLUnbx1R7OWDTgtAOU2c0cQnIXJDNGx8m  e[/youtube]

Actually, Peace on Earth is one of my more serious inspirations for "Trench Critters". I had that cartoon on VHS as part of a compilation of other classic cartoons when I was a kid.

Neat! What was the compilation?

As for your question, the first thing is to ask what the term "furry" means. If you're going to avoid the label, you first have to define the label.
There's got to be more to it than just anthropomorphized animals, since not every anthropomorphized animal character is considered furry.
There's a very specific aesthetic and subculture associated with it. There's a very specific sexual fetish associated with it. I'm assuming those are the things you want to avoid. Sound about right?

Quote from: Cave Bear;935158...
There's a very specific aesthetic and subculture associated with it. There's a very specific sexual fetish associated with it. I'm assuming those are the things you want to avoid. Sound about right?

Yeah I agree: if the animal characters, especially the female ones, display many human-like "sexy" traits, it sets off certain alarm bells.

To me, that's why Mouse Guard, for example, probably isn't very "furry-friendly": the female characters show very few, if any physical differences from the male ones. It really helps that they all look like actual (well, slightly stylised) bipedal mice, rather than furry people with Disney-esque mouse faces.

Actually, that's a big tell: if Mrs. Brisby from the Secret of NIMH had a very humanoid physique rather than just being a mouse that happens to stand up on its hind legs...

I'm not very good at this though: as a teenager, the only cartoon character that I was attracted to was what's-her-name from Cool World.

But then again, TONE is a big thing. I doubt that there are furries out there jacking off to Watership Down and Maus. At least I hope that they fucking aren't!

Quote from: Cave Bear;935158Neat! What was the compilation?

As for your question, the first thing is to ask what the term "furry" means. If you're going to avoid the label, you first have to define the label.
There's got to be more to it than just anthropomorphized animals, since not every anthropomorphized animal character is considered furry.
There's a very specific aesthetic and subculture associated with it. There's a very specific sexual fetish associated with it. I'm assuming those are the things you want to avoid. Sound about right?

Correct, I wish to avoid being associated with the furry fandom and the furry fetish scene. My ideas for Trench Critters may be a lot of things, but fetishistic they are not. I want to avoid being lumped in with the furry fandom and its more cringeworthy elements. I really want to avoid the subcultural and fetish elements of the furry fandom and I don't want my game to go down those pitfalls. I still want anthropomorphic animals fighting in The Great War though. I might even do a level-based system of classes and races, with the races being based on different species of animals and the classes being various military occupations of the time.

Granted, one of the major aesthetic influences for Trench Critters IS Sonic The Hedgehog, which is popular among furries and is also a target of mockery by internet culture, but I'm a lot more comfortable with Trench Critters being accused of being a "Sonic Recolor RPG" than a "Furry Fetish RPG", even though it is ultimately neither.

And Necrozius, to respond to your post, I do not intend my female characters to have oversexualized features. Cutesy features may be present in both genders, but that's about it. Nothing that is blatantly sexualized or fetishistic.

As for the tone, I'm torn between making Trench Critters a dark comedy setting in the vein of "Looney Tunes" and "Crash Bandicoot", or a very grimdark and Gothic setting in the vein of "Peace on Earth", "Watership Down", and "Maus". I'm actually kind of leaning towards the latter.

Why does it even matter to you?

Fun fact. There are anti furry people who consider ANYTHING with excessive hair a "furry" those on both sides who consider regular animals as "furry" And talking non-anthro animals. And so on. There are people who go around deliberately spreading hate against the furry community just like theres people who do the exact same thing against RPGs. Are you also going to try to get your game labled as not an RPG  for fear of being labled a satanist or whatever inane tag the lunatic fringe has going this week?

Just make your damn game.

Of course you can make that kind of rpg without being a furry(fan), but it Will be associated with furries.
There is nothing you can or should do about that matter, but what you can and should do, is see to that it is solid and works as a game by itself.
That's it.
The only "pitfall" into it being referred to as a "furry-game" is using anthropomorphic animals, and that's it!
Of course you should avoid too humanoid-looking animals in any illustrations, especially the tendency to put boobs on females, but that is just plan sense.

Quote from: Omega;935165Why does it even matter to you?

Fun fact. There are anti furry people who consider ANYTHING with excessive hair a "furry" those on both sides who consider regular animals as "furry" And talking non-anthro animals. And so on. There are people who go around deliberately spreading hate against the furry community just like theres people who do the exact same thing against RPGs. Are you also going to try to get your game labled as not an RPG  for fear of being labled a satanist or whatever inane tag the lunatic fringe has going this week?

Just make your damn game.

Fair point, maybe I'm overthinking this a bit too much. I'll work on my game now.

If the furries like my game regardless, more power to them. All I want to do is make a good or at least decent World War I-themed RPG with a unique aesthetic.

Quote from: Necrozius;935162I'm not very good at this though: as a teenager, the only cartoon character that I was attracted to was what's-her-name from Cool World.

Holli or Holly.

Quote from: Doc Sammy;935154So, I ask you guys, is there any way one can make a game with animal PC's and not be considered "furry" and if so, what pitfalls should you avoid?

Traveller has managed to do it. It was decades before furries even existed as a fetish concept when Aslan and Vargr were introduced into the OTU. Steve Gallacci's Albedo Anthropomorphics did a pretty good job of it as well while avoiding the sexualization.

The trick is, if you are going to make your animals intelligent, then treat them seriously as you would human characters. These beings will think as well as we do, just not in the same way that we do. Uplifted animals will have their own desires, goals, motivations, and general emotional reactions.

Quote from: Doc Sammy;935154So, I ask you guys, is there any way one can make a game with animal PC's and not be considered "furry" and if so, what pitfalls should you avoid?

Don't make such characters anthropomorphic is all. That's how I've handle them for Traveller settings.

I've always liked settings with intelligent animals... stuff like the circle of light books and various fairy tales. Anthropomorphics though... not so much, because most of the time they act/ think just like humans and I don't see what they gain by being critters. But I don't worry over the whole 'furry' stigma.

You can certainly do it, even with characters that are humans with fur as opposed to animals with thumbs.  Just remember to
1. Avoid Felines
2. Eliminate all Anime sensibility in artwork, etc.

Those two things are responsible for 99.99999999999999999999999999999999999% of all fur-fucking.

Quote from: CRKrueger;9351881. Avoid Felines

Yep. I was reading about some setting yesterday and got to the description of one of the alien races and it read 'cat-like'... and right away that tanked a good portion of my interest, mostly because it seemed like such an bland choice on the part of the author that I'm inclined to suspect the rest of the setting will be similarly un-interesting.