Quote from: Cave Bear;935156Was this one of your sources of inspiration, by any chance?

[video=youtube;d8rCfB8pgKc]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d8rCfB8pgKc[/youtube]

This one was pretty cool. The Americans are rabbits because in Japanese rabbit is usagi or USA GI.

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 Would. If she could.

Quote from: Necrozius;935162I I doubt that there are furries out there jacking off to Watership Down and Maus.

Not all furries are sexual fetishists - for some, their anthropomorphism of animals is more akin to being a character in a Disney movie, so something like Watership Down is right in their wheelhouse.

Which brings us to Bunnies & Burrows, the roleplaying game inspired by Watership Down. If you look at the artwork in the game, there is nothing to suggest sexuality at all - you can't really tell if any given rabbit depicted in the book is male or female. It's about as far from something like Ironclaw and Jadeclaw as one can get in terms of the presentation style of the characters in the artwork.

Several years back I ran a Beatrix Potter campaign for some kids I knew... and I never thought of that as a 'furry' game either.
But when I suggested our GM run Ponyfinder for his daughter (who loves MLP) he acted like I'd was implying something pervy...

Quote from: Simlasa;935225Several years back I ran a Beatrix Potter campaign for some kids I knew... and I never thought of that as a 'furry' game either.
But when I suggested our GM run Ponyfinder for his daughter (who loves MLP) he acted like I'd was implying something pervy...

Can you blame him?

Quote from: CRKrueger;935226Can you blame him?

Well, I don't actually know much about Ponyfinder... is there something pervy about it? I just assumed it was a magical pony game, and he likes/runs Pathfinder... so it would be a match.

To summarize:

For furry haters: anything based on intelligent animals is bad.
For furries: anything with intelligent animals is furries.
For everyone else: if you don't make the females look like supermodels (human breasts) or the males like Chippendale dancers, you will probably avoid the furry fetish label.

Well, it's not the same as saying "Hey your daughter likes Princess Mononoke, why not play Maid with her?"  but MLP crossed with RPGs though has a definite Brony stench that might make any reasonable father reach for that shotgun he didn't think he'd have to start cleaning on the porch until she started dating.

Quote from: CRKrueger;935254Well, it's not the same as saying "Hey your daughter likes Princess Mononoke, why not play Maid with her?"  but MLP crossed with RPGs though has a definite Brony stench that might make any reasonable father reach for that shotgun he didn't think he'd have to start cleaning on the porch until she started dating.

....And by that you are kind of implying that Ponyfinder is indeed like Maid or at least like one of the more gruesome areas of .... was it Exalted?

Sooooo.... "brony stench", well, among the weird things that I count myself as, "Brony" is one of them.
I understand the reaction though, considering how too many see the Bronies with the same "this is perversion"-glasses that furry-haters see furries with and spreads the highly selective information to others when they can.
I could go on a rant about how all fanbases has naughty sides, or link a bunch of videos that say the same thing.
But I won't, as I shouldn't have to.
EDIT:
...... Sorry, kind of overreacted, I did not really notice that you finished with.
XD

Doc Sammy, make the game that brings you joy.

Do it fearlessly and without concern for online tempests in a teacup.

Trench Critters sounds fun. Keep us informed.

And now I read the title and immediately thought, just use "naked mice" that are engineered to be immunosuppressant and have no fur...

Quote from: CRKrueger;935254Well, it's not the same as saying "Hey your daughter likes Princess Mononoke, why not play Maid with her?"  but MLP crossed with RPGs though has a definite Brony stench that might make any reasonable father reach for that shotgun he didn't think he'd have to start cleaning on the porch until she started dating.

Well, as the father of a daughter, I reached for the shotgun once I knew a dude was showing up. Then again, it's Texas. I reach for a shotgun to pick my teeth.:-)

Quote from: cranebump;935303Well, as the father of a daughter, I reached for the shotgun once I knew a dude was showing up. Then again, it's Texas. I reach for a shotgun to pick my teeth.:-)

and I'm guessing if a 30 year old man wearing a My Little Pony T-shirt walked across your doorstep to play Ponyfinder with your daughter, he'd be leaving rather quickly, propelled backwards by said toothpick.  Which of course is probably legal in Texas.

I once played a badger in a session of a fur-bearing RPG (Ironclaw? Something-"Claw"?) at a local gaming club. I only later learned that the GM and a couple of the other players were lifestyle Furries. Nothing overtly sexual or wierd ever came up in the game. It was just a fun, light-hearted, fairy-tale-ish game. I would have played it again if I had the chance.

Creepy games come from creepozoid players, not the game's  subject matter.

Quote from: CRKrueger;935340and I'm guessing if a 30 year old man wearing a My Little Pony T-shirt walked across your doorstep to play Ponyfinder with your daughter, he'd be leaving rather quickly, propelled backwards by said toothpick.  Which of course is probably legal in Texas.

I imagine it is. I mean, we shoot our mouths off, too, so shooting is just an issue. Of course, we are all concerned about shooting prematurely...

Question: What essential thing do anthropomorphized animals bring to the campaign experience that cannot be replicated in a human?

Answer that and you have a good buffer to focus upon.

Dwarves, elves, et alia, are designed to be approachable (sympathetic) aliens whose origins and cultural differences are the emphasis of in-play friction. This friction may be in the foreground or background, but it is present to be meaningful.

So, same question to sapient, anthropomorphized animals: what do they bring to the campaign that is necessary beyond a palette swap and a sprinkling of modifiers?

Is it to make the pathos of WWI trench warfare immediately palatable, yet still affecting, for younger audiences, a la Watership Down? (Possibly a bit traumatizing, but not an untrod line of past creativity. An American Tale does similar for the Ellis Island immigrant experience.)

Or is it to soften the violence for the adults playing into palatable abstractions, because there is such a thing as too grim & ghastly? (Animal Farm and the like fits here; a spoonful of anthropomorphized animal makes the medicine go down.)

Or does your group have a rather mutually hated animal, like female mosquitoes or baby harp seals, and this is a pleasant form of harmless escapism?

Only you can answer this. However notice if the answer seems necessary for play beyond looks and widgets. Honestly assess whether it draws up useful gameable material, makes digestible the controversial, or is simply pornographic, (in the Victorian sense.)

If it only services shallow, sensational interests, is it such a stretch it will do so for prurient ones? Dig deeper!