Today, a little video about the SJW hypocrisies, including with regard to depicting non-European cultures in your RPG settings.
Also, what you should really do if you're using non-European cultures in your settings (hint: it's not 'listen to the SJWs').
Enjoy!
[video=youtube_share;ZbFqDWaNQD4]https://youtu.be/ZbFqDWaNQD4[/youtube]
"Today"...you liar. I already watched this last week.
But, yes, the underlying premise is sound. Never capitulate to SJWs because you can never win.
Correct; you can never win.
Just ignore the SJWs.
Eric Weinstein talked about these types of conflicting ideologies. It is a great way to create cognitive dissonance in someone when you point it out.
Boomer talking points.
As usual, this is also creeping into board gaming too. Except with an added helping of segregation now with statements like "Only someone from (insert race or culture here) should be allowed to write about or do art for a product." Something to this degree was actually stated by people over on BGG.
So
You are racist if you depict the race right. Because you are appropriating their (insert race or culture here)!
You are racist if you use a made up race or culture. Because it is really (insert race or culture here)! Even when it is obviously not.
You are racist if you do either of the two above because you are not the right (insert race or culture here).
And if it hasn't happened allready it will eventually...
You are racist if you do any of the three above even if you are the right (insert race or culture here) because you are not the right (insert race or culture here) enough. You monster!
And if they cant nail you even then then they will just make something up.
"Oh you are very black and from Africa and this is an accurate representation of your tribes culture? Well you are RACIST because this tribe is REALLY representing the oppression of this other race we pulled out of a hat at random! You monster!"
You are so racist, Omega, for daring to discuss made-up racism :-P !
Looks like you reached 1K subscribers!
Quote from: Brad;1083334Never capitulate to SJWs because you can never win.
Mocking them is way more fun than capitulating.
Setting your game in the real world but ignoring real-world cultures tends to be either revisionist or outright racist. Here's an article (https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2017/05/31/white-supremacists-love-vikings-but-theyve-got-history-all-wrong/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.60c8aaf37416) refuting claims by White Supremacists that medieval Europe was purely white. Allowing Ahmed ibn Fadlan in your Viking game is a good thing and supported by both media and likely history. Not letting people play real-world cultures they identify with isn't usually rooted in 'historical accuracy'. A lot of people who don't know their history want white Romans speaking in British accents and forget people like Saint Maurice (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Maurice) who was understood to be black and venerated until the Atlantic Slave Trade made an issue of his race (or rather, that ignoring him was easier than confronting the humanity of Africans which would undermine the basis on which chattel slavery was based).
If you're in a completely fantasy world, having a wide variety of cultures, skin-tones and beliefs is also important. Where it can stray to racism is if one group is ALWAYS EVIL, especially if they're easily identified by their race. This is particularly true if a race is understood to stand in for a real race and is depicted in a way where they're universally despicable, that's a problem. I've heard people try to explain how 'orcs are really blacks' and if that's your position, well, that's racist.
When you're describing cultures broadly (as you must in any gazetteer), it's easy to fall into the trap of making the group TOO consistent. For example, Americans have a reputation for being exceptionally friendly (ie, they'll talk to strangers and smile a lot), but that's certainly not true of EVERY American. The most salient features of any group likely apply to only a subset of them; over-featuring those group traits creates a caricature. Depending on the nature of it, it can seem mean-spirited.
Quote from: deadDMwalking;1083541Setting your game in the real world but ignoring real-world cultures tends to be either revisionist or outright racist. Here's an article (https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2017/05/31/white-supremacists-love-vikings-but-theyve-got-history-all-wrong/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.60c8aaf37416) refuting claims by White Supremacists that medieval Europe was purely white. Allowing Ahmed ibn Fadlan in your Viking game is a good thing and supported by both media and likely history.
Anyone claiming medieval Europe was completely white is an idiot. However, anyone who believes a village in Northrumbria in 1200 AD had the demographics of a Seattle Starbucks is also an idiot. Busy port cities in pre-modern times tended to be ethnically diverse. The countryside (where 90 per cent of people lived) did not. The vast majority of people never ventured further than 50 miles from where they were born. And any outsider who did arrive would be subsumed into the local populace within a generation or two.
Quote from: deadDMwalking;1083541If you're in a completely fantasy world, having a wide variety of cultures, skin-tones and beliefs is also important.
In cosmopolitan cities? Sure. In rural baronies and among the gentry? No way. It just doesn't make any sense. Again, the small numbers of foreigners from far away are quickly subsumed into the local population, and of course landed gentry don't marry outside the landed gentry.
Quote from: deadDMwalking;1083541When you're describing cultures broadly (as you must in any gazetteer), it's easy to fall into the trap of making the group TOO consistent. For example, Americans have a reputation for being exceptionally friendly (ie, they'll talk to strangers and smile a lot), but that's certainly not true of EVERY American. The most salient features of any group likely apply to only a subset of them; over-featuring those group traits creates a caricature. Depending on the nature of it, it can seem mean-spirited.
But fantasy is a genre leans heavily on caricature and simplistic tropes. Dwarves love ale, wield axes, and have Scottish accents. Etc. I'm all for defying those tropes. But they're tropes not because of bigotry, but because of comfort and laziness.
Quote from: deadDMwalking;1083541Setting your game in the real world but ignoring real-world cultures tends to be either revisionist or outright racist. Here's an article (https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2017/05/31/white-supremacists-love-vikings-but-theyve-got-history-all-wrong/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.60c8aaf37416) refuting claims by White Supremacists that medieval Europe was purely white.
You are using an article about a completely nutballs guy (https://www.oregonlive.com/portland/2017/05/who_is_jeremy_christian_facebo.html) who liked Bernie Sanders?
Quote from: deadDMwalking;1083541Here's an article (https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2017/05/31/white-supremacists-love-vikings-but-theyve-got-history-all-wrong/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.60c8aaf37416) refuting claims by White Supremacists that medieval Europe was purely white.
Absolute drivel on par with that proposed UK textbook that turned a few African legionnaires, a small minority in the
Britannia garrison, into "the first humans in the British isles were black".
QuoteAllowing Ahmed ibn Fadlan in your Viking game is a good thing and supported by both media and likely history.
Bolded is disturbingly ominous. The player might be excellent at depicting his character and fun for the table and the DM could allow the concept
for those exact reasons, but having a Saracen present in a totally ahistoric context is not "a good thing" in and of itself.
QuoteDepending on the nature of it, it can seem mean-spirited.
Utter nonsense. Play a low-level forest gnome in my Underdark campaign and get eaten by a roper, play a low-level svirfneblin and walk safely away. That's not "mean-spirited", it's the nature of the world the characters inhabit.
If you don't have SJW freaks at your table, you never have to worry about this bullshit.
Quote from: Spinachcat;1083637If you don't have SJW freaks at your table, you never have to worry about this bullshit.
Greetings!
Indeed, my friend! Everyone that I play with at my private games have almost always been friends, family, or friends and other family members they have vouched for. Everyone that plays with me is very well aware of my views on life--and they are also largely in full agreement. I would never invite an SJW to my group--and nor would any of my friends or family. It's just a non-starter from the get-go, you know? SJW's have so much fucked up thinking and ideology, it seems like some kind of huge drama clusterfuck is guaranteed to happen, sooner rather than later. I had plenty of these morons at my college days; more than a few at work; every fucking day in the news and politics--I certainly have zero patience or tolerance for them at my game table.:D
I have one group that is made up of all military veterans, mostly Marines, though also others. All men. Drinking, smoking cigars. An SJW coming into that group would think they stepped into a tent full of Ghengis Khans. Can you just imagine the sobbing fit an SJW would have in such a group? All of these terrible monsters that are pro-gun, pro-America, and loudly and *relentlessly* anti-SJW in every way.:D Man, the non-stop, Drill-Instructor monologues about whining, feminized snowflakes would be never-ending! Of course, even without any SJW's around whatesoever, that group of mine routinely reminisces and commentates on current events and shit in a most brutal and unforgiving manner as a matter of course. Lots of laughs and fun, as you can well-imagine, my friend! The antics, expressions and voices some of my friends use, geesus, some of them missed their calling as comedians for damned sure!:D
Semper Fidelis,
SHARK
Quote from: Omega;1083406Except with an added helping of segregation now with statements like "Only someone from (insert race or culture here) should be allowed to write about or do art for a product." Something to this degree was actually stated by people over on BGG.
Unfortunately, that is also finding its way into our hobby (or is already here, probably for a long time). I see lots of tweets about this lately from all kinds of minority groups who think only they themselves can do their own "culture" justice. They go on to damn every and all rpg products from the 80s and 90s as being "problematic" and "racist" etc. .
It's pretty ridiculous how those new groups come into the hobby and think they can just demand stuff. I mean sure, some products are pretty badly done...but if not for all those writers back then, there wouldn't be a hobby for them to join today.
So why don't you people just STFU and proof that you can do it better by just writing a cool supplement instead of trying to paint everyone else as a racist/what-have-you. It's easy to bitch about something, a lot harder to produce something.
Also, i find the notion of "I am from culture/background XYZ, therefore I know it and can write good stuff about it" moronic.
I would never claim that i could just write up a good supplement about my own culture. I'm pretty sure someone with an interest and amounts of research into the topic can produce a much better product, even if that person is from a totally different background.
Writing something with depth and quality is work, and it needs research...just being born and raised in a culture does normally not give you that.
Quote from: Xisiqomelir;1083616Absolute drivel on par with that proposed UK textbook that turned a few African legionnaires, a small minority in the Britannia garrison, into "the first humans in the British isles were black".
And of course, those "Africans" were from Mauritania, not sub-Saharan Africa, and looked a lot like modern Spaniards. But then, these are the same sorts who claim that ancient Egyptians were black because Egypt is in Africa. Where to begin when confronted with such impenetrable ignorance?
Some people see the ignorant and simplistic folly of bigots and decide that the best way to counter it is with another simplistic and foolish set of beliefs. And the adults in the room let them get away with it because they think 'well, at least they aren't as bad as those other guys.' Like you have to pick a side when confronted with two sets of foolish beliefs, instead of challenging them both.
Quote from: Haffrung;1084012And of course, those "Africans" were from Mauritania, not sub-Saharan Africa, and looked a lot like modern Spaniards. But then, these are the same sorts who claim that ancient Egyptians were black because Egypt is in Africa. Where to begin when confronted with such impenetrable ignorance?
Some people see the ignorant and simplistic folly of bigots and decide that the best way to counter it is with another simplistic and foolish set of beliefs. And the adults in the room let them get away with it because they think 'well, at least they aren't as bad as those other guys.' Like you have to pick a side when confronted with two sets of foolish beliefs, instead of challenging them both.
The world we live in hasn't always looked the way it does, now. We definitely know that Nubians were sometimes the rules of Egypt, and they were definitely what we think of as 'black'. We also know that light-skinned people from the middle east displaced folks in North Africa, so the people that live there now are not necessarily the same as people who lived their before. And
of course, I understand that the North Africans of recorded history were largely descended from the Phonecians - about 5000 years BEFORE the Arab invasion. So, ultimately, trying to think of race
as we define it today is simply anachronistic.
It is MUCH easier to talk about cultural expansion rather than racial expansion. It doesn't really matter whether the Greeks were white or swarthy; the impact they had on other cultures was significant REGARDLESS.
Quote from: deadDMwalking;1084189We definitely know that Nubians were sometimes the rules of Egypt, and they were definitely what we think of as 'black'.
I thought that too, but apparently DNA testing on ancient Nubian skeletons shows them as akin to modern Berbers - ie white - not to sub-Saharan Africans. I got schooled on this by black Youtuber 'Tree of Logic' - a former Nation of Islam member who rejected Afro-Centrism - and from what I could find, it checked out.
If you want to write a diverse cast because you genuinely want to (including as virtue signaling) rather than because your publisher mandates a diversity quota, then you should do that and don't listen to loony SJWs.
I have a huge problem with popular series like Lord of the Rings and Game of Thrones being dominated by white characters and relegating non-white characters to supporting or antagonistic roles. So whenever I get the chance to specify the vital statistics of major characters in my fiction, I like to make them diverse in order to push back against the overwhelming homogeneity of popular fiction.
Would I make mistakes? Almost certainly and I would own up to them when confronted and strive to do better in the future. It is better to make a lot of progress with some flaws than no progress at all or only some progress that has too many flaws.
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1084240I have a huge problem with popular series like Lord of the Rings and Game of Thrones being dominated by white characters and relegating non-white characters to supporting or antagonistic roles. .
Why?
Quote from: deadDMwalking;1084189The world we live in hasn't always looked the way it does, now. We definitely know that Nubians were sometimes the rules of Egypt, and they were definitely what we think of as 'black'.
The classical world was certainly well-traveled, and there were people (individuals) of all kinds of races traversing it.
But the efforts of modern historians to grossly exaggerate minor examples for the sake of Virtue Signalling is idiotic and serves no good purpose, it only makes them look ridiculous. It reminds me in some ways of the "Aryanist" archeologists during Nazi Germany who desperately tried to find nonsensical "evidence" of there having once been a super-advanced Aryan civilization, rather than just shit-covered bearded barbarians living in the woods.
Case in point, trying to use the ONE Nubian dynasty, who were invaders to Egypt, didn't last very long, and were despised, as "proof" that the ancient Egyptians were black is just idiotic.
Quote from: Haffrung;1084245Why?
Because it's lazy.
Although historical fiction is limited in its ability to depict diverse casts (I'm not going to agree exactly how much since that's contentious), fantasy fiction is not.
It is very easy to devise a fantasy history that allows diverse characters to interact.
Using
Game of Thrones as an example, it seems plausible to me that the First Men could have been written as being the same "race" as real world Inuits. Ned Stark could have been described this way, with his children being mixed-race as a result of their mother being Andalese. The Valyrians could have been described as Arabic, Asian, etc.
For that matter, you could invent new "races" with features that aren't found in real populations.
Fullmetal Alchemist includes an ethnic group called the Ishvalans, who are characterized by darker complexion, white hair, and red eyes. Another ethnic group, the Xerxesians, have golden hair, golden eyes and variable complexion.
The world of
Avatar: The Last Airbender intentionally features a non-white cast.
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1084240I have a huge problem with popular series like Lord of the Rings and Game of Thrones being dominated by white characters and relegating non-white characters to supporting or antagonistic roles.
Because God forbid the populations of fantasy Britain/Europe be dominated by white characters.
Game of Thrones is essentially a fantastic version of The War of the Roses (Lancaster/Lannister vs. York/Stark) set in a scaled up England (complete with a great wall to keep the northern barbarians out).
There were also plenty of non-white characters... in Essos.
Further, the First Men couldn't be Inuit in Game of Thrones because they immigrated from the same place the Andals did, just several thousand years earlier. It's like saying "I think the Picts should be portrayed as Inuits because they were in Great Britain before the Angles/Andals showed up from basically the same place."
That's moronic.
Seriously, the obsession with skin pigmentation is ridiculous. I have more culturally in common with the blacks in my church than I do the pasty white Seattle SJWs.
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1084392Because it's lazy.
Although historical fiction is limited in its ability to depict diverse casts (I'm not going to agree exactly how much since that's contentious), fantasy fiction is not.
It is very easy to devise a fantasy history that allows diverse characters to interact.
Then do it yourself.
Seriously, I write stories for a living. The characters in a story always depend on the peculiarities of this story. One of the stories I collaborated on (a movie) was featuring an all-arabian cast. Guess what: there were no Whites in that story... probably because it all happened in an african desert. Do you think I have been non diverse enough in my rewriting of that story (it was a script doctor gig) ? Do you have any idea how much that line of thought is non-sensical to me ?
And the most revealing part of this litte anecdote: before reading your post, and thinking about an answer, I
swear it had never occured to me to think of that story in the way your post frame it ; I had not even realized there were no white men nor any other particular ethnicity "missing" in that piece.
I've got nothing against you, BoxCrayonTales, and I even enjoy some of your posts for their head-scratching value: it's just that you're obsessed with diversity, sexism, and various unhealthy aspects of society, and that I'm not. It does not make me a lesser or better person than you are, but it just makes my life easier.
Peace.
Quote from: Chris24601;1084400Because God forbid the populations of fantasy Britain/Europe be dominated by white characters.
Game of Thrones is essentially a fantastic version of The War of the Roses (Lancaster/Lannister vs. York/Stark) set in a scaled up England (complete with a great wall to keep the northern barbarians out).
There were also plenty of non-white characters... in Essos.
Further, the First Men couldn't be Inuit in Game of Thrones because they immigrated from the same place the Andals did, just several thousand years earlier. It's like saying "I think the Picts should be portrayed as Inuits because they were in Great Britain before the Angles/Andals showed up from basically the same place."
That's moronic.
Seriously, the obsession with skin pigmentation is ridiculous. I have more culturally in common with the blacks in my church than I do the pasty white Seattle SJWs.
Greetings!
I agree. All of this pearl-clutching obsession over skin colour and embracing "diversity" is BS. Why is it so fucking important in every work, movie, or book that there fucking MUST be lots of different racial characters, ESPECIALLY Black people? Even when such films or books are particularly set within a quasi-European environment, where everyone is White?
To get some perspective on how myopic and ideologically pathetic all of this SJW obesession with "diversity" is--it's rather illuminating that noone else is obsessed with fucking "diversity" like White American SJW's are. Watch/or read films/books in Africa--all of the characters are Black Africans; Stuff made in Hispanic countries--all of the characters are Hispanic; stuff made over in China and Japan--again, all of the characters are Asian.
In none of these environments are there people whining and screeching about "diversity". In most cases, expecting or demanding such characters and "representation" would be laughed at and such people viewed as fucking morons. And rightfully so.
Semper Fidelis,
SHARK
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1084392Because it's lazy.
Although historical fiction is limited in its ability to depict diverse casts (I'm not going to agree exactly how much since that's contentious), fantasy fiction is not.
But some fantasy hews very close to historical fiction. Game of Thrones is one of them. Westeros is analogous to Western Europe. Martin took decades of keen interest in the real world of Medieval Europe and tweaked it a bit into a fantasy world. Is that badwrongfun now? Would a fantasy setting based on the Three Kingdoms era of China be badwrongfun if it featured mostly Asian-looking characters?
If people want to make wholly original fantasy worlds with their own races and cultures, then fine. The more the merrier. But there's a place for fantasy fiction that hews very close to historical reality. If some people don't like it, they don't have to read or watch it.
Oh, and on the subject of Game of Thrones, about the only wrong note the showrunners have made in the first two episodes of SE08 is the hate-filled stares the northern peasants give Missandei and Grey Worm. It's clearly meant to be a "racism is bad!" moment. But if these northerners have never seen black people before (and there's no reason to believe they would have - the same bumpkins were gawping at the exotic Lannisters in SE01), they may have stared, but why would glare with hate? It doesn't make sense. There's no reason to think Missandei and Grey Worm would be regarded any differently than two pasty northerners walking through a village in the Summer Isles. The assumption that the northerners in Westeros would be racist is fucking idiotic.
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1084392The world of Avatar: The Last Airbender intentionally features a non-white cast.
Yep. But so what? It was a great show because of the writing, characterization, and artwork. Not because it checked off a bunch of diversity boxes.
Despite the intensity with which some people have embraced it as a sacred cause, racial diversity in entertainment is value neutral. A creative work that features many cultures or people of varied appearances is no better than a work that features more homogeneous cultures.
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1084392Because it's lazy.
No. Lazy is thinking skin color can substitute for genuine diversity of characterization.
You cite Avatar; but what made it such a strong story was the characters. Aang, Katara, Sokka, Toph and Zuko would have been equally compelling even if their skin, hair and eyes were identical in color. You could tell them apart just from their mannerisms and voice acting and the choices they made even if you replaced the characters on screen with stick figures.
And that exact same diversity didn't save Legend of Korra from being a flaming pile of garbage.
Quote from: Haffrung;1084416Despite the intensity with which some people have embraced it as a sacred cause, racial diversity in entertainment is value neutral. A creative work that features many cultures or people of varied appearances is no better than a work that features more homogeneous cultures.
In practice, though, race is not taken as value neutral by either conservatives or liberals. Conservatives tend to claim that there is bias against white people now, and they will often have complaints of media with less white characters - saying that it is a result of this bias. Conversely, liberals tend to claim that bias against racial minorities exists, and they will often have complaints about media that features with less minority characters, saying it is a result of this bias.
Quote from: Haffrung;1084416Would a fantasy setting based on the Three Kingdoms era of China be badwrongfun if it featured mostly Asian-looking characters?
It might be if it featured only white characters.
(https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&source=images&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwivx4XB2unhAhUNVN8KHaD4Ah4QjRx6BAgBEAU&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.polygon.com%2F2018%2F9%2F18%2F17874344%2Favatar-the-last-airbender-live-action-series-netflix&psig=AOvVaw2RhdYrFDyXxCTWLSpvmdaz&ust=1556228877878352)
Quote from: jhkim;1084423In practice, though, race is not taken as value neutral by either conservatives or liberals. Conservatives tend to claim that there is bias against white people now, and they will often have complaints of media with less white characters - saying that it is a result of this bias. Conversely, liberals tend to claim that bias against racial minorities exists, and they will often have complaints about media that features with less minority characters, saying it is a result of this bias.
And the great majority of people in the middle call bullshit on both those stances. We have to stop letting our culture be dictated by two small warring tribes who account for maybe 10-15 per cent of the population each.
Quote from: Haffrung;1084416Yep. But so what? It was a great show because of the writing, characterization, and artwork. Not because it checked off a bunch of diversity boxes.
I actually do think that the various nations being racially consistent did add to the setting. Not that it mattered what the features of the four nations were - but it was a nice touch that the look of the people along with their clothing/architecture were distinct enough to be able to tell them apart - but not totally homogeneous either. (Plus - if they were homogeneous it wouldn't have been possible for the MCs to go undercover in The Fire Nation, or Zuko to go undercover in The Earth Nation.)
Quote from: Charon's Little Helper;1084475I actually do think that the various nations being racially consistent did add to the setting. Not that it mattered what the features of the four nations were - but it was a nice touch that the look of the people along with their clothing/architecture were distinct enough to be able to tell them apart - but not totally homogeneous either. (Plus - if they were homogeneous it wouldn't have been possible for the MCs to go undercover in The Fire Nation, or Zuko to go undercover in The Earth Nation.)
Actually, I think you're right. The Last Airbender was a show where diverse and distinct cultures played an essential role in the worldbuilding. I just don't think it follows that any creator with imagination must present diverse fantasy worlds. Or at least not racially diverse (there are of course all sorts of other kinds of diversity - diversity of values, customs, dress, tactics, etc.).
Ah but here is the kicker. You will have some SJWs claiming that this is not diverse at all as all these cultures are just one race each. And that is being racist dont you know?
Quote from: Omega;1084744Ah but here is the kicker. You will have some SJWs claiming that this is not diverse at all as all these cultures are just one race each. And that is being racist dont you know?
Yeah, the rule with SJWs is you just can't win.
Quote from: Lychee of the Exchequer;1084406Then do it yourself.
I said that I do?
Mostly by simply not describing characters as a particular phenotype so that readers may project themselves. If the story involves traveling or cosmopolitan locations then I would describe phenotypes and cultural differences and so forth.
One dark fairy tale story I'm working on involves a repudiation of the whitey mighty exiled prince narrative in which the non-white characters the mighty whitey forms friendships with are generally using him to advance their own political power and have their own plots and so forth. And the mighty whitey is deeply unhinged because of his obsession with revenge, making him willing to do all sorts of morally questionable things to get vengeance including making pacts with the Devil.
Quote from: Lychee of the Exchequer;1084406Seriously, I write stories for a living. The characters in a story always depend on the peculiarities of this story. One of the stories I collaborated on (a movie) was featuring an all-arabian cast. Guess what: there were no Whites in that story... probably because it all happened in an african desert. Do you think I have been non diverse enough in my rewriting of that story (it was a script doctor gig) ? Do you have any idea how much that line of thought is non-sensical to me ?
And the most revealing part of this litte anecdote: before reading your post, and thinking about an answer, I swear it had never occured to me to think of that story in the way your post frame it ; I had not even realized there were no white men nor any other particular ethnicity "missing" in that piece.
I've got nothing against you, BoxCrayonTales, and I even enjoy some of your posts for their head-scratching value: it's just that you're obsessed with diversity, sexism, and various unhealthy aspects of society, and that I'm not. It does not make me a lesser or better person than you are, but it just makes my life easier.
Peace.
I don't disagree.
Writing white people out of their own history is problem in some liberal media. Which is itself a form of racism because it implicitly assumes that minorities are parasites with no culture of their own (an insult that is often levied at white people because imperialist culture has destroyed white people's connection to their own roots). Rather than introduce black Greek heroes like King Memnon to show audiences that African kingdoms existed and had heroes and what not (a la Wakanda), BBC's
Troy decided to make Achilles black.
Remember Princess Andromeda, wife of Perseus? She was an
Ethiopian princess. You wouldn't know that from movies where she is played by a white actress. The Greeks had diverse characters before it was fashionable.
My concerns regard fantasy fiction, not historical or pseudo-historical fiction. Real history requires you to jump through hoops to get diverse casts. Fantasy history lets you build a history where you can get diverse casts in circumstances that have no comparisons in reality.
I personally want to write for a diverse audience, but neither do I want to exclude white people. That's why I'm going to write fairy tales about lumberjacks, coal miners, cowboys, farm boys with southern drawls, and vampire castles in Appalachia.
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1085063I personally want to write for a diverse audience, but neither do I want to exclude white people. That's why I'm going to write fairy tales about lumberjacks, coal miners, cowboys, farm boys with southern drawls, and vampire castles in Appalachia.
Hmmm? Then you'll be writing about the Algonquin
Widjigo, ...yes?
Most of you may already be familiar with this evil native American spirit by its' Ojibwa name,
Wendigo.
Your story has already been done, and there is also a movie out about the story, where white people are included, both the French and the English, it's called
Ginger Snaps Back.
Native American Legends about Vampires and Werewolves
http://www.native-languages.org/algonquin-legends.htm
Ginger Snaps back, The movie.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0365265/
Ginger Snaps Back (YouTube Trailer)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oqrYpeBBYFU
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1085063One dark fairy tale story I'm working on involves a repudiation of the whitey mighty exiled prince narrative in which the non-white characters the mighty whitey forms friendships with are generally using him to advance their own political power and have their own plots and so forth.
Kipling got there first with subverting the Mighty Whitey trope like that:
(https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/61-sxb41MLL._SX342_.jpg)
Quote from: S'mon;1085099Kipling got there first with subverting the Mighty Whitey trope like that:
(https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/61-sxb41MLL._SX342_.jpg)
Greetings!
DAYUM!:D "The Man Who Would Be King" is one of my favourite movies. Fucking awesome!
Semper Fidelis,
SHARK
What culture is Sean Connery appropriating here?
(https://i.imgur.com/ChcmlUS.jpg)
Quote from: tenbones;1085131What culture is Sean Connery appropriating here?
(https://i.imgur.com/ChcmlUS.jpg)
Angry Drunk Scots Diaper Wearers in Stripper Boots. It's not a sizeable people.
Quote from: ThatChrisGuy;1085143Angry Drunk Scots Diaper Wearers in Stripper Boots. It's not a sizeable people.
Isn't that his native folk?
Quote from: ThatChrisGuy;1085143Angry Drunk Scots Diaper Wearers in Stripper Boots. It's not a sizeable people.
You know Friday night in Edinburgh that population is higher then you may have thought. :eek:
Quote from: GameDaddy;1085066Hmmm? Then you'll be writing about the Algonquin Widjigo, ...yes?
Most of you may already be familiar with this evil native American spirit by its' Ojibwa name, Wendigo.
Your story has already been done, and there is also a movie out about the story, where white people are included, both the French and the English, it's called Ginger Snaps Back.
Native American Legends about Vampires and Werewolves
http://www.native-languages.org/algonquin-legends.htm
Ginger Snaps back, The movie.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0365265/
Ginger Snaps Back (YouTube Trailer)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oqrYpeBBYFU
You completely missed my point.
I'm plotting fairy tales based on USA rural culture history, with some motifs burrowed from elsewhere.
Let me give examples:
- a stereotypical Slavic Vampire Count lives in a haunted Gothic castle in Appalachia and Pennsylvania (a word play on Wallachia and Transylvania), employing hoodoo-practicing hillfolk and traveling folk as servants and lording over rural American peasants with a bored, unassuming fist.
- A bunch of rural coal miners encounter Germanic-style dwarves, knockers, kobolds, etc in an American coal mine.
- A bunch of lumberjacks in the Pacific Northwest deal with fearsome critters like the hoopsnake, wampus cat, axhandle hound, and imported drop bear and imported wild haggis.
- Cowboys deal with werewolves in the wild west.
Since this is fantasy I can inflate the number of African-Americans, Native Americans, Mexicans and Chinese immigrants compared to reality. That's more of an afterthought though, since I don't consider a character's ethnic background unless it would be relevant to the plot.
Quote from: S'mon;1085099Kipling got there first with subverting the Mighty Whitey trope like that:
I'm under no allusions I'm the first to mock the white savior trope.
Dune did it pretty well back in the 60s.
I just wanted to write a dark cold-served revenge story and the white savior part just happened to come up while I was hashing out ideas for plots. I'm taking mainly inspiration from
The Count of Monte Cristo and
The Odyssey.
Well, something GOOD but also ENGAGING.
I've read many games that were GOOD. But, to create a game ENGAGING enough to be bought and run --- different.
I think CoC is good. But, I find Delta Green far more engaging as an RPG. Largely because every offline or online run of this game ignores the very real racism & sexism in the U.S.
I'm no SJW. I kind of despise them. But, you need a degree of realism in a game based on 1920's America that reflect the racism & sexism. Otherwise, how is that CoC?
But most CoC games run online have no hint of Racism/Sexism. Again, I'm no SJW, but the U.S. was wildly racist/sexist then --- how do you ignore it?
What if, you ran a game with racist/sexist PCs who were investigating the supernatural? I think THAT is the true representation of CoC. I should not be able to run an African-American or
female PC for C0C and not have them feel out-or-place. I would think my group mature enough to handle that based on an earlier discussion.
Fun? Having a player with no racist inclinations, playing a racist PC. That's REAL roleplaying, despite what anyone told U.
Quote from: S'mon;1085099Kipling got there first with subverting the Mighty Whitey trope like that:
(https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/61-sxb41MLL._SX342_.jpg)
A great movie about Freemasonry.
Quote from: Theory of Games;1085433Well, something GOOD but also ENGAGING.
I've read many games that were GOOD. But, to create a game ENGAGING enough to be bought and run --- different.
I think CoC is good. But, I find Delta Green far more engaging as an RPG. Largely because every offline or online run of this game ignores the very real racism & sexism in the U.S.
I'm no SJW. I kind of despise them. But, you need a degree of realism in a game based on 1920's America that reflect the racism & sexism. Otherwise, how is that CoC?
But most CoC games run online have no hint of Racism/Sexism. Again, I'm no SJW, but the U.S. was wildly racist/sexist then --- how do you ignore it?
What if, you ran a game with racist/sexist PCs who were investigating the supernatural? I think THAT is the true representation of CoC. I should not be able to run an African-American or
female PC for C0C and not have them feel out-or-place. I would think my group mature enough to handle that based on an earlier discussion.
Fun? Having a player with no racist inclinations, playing a racist PC. That's REAL roleplaying, despite what anyone told U.
In the original 1920s New England Call of Cthulu setting, racism should basically never come up. PCs are typically upper middle class Yankees. There may be class prejudice vs rural lower class. If they go out of area then some ethnic (not racial) prejudice vs eg the Mexicans in Secret of Castronegro - it would be wildly ahistorical to treat that as equivalent to anti-black racism. Obviously a game set in the South could be very different.
Quote from: Theory of Games;1085433But, you need a degree of realism in a game based on 1920's America that reflect the racism & sexism. Otherwise, how is that CoC?
But most CoC games run online have no hint of Racism/Sexism. Again, I'm no SJW, but the U.S. was wildly racist/sexist then --- how do you ignore it?
Easy.
Who are the PCs? People touched by the supernatural? People who've seen the truth of the Mythos? AKA, people who everyone else in society considers nuts. When the only people who believe you or who share your background or who might possibly be able to help you or who are equally willing to fight to save the world happen to be people you used to not like, all racial hatreds get lost in the fight for survival.
What are the PCs up against? Monsters from beyond doing unspeakable evil. Dagon doesn't care if his fish monsters fuck white, brown or black women. They fuck anything wandering into the waters and make them give birth to hybrid monsters that lead cannibal cults. Racial bigotry goes out the window in the name of survival of the species.
And what's my basis? War and disasters. We have a gazillion real life stories of how enemies became allies when the shit hit the fan. We have many accounts of how soldiers who were shooting each other in the morning were saving each other that night. Now imagine YOU know of the gravest threat to humanity and nobody believed you or would help you, except your most hated enemy? Somehow, you'd figure out a way to work together.
But I know this is too hard for adult gamers in 2019. This impossible feat requires the long lost wisdom of 1980s teenagers.
Quote from: S'mon;1086127In the original 1920s New England Call of Cthulu setting, racism should basically never come up. PCs are typically upper middle class Yankees. There may be class prejudice vs rural lower class. If they go out of area then some ethnic (not racial) prejudice vs eg the Mexicans in Secret of Castronegro - it would be wildly ahistorical to treat that as equivalent to anti-black racism. Obviously a game set in the South could be very different.
I think you touched on something important. You don't have issues with racism unless you are going out of your way to build a character for the express purpose of
exploring your SJW outrage.
Quote from: Lynn;1086255I think you touched on something important. You don't have issues with racism unless you are going out of your way to build a character for the express purpose of exploring your SJW outrage.
Either GM or players, yes. The GM could certainly create a scenario where racism in 1920s USA was a factor, but it's not going to come up naturally in most HPL-style stories, unless you create an Investigator very different from his protagonists. One possible exception I can think of would be investigating Cthulu cults in the Louisiana swamps - cultists might be creole or cajun. But I would think the typical HPL-esque New England WASP professor would be too busy hating
everyone (and the environment in general - no A/C in the 1920s!) :D to worry overmuch about racism
per se.
Fuck 'em with a jalapeño.
Quote from: S'mon;1086127In the original 1920s New England Call of Cthulu setting, racism should basically never come up. PCs are typically upper middle class Yankees. There may be class prejudice vs rural lower class. If they go out of area then some ethnic (not racial) prejudice vs eg the Mexicans in Secret of Castronegro - it would be wildly ahistorical to treat that as equivalent to anti-black racism. Obviously a game set in the South could be very different.
I disagree about prejudice. In the 1920s U.S., the KKK had a burst of popularity beyond the South, reaching over a million members and able to put on mass public events like a 50,000 member march in Washington DC in 1925. And there were millions more who weren't KKK members per se, but who had related prejudices. The prejudice of the wider second klan wasn't exactly the same as anti-black prejudice in the South - like including a lot of anti-Catholic prejudice, but it was still very real and common. I think drawing distinctions of ethnic vs racial prejudice is largely theoretical, as they are similar enough in practical effects.
It's certainly not like racism was a narrow issue limited to the American South in the 1920s, or that Call of Cthulhu campaigns are restricted to typical New England people and locales. One of my campaigns was set in 1930s Chicago, for example - where racism was very prominent historically. Racial and ethnic prejudice was extremely common throughout the U.S. - as well as in other parts of the world. Sure, the prejudices in continental Europe was different than in the American South, which were different than those in Japan - but they were very distinct from modern egalitarianism.
Overwhelmingly, my experience has been that historical Call of Cthulhu campaigns tend to downplay or ignore historical racism rather than exaggerating it. I had an ethnically prejudiced 1890s PC, but within my wider experience, he was a rare exception. The vast majority of players and GMs that I've met tend to have ahistorical egalitarianism.
Quote from: jhkim;1086425It's certainly not like racism was a narrow issue limited to the American South in the 1920s, or that Call of Cthulhu campaigns are restricted to typical New England people and locales.
Well I only have 2e CoC. It has the Secret of Castranegro set I think in New Mexico, and the Mystery of Loch Feinn in the highlands of Scotland. Otherwise all the adventures are in New England.
Since the wave of black migration from the South to the Northern cities occurred after WW2, I would think a 1920s urban campaign might have issues among white ethnies - Polish, Italian, Jewish, Irish - but actual American racism is and was largely a black/non-black thing, apart from anti east-Asian racism on the west coast at times, and so I wouldn't expect it to come up much outside the South.
(I wouldn't be surprised though if the extent of anti-black racism was downplayed in situations where it would logically come up. I think there is a tendency to conflate 'prejudice', historically near universal, with US anti-black racism, which is a distinct, much stronger phenomenon with relatively few global parallels)
Quote from: ArrozConLeche;1086421Fuck 'em with a jalapeño.
Southwestern porn gets pretty weird then, eh?
Quote from: S'mon;1086426Well I only have 2e CoC. It has the Secret of Castranegro set I think in New Mexico, and the Mystery of Loch Feinn in the highlands of Scotland. Otherwise all the adventures are in New England.
It's hard to tell in the wider CoC gaming community, since individual experiences differ. Still, that is my experience. From later publications, my impression of CoC adventure books is that maybe a quarter or less are set in New England. i.e. More than any other single part of the world, but less than the majority of adventures. A number of longer adventures jump around the world - to New York, London, Cairo, Antarctica, etc.
Quote from: S'mon;1086426Since the wave of black migration from the South to the Northern cities occurred after WW2, I would think a 1920s urban campaign might have issues among white ethnies - Polish, Italian, Jewish, Irish - but actual American racism is and was largely a black/non-black thing, apart from anti east-Asian racism on the west coast at times, and so I wouldn't expect it to come up much outside the South.
(I wouldn't be surprised though if the extent of anti-black racism was downplayed in situations where it would logically come up. I think there is a tendency to conflate 'prejudice', historically near universal, with US anti-black racism, which is a distinct, much stronger phenomenon with relatively few global parallels)
It's true that anti-black racism is different and stronger than other ethnic/racial prejudice in the U.S. - but I don't agree that non black/white prejudice was negligible in 1920s America. In my experience, both anti-black racism and other racial/ethnic prejudice is broadly downplayed in historical Call of Cthulhu. For example, if there are signs that an NPC is Jewish in an adventure, then players and GMs will tend to ignore it as an irrelevant bit of color - and they'd be shocked if a character was role-played expressing any anti-Semitism -- but anti-Semitism was quite widespread in the 1920s, both in Europe and the U.S.
On the rare times when a character does express historical prejudice, they might get details about it wrong - but I feel that ignoring all prejudice and having ahistorical egalitarianism is even more wrong.
Greetings!
Yes, throughout our history, virtually everyone was hated by the English and French elite here in America. Irish, Scots, Welsh, Italians, Spaniards, Mexicans, Blacks, Indians, Asians. All were considered scum, and essentially animals. Yes, even the Germans and Nordic peoples, too. In some areas they were accepted and embraced by the English and French elite, while in other areas they were scorned. Plenty of hate to go around. Kicking, beating, crushing people. Treat them all like sub-human animals. It was rough in this country for many people, all along the years. Gradually, group by group, race by race, were embraced as acceptable.
If you're playing in COC in the 1920's America, do you want the game to be about surviving monsters, or dealing with a harsh, rough society that doesn't give a fuck about a lot of people that are diffrent looking from them? And it isn't just race, or colour that many Americans didn't like, either. Wierd fucking cultures weren't much tolerated either. If authorities didn't like your wierd sounding foreign name, you changed it. Or they changed it. Or you got beaten, and not hired to push a fucking broom. Why? Because Americans don't like twisting their tongues to try and pronounce some wierd fucking foreign names. I guess, you know? That's the way it was back then. Not just culture and languages, though, either, but also religion. Ben Franklin said "Thank God we do not have any Muhammedans here in our land like they plague the coasts of Africa." Paraphrasing. Fuck, back in the Colonial days, various Pilgrims and Christians didn't like Dutch anglicans, or quakers, or whoever. Catholics, etc were not just "not hired for work", but beaten, jailed, ridiculed, oppressed, and driven out of towns and villages alike. If I recall, some of that was what went into the forming of Pennsylvania, because various Germans and Dutch were considered freaks then, and rejected. So they all traveled to Pennsylvania, and set up shop there.
Mormons in Missouri, Kansas, and throughout the west and south were beaten, oppressed, and even killed in riots. Eventually, they were crushed and driven to live in the wilderness of the Utah Territory.
So, lots of hatred and prejudice around for different races, colours, cultures, and religions. I would think though in a COC game you'd rather focus on monsters and such. Focusing on many other aspects of American society can shift the focus to many of those other aspects which can be significant, very difficult, and even fatal in many cases.
Semper Fidelis,
SHARK
The thing is CoC is not meant to be historical roleplaying, but basically playing HPL's stories. (Well, more August Derleth's, since he typically had far more proactive protagonists). And while HPL was certainly racist, it really didn't come up much in his stories. He's not flattering about Poles or Italians in Dreams in the Witch House. He's rather gross in describing a black man in Herbert West Re-Animator. Despite marrying one, HPL's biggest prejudice was against Jews, and I can't think of one ever appearing in one of his stories. Hell, women really didn't appear in his stories, despite him collaborating with a dozen or so women in his lifetime.
But there's nothing where race was central to the plot, like say in Robert Howard's Black Canaan.
Quote from: ArrozConLeche;1086421Fuck 'em with a jalapeño.
And cornhole them with habaneros!
Hope everybody had a fun Cinko De Drinko yesterday!!
Quote from: JeremyR;1086490The thing is CoC is not meant to be historical roleplaying, but basically playing HPL's stories. (Well, more August Derleth's, since he typically had far more proactive protagonists). And while HPL was certainly racist, it really didn't come up much in his stories. He's not flattering about Poles or Italians in Dreams in the Witch House. He's rather gross in describing a black man in Herbert West Re-Animator. Despite marrying one, HPL's biggest prejudice was against Jews, and I can't think of one ever appearing in one of his stories. Hell, women really didn't appear in his stories, despite him collaborating with a dozen or so women in his lifetime.
So... you think that CoC games are meant to be playing HPL's stories. And since women didn't appear in HPL's stories, does that imply they shouldn't appear in CoC games?
That seems very limiting. I feel like the point of role-playing is to move past just what an author wrote, and create stuff that is distinctly new. I'm actually more of an HPL purist than most of the CoC gamers that I know -- but even so, I still feel like my favorite scenarios are pulling in a lot of material that he didn't use - historical places, events, phenomena - or inspirations from other fiction or mythology. Particular if the historical features are things like women. Plenty of my CoC games have included them.
Mostly I just want to keep to some vague spirit of HPL, like having more internal horror than pulp shoot-outs. However, I've enjoyed and included in my own games a ton of material that wouldn't have appeared in HPL stories.
Quote from: jhkim;1086450For example, if there are signs that an NPC is Jewish in an adventure, then players and GMs will tend to ignore it as an irrelevant bit of color - and they'd be shocked if a character was role-played expressing any anti-Semitism -- but anti-Semitism was quite widespread in the 1920s, both in Europe and the U.S.
Again I think it'd be easy to get this sort of prejudice completely wrong (eg following the modern 'Nazifying the Confederacy' trope & treating Southerners as anti-Semitic and northern white ethnics as pro-Jewish, when reality was much more the reverse), and it's not something that would come up much unless your Jewish PC is trying to marry the daughter of a Boston Brahmin.
Whereas obviously if you are playing a black PC in 1920s Mississippi it is very much going to come up, because that is a situation where you are going to encounter actual racism. Not prejudice, racism. Not 'Jews in Nazi Germany' level of racism, but it is going to severely impact your PC.
Quote from: S'mon;1086512Again I think it'd be easy to get this sort of prejudice completely wrong (eg following the modern 'Nazifying the Confederacy' trope & treating Southerners as anti-Semitic and northern white ethnics as pro-Jewish, when reality was much more the reverse), and it's not something that would come up much unless your Jewish PC is trying to marry the daughter of a Boston Brahmin.
Whereas obviously if you are playing a black PC in 1920s Mississippi it is very much going to come up, because that is a situation where you are going to encounter actual racism. Not prejudice, racism. Not 'Jews in Nazi Germany' level of racism, but it is going to severely impact your PC.
The modern nazification of the Confederacy, along with my old love of Starcraft and my own Confederate ancestry, is one of the reasons why I decided to write Southern-flavored fantasy in the first place.
Right now I've started brainstorming a story inspired by
Annihilation,
Made in Abyss and
Tower of Druaga in which our hero is a Southern farmboy who decides to join the explorer's guild for the pay since his family fell on hard times.
Quote from: jhkim;1086496So... you think that CoC games are meant to be playing HPL's stories. And since women didn't appear in HPL's stories, does that imply they shouldn't appear in CoC games?
Actually, one does - Asenath Waite in
The Thing on the Doorstep. Although she is possessed and has the Innsmouth gene, and that gets her dismissed as an example, the fact is that even being in a female body she's able to get an education, control her husband, manage their affairs and get by in general. There are also a few others, but they are not protagonists.
I forgot to mention...
The upcoming game The Sinking City makes a subplot around Lovecraft's racism, but not in the way you'd expect (I don't know what you'd expect, to be honest). There's a racist feud between what I assume are the Jermyn family and the Marsh family.
Quote from: jhkim;1086496So... you think that CoC games are meant to be playing HPL's stories. And since women didn't appear in HPL's stories, does that imply they shouldn't appear in CoC games?
Women do appear in HPL's stories, but they are not usually protagonists.
Having a woman become a protagonist in such a story is less of a leap than having a Bantu warrior show up in a Viking setting. Then again, people love crap like the Last Samurai where actual Japanese are deprotagonized in order to give Tom Cruise a chance to ham it up.
Quote from: ArrozConLeche;1086550Women do appear in HPL's stories, but they are not usually protagonists.
Having a woman become a protagonist in such a story is less of a leap than having a Bantu warrior show up in a Viking setting.
I think that depends on the Viking setting. The distances involved are huge, but if you have some kind of fantasy Viking empire that is expanding along the coasts then it makes such inclusion less egregious. Although to be fair, Ibn Fadlan claimed to have met Volga Vikings in the 10th century (this inspired the Antonio Banderas movie
The 13th Warrior by way of Michael Crichton).
Quote from: ArrozConLeche;1086550Then again, people love crap like the Last Samurai where actual Japanese are deprotagonized in order to give Tom Cruise a chance to ham it up.
Isn't this "mighty whitey" trope precisely what leftist critics despise? Are we for or against that trope here? If one is supportive of mighty whitey stories, then it doesn't make sense to disapprove of the reverse.
I think that being more inclusive can be done well, but it requires actual work. Just dropping a Shaolin monk into Camelot without explanation isn't going to please anyone. You could write a book or three explaining how that monk got to Camelot in the first place. There are plenty of stories from real history of individuals going to different continents, like Marco Polo visiting China and Tisquantum being taken to Spain.
The BBC
Merlin show that cast Guinevere as non-white? It doesn't make sense that she'd be lower class (as depicted in the show), since the largest population of non-white folks in England at the time (pre-renaissance, anyway) were Moorish nobles. In fact, the original Arthur stories do feature Moorish and half-Moorish nobles.
The original Greek myths feature black heroes and princesses in some tales. Andromeda is a black princess. Memnon is a black king. Chariclea has black parents but passes for white.
Greetings!
Why is there this constant, shrieking obsession with having *Black African* characters in everything? Fucking play some fantasy or historical African campaign setting, and everyone can be BLACK. Every character, all the time. BLACK, BLACK, BLACK.
Who gives a fuck if some game is focused on Europe or a European type where everyone is WHITE.
Same thing with mythological shows. Everyone in Arthurian Britain can be fucking WHITE and there's nothing wrong with that. Make a show set in Africa, again, where it makes sense that everyone is fucking BLACK.
Geesus this constant sobbing about whaa! whaa! whaa! We have to go down the fucking checkbox and have at least one Asian, two Muslims, three Black Africans, etc, etc, etc. Fuck this stupid shit gets tiresome. Can't forget to include a fucking bloated, fat Purple Jabba to join the mix, too.
Semper Fidelis,
SHARK
Player's choice.
If you want to play a white dude in an Asian setting (Shogun, Last Samurai), that's cool - the GM should work with the player to find a way to make it work. If the player wants to play a black dude in a Viking setting, the GM should work with the player to find a way to make it work.
From a historical perspective, it isn't hard. Vikings sailed throughout Europe and the Mediterranean, including North Africa. They traded in slaves primarily in Europe, but not exclusively. It would be possible for an African to have come to the frozen North (or an Arab, or an Indian, or a Cambodian) one way or another, so there's no reason not to support your players playing the character they want to play.
Quote from: deadDMwalking;1086571If the player wants to play a black dude in a Viking setting, the GM should work with the player to find a way to make it work.
From a historical perspective, it isn't hard. Vikings sailed throughout Europe and the Mediterranean, including North Africa. They traded in slaves primarily in Europe, but not exclusively. It would be possible for an African to have come to the frozen North (or an Arab, or an Indian, or a Cambodian) one way or another, so there's no reason not to support your players playing the character they want to play.
No he shouldn't in my opinion. He could and it's possible to include a black guy in Viking setting like you said but if a GM thinks it will break suspension of disbelief in his setting, he can say 'no'. I would. The GM is not to cater to all player's fantasies, he has a consistent world to uphold and if he thinks a character will break his game, he's allowed to say no. Same goes for white dude in Asian setting. And when your GM says he has a plan to run a elven campaign and you present him with your idea of a dwarven cleric, you're a possible douchebag, why would you do that? :)
The black guy in Viking setting instantly reminded me of this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EZ4WnV6D36M :D
Hi everybody by the way, I'm new here. English is not my native language so sorry about occasional poor choice of words.
Quote from: kanePL;1086575No he shouldn't in my opinion. He could and it's possible to include a black guy in Viking setting like you said but if a GM thinks it will break suspension of disbelief in his setting, he can say 'no'. I would. The GM is not to cater to all player's fantasies, he has a consistent world to uphold and if he thinks a character will break his game, he's allowed to say no. Same goes for white dude in Asian setting. And when your GM says he has a plan to run a elven campaign and you present him with your idea of a dwarven cleric, you're a possible douchebag, why would you do that? :)
The black guy in Viking setting instantly reminded me of this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EZ4WnV6D36M :D
Hi everybody by the way, I'm new here. English is not my native language so sorry about occasional poor choice of words.
Greetings!
Welcome to the forums here, KanePL! You are damn right in your assessment. The campaign needs to be consistent, and maintain its own internal consistency. Sometimes, lots of variety can be appropriate. Other campaigns, or different regions or time periods within such a campaign setting, may be more tightly focused. Nothing wrong with that, at all. In my own Asian areas of my world, if everyone is starting in that area, they get to pick from different Asian-themed colours and cultures. And so on, as you mentioned.
This seems to be such an obvious and reasonable position, and yet with many in the hobby it somehow becomes interpreted as some terrible, racist and colonialist heresy. More of that Happy Rainbow Barney nonsense.:D
Semper Fidelis,
SHARK
I kinda regret asking to play a Norman style knight in an Al Qadim game. It's a strong indication the player has not really bought in to the game premise. Same with the black Viking.
Quote from: deadDMwalking;1086571Player's choice.
If you want to play a white dude in an Asian setting (Shogun, Last Samurai), that's cool - the GM should work with the player to find a way to make it work. If the player wants to play a black dude in a Viking setting, the GM should work with the player to find a way to make it work.
From a historical perspective, it isn't hard. Vikings sailed throughout Europe and the Mediterranean, including North Africa. They traded in slaves primarily in Europe, but not exclusively. It would be possible for an African to have come to the frozen North (or an Arab, or an Indian, or a Cambodian) one way or another, so there's no reason not to support your players playing the character they want to play.
A campaign
can tolerate a certain amount of that, for certain items, depending upon a host of factors. Not least is how much it messes with the sensibilities of everyone else at the table--i.e. radically changes what the campaign was supposed to be about into something else. The idea that
any particular thing that the player wants should just be worked out? That can die in a fire.
Once, I had a player ask to play a sentient monkey creature who used a sling and couldn't talk very well. We made up a whole new creature type just for that character. For that particular campaign, it wasn't a problem. I've also had a player ask to play a human, pacifistic healer. We rejected it as too outside the campaign parameters. Every such decision depends upon context. It's rare for a player to fully understand the context of the campaign, let alone to predict how their crazy thing is going to mess with it. (There are also those players that deliberately try to mess with the campaign. But that's an easy fix. Don't reject the character. Toss the player permanently. Problem solved for the current and all future campaigns.)
Within the limits of what I'm willing to run at all, I will definitely encourage wacky ideas for characters be brought into the campaign planning session. If there is an itch to play something that won't go away, maybe we see to it that the
next campaign has a good fit for that. But no, you don't get to dictate the parameters of my setting and campaign by anything that pops into your player head. If it means that much to you, run your own damn campaign.
To be honest, SJW's are not known for consistency or logic.
The based and anime-pilled computer genius Terry A. Davis (RIP) was more sound in his logic than most SJW's and he was a severely schizophrenic meth addict.
When you're an indoctrinated Millennial hipster whose socio-political ideology is informed by Harry Potter, the MCU, punk rock, and general contrarianism, this literal insanity sounds relatively logical and calm by comparison.
[video=youtube;S75DN0joNPU]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S75DN0joNPU[/youtube]
Of course, unlike the lazy and spoiled SJW's, Terry A. Davis worked hard despite his crippling mental illness. The dude was able to build the Third Temple of Jerusalem by himself using only a winch, a cinder block, and a Commodore 64.
The spoiled middle-class SJW's have no excuse for their failures.
Quote from: Doc Sammy;1086601To be honest, SJW's are not known for consistency or logic.
[...]
The spoiled middle-class SJW's have no excuse for their failures.
Um sweetie, no. Are you a white male? Figures. Can someone please ban this fucking patriarchal alt-right fascism-supporting racist?
Quote from: deadDMwalking;1086571Player's choice. If you want to play a white dude in an Asian setting (Shogun, Last Samurai), that's cool - the GM should work with the player to find a way to make it work. If the player wants to play a black dude in a Viking setting, the GM should work with the player to find a way to make it work.
I kind of think it is the GM's choice, since he can solve the problem by telling the player no. If the GM wants to accommodate that, then fine.
It can be fun, or it can make the entire game unpleasant for everyone, just like the 'PC backstabbing loner' or 'My background says I hate this other PC' or other types of Dick Players.
Quote from: Antiquation!;1086619Um sweetie, no. Are you a white male? Figures. Can someone please ban this fucking patriarchal alt-right fascism-supporting racist?
This is what SJW's actually believe, unfortunately. You hit the nail right on the head, my good man.
SJW's over at RPGnet and Onyx Path Forums spew the most insane and zealous bullshit and for some goddamn reason, some people say that I am the crazy one...
Quote from: kanePL;1086575No he shouldn't in my opinion. He could and it's possible to include a black guy in Viking setting like you said but if a GM thinks it will break suspension of disbelief in his setting, he can say 'no'. I would. The GM is not to cater to all player's fantasies, he has a consistent world to uphold and if he thinks a character will break his game, he's allowed to say no.
What's the purpose of that consistent
fictional world? Isn't it to offer the players a gaming experience they like?
If the players want a "low realism with oddballs" and the GM wants "total realism with no statistical anomalies at all", the problem actually is a mismatch of the GM's expectations with the players' expectations. If I'm the GM, before working out that consistent world, I sit at the table with the players and I make sure I know what they want.
If what they want really, really isn't my cup of tea, or vice versa, the problem surfaces then, and it doesn't happen that I later nix a character.
Note, BTW, that the archetypal team for a fantasy setting includes a few hobbits, a few men, a dwarf and an elf, and that fellowship is considered as pretty an oddball thing in the source. Elves and dwarves in the same team? And hobbits wandering out of their land to do adventurous things? Statistically very unlikely. Yet it's the very premise of the archetypal adventure.
Quote from: Michele;1086678What's the purpose of that consistent fictional world?
Good question.
If you call something a 'Viking setting' (sticking to that example) it has to consist of Viking tropes and have a Scandinavian touch. With black guys and samurais in numbers it's simply not a Viking setting anymore. It may still be cool setting, but we talked about Viking theme. I think GM may agree to anything that suits him, but I noticed the word 'should' and didn't like it - I often hear a notion that a GM is there to indulge all of his players ideas and let them play whatever they want. I oppose that hence my statement :)
Quote from: Michele;1086678Elves and dwarves in the same team? And hobbits wandering out of their land to do adventurous things? Statistically very unlikely. Yet it's the very premise of the archetypal adventure.
To be honest I do find that odd and immersion-breaking and that's why I play in human-centric settings :D If there are other races like elves and dwarves, they're NPCs and mystical, secluded races to meet during adventures. The problem with hobbits away from home is mostly in LoTR, in the other settings I saw halflings/kenders are often adventurous types.
Quote from: SHARK;1086566Greetings!
Why is there this constant, shrieking obsession with having *Black African* characters in everything? Fucking play some fantasy or historical African campaign setting, and everyone can be BLACK. Every character, all the time. BLACK, BLACK, BLACK.
Who gives a fuck if some game is focused on Europe or a European type where everyone is WHITE.
Same thing with mythological shows. Everyone in Arthurian Britain can be fucking WHITE and there's nothing wrong with that. Make a show set in Africa, again, where it makes sense that everyone is fucking BLACK.
Geesus this constant sobbing about whaa! whaa! whaa! We have to go down the fucking checkbox and have at least one Asian, two Muslims, three Black Africans, etc, etc, etc. Fuck this stupid shit gets tiresome. Can't forget to include a fucking bloated, fat Purple Jabba to join the mix, too.
Semper Fidelis,
SHARK
I'm not sobbing about anything. I'm not trying to force a diversity quota.
I'm pointing out that, in the event that you want a diverse cast, that you should put more effort into it than just including them and being done with it. I'm pointing out that some of these supposedly all-white mythologies had stories about non-white major characters.
I'm not saying that it's wrong to have an ethnically homogeneous cast. I'm pointing that it is unfair to demonize settings that try to include ethnically diverse casts.
People are upset that some Polish game set in an ethnically homogeneous fantasy!Poland doesn't let you play a black hero? Oh well, then I guess they won't play it. Eastern Europe should get a pass for this since they were never involved with Western imperialism (quite the opposite, they were invaded by everyone else), and therefore don't need to pay reparations by meeting a diversity quota.
Quote from: Michele;1086678What's the purpose of that consistent fictional world? Isn't it to offer the players a gaming experience they like?
Not exactly. Rather, it's to offer the players and GM collectively a gaming experience that, ideally, they all enjoy--or barring that, that all of them mostly enjoy and the bits that they don't are a compromise to make everyone mostly happy.
As soon as it is put that way, it should be obvious that what any single player wants may be a perfect fit, mostly OK, or anything less than that, including completely at odds.
We sit down as a group when we plan a campaign, to make sure everyone is at least moderately happy with the plan, even if it isn't perfect for each. Then once we agree to that, then it is part of my job as a GM to make sure that one player doesn't step on the expectations of the other players. (I'm actually more open to some ideas than the rest of the players are. I'm often saying "NO!" on behalf of that consensus, not my own tastes.)
And again, tastes vary wildly. A few hobbits, men, dwarf, and elf may seem equally odd to you compared to a Moor in a Viking setting, but that doesn't necessarily apply to other groups. Somewhere along the way, the idea that "crazy stuff sometimes goes" morphed into "anything goes". They aren't the same thing.
Quote from: Steven Mitchell;1086692And again, tastes vary wildly. A few hobbits, men, dwarf, and elf may seem equally odd to you compared to a Moor in a Viking setting, but that doesn't necessarily apply to other groups. Somewhere along the way, the idea that "crazy stuff sometimes goes" morphed into "anything goes". They aren't the same thing.
The argument that "this world has elves and dragons and yet you complain about [implausible, immersion-breaking thing] LOL" has to be the dumbest fucking argument trundled out by these idiots. As if fantasy means no coherence or plausibility whatsoever. GRR Martin included dragons in Westeros, so I guess he may as well include smart-phones and uber then too. Because fantasy.
Quote from: Haffrung;1086696The argument that "this world has elves and dragons and yet you complain about [implausible, immersion-breaking thing] LOL" has to be the dumbest fucking argument trundled out by these idiots. As if fantasy means no coherence or plausibility whatsoever. GRR Martin included dragons in Westeros, so I guess he may as well include smart-phones and uber then too. Because fantasy.
Across campaigns too. Just because I once allowed* a "samurai hobbit" in a sort of Forgotten Realms campaign, doesn't mean I should allow it in any campaign I run.
* Actually, it was more like enthusiastically encouraged, because in that campaign it fit perfectly.
Quote from: Steven Mitchell;1086692Not exactly. Rather, it's to offer the players and GM collectively a gaming experience that, ideally, they all enjoy--or barring that, that all of them mostly enjoy and the bits that they don't are a compromise to make everyone mostly happy.
Well, OK. Of course one hopes to enjoy GMing the thing, too. Otherwise, it'd be a job!
Quote from: kanePL;1086686If you call something a 'Viking setting' (sticking to that example) it has to consist of Viking tropes and have a Scandinavian touch. With black guys and samurais in numbers it's simply not a Viking setting anymore.
"In numbers" is possibly the key aspect. If a player asks to be allowed, for whatever reason, to play a samurai in Scandinavia, and comes up with a somewhat half-vaguely-plausible backstory - he's one samurai. Not in numbers. He's an exception. And we all know PCs tend to be exceptional guys, not your average local farmer's sons.
The rest of the place remains Scandinavian, just with a strange stranger arriving in it - something that might happen.
To go back to the thread title, of course what would be preposterous is a ruleset that mandates that you
must or
must not use a certain culture or ethnic group. And, not only that, the reason being real-life present-day political considerations. That goes both ways, mind you: I'd laugh off a ruleset that told me "the PC team must include at least one left-handed African Baptist samurai because diversity is a value to be upheld in our real-life society",
and a ruleset that told me "the PC team must all be dark-haired Bulgarian atheist men because uniformity is a value to be upheld in our real-life society".
Quote from: deadDMwalking;1086571Player's choice.
Yeah, they have the choice to fuck off to another game or play the character that the group, GM included, is offering.
Quote from: Haffrung;1086696The argument that "this world has elves and dragons and yet you complain about [implausible, immersion-breaking thing] LOL" has to be the dumbest fucking argument trundled out by these idiots. As if fantasy means no coherence or plausibility whatsoever. GRR Martin included dragons in Westeros, so I guess he may as well include smart-phones and uber then too. Because fantasy.
That's an obvious strawman.
If you're writing yet another generic fantasy!Europe, then the only reason why it would populated entirely by white people is because the writer decided not to include any fictional historical justification for non-white people to be present.
Despite the facts that 1) the reason real history turned out the way it did was due to guns, germs and steel, and 2) these aren't necessarily factors in a fantasy world with elves and dragons.
There's no reason why fantasy!Africa can't have advanced civilizations that start colonizing the rest of the fantasy!Earth except author fiat.
If people want all-white fantasy, then more power to them. But can we not begrudge those who desire diversity? The SJWs are already doing a great job of stifling minority voices on their own. Let's not make things worse, shall we?
Quote from: Haffrung;1086696The argument that "this world has elves and dragons and yet you complain about [implausible, immersion-breaking thing] LOL" has to be the dumbest fucking argument trundled out by these idiots. As if fantasy means no coherence or plausibility whatsoever. GRR Martin included dragons in Westeros, so I guess he may as well include smart-phones and uber then too. Because fantasy.
I've
always wanted to play a sentient penis, but somehow I always get kicked out of the groups where I bring it up. I've even tried to be gender equal by offering to play a sentient vagina, but no, that isn't allowed either.
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1086704That's an obvious strawman.
If you're writing yet another generic fantasy!Europe, then the only reason why it would populated entirely by white people is because the writer decided not to include any fictional historical justification for non-white people to be present.
Despite the facts that 1) the reason real history turned out the way it did was due to guns, germs and steel, and 2) these aren't necessarily factors in a fantasy world with elves and dragons.
There's no reason why fantasy!Africa can't have advanced civilizations that start colonizing the rest of the fantasy!Earth except author fiat.
If people want all-white fantasy, then more power to them. But can we not begrudge those who desire diversity? The SJWs are already doing a great job of stifling minority voices on their own. Let's not make things worse, shall we?
Tokenism is fucking insulting. That is what diversity gets us. The same SJWs will attack white people for doing a fantasy Indian setting, fantasy American Indian setting, fantasy Asian setting, or a fantasy African setting.
Different cultures have different myth and history. We aren't allowed to enjoy it anymore and it isn't because some dude wants to create another fantasy European based world view. They get attacked.
There is no way to win. The game is rigged. I cannot write an Indian fantasy world even though I'm Indian. If Monte Cook wrote a game with an Indian setting he'd be attacked for it. It's fucking stupid.
Quote from: jhkim;1086425Overwhelmingly, my experience has been that historical Call of Cthulhu campaigns tend to downplay or ignore historical racism rather than exaggerating it. I had an ethnically prejudiced 1890s PC, but within my wider experience, he was a rare exception. The vast majority of players and GMs that I've met tend to have ahistorical egalitarianism.
Wouldn't it be more accurate to say historical Call of Cthulhu campaigns downplay
all social issues of the era? And isn't that true of RPGs in general? The enormous gulf in social status between a medieval lord or knight and the common wruck of society, for example, is rarely ever explored in medieval fantasy settings. Most people play RPGs to play out lurid pulp action stories, not engage with troubling social issues.
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1086704That's an obvious strawman.
If you're writing yet another generic fantasy!Europe, then the only reason why it would populated entirely by white people is because the writer decided not to include any fictional historical justification for non-white people to be present.
And you just countered with your own strawman. I think it would be unusual for a fantasy setting to have absolutely zero non-white people. But I see no reason why a town in the fringes of civilization of my fantasy world should have the makeup of a California college campus, and have a quarter of the residents people of colour, half the town militia women, etc.
The great majority of people in pre-modern worlds spent most of their lives within 50 miles of where they were born. In cosmopolitan port cities, where a fraction of the population lived, things were different. In my games, a small barony in the wilds will have a homegenous population because almost all the people in that barony will trace their lineage back generations. If and when people from far away do arrive, they're quickly subsumed into the local population.
No, medieval Europe wasn't 100 per cent white. But rural England, France, and Germany were 98 per cent white. If I'm playing a mediterannean sword and sorcery campaign, the setting will be ethnically diverse like medieval Byzantium or Naples. If I'm playing a medieval town on the edge of the forest fantasy campaign, it will be ethnically homegenous.
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1086704Despite the facts that 1) the reason real history turned out the way it did was due to guns, germs and steel, and 2) these aren't necessarily factors in a fantasy world with elves and dragons.
Maybe in your worlds. In my worlds, magic plays very little role in the social development of society because wizards are rare and most of them are weird loners and eccentrics with their own agendas. They aren't working for the Department of Progress.
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1086704There's no reason why fantasy!Africa can't have advanced civilizations that start colonizing the rest of the fantasy!Earth except author fiat.
I see no reason either. And I don't care what other people do in their games. What pisses me off is accusations that any fantasy setting that features a population like that of historical medieval Europe is racist because you can make a fantasy world anything you like and if you make it 95 per cent white then you're racist. And if you haven't seen that accusation routinely hurled around the geek-sphere, you must be wilfully blind to it.
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1086704If people want all-white fantasy, then more power to them. But can we not begrudge those who desire diversity? The SJWs are already doing a great job of stifling minority voices on their own. Let's not make things worse, shall we?
I don't begrudge anyone anything in their own games. And I don't begrudge publishers making their own choices about their settings and market. What does get on my tits is small groups of zealots denouncing any publishers who don't share their values about representation, and who treat anyone who disagrees with them as white supremacists. And espousing myths that medieval rural England and Germany were racially diverse is either dishonest or idiotic.
Quote from: Doc Sammy;1086633This is what SJW's actually believe, unfortunately. You hit the nail right on the head, my good man.
SJW's over at RPGnet and Onyx Path Forums spew the most insane and zealous bullshit and for some goddamn reason, some people say that I am the crazy one...
Insane zealotry is very in vogue right now. I'm thinking about trying it on and seeing how it fits; problem is, the only things I care enough about to whip myself into a righteous, frothing rage about are the quality differences between name and no-name cereal brands.
Hm. Perhaps I will start my own Forum...
Quote from: jhkimOverwhelmingly, my experience has been that historical Call of Cthulhu campaigns tend to downplay or ignore historical racism rather than exaggerating it. I had an ethnically prejudiced 1890s PC, but within my wider experience, he was a rare exception. The vast majority of players and GMs that I've met tend to have ahistorical egalitarianism.
Quote from: Haffrung;1086717Wouldn't it be more accurate to say historical Call of Cthulhu campaigns downplay all social issues of the era? And isn't that true of RPGs in general? The enormous gulf in social status between a medieval lord or knight and the common wruck of society, for example, is rarely ever explored in medieval fantasy settings. Most people play RPGs to play out lurid pulp action stories, not engage with troubling social issues.
I partly agree - in that people widely downplay various social issues that are still controversial today, like sexism, racism, and classism. No one seems to worry much about portraying Prohibition, though, as far as I can see - even though it was a social issue of the era. Regardless, I don't think that playing out lurid pulp action is inconsistent with having troubling social issues. I know that my 1890s CoC character Grimmond expressed his prejudice while fighting Chinese lackeys of Fu Manchu in the East End - which is very much pulp action. cf.
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The thing is that if *I* (or other liberals) were to argue that there shouldn't be racism or sexism in Call of Cthulhu games - then I would be called out for demanding political correctness. Conversely, if there is racism/sexism in games, then I'm engaging in misery tourism. This seems very similar to the claim of the OP - damned if you do, and damned if you don't.
Quote from: kanePL;1086686but I noticed the word 'should' and didn't like it - I often hear a notion that a GM is there to indulge all of his players ideas and let them play whatever they want. I oppose that hence my statement :)
I'll stand by it. GMs should work with their players to find ways to accommodate what the player wants. It may involve some compromises by one or both; there may be some characters that simply
can't work in a particular setting. But a black dude in fantasy medieval Europe
isn't that.
(https://i.pinimg.com/originals/cb/d6/42/cbd64228d823fbbd35e386b8205d1a09.jpg)
Quote from: ArrozConLeche;1086705I've always wanted to play a sentient penis, but somehow I always get kicked out of the groups where I bring it up. I've even tried to be gender equal by offering to play a sentient vagina, but no, that isn't allowed either.
Did you literally offer to do any of the work to explain
a) how you came to exist
b) how you came to be where you are
c) how you interact in society
In my mind, letting your character levitate/fly would be a power issue, and physiologically, I don't understand how you would move in either case.
Of course, it's perhaps telling that you think demanding to play a literal dick is somehow equivalent to wanting to play a character that 'looks' like you.
I can't tell you how many players have wanted pink or purple hair, or violet eyes, etc. Those are things that I don't typically think to include and while they're
unusual in setting, they're at least
plausible enough that it isn't a big deal.
As others have said, PCs tend to be unusual if not exceptional. And history is littered with crazy exceptions (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Squanto) like a Native American in Jacobean England.
D&D is a setting with fire breathing sentient dragons, elves, magic, orcs, oozing jellies, half-spider/half-elf beings, ect, etc. What's so implausible about a magical sentient dick? It's your job as a GM to accommodate the players and work with them.
Quote from: ArrozConLeche;1086761D&D is a setting with fire breathing sentient dragons, elves, magic, orcs, oozing jellies, half-spider/half-elf beings, ect, etc. What's so implausible about a magical sentient dick? It's your job as a GM to accommodate the players and work with them.
Alright fine, you can play a White Man. Just as long as you know that everyone hates you for the baby eating monster that you represent and as a DM I am going to passive aggressively screw you over the whole campaign.
Now pull your pants up, sit down and lets play.
Quote from: deadDMwalking;1086757I'll stand by it. GMs should work with their players to find ways to accommodate what the player wants.
If it fits GM's vision. If a player wants something I don't want in my game, I stand firmly against it. If we're in Viking setting and he doesn't want to be a Viking - he might be i.e. Slavic/Saxon captive raised by the Vikings. Such things happened reasonably often. That's how far I would go. If you think it's your job to accomodate what player wants, fine by me, your game your rules. But let's not forget the GM is part of the game, not servant of players, not their bi#%$.
Quotethere may be some characters that simply can't work in a particular setting. But a black dude in fantasy medieval Europe isn't that.
Cool. Such exception might fit you. Why do I feel obliged to endorse it? Pink hair not an issue to you? Black dude in medieval fantasy neither? Fine. Can it be an issue for me, please? I'm not teasing you, it just looks like you stand on some moral higher ground to tell people what they should do as GMs and what their obligations are. And there might be many approaches to this.
Quote from: ArrozConLeche;1086761D&D is a setting with fire breathing sentient dragons, elves, magic, orcs, oozing jellies, half-spider/half-elf beings, ect, etc. What's so implausible about a magical sentient dick? It's your job as a GM to accommodate the players and work with them.
I never laugh out loud at posts, but there's a first time for everything.
Quote from: ArrozConLeche;1086761D&D is a setting with fire breathing sentient dragons, elves, magic, orcs, oozing jellies, half-spider/half-elf beings, ect, etc. What's so implausible about a magical sentient dick? It's your job as a GM to accommodate the players and work with them.
Well, my games have most of those things (I don't remember any half elf/half spiders and no oozing jellies lately) even though it isn't D&D, so your point is valid except that some of my settings are cosmopolitan and some just aren't. So, my players sometimes would have had to wait for an opportunity to play a particular ethnicity. None of my Black players ever asked for characters that "represented" them, even though there was a Black kingdom nearby. Really, except for one guy who wanted to play a Samurai, it was never an issue. Oh, and a Samurai on the Silk Road wasn't all that out of place. He did not know that Samurai were mounted archers but he was happy when he found out. Korean Yalie, a Japanophile, go figure.
By the way, everyone, viking is an occupation, not an ethnicity or a nationality. The last raid I was on (I'm very old) half the crew were Wends.
Quote from: jhkim;1086753The thing is that if *I* (or other liberals) were to argue that there shouldn't be racism or sexism in Call of Cthulhu games - then I would be called out for demanding political correctness. Conversely, if there is racism/sexism in games, then I'm engaging in misery tourism. This seems very similar to the claim of the OP - damned if you do, and damned if you don't.
People can put whatever they want in their own games. So we're really just talking about official published adventures. And I think the default for those should be to largely avoid social issues because very few players are really interested in dealing with sexism, the plight of the working man, industrial pollution, racial segregation, etc. in their tabletop game sessions. Some small minority care very, very much. But the issue here is why those people feel everyone else needs to cater to their sensibilities.
Those aren't textbooks we're talking about. It's not whitewashing history to spend a few evenings drinking beer with your friends and playing Escape from Innsmouth without depicting racist attitudes in 1920 New England. If the DM and players want to explore those issues, cool. Have fun. Publishers are under no obligation to inform and shape public dialogue on the issue. And people who claim they do are no different than the god-botherers who fuelled the Satanic panic over D&D 40 years ago.
Quote from: jhkim;1086753I partly agree - in that people widely downplay various social issues that are still controversial today, like sexism, racism, and classism. No one seems to worry much about portraying Prohibition, though, as far as I can see - even though it was a social issue of the era. Regardless, I don't think that playing out lurid pulp action is inconsistent with having troubling social issues. I know that my 1890s CoC character Grimmond expressed his prejudice while fighting Chinese lackeys of Fu Manchu in the East End - which is very much pulp action. cf.
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The thing is that if *I* (or other liberals) were to argue that there shouldn't be racism or sexism in Call of Cthulhu games - then I would be called out for demanding political correctness. Conversely, if there is racism/sexism in games, then I'm engaging in misery tourism. This seems very similar to the claim of the OP - damned if you do, and damned if you don't.
People forget that these are games and we play them to have fun and not to explore social and political issues. Lovecraft is liked because his stories are spooky and mythos is cool. We downplay or ignore racism, sexism, classism, or whatever because it's a downer and not fun.
Quote from: deadDMwalking;1086757I'll stand by it. GMs should work with their players to find ways to accommodate what the player wants. It may involve some compromises by one or both; there may be some characters that simply can't work in a particular setting. But a black dude in fantasy medieval Europe isn't that.
...
Yes it is possible for there to be a Black Muslim in medieval England.
So What.
Any GM has the
right to shoot the Players Azeem the Moor character concept down like a Messerschmitt during the battle of Britain if he wants to.
And there is nothing wrong with that.
Quote from: Haffrung;1086797It's not whitewashing history to spend a few evenings drinking beer with your friends and playing Escape from Innsmouth without depicting racist attitudes in 1920 New England. If the DM and players want to explore those issues, cool. Have fun. Publishers are under no obligation to inform and shape public dialogue on the issue. And people who claim they do are no different than the god-botherers who fuelled the Satanic panic over D&D 40 years ago.
Sure. I'm on the side that different people can and should play games differently. I've got no problems if people want to play a non-racist 1920s, but I also think it should be fine to play in historically racist 1920s. Publishers can publish both for different people's tastes.
Quote from: jhkim;1086824Sure. I'm on the side that different people can and should play games differently. I've got no problems if people want to play a non-racist 1920s, but I also think it should be fine to play in historically racist 1920s. Publishers can publish both for different people's tastes.
The issue with both of those things: racist and nonracists is that we end up with simplistic charcuterie.
Especially now and days we like to paint folks from the past as simple cartoon villains when they were anything but. And the players want to be Noble heroic 2019 versions of themselves. I don't think that's a good use of time but if folks enjoy themselves good for them
Quote from: Haffrung;1086718The great majority of people in pre-modern worlds spent most of their lives within 50 miles of where they were born. In cosmopolitan port cities, where a fraction of the population lived, things were different. In my games, a small barony in the wilds will have a homegenous population because almost all the people in that barony will trace their lineage back generations. If and when people from far away do arrive, they're quickly subsumed into the local population.
No, medieval Europe wasn't 100 per cent white. But rural England, France, and Germany were 98 per cent white. If I'm playing a mediterannean sword and sorcery campaign, the setting will be ethnically diverse like medieval Byzantium or Naples. If I'm playing a medieval town on the edge of the forest fantasy campaign, it will be ethnically homegenous.
"Quickly subsumed" means that if they marry, it will be with a local woman, and their children will grow up speaking the local language, and that will be it - but it still means that they have a lifetime as foreigners in that place.
And 98%, in a town or fief with a population of 1000, still means 20 foreigners. 90% of them, or 18, will be from other locales that are beyond 50 miles but still from the same culture. That leaves 2 guys who might very well be an Italian merchant and a Moorish freed slave, or a French minstrel and a Spanish monk.
As to the notion of a PC who is a flying magical sentient body part, put forth by another poster, sure, a Master has to draw a line somewhere, and personally I think it should be defined by the in-game considerations made in several posts above and not by political dictates. For me, the magical body part is unreasonable, and actually, if you as a player insist on it, it's probably a sign that I should reconsider taking you aboard in my group. The former Moorish slave is reasonable, OTOH, even in that 98% homogenous barony. Probably it was the baron himself who brought the man back from the crusade, and over time the man did some important service that gained him his freedom. He decided to stay, and there he is. What's he doing? Well, maybe the important service was healing the baron's son, and he now is the only healer in tens of miles. As well as the only Moor in hundreds of miles.
Rare and exceptional, yes, but not unreasonable. Especially for a PC.
Again, if it was a game publisher who told me "you
must have at least a Moorish PC or NPC in that barony", I would ignore that.
Kevin Crawford/Sine Nomine (Stars Without Number, Godbound, Silent Legions) wrote an excellent fantasy Africa RPG called SPEARS OF THE DAWN.
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/110293/Spears-of-the-Dawn
But you're probably racist for reading that sentence.
Quote from: ArrozConLeche;1086761What's so implausible about a magical sentient dick?
We already have paladins!
Quote from: Haffrung;1086696GRR Martin included dragons in Westeros, so I guess he may as well include smart-phones and uber then too. Because fantasy.
How about Starbucks? (https://twitter.com/slippish/status/1125290618530304000/photo/1?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1125290618530304000&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.tvguide.com%2Fnews%2Fgame-of-thrones-starbucks-cup%2F)
(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/D53V2fOUwAIYgZf.jpg)
Quote from: Spinachcat;1086851Kevin Crawford/Sine Nomine (Stars Without Number, Godbound, Silent Legions) wrote an excellent fantasy Africa RPG called SPEARS OF THE DAWN.
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/110293/Spears-of-the-Dawn
But you're probably racist for reading that sentence.
Yeah. Ever since I picked up Spears of the Dawn, I've been wondering how that's evaded the ire of TBP.
And the same for Crawford's "Red Tide" setting, which recasts the goblinoid races as the Shou, a collection of primitive, tattooed, basically-human tribal types, as they try to defend their territory from a wave of human/dwarf/elf refugees fleeing a world that's being consumed by the eponymous Red Tide. When I introduced the setting to a group of European D&D players, one of them immediately asked whether the Shou were supposed to be American Indians, even without having been raised or educated in the US.
Quote from: deadDMwalking;1086757I'll stand by it. GMs should work with their players to find ways to accommodate what the player wants. It may involve some compromises by one or both; there may be some characters that simply can't work in a particular setting. But a black dude in fantasy medieval Europe isn't that.
My position, roughly, is that you don't get to make that categorical call on someone else's campaign. Anything could be in bounds. Anything could be out of bounds.
I think where these kinds of conversations go off the rails is that the experience of different campaigns that informs the discussions is all over the place. Perhaps overgeneralizing too much for clarity of the point:
A. Campaigns that come about because the players also have an idea of a character, and then they work with the GM to fit all of those characters into a campaign. If the players want to play a Were-Gandalf, Daffy Duck as Cleric, Conan with an upper-class British accent, and Medusa the Misunderstood--then that's what they do. Maybe they team up and fight the Dragon Mafia. (Not everyone wants to do that campaign. But given some imagination, anyone
could do that, if they set their minds to it.)
B. Campaigns where the point is consistent and coherent setting, and then the campaign explores one or more themes or story-lines. A coherent setting has some bend, but not nearly as much once you add on the second part. When you put in oddball characters, the themes and story-lines inevitably become about how those characters stand out, at least somewhat. You can think of the contract of such a campaign as not only fitting into the setting, but bringing a character that makes the desired action pop.
C. Campaigns that are somewhere between those two extremes--probably most campaigns in reality. Of course, the closer you get to one side or the other, more restrictions are needed or exceptions are fine. It's not unusual for such a campaign, however, to be very strict on some things and loose on others.
My experience has been that grasping the significance of those extremes is not equally spread among the people who lean heavily one way or the other. Maybe because it's somewhat rare for someone to have preferred B out of the gate, and never dabbled in the other extreme, while the opposite happens more often. It's somewhat like the differences between extroverts and introverts, where introverts have a better understanding of what makes extroverts tick than vice versa. (Explaining how an introvert feels to an extrovert is often like explaining color to the color-blind.)
A key difference is that often when players that prefer style B campaigns say they want a coherent setting, they also mean that they don't want your first reaction to be to come up with a character that pulls the focus away from that coherence. Another key difference (and one I don't think you really seem to get) is that many players
want to make their character informed by the coherence of the setting and theme. That is, they want to know enough about the setting to make a character that fits seamlessly into the setting, rather than standing out. They don't approach the campaign with a character in mind, but instead have the setting and theme inform a character that almost organically grows out of the idea. It's more difficult to do that when another player is making a "look at me" character. And the instinct to make a "look at me" character is a sign that the player is out of step with the spirit of the campaign as understood by the rest of the group.
The rationale used to criticize those who want "realism" in a game is that the game has fantastical elements. I agree with that, and I want to play a sentient dick. After all, the game's premise is fantastical anyway.
Oh, but no, all of a sudden "realism" is important. Turns out there ARE lines to be drawn, but thing is, you better make sure your lines in the sand are the same as theirs.
Quote from: Steven Mitchell;1086867My position, roughly, is that you don't get to make that categorical call on someone else's campaign. Anything could be in bounds. Anything could be out of bounds.
I think where these kinds of conversations go off the rails is that the experience of different campaigns that informs the discussions is all over the place. Perhaps overgeneralizing too much for clarity of the point:
A. Campaigns that come about because the players also have an idea of a character, and then they work with the GM to fit all of those characters into a campaign. If the players want to play a Were-Gandalf, Daffy Duck as Cleric, Conan with an upper-class British accent, and Medusa the Misunderstood--then that's what they do. Maybe they team up and fight the Dragon Mafia. (Not everyone wants to do that campaign. But given some imagination, anyone could do that, if they set their minds to it.)
B. Campaigns where the point is consistent and coherent setting, and then the campaign explores one or more themes or story-lines. A coherent setting has some bend, but not nearly as much once you add on the second part. When you put in oddball characters, the themes and story-lines inevitably become about how those characters stand out, at least somewhat. You can think of the contract of such a campaign as not only fitting into the setting, but bringing a character that makes the desired action pop.
C. Campaigns that are somewhere between those two extremes--probably most campaigns in reality. Of course, the closer you get to one side or the other, more restrictions are needed or exceptions are fine. It's not unusual for such a campaign, however, to be very strict on some things and loose on others.
My experience has been that grasping the significance of those extremes is not equally spread among the people who lean heavily one way or the other. Maybe because it's somewhat rare for someone to have preferred B out of the gate, and never dabbled in the other extreme, while the opposite happens more often. It's somewhat like the differences between extroverts and introverts, where introverts have a better understanding of what makes extroverts tick than vice versa. (Explaining how an introvert feels to an extrovert is often like explaining color to the color-blind.)
A key difference is that often when players that prefer style B campaigns say they want a coherent setting, they also mean that they don't want your first reaction to be to come up with a character that pulls the focus away from that coherence. Another key difference (and one I don't think you really seem to get) is that many players want to make their character informed by the coherence of the setting and theme. That is, they want to know enough about the setting to make a character that fits seamlessly into the setting, rather than standing out. They don't approach the campaign with a character in mind, but instead have the setting and theme inform a character that almost organically grows out of the idea. It's more difficult to do that when another player is making a "look at me" character. And the instinct to make a "look at me" character is a sign that the player is out of step with the spirit of the campaign as understood by the rest of the group.
Greetings!
Very well put, Steven Mitchell!:D
Semper Fidelis,
SHARK
Quote from: Lurtch;1086711Tokenism is fucking insulting. That is what diversity gets us. The same SJWs will attack white people for doing a fantasy Indian setting, fantasy American Indian setting, fantasy Asian setting, or a fantasy African setting.
Different cultures have different myth and history. We aren't allowed to enjoy it anymore and it isn't because some dude wants to create another fantasy European based world view. They get attacked.
There is no way to win. The game is rigged. I cannot write an Indian fantasy world even though I'm Indian. If Monte Cook wrote a game with an Indian setting he'd be attacked for it. It's fucking stupid.
I don't claim otherwise. I said that SJWs are stifling minority voices. I've heard plenty of horror stories to the point I don't keep track anymore. It is disgusting.
Quote from: Haffrung;1086718I see no reason either. And I don't care what other people do in their games. What pisses me off is accusations that any fantasy setting that features a population like that of historical medieval Europe is racist because you can make a fantasy world anything you like and if you make it 95 per cent white then you're racist. And if you haven't seen that accusation routinely hurled around the geek-sphere, you must be wilfully blind to it.
Quote from: Haffrung;1086718I don't begrudge anyone anything in their own games. And I don't begrudge publishers making their own choices about their settings and market. What does get on my tits is small groups of zealots denouncing any publishers who don't share their values about representation, and who treat anyone who disagrees with them as white supremacists. And espousing myths that medieval rural England and Germany were racially diverse is either dishonest or idiotic.
I don't like to spend my time listening to crazy SJWs. They are hypocrites that sabotage their own efforts at progress. I prefer more constructive pursuits, like a nuanced exploration of the relevance of human ethnicity in writing fantasy worlds.
When I'm doing that, I'm asking myself questions like "who is my intended audience? do I want a homogeneous or diverse environment? how much so? what socio-historical factors led to this state of affairs?" Simple questions that any world builder asks eventually.
Quote from: Jaeger;1086818Yes it is possible for there to be a Black Muslim in medieval England.
So What.
Any GM has the right to shoot down the Players Azeem character concept down like a Messerschmitt during the battle of Britain if he wants to.
And there is nothing wrong with that.
Exactly.
And there is a reasoning why:
The GM Gets to Determine the Campaign They Want to Offer. They have a right to play, too. And part of that is getting to portray a premise and scope they find interesting to run within a setting.
Just as Scope narrows down Space and Time, Premise narrows down the Slices of Life.
I remind people this with
Maidens of Marriageable Age Test.
People quickly grasp Scope's Space -- don't immediately travel (or come from) off the map. Scope's Time is a bit harder, but time travelers or 'Machiavellian plots among immortals' examples conveys the game's interest limits to time. But people quickly grasp Premise's Slice of Life limits when you pitch a game about young maidens who want to marry well... especially if they presume from the system or adventure module a certain type of
Adventure!So, for all these examples flying about, try out the "Maidens of Marriageable Age Test." Accomodating that into a campaign is completely within most campaign's coherency and demographics. But!, is that what you wanted to run? Is that what people came to your game to play? How well can Your Campaign accomodate One Player pulling full tilt into "The Adventures of the Marriage Market" against the Rest of the Party's expectations and interests?
It is an openly disruptive player request on the face of it. And that immediately gets into Actions vs. Consequences Out-of-Character, where you need to have The Talk with the Player. In that talk you discuss how to temper their desires and ask how they plan to share the table with others. :)
Quote from: jhkim;1086824Sure. I'm on the side that different people can and should play games differently. I've got no problems if people want to play a non-racist 1920s, but I also think it should be fine to play in historically racist 1920s. Publishers can publish both for different people's tastes.
I agree with this 100%
But today - it's also 100% bullshit that you could get away with it as a private GM/Player and talk about it publicly. And it's likewise true of *any* publisher in gaming or "geek culture" trying to have that kind of realism (or conceit) as part of their game without the usual suspects fomenting fake outrage and the usual internet mob-tactics to have those publishers defamed into oblivion.
Edit: But I'm biased. I was permanently banned from TBP after being there since early 2002 for saying *essentially* this very same idea.
What I find missing from this obvious discussion about minorities in Jolly Olde Englande-type settings is that no one is talking about the in-game SOCIAL CONSEQUENCES of playing an outsider in such homogeneous societies.
Sure you can play a Moor in Wales circa 900AD... and despite those caveats of the culture, the GM should prepare that player for the social ramifications of playing such a character in that location at that time. And it might not be pretty. If the player understands that... and the GM is willing, go for it.
I say the same things about people wanting to play snowflake races in any of my games.
Quote from: tenbones;1086909I agree with this 100%
But today - it's also 100% bullshit that you could get away with it as a private GM/Player and talk about it publicly. And it's likewise true of *any* publisher in gaming or "geek culture" trying to have that kind of realism (or conceit) as part of their game without the usual suspects fomenting fake outrage and the usual internet mob-tactics to have those publishers defamed into oblivion.
Edit: But I'm biased. I was permanently banned from TBP after being there since early 2002 for saying *essentially* this very same idea.
OK, so I was testing the waters at rpg.net around 2010 and found no 'there' there. Yet supposedly it had a golden time in ye olden days. Was that 2000? Or was it earlier?
Quote from: Opaopajr;1086915OK, so I was testing the waters at rpg.net around 2010 and found no 'there' there. Yet supposedly it had a golden time in ye olden days. Was that 2000? Or was it earlier?
I got hit with two bannings nearly back to back. (I wasn't tenbones there). I might have gotten them reversed. One banning was for defending Paizo's staff for not being racist (the old argument that Orcs were black people and Paizo's cultures are racist). The other was for defending a GM wanting to use the term "Jap" at his WWII game which he said was supposed to be "realistic".
It was funny because the first thing that happened was that I was called a white racist (I had to tell them I was Asian and part Japanese). Then I said "Trust me - Japanese people don't give a fuck that you use the term Jap in your private WWII rpg" - then people screeched at me that I don't get to speak for all Japanese people. And it descended downward from there...
I *think* it was around 2010ish 2011ish? fuck I don't remember.
Funny how they said you didn't get to speak for all Japanese, but these "allies" sure do feel like they speak for all POC.
Quote from: ArrozConLeche;1086944Funny how they said you didn't get to speak for all Japanese, but these "allies" sure do feel like they speak for all POC.
Well the joke's on them! I do speak for all Japanese! ALL of them.
Quote from: jhkimSure. I'm on the side that different people can and should play games differently. I've got no problems if people want to play a non-racist 1920s, but I also think it should be fine to play in historically racist 1920s. Publishers can publish both for different people's tastes.
Quote from: tenbones;1086909I agree with this 100%
But today - it's also 100% bullshit that you could get away with it as a private GM/Player and talk about it publicly. And it's likewise true of *any* publisher in gaming or "geek culture" trying to have that kind of realism (or conceit) as part of their game without the usual suspects fomenting fake outrage and the usual internet mob-tactics to have those publishers defamed into oblivion.
I think by the "usual suspects" you mean that social justice advocates would be outraged at any scenario where historical racism appears.
But the curious thing to me is that in current discussion, it's been mostly other posters here on theRPGsite who have been arguing that historical racism should *not* appear, while I've been arguing that it should be OK for historical racism to appear in games. I think it's relevant that there was a recent Kickstarter of Call of Cthulhu scenarios which feature historical racism and a social justice theme ("An Inner Darkness").
Quote from: jhkim;1086967I think by the "usual suspects" you mean that social justice advocates would be outraged at any scenario where historical racism appears.
But the curious thing to me is that in current discussion, it's been mostly other posters here on theRPGsite who have been arguing that historical racism should *not* appear, while I've been arguing that it should be OK for historical racism to appear in games. I think it's relevant that there was a recent Kickstarter of Call of Cthulhu scenarios which feature historical racism and a social justice theme ("An Inner Darkness").
I went to the page hosting the Kickstarter for "An Inner Darkness". Some of the authors of this collection of scenarios do give me the SJWs vibe, and the way they talk about their work has convinced me I'm not the customer for it.
The funny thing is, if they hadn't adopted this preachy tone about what they're trying to do, I would have been more interested with their offerings. But hey: to each is own and good luck to Golden Goblin anyway :-) !
Quote from: jhkim;1086967I think by the "usual suspects" you mean that social justice advocates would be outraged at any scenario where historical racism appears.
But the curious thing to me is that in current discussion, it's been mostly other posters here on theRPGsite who have been arguing that historical racism should *not* appear, while I've been arguing that it should be OK for historical racism to appear in games. I think it's relevant that there was a recent Kickstarter of Call of Cthulhu scenarios which feature historical racism and a social justice theme ("An Inner Darkness").
We're on the same page. What's not being said is that first and foremost - as a GM you set the tone and stage for your group but we all agree that for the game to work there needs to be buy-in from all the players. I can run a totally realistic, game with savagely racist elements in my game (and I have) but without my players buying into those conceits the game wouldn't work.
The fact that people here argue "against it" is not for purely ideological reasons, as much as it's for being inconsequential to the tone of their game. This is precisely why a lot of people level D&D with being some kind of bullshit Ren-Faire form of pseudo medievalism. And it's true. And that's fine and fun too!
"Realism" is not everyone cup of tea for sure. But conversely - you don't hear this kind of discussion much on TBP because it's already assumed if you're there, no way in hell is that conversation happening without ban-hammers coming down. The shame police are on the case. Over on the TBP discussions about "history" have about as much rigor as discussions on any other SJW topic.
And here's the rub which I've said on rare occasion but perhaps without as much specificity as I should. "SJW" as a pejorative vs. Social Justice as a conceptual ideological construct are two different things to me. I can objectively look at the pejorative and toss it around as a label with a bunch of connotations that may in fact include someone that is a pathological believer in Social Justice as an ideology - along with a basket of other kooky shit.
But as an abstract construct - I LOVE Social Justice as a narrative tool. The problem is the people that say they believe in Social Justice don't really admit to the ramifications of it, or the implications of it's practice. As theme its powerful, just like any ideology that is the prime-motivator for an individual is powerful. That's how it is for fanatics. And to be actively (i.e. actually DOING something) engaged in Social Justice, invariably it's going to lead to violence and bloodshed if you're willing to really put your money where your beliefs are.
And that's GREAT material for gaming/fiction. I point to Magneto as the PERFECT rendition of what the UBER Social-Justice Activist would be like. Believes he's the hero... but will kill anyone and everyone that gets in his way - even his own kind, in order to levy his morality upon everyone else in the name of his ideology. But his background is the perfect scapegoat for sympathy.
These ideas of having "realism" in our creative entertainment tend to run completely counter to the SJW religion. And they treat it as such.
It's interesting to me that some people are convinced that historical racism was understood the way we understand it today.
If you're the GM and you THINK most people in Wales would be particularly prejudiced against someone from 'the Holy Land', what are you basing it on? There wasn't a feeling of 'they're taking our jobs' and many travelers were of high social standing. If you literally traveled thousands of miles, you were almost certainly a person of note.
If people in England were too busy being racist toward the Irish, they didn't have a lot to spend on people from China - further, most of them wouldn't have seen ANY so wouldn't have any stereotypes to fall back on.
If you met a green person today, you'd certainly think it was weird, but about all you could say is 'you're not from around here, are you?'.
Quote from: deadDMwalking;1086998It's interesting to me that some people are convinced that historical racism was understood the way we understand it today.
If you're the GM and you THINK most people in Wales would be particularly prejudiced against someone from 'the Holy Land', what are you basing it on? There wasn't a feeling of 'they're taking our jobs' and many travelers were of high social standing. If you literally traveled thousands of miles, you were almost certainly a person of note.
If people in England were too busy being racist toward the Irish, they didn't have a lot to spend on people from China - further, most of them wouldn't have seen ANY so wouldn't have any stereotypes to fall back on.
If you met a green person today, you'd certainly think it was weird, but about all you could say is 'you're not from around here, are you?'.
I agree with this. No one in 9th century Wales is going to be "racist against Moors" - only a tiny number would have any idea what a Moor is. If you read the Song of Roland you'll see the Franks had barely any idea what a Moor was, and
they were fighting them!
Quote from: deadDMwalking;1086998It's interesting to me that some people are convinced that historical racism was understood the way we understand it today.
If you're the GM and you THINK most people in Wales would be particularly prejudiced against someone from 'the Holy Land', what are you basing it on? There wasn't a feeling of 'they're taking our jobs' and many travelers were of high social standing. If you literally traveled thousands of miles, you were almost certainly a person of note.
If people in England were too busy being racist toward the Irish, they didn't have a lot to spend on people from China - further, most of them wouldn't have seen ANY so wouldn't have any stereotypes to fall back on.
If you met a green person today, you'd certainly think it was weird, but about all you could say is 'you're not from around here, are you?'.
Yep. Which is why the scene in the recent Game of Thrones episodes was so eye-rolling. The Northerners glare angrily at Misssandei and Grey Worm passing on the road. Why? They might gawp at seeing such (to them) exotic people. But why would they hate them? And why should they regard Missandei and Grey Worm any differently than the locals in the Summer Isles would regard a couple pasty riders from Northern Westeros?
Quote from: tenbones;1086993We're on the same page. What's not being said is that first and foremost - as a GM you set the tone and stage for your group but we all agree that for the game to work there needs to be buy-in from all the players. I can run a totally realistic, game with savagely racist elements in my game (and I have) but without my players buying into those conceits the game wouldn't work.
The fact that people here argue "against it" is not for purely ideological reasons, as much as it's for being inconsequential to the tone of their game. This is precisely why a lot of people level D&D with being some kind of bullshit Ren-Faire form of pseudo medievalism. And it's true. And that's fine and fun too!
"Realism" is not everyone cup of tea for sure. But conversely - you don't hear this kind of discussion much on TBP because it's already assumed if you're there, no way in hell is that conversation happening without ban-hammers coming down.
I don't particularly care about rpgnet, and I'm not sure about your summary of other people's objections. But I think the core we agree on here is - realism can be fun gaming, and non-realism can also be fun gaming. There's no need to fight for one against the other.
My general attitude is that as far as gaming goes, it's fine for there to be a variety of different games. Realistic/unrealistic, liberal/conservative, etc.
Quote from: S'mon;1087011I agree with this. No one in 9th century Wales is going to be "racist against Moors" - only a tiny number would have any idea what a Moor is. If you read the Song of Roland you'll see the Franks had barely any idea what a Moor was, and they were fighting them!
Hmm. It might be not racism, but that doesn't mean they'd be happy about seeing them.
Firstly, there is pure xenophobia. I wonder how much of the "they're taking our jobs!" and "they're dirty and noisy!" actually is a rationalization of the real, underlying "they're too different".
Exactly for not having ever seen a Moor before, the Moors might be seen as a threat.
Secondly, there is the small detail of religion. If the Moors just pass down the road, and make no hostile move, OK, they aren't staying for long enough. But if they stay for a week, it will be evident they pray every day at strange hours, and they won't come to Mass on Sunday. And they will refuse our good ale because their God forbids that! Back then, all of that would be enough of an unsettling factor for many; many of the less cultured ones (i.e., most of the people in a small village), and all of the religious ones (say the local priest).
Quote from: Michele;1087077Hmm. It might be not racism, but that doesn't mean they'd be happy about seeing them.
Really depends on a lot of factors. Smart visitors will present themselves to the local ruler, probably claim to be princes (or emissaries of their king), and give him some nice gifts from their faraway land. At that point they're under his protection and no one will mess with them.
There are no Inns in 9th century Wales, so you don't really get an "Aragorn at the Prancing Pony" setup. Certainly if the Moors just camp out in the woods, I can see people getting very suspicious.
Quote from: SHARK;1086566Geesus this constant sobbing about whaa! whaa! whaa! We have to go down the fucking checkbox and have at least one Asian, two Muslims, three Black Africans, etc, etc, etc. Fuck this stupid shit gets tiresome. Can't forget to include a fucking bloated, fat Purple Jabba to join the mix, too.
And that is often all it is. Reducing us to a check on a collection list. Nigger? check? Cripple? check. and so on. This is why the big push for "inclusion" at the gaming table and discussions of "how can we get more (insert race/whatever here) at the table?" get such ire from the people on the damn checklist. Or worse. It is just another damn marketing ploy.
Worse is that this obsession for making everything "diverse" is that it draws ire to works that were just diverse because thats what fit or thats what the writer is used to.
On the flip side we need to kill off these idiots who keep telling minorities or whatever that they arent welcome at whatever because its ALL WHITE MALES and dont you know they want it that way? Even when its obviously false. And more oft than not its... White people telling others this. Which makes those people mysteriously not show up. Gosh. Wonder why?
Quote from: jhkim;1086967I think by the "usual suspects" you mean that social justice advocates would be outraged at any scenario where historical racism appears.
But the curious thing to me is that in current discussion, it's been mostly other posters here on theRPGsite who have been arguing that historical racism should *not* appear, while I've been arguing that it should be OK for historical racism to appear in games. I think it's relevant that there was a recent Kickstarter of Call of Cthulhu scenarios which feature historical racism and a social justice theme ("An Inner Darkness").
Want to bet that "An Inner Darkness" isn't realistic?
Modern RPG writers present very cartoonish representation of historical racism. I think they do it to score virtue points and not because they are concerned with actual racism. But as a non-white member of the hobby, I view racism in this hobby differently than other folks.
Quote from: Haffrung;1087017Yep. Which is why the scene in the recent Game of Thrones episodes was so eye-rolling. The Northerners glare angrily at Misssandei and Grey Worm passing on the road. Why? They might gawp at seeing such (to them) exotic people. But why would they hate them? And why should they regard Missandei and Grey Worm any differently than the locals in the Summer Isles would regard a couple pasty riders from Northern Westeros?
I read it as... "Eddard and his son Robb were both beheaded in the South. Brandon Stark and his son were burned alive by the Dragon Queen's father. Her brother kidnapped and raped and murdered Eddard's sister. We JUST got free of all that and now the Dragon Queen shows up with an army saying we're her subjects. Fuck everyone from south of the Neck."
Quote from: Chris24601;1087109I read it as... "Eddard and his son Robb were both beheaded in the South. Brandon Stark and his son were burned alive by the Dragon Queen's father. Her brother kidnapped and raped and murdered Eddard's sister. We JUST got free of all that and now the Dragon Queen shows up with an army saying we're her subjects. Fuck everyone from south of the Neck."
But they only glare hate at Missandei and Grey Worm. It seemed pretty clear to me that the point of the scene was to show the backward racial bigotry by the Northerners. And if you read reviews of the episode, that's how TV critics and the media saw it too.
TV critics and the media are part of the same "looking to be offended" SJW crew that whine about cultural appropriation if a white man writes a game based on Middle Eastern culture or lack of diversity if he fails to incorporate Middle Eastern culture into his Irish/Celtic Mythology-based adventure setting. You can't win, they'll always be offended.
So, let's say you wanted to show that the North was just generally mistrustful of Dany's forces (basically mirroring Sansa and Arya's reactions to Dany and because Dany the Despot is ultimately going to go Fire & Blood on innocents so you want to foreshadow things).
Who from Dany's crew would YOU have shown them being squirrelly around that would make sense to be around the smallfolk that wouldn't have either been nonsensical (Jorah is a Northman who wears appropriate attire; Dany wouldn't be out with the smallfolk in the first place) or not obviously because of their connection to Dany (dirty looks at Tyrion could be because he's a Lannister)?
Kinda like writing the aforementioned historical Scottish Highlands setting. There's no winning because if you go what's actually been set up (by the Celtic myths or by previous events in GoT) there's no way to create it without offending the SJWs somehow. There weren't any Arabians in the Celtic myths and Dany's army is "brown" relative to the North.
Just like in The Game of Thrones (the in-universe version) the only way to win with the SJWs is to not play their game (Ned beat them ALL by not trying to use his nephew as a pawn in the game).
Quote from: jhkimBut the curious thing to me is that in current discussion, it's been mostly other posters here on theRPGsite who have been arguing that historical racism should *not* appear, while I've been arguing that it should be OK for historical racism to appear in games. I think it's relevant that there was a recent Kickstarter of Call of Cthulhu scenarios which feature historical racism and a social justice theme ("An Inner Darkness").
Quote from: Lurtch;1087102Want to bet that "An Inner Darkness" isn't realistic?
Modern RPG writers present very cartoonish representation of historical racism. I think they do it to score virtue points and not because they are concerned with actual racism. But as a non-white member of the hobby, I view racism in this hobby differently than other folks.
I'm not arguing that realism is better. It seemed that "An Inner Darkness" was historical, and a number of posters here assumed that in their complaints about it. If it's not historical, though, that's OK too.
The complaint of "damned if you do, damned if you don't" is something that some outside people do - but it seems to me that posters here are doing it as well.
i.e. If I were to run a campaign set in the 1920s and have non-historical egalitarianism, then I'd get complaints that I'm being "politically correct".
But if I were to run a campaign set in the 1920s that has historical racism, then I'd get complaints that it's "misery tourism".
And I'm sure that if I were to run a campaign set in the 1920s that had non-historical cartoonish racism, then I'd also get complaints.
Quote from: tenbones;1086914What I find missing from this obvious discussion about minorities in Jolly Olde Englande-type settings is that no one is talking about the in-game SOCIAL CONSEQUENCES of playing an outsider in such homogeneous societies.
Sure you can play a Moor in Wales circa 900AD... and despite those caveats of the culture, the GM should prepare that player for the social ramifications of playing such a character in that location at that time. And it might not be pretty. If the player understands that... and the GM is willing, go for it.
I say the same things about people wanting to play snowflake races in any of my games.
+100 this.
I've never seen - and there's Youtubers and podcaster who run CoC religiously - a Keeper address the very real & horrific aspects of being non-white AND/OR female during the 20's.
And it would be an excellent add to a game that has deep psychological horror at its base. Sure, cultists are trying to summon Cthulhu to bring about THE END, but, I got the Klan running through my yard killing my livestock and burning crosses on my yard. Or, my character's abusive, controlling husband gives her very little room to "breathe".
The horror is multidimensional, when a group is willing to invite that level of verisimilitude. The cultural environ flavors PC decisions in regard to dealing with other people involved in countering the global threat.
At the other end, many players and Keepers are probably terrified to engage how the 20's "really was" - at least the sexist, racist aspects - for fear of alienating certain players.
This is why Delta Green is my soft go-to for horror gaming: it's hard to run Call of Cthulhu accurately without it being "Call of Cthulhu + Mississippi Burning (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m__OWI-NuW8&list=PLY8AZh_v_Soi1zFzpr7ojtmRta6zGCjq7&index=3)".
Quote from: Theory of Games;1087187Or, my character's abusive, controlling husband gives her very little room to "breathe".
To the extent this was ever a societal issue (as opposed to some bad individual) in the USA, it was a feature of the 1950s not the 1920s. The 1950s saw a great increase in mobility as men moved across the country for work, taking their wives with them. At the same time, increasing wealth + a backlash against the 1940s + middle class values saw these women out of the labour market. The result was social isolation as the wife was expected to stay home all day, getting ready for their husband's return, with often no developed social circle. And labour saving devices had replaced servants for the middle class. A Golden Age for married men, but not so great for married women.
Edit: As for Mississippi Burning, unless you have black PCs in 1920s Mississippi or similar, I don't know why this would come up.
Walter Mosley, writer of "Devil in a Blue Dress" (starring Denzel Washington) and Easy Rawlins character fame, writes Raymond Chandler-esque mysteries. Those cold easily port over into CoC 1920s or 1950s with the complexity of period race relations, yet enough minority enclaves to let PCs breathe and investigate. :)
Quote from: Opaopajr;1087289Walter Mosley, writer of "Devil in a Blue Dress" (starring Denzel Washington) and Easy Rawlins character fame, writes Raymond Chandler-esque mysteries. Those cold easily port over into CoC 1920s or 1950s with the complexity of period race relations, yet enough minority enclaves to let PCs breathe and investigate. :)
I second that recommendation. I'd play in such a campaign, although I am not a horror fan.
Quote from: ArrozConLeche;1086761D&D is a setting with fire breathing sentient dragons, elves, magic, orcs, oozing jellies, half-spider/half-elf beings, ect, etc. What's so implausible about a magical sentient dick? It's your job as a GM to accommodate the players and work with them.
So... you have watched "The Marquis" havent you? :eek:
I think its more a factor of the setting and what the setting will and wont allow, and what the DM will and wont allow.
example: when I did the RPG for a comic there were some specific guidelines to follow on what was allowed and what was not. Simply because that was how the setting worked. I could though suggest a few alternatives and possible workarounds. Had I done Wyman's Xanadu setting instead there would have been very different setting rules. Certain species just do not have hands. That is part of the setting and there were no workarounds to that. In other areas it was more flexible.
Or in Dragon Storm we had a player want to play a character that was not a shapechanger. That was not part of the system but Mark and Susan did create a new flaw where the PC believed they were not a shapechanger so much that they could never volontarily assume their true form unless they RPed and bought off that flaw. This made the player happy and introduced a new character element into the game.
D&D itself has alot of flex right out the gate in the older versions. It was up to the individual DMs to decide what they wanted in their campaigns or not. All the way up to clipping everything supernatural and playing something like Robin Hood or historical campaigns. And if a DM is running a non-magic historical campaign and a player wants to play a class or race that isnt allowed or doesnt fit then the DM is perfectly within their rights to say "No" if there are no viable workarounds.
Quote from: WillInNewHaven;1087302I second that recommendation. I'd play in such a campaign, although I am not a horror fan.
That is one of CoC's strengths. You can easily play it without the supernatural elements. In fact alot of campaigns start out that way. Wayyyy back there was a magazine module for CoC where it looked like something supernatural was going on. But in reality it was just a very clever murderer.
Quote from: Omega;1087339That is one of CoC's strengths. You can easily play it without the supernatural elements. In fact alot of campaigns start out that way. Wayyyy back there was a magazine module for CoC where it looked like something supernatural was going on. But in reality it was just a very clever murderer.
Excellent idea. I ran a search for Bigfoot campaign once where Bigfoot was a fraud.
Quote from: S'mon;1087227To the extent this was ever a societal issue (as opposed to some bad individual) in the USA, it was a feature of the 1950s not the 1920s. The 1950s saw a great increase in mobility as men moved across the country for work, taking their wives with them. At the same time, increasing wealth + a backlash against the 1940s + middle class values saw these women out of the labour market. The result was social isolation as the wife was expected to stay home all day, getting ready for their husband's return, with often no developed social circle. And labour saving devices had replaced servants for the middle class. A Golden Age for married men, but not so great for married women.
Edit: As for Mississippi Burning, unless you have black PCs in 1920s Mississippi or similar, I don't know why this would come up.
Whoa. So white males never oppressed their women? C'mon.
You are NOT being honest, at least historically.
It's you saying "Them N-s beat they wives. They can't be civil like us white folk."
Do Not play that card.
Quote from: Theory of Games;1087521Whoa. So white males never oppressed their women? C'mon.
You are NOT being honest, at least historically.
It's you saying "Them N-s beat they wives. They can't be civil like us white folk."
Do Not play that card.
What the fuck are you on about?!?
Edit: are you mixing up my edit comment about racism with the main post about sexism? I was responding re two separate issues.
Quote from: Theory of Games;1087187it's hard to run Call of Cthulhu accurately without it being "Call of Cthulhu + Mississippi Burning (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m__OWI-NuW8&list=PLY8AZh_v_Soi1zFzpr7ojtmRta6zGCjq7&index=3)".
Actually, it's really easy to run CoC without any racism, sexism or other modern handwringing or meaningless self-flagellation.
I've been running CoC since 1e without any of these concerns at my table, regardless of my players.
And "accurately" is laughable. Most people can't remember the 1990s accurately. Now we're to expect GMs to be "accurate" about the 1920? LOL. Nope. The end result will be weird racist fantasies or virtue signalling misery tourism and very few actual CoC players want that nonsense at their table.
But Delta Green does kick ass.
In my Hyperborea there is considerable amount of sexism. Especially towards women outside privilegged positions. I couldn't immerse fully without it, the world wouldn't feel real without forms of prejudice, fear and intolerance. I privately asked the ladies in our group if they are bothered by it and they said no. Thing is, the ladies know me personally so they know I'm just portraying the world, not expressing my own views towards them. At a convention or in any other circumstances I'm playing with strangers I'd probably be more reluctant with such features. I don't know however if it'd be because of self-censorship or because of politeness :D
I think I wouldn't describe rape, I have my limits, but a brutal, pagan-like world needs to have such features. And I believe it's more cool to be one of the good guys in such world than in a world that is inclusive and shiny and everything that is evil resides in the depths of the dungeons with its tentacles and stuff, waiting to be slaughtered.
Quote from: Theory of Games;1087187At the other end, many players and Keepers are probably terrified to engage how the 20's "really was" - at least the sexist, racist aspects - for fear of alienating certain players.
While bad things certainly happened and laws either were obstructive or conducive (far worse in some areas that others, and broader in scale in some areas than others), 'the 20s' wasn't a land or game setting, but a snapshot in time in a very diverse nation that was mostly 'country'. Depending where you were, if you were a minority or a woman you _could_ run into a difficult situation. But you were not guaranteed that will happen merely by stepping out your front door anywhere in America.
It would be an issue of enclaves and "safe vs. danger" zones, which surprisingly plays well toward the Dungeon "Level as Lethality" metric (similar to "Closeness to Civilization" Wilderness travel metric). Which actually would be rather interesting to map for CoC cities in the past, if the players are ready to explore such layered horror. It gives greater pathos to CoC investigators' heroics, contextualizing how Mythos horror exploits, feeds off of, exceeds and eventually pales all other human evils by the end. ;)
But again, not all tables could do it. :)
Quote from: Lynn;1087802While bad things certainly happened and laws either were obstructive or conducive (far worse in some areas that others, and broader in scale in some areas than others), 'the 20s' wasn't a land or game setting, but a snapshot in time in a very diverse nation that was mostly 'country'. Depending where you were, if you were a minority or a woman you _could_ run into a difficult situation. But you were not guaranteed that will happen merely by stepping out your front door anywhere in America.
If you were a respectable class of woman (which given the PC roles in CoC, is likely) you wouldn't have a particularly tough time of it in the 20s. The lower-class bumpkins and labourers, police, etc. would actually be quite deferential to you. It wouldn't be the waking nightmare it's portrayed as in modern entertainment, where every police officer or guy slinging coffee at a diner makes sneering sexist remarks out of the blue. The social pressure for a woman to conform to her expected role would largely come from family, and if you ignore family (as most players do), your female journalist/historian/archaeologist could pretty much carry on doing her thing. Women made up 40 per cent of college students in the 1920s, so it's not as though a woman in those fields would be unheard of. I could actually see a female character having some advantages in CoC:
Respectable female PC: "Officer, those men down at the old sawmill made appalling remarks to me when I inquired about the provinence of the property. I won't repeat what they said, but it was shocking."
Cop: "Did they, now? We'll get right over there m'am and straighten those boys out."
Come to think of it, historical class barriers and attitudes might be more alien to modern players than racism or sexism. The notion that the educated were almost all the children (and grandchildren) of the affluent, and lived in a completely different social world from the average person on the street, were treated differently by police, the press, courts, etc.
But of course one of the aims of progressive identity politics is to shunt aside considerations of class, for just that reason - it thwarts their narrative to recognize that affluent women have always had higher social status than working-class men.
Quote from: Haffrung;1087824I
Come to think of it, class barriers and attitudes might be more alien to modern players. The notion that the educated were almost all the children (and grandchildren) of the affluent, and lived in a completely different social world from the average person on the street, were treated differently by police, the press, courts, etc.
I find it hard to imagine that it would appear alien to most Americans.
Most College Students pursuit of a degree is correlated to their parents education attainment (https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2018/02/08/students-postsecondary-education-arcs-affected-parents-college-backgrounds-study).
Quote from: deadDMwalking;1087827I find it hard to imagine that it would appear alien to most Americans.
Most College Students pursuit of a degree is correlated to their parents education attainment (https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2018/02/08/students-postsecondary-education-arcs-affected-parents-college-backgrounds-study).
It's a difference in degree. A pretty dramatic difference. A world where 10 per cent of people pursue higher education and they're almost all the children of the wealthiest 10 per cent is is different from a world where 60 per cent of people pursue higher education and they're mostly the children of the wealthiest 60 per cent.
Quote from: Opaopajr;1087818It would be an issue of enclaves and "safe vs. danger" zones, which surprisingly plays well toward the Dungeon "Level as Lethality" metric (similar to "Closeness to Civilization" Wilderness travel metric). Which actually would be rather interesting to map for CoC cities in the past, if the players are ready to explore such layered horror. It gives greater pathos to CoC investigators' heroics, contextualizing how Mythos horror exploits, feeds off of, exceeds and eventually pales all other human evils by the end. ;) But again, not all tables could do it. :)
That actually sounds like an interesting rules supplement. Maybe you should run with it?
Quote from: Haffrung;1087824If you were a respectable class of woman (which given the PC roles in CoC, is likely) you wouldn't have a particularly tough time of it in the 20s. The lower-class bumpkins and labourers, police, etc. would actually be quite deferential to you. It wouldn't be the waking nightmare it's portrayed as in modern entertainment, where every police officer or guy slinging coffee at a diner makes sneering sexist remarks out of the blue. The social pressure for a woman to conform to her expected role would largely come from family, and if you ignore family (as most players do), your female journalist/historian/archaeologist could pretty much carry on doing her thing. Women made up 40 per cent of college students in the 1920s, so it's not as though a woman in those fields would be unheard of. I could actually see a female character having some advantages in CoC.
I think so as well, and it wouldn't just be the wealthy that make up that class.
Consider for example, Sonia Greene, the woman that HPL actually married. She worked as a milliner (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonia_Greene) and made enough money to support them. She did try to make it on her own and start her own business, which was a disaster. But she was a respectable older Ukrainian Jew (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonia_Greene) in America at this time.
Quote from: Lynn;1087802While bad things certainly happened and laws either were obstructive or conducive (far worse in some areas that others, and broader in scale in some areas than others), 'the 20s' wasn't a land or game setting, but a snapshot in time in a very diverse nation that was mostly 'country'. Depending where you were, if you were a minority or a woman you _could_ run into a difficult situation. But you were not guaranteed that will happen merely by stepping out your front door anywhere in America.
Exactly. And let us not forget that women held alot of social power and were oft the real motivator for keeping women where they were. Right where they wanted to be. Also in that era it was not so much there was racism but a pervasive sort of divisionism, sometimes enforced by the minorities themselves for whatever reasons.
And this is the other thing that gets overlooked ALOT. There were really two opposing factions at the time. One wanting to enforce divisions and one wanting to encourage integration and acclimation. There were many a place that did not care where you were from as long as you fit in. Learn the language, learn the local customs. What these folk did not like were those who did not want to join in. Otherwise they treated foreigners willing to be "american" as anyone else.
Quote from: Omega;1087967Otherwise they treated foreigners willing to be "american" as anyone else.
This omits so much historical evidence as to be at the very least extremely misleading but more likely outright false.
Perhaps it would be fair to say that
depending on where you were from, fitting in
was not possible. Maybe in a generation or two if your skin was the right color, but no matter how much you
personally loved America and the American dream, not everyone was willing to accept your right to be here.
This is true if you were Irish or if you were black or if you were Indian. Or Chinese.
I don't think it makes sense that you can demand that every immigrant accept American culture as it is
in this moment and completely forget their culture - American culture
requires the blending of different cultures - that's what American Culture
is.
Quote from: Omega;1087967And this is the other thing that gets overlooked ALOT. There were really two opposing factions at the time. One wanting to enforce divisions and one wanting to encourage integration and acclimation. There were many a place that did not care where you were from as long as you fit in. Learn the language, learn the local customs. What these folk did not like were those who did not want to join in. Otherwise they treated foreigners willing to be "american" as anyone else.
This is very generic and even given generalities seems inaccurate. Notably, black people who learn the language and local customs still aren't treated the same as everyone else.
The 1920s was the time of the second resurgence of the Klu Klux Klan. The new Klan had a much wider demographic rather than being concentrated in the South, and targeted both blacks and immigrants (especially Catholic and Jewish immigrants). It had a peak of over a million members, and had thousands of members march in Washington. The KKK per se were still a minority, but plenty of the racial attitudes were very broad. Segregation was common throughout the country. KKK members and sympathizers won't necessarily treat you better if you blend in and are successful. They could be quite hostile to successful Jews, for example, despite speaking perfect English and learning local customs.
Among those opposed to the KKK, treatment could be much better - but could still be very patronizing. I'm a fan of the 1920s Charlie Chan books, and they were quite progressive for the time, but they could still seem quite patronizing - and did not reflect a lot of the reality. The Chinese Exclusion Act was still in force until the 1940s, for example.
Quote from: deadDMwalking;1088025This omits so much historical evidence as to be at the very least extremely misleading but more likely outright false.
Perhaps it would be fair to say that depending on where you were from, fitting in was not possible. Maybe in a generation or two if your skin was the right color, but no matter how much you personally loved America and the American dream, not everyone was willing to accept your right to be here.
This is true if you were Irish or if you were black or if you were Indian. Or Chinese.
I don't think it makes sense that you can demand that every immigrant accept American culture as it is in this moment and completely forget their culture - American culture requires the blending of different cultures - that's what American Culture is.
Only by taking the quote out of context. If you go back and read the context, you'll see that Omega was talking about a subset of people. I have observed the behavior he describes in action many times.
There is one qualification to that: There are also people for whom "Not From Around Here" is the operating principle of dislike. There are places not 50 miles from where I'm typing this that have that dynamic. If I went there, I look like the locals, I talk like the locals, and I have a great deal of understanding of their attitudes. All that would get me compared to someone with different skin or different dress is a little more time before they realized that, you are "Not From Around Here." Boom! I'd be in the same bucket as all those with more exotic appearance or speech.
And of course any given place is going to have a collective sort of default attitude about who is in or out, and the people without any strong opinions on the subject one way or the other are going to go with that attitude. Thus you get places with characteristic prejudices. But even with such dynamics, there are still fault lines. To this day, the most discriminatory thing I ever saw was directed by a mix of White/Black students against Malaysian students, and it was very much cultural in nature (or at least cultural on the surface, but overtly driven by resentment).
This is why "cultural appropriation" is not measurable and is a meaningless concept, in games or otherwise. (I mean, it's an inherently divisive and stupid idea for other reasons, but even at the raw logic level, it does not parse.) I've got characters in a game. They exist in a setting. They are people, with all the range of good and bad traits that indicates. Then they group many different ways, and those groups overlap in other many different ways. Default attitudes form around groups but are fluid and subject to change over surprising fault lines. Isolated groups don't like strangers because they are strangers. They don't need another reason. In real life, culture is organic, and too complicated to get right in a game (or a novel or whatnot) without some rounding off of corners.
Quote from: jhkim;1088034This is very generic and even given generalities seems inaccurate. Notably, black people who learn the language and local customs still aren't treated the same as everyone else.
Yes, Black people were the extreme exception, but they also got it
from everyone.
This is a topic which I discussed at length with my (late) father, who grew up in the 1920s-30s in Portland. There was a Chinatown at that time, but the Asian population of Portland tended to live wherever it could afford. His blue collar neighborhood was predominantly White, but within a few blocks were plenty of Asian families and he had both Chinese and Japanese American friends. Of places that had racist restrictions on property deeds, that seemed to get applied to Blacks but not much to everyone else, so they lived in only a few parts of town.
I guess my point here is this - well dressed Chinese, (obviously) Jewish or Native American investigators may draw eyes and maybe some mixed responses, but in many places could operate rather freely. Black American investigators would have a far more difficult time including entering a Synagogue, Chinatown or an Indian Reservation.
Quote from: Lynn;1088055Yes, Black people were the extreme exception, but they also got it from everyone.
This is a topic which I discussed at length with my (late) father, who grew up in the 1920s-30s in Portland. There was a Chinatown at that time, but the Asian population of Portland tended to live wherever it could afford. His blue collar neighborhood was predominantly White, but within a few blocks were plenty of Asian families and he had both Chinese and Japanese American friends. Of places that had racist restrictions on property deeds, that seemed to get applied to Blacks but not much to everyone else, so they lived in only a few parts of town.
I guess my point here is this - well dressed Chinese, (obviously) Jewish or Native American investigators may draw eyes and maybe some mixed responses, but in many places could operate rather freely. Black American investigators would have a far more difficult time including entering a Synagogue, Chinatown or an Indian Reservation.
That sounds reasonable. I know that San Francisco did have greater racist restrictions on property deeds applied to Chinese, who were intentionally kept to Chinatown more than it sounds like Portland was. In general, discrimination seems roughly inverse to how common the minority is - though with many exceptions. So near an Indian Reservation is most likely where an Indian character would get the most discrimination, while a well-dressed Indian in a big city might just be treated as odd. Likewise, it would be worst for blacks in the South, and probably worst for Chinese in San Francisco or Los Angeles.
Quote from: deadDMwalking;1088025This omits so much historical evidence as to be at the very least extremely misleading but more likely outright false.
For fucks sake I did not say this was so EVERYWHERE. Kats and my own great grandparents both lived this sort of thing and others I've talked to had relatives who did as well.
I don't think you've made a compelling argument that it was so anywhere.
Do you want to pick a place that didn't have racial/ethnic/religious divisions that sometimes erupted into violence? I think if you could find one that went a decade without a lynching, church burning, or property crime that appeared to be motivated by hate, I'd find it at least PLAUSIBLE, despite my own knowledge of history being pretty clear that hate and oppression are pretty universal.
I'm reminded of a line from Kurt Vonnegut's 'Breakfast of Champions' about Sundown Towns (https://sundown.tougaloo.edu/content.php?file=sundowntowns-mention.html).
If you can find one, I'd bet dollars to donuts it's because it was EXTREMELY exclusionary. Hard to have hate crimes when the people you hate aren't allowed to live next door.
Quote from: Lynn;1088055Yes, Black people were the extreme exception, but they also got it from everyone.
This is a topic which I discussed at length with my (late) father, who grew up in the 1920s-30s in Portland. There was a Chinatown at that time, but the Asian population of Portland tended to live wherever it could afford. His blue collar neighborhood was predominantly White, but within a few blocks were plenty of Asian families and he had both Chinese and Japanese American friends. Of places that had racist restrictions on property deeds, that seemed to get applied to Blacks but not much to everyone else, so they lived in only a few parts of town.
I guess my point here is this - well dressed Chinese, (obviously) Jewish or Native American investigators may draw eyes and maybe some mixed responses, but in many places could operate rather freely. Black American investigators would have a far more difficult time including entering a Synagogue, Chinatown or an Indian Reservation.
Yes. I think the most important thing to understand about the past of the USA was that the black experience was different from everyone else, different from other minority groups, and different from the rest of the world. That this racism was a specific and unusual US institution, and that it only applied to one race.
Quote from: S'mon;1088118Yes. I think the most important thing to understand about the past of the USA was that the black experience was different from everyone else, different from other minority groups, and different from the rest of the world. That this racism was a specific and unusual US institution, and that it only applied to one race.
In a recent public TV documentary, several people with Black and Native American ancestors in New Orleans said that their ancestors, including pureblood Native Americans, identified as Black when they got to the city (in the period 1880-1930) because Native Americans were treated worse and there was no large Native American community to act as a support group.
Quote from: WillInNewHaven;1088204In a recent public TV documentary, several people with Black and Native American ancestors in New Orleans said that their ancestors, including pureblood Native Americans, identified as Black when they got to the city (in the period 1880-1930) because Native Americans were treated worse and there was no large Native American community to act as a support group.
OK, I will make an exception for New Orleans. :) And Hawaii, for that matter.
Quote from: S'mon;1088223OK, I will make an exception for New Orleans. :) And Hawaii, for that matter.
Native Americans were feared and hated throughout the south and attacks on reservations in the Carolinas, repulsed by armed Native Americans, occurred when I was old enough to read about them.
Let's make sure to keep this on the RPG topic, please.
Quote from: RPGPundit;1089507Let's make sure to keep this on the RPG topic, please.
In a wild west campaign, setting somewhat like Lonesome Dove, modified Glory Road rules, I ran in the 1990s one player chose to play a Pawnee scout. The other player-characters, including one Black character played by a Black player, were kind of rough on him verbally and he was really burned up about it. He urged me to have NPCs mistreat the Black character, in the name of realism and because he was so annoyed. I told him that most NPCs weren't likely to get too salty with the Black character or with him because they and their companions were really bad dudes.
Eventually, they all died in the Staked Plains. Glory Road is a deadly system without magical healing and with Comanche.
Well, from what I've seen of the historical record, black folks were treated less poorly than Indians in much of the west for much of the period. Which is not to say that they did not encounter racism on a frequent basis, of course.
Quote from: RPGPundit;1089852Well, from what I've seen of the historical record, black folks were treated less poorly than Indians in much of the west for much of the period. Which is not to say that they did not encounter racism on a frequent basis, of course.
The level of ignorance in America about the treatment of the Indians by the British is pretty enormous. That said, my Indian friends who fully admit to not being big fans of the Brits of that era (and in general from my own perspective of their clear biases) - they maintain that the framework of the British colonial laws that India adopted post-British rule, have been the scaffolding upon which has allowed India to rise (admittedly with a long way to go). Naturally this has all come at a price to their own culture.
I think that's a subtle gaming nuance that could be delved into - a culture that has hybridized its own distinct culture with another, with implicit game-impacting results for the PC's to engage in. I think that's the real issue that gets dodged with using analog cultures. They plop them down in-coherently rather than assuming some levels of assimilation on various levels has actually occurred and start the game-setting from that point forward.
Edit: Of course the Usual Idiots(tm) will still call it racism-via-cultural appropriation. But you know... reality.
Quote from: tenbones;1089890The level of ignorance in America about the treatment of the Indians by the British is pretty enormous. That said, my Indian friends who fully admit to not being big fans of the Brits of that era (and in general from my own perspective of their clear biases) - they maintain that the framework of the British colonial laws that India adopted post-British rule, have been the scaffolding upon which has allowed India to rise (admittedly with a long way to go). Naturally this has all come at a price to their own culture.
I think that's a subtle gaming nuance that could be delved into - a culture that has hybridized its own distinct culture with another, with implicit game-impacting results for the PC's to engage in. I think that's the real issue that gets dodged with using analog cultures. They plop them down in-coherently rather than assuming some levels of assimilation on various levels has actually occurred and start the game-setting from that point forward.
Edit: Of course the Usual Idiots(tm) will still call it racism-via-cultural appropriation. But you know... reality.
Half-elves are an awesome vehicle for exploring this. Half-orcs, perhaps, but doing it via half-elves hits harder.
Quote from: RandyB;1089891Half-elves are an awesome vehicle for exploring this. Half-orcs, perhaps, but doing it via half-elves hits harder.
Kiiiinda not really. Depends.
1) You have to establish what Elven culture *is* in your setting.
2) You have to establish the conceits of your human culture that the half-elf parentage comes from.
#2 - is already part of the equation regardless of being half actual elf.
UNLESS you're saying that the Elves came first, established their culture over the human one and now they're dead in which case human/elf culture hybrid is now the dominate thing. That might be interesting
Though the Realms delved into that idea with the nation of Dambrath.
I'm talking something like "What if the Egyptians took over Rome and southern Europe for a thousand years... then the Romans won their independence but after centuries of mixing cultures - what does it look like? Mechanically - including fantasy elements like magical systems from the Egypt/Rome analogs might create? etc.
Quote from: tenbones;1089890The level of ignorance in America about the treatment of the Indians by the British is pretty enormous. That said, my Indian friends who fully admit to not being big fans of the Brits of that era (and in general from my own perspective of their clear biases) - they maintain that the framework of the British colonial laws that India adopted post-British rule, have been the scaffolding upon which has allowed India to rise (admittedly with a long way to go). Naturally this has all come at a price to their own culture.
I think that's a subtle gaming nuance that could be delved into - a culture that has hybridized its own distinct culture with another, with implicit game-impacting results for the PC's to engage in. I think that's the real issue that gets dodged with using analog cultures. They plop them down in-coherently rather than assuming some levels of assimilation on various levels has actually occurred and start the game-setting from that point forward.
Edit: Of course the Usual Idiots(tm) will still call it racism-via-cultural appropriation. But you know... reality.
I was actually talking about the treatment of American Indians vs black people in the American "wild west".
Seen on RPGGeek:
Link: https://rpggeek.com/geeklist/250272/item/6968534?commentid=8833105#comment8833105
QuoteIt's also unclear if he IS Native American. I would be very hesitant to buy any game about "Native" culture by a non-Native designer(...)
(https://media1.tenor.com/images/43a43a95b9b549396c214f565b4ee30c/tenor.gif?itemid=4427269)
Quote from: RPGPundit;1091417I was actually talking about the treatment of American Indians vs black people in the American "wild west".
OMG! Those are *FIRST NATIONS NATIVE ABORIGINAL PROTO-AMERICANS* Pundit! Dude... talk about cultural appropriation!
Yeah I know, I was just talking speaking from the perspective of Americans>American Indians to British>India-Indians. It's interesting how both cultures reacted to colonization. When clearly there are benefits to be gained if one merely applied themselves to the task at hand, and that being the basis for a gaming concept.
Quote from: tenbones;1091470OMG! Those are *FIRST NATIONS NATIVE ABORIGINAL PROTO-AMERICANS* Pundit! Dude... talk about cultural appropriation!
Yeah I know, I was just talking speaking from the perspective of Americans>American Indians to British>India-Indians. It's interesting how both cultures reacted to colonization. When clearly there are benefits to be gained if one merely applied themselves to the task at hand, and that being the basis for a gaming concept.
Yeah, and no-one but Welsh people should be allowed to write for Pendragon because the characters are the proto-welsh Cymric people.
Quote from: 3rik;1091465Seen on RPGGeek:
Link: https://rpggeek.com/geeklist/250272/item/6968534?commentid=8833105#comment8833105
(https://media1.tenor.com/images/43a43a95b9b549396c214f565b4ee30c/tenor.gif?itemid=4427269)
Quote from: tenbones;1091470OMG! Those are *FIRST NATIONS NATIVE ABORIGINAL PROTO-AMERICANS* Pundit! Dude... talk about cultural appropriation!
Yeah I know, I was just talking speaking from the perspective of Americans>American Indians to British>India-Indians. It's interesting how both cultures reacted to colonization. When clearly there are benefits to be gained if one merely applied themselves to the task at hand, and that being the basis for a gaming concept.
Quote from: Altheus;1091720Yeah, and no-one but Welsh people should be allowed to write for Pendragon because the characters are the proto-welsh Cymric people.
I believe the basis for cultural appropriation has to do with the fact that the existence of white and non-white identities are based entirely on whether one's ancestors and/or country were subject to the horrors of colonization. Plus the needless exoticization and fetishization of foreign cultures that were victimized by colonialism for the purposes of entertaining a white audience.
It would probably be prudent to provide a concrete example.
In the tv show
Charmed, the main characters are white and routinely deal with monsters taken from non-white (i.e. formerly colonized) cultures. These are always monster of the week plots and any non-white characters (if they appear at all) are reduced to innocents for the heroines to save, even if the non-white character is themselves magical.
The recent reboot tries to mitigate this by casting the heroines as non-white and featuring recurring Haitian-American characters. The feminist caricature is obnoxious and offensive (they get less so over the first season, thank God), but the African diaspora subplots are really interesting and I'm annoyed that they're so subdued. These elements are seemingly written in a way that assumes the viewer is African-American and therefore can appreciate the context, but absolutely no attempt is made to educate viewers of other cultures as to why this is important.
It's almost as if... yep, showrunner Carter Covington is a white guy (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carter_Covington). Sure he's gay, but that doesn't magically give him insight into the struggles faced by people of color.
The season 2 showrunners are husband-wife team Elizabeth Kruger and Craig Shapiro. Because clearly they have better insight into what it's like to be women of color in America. I'm being sarcastic, by the way.
If you want to know what I think, then this article in which a leftist criticizes "awokening" (https://www.wired.com/story/tv-reboots-are-having-a-great-awokening-it-sucks/) sums up my thoughts nicely. Please try not to let your heads explode at the sheer impossibility that leftists might also repeat the mantra "get woke, go broke."
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1091732I believe the basis for cultural appropriation has to do with the fact that the existence of white and non-white identities are based entirely on whether one's ancestors and/or country were subject to the horrors of colonization. Plus the needless exoticization and fetishization of foreign cultures that were victimized by colonialism for the purposes of entertaining a white audience.
It would probably be prudent to provide a concrete example.
In the tv show Charmed, the main characters are white and routinely deal with monsters taken from non-white (i.e. formerly colonized) cultures. These are always monster of the week plots and any non-white characters (if they appear at all) are reduced to innocents for the heroines to save, even if the non-white character is themselves magical.
The recent reboot tries to mitigate this by casting the heroines as non-white and featuring recurring Haitian-American characters. The feminist caricature is obnoxious and offensive (they get less so over the first season, thank God), but the African diaspora subplots are really interesting and I'm annoyed that they're so subdued. These elements are seemingly written in a way that assumes the viewer is African-American and therefore can appreciate the context, but absolutely no attempt is made to educate viewers of other cultures as to why this is important.
It's almost as if... yep, showrunner Carter Covington is a white guy (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carter_Covington). Sure he's gay, but that doesn't magically give him insight into the struggles faced by people of color.
The season 2 showrunners are husband-wife team Elizabeth Kruger and Craig Shapiro. Because clearly they have better insight into what it's like to be women of color in America. I'm being sarcastic, by the way.
If you want to know what I think, then this article in which a leftist criticizes "awokening" (https://www.wired.com/story/tv-reboots-are-having-a-great-awokening-it-sucks/) sums up my thoughts nicely. Please try not to let your heads explode at the sheer impossibility that leftists might also repeat the mantra "get woke, go broke."
As a Maya (People of Color = Coloured People, ergo racist) Cultural Appropriation is BS. It's nothing more than the white man's burden and a desire to maintain white culture apart from other cultures, in short cultural segregation. Disguised as god intentions by the racist fucktards that invented the term.
I hereby declare you all honorary mexicans, now go forth and culturally appropriate to your hearts content.
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1091732I believe the basis for cultural appropriation has to do with the fact that the existence of white and non-white identities are based entirely on whether one's ancestors and/or country were subject to the horrors of colonization. Plus the needless exoticization and fetishization of foreign cultures that were victimized by colonialism for the purposes of entertaining a white audience.
This is a fantastically silly idea (I'm not accusing you, Box of originating this obviously). Because you know where cultures have TV/Movie programming that portray's their antagonists as "other races" and their protagonists as their majority ethnic population?
Everywhere that has a TV and Movie industry.
Only in the West where white-guilt has set in is this an actual problem. Most countries consume western cinema where their own people are seen as villains - and they do not give a shit.
Quote from: GeekyBugle;1091739As a Maya (People of Color = Coloured People, ergo racist) Cultural Appropriation is BS. It's nothing more than the white man's burden and a desire to maintain white culture apart from other cultures, in short cultural segregation. Disguised as god intentions by the racist fucktards that invented the term.
I hereby declare you all honorary mexicans, now go forth and culturally appropriate to your hearts content.
Did the Maztican's appropriate the Eggroll? Or did Kozakuran's appropriate the Burrito? It's a mystery.
Quote from: tenbones;1091741Did the Maztican's appropriate the Eggroll? Or did Kozakuran's appropriate the Burrito? It's a mystery.
The burrito is a recent invention, a variation on the much older Taco, I don't much care who invented it first, since I'm not a cultural marxist. And I'm happy to appropriate the cuisine from anybody and to put red hot peppers in it.
Quote from: GeekyBugle;1091745The burrito is a recent invention, a variation on the much older Taco, I don't much care who invented it first, since I'm not a cultural marxist. And I'm happy to appropriate the cuisine from anybody and to put red hot peppers in it.
Well General Tso wasn't much of a general either. There I said it.
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1091732I believe the basis for cultural appropriation has to do with the fact that the existence of white and non-white identities are based entirely on whether one's ancestors and/or country were subject to the horrors of colonization. Plus the needless exoticization and fetishization of foreign cultures that were victimized by colonialism for the purposes of entertaining a white audience.
If that were true, nobody would bat an eye at caucasian Americans trying on Japanese clothes. Japan was not colonized by Europeans, in fact it was a colonizing power itself and took over Korea, parts of China, former German colonies in the Pacific etc. Japan is also a super-prosperous nation today, with one of the world's largest economies, lots of leading multinational companies (Toyota, Honda, Mitsubishi, Sony, Canon etc) a generally prosperous population and enormous amounts of cultural exports (seen a samurai movie? A Studio Ghibli film? Played a Nintendo game?). There is no way that Japan can be considered a poor put upon nation, or its people victimized by colonization. And yet, dare to exhibit Kimono's and encourage people to try them on and guess what happens (https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-trending-33450391)? It's all about surface judgments about ethnicity and an insane and completely inaccurate idea of how cultures work and interact with each other.
Quote from: Blankman;1091755If that were true, nobody would bat an eye at caucasian Americans trying on Japanese clothes. Japan was not colonized by Europeans, in fact it was a colonizing power itself and took over Korea, parts of China, former German colonies in the Pacific etc. Japan is also a super-prosperous nation today, with one of the world's largest economies, lots of leading multinational companies (Toyota, Honda, Mitsubishi, Sony, Canon etc) a generally prosperous population and enormous amounts of cultural exports (seen a samurai movie? A Studio Ghibli film? Played a Nintendo game?). There is no way that Japan can be considered a poor put upon nation, or its people victimized by colonization. And yet, dare to exhibit Kimono's and encourage people to try them on and guess what happens (https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-trending-33450391)? It's all about surface judgments about ethnicity and an insane and completely inaccurate idea of how cultures work and interact with each other.
It's also rooted on the belief (shared by the Alt-Right and SJWs) that Culture=Race/Ethnicity.
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1091732I believe the basis for cultural appropriation has to do with the fact that the existence of white and non-white identities are based entirely on whether one's ancestors and/or country were subject to the horrors of colonization.
You mean as when the Umayyad Caliphate conquered Hispania during the best part of the 8th century AD ?
So according to your understanding of the SJW doctrine of Whiteness*, the Muslims
conquerors (and so
colonialists) of Al-Andalus were Whites and the initial inhabitants of the Iberian Peninsula, the Wisigoths, were Non-Whites ? Yeah, it sounds just like an SJW theory to me (that's sarcasm).
* shitty half-baked inane concepts sound better with capitalization.
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1091732Plus the needless exoticization and fetishization of foreign cultures that were victimized by colonialism for the purposes of entertaining a white audience.
I like to learn things - manners, habits, modes of thoughts, styles of clothing... the list is endless, really - from other cultures than mine. I enjoy their otherness, their strangeness. Is that exoticism ?
I'd like to make love to a Japanese woman or an Indian woman (at the same time ? Bonus :-) !), but since I'm happily married, it will remain a fond fantasy. Is that fetishization ?
You sound like a nice guy, BoxCrayonTales. You should just relax, bury your SJW universities' books in your backyard, and enjoy life ! And maybe have a little poontang with a beautiful and spicy-smelling African woman (if you're into that) ?
Just let go of all that SJW load of bother, my brother ! Live the life of Western magic ! And RPG like mad !
Quote from: Lychee of the Exchequer;1091761You mean as when the Umayyad Caliphate conquered Hispania during the best part of the 8th century AD ?
So according to your understanding of the SJW doctrine of Whiteness*, the Muslims conquerors (and so colonialists) of Al-Andalus were Whites and the initial inhabitants of the Iberian Peninsula, the Wisigoths, were Non-Whites ? Yeah, it sounds just like an SJW theory to me (that's sarcasm).
It's not like the Visigoths were the original inhabitants of Hispania either (nor the sole ones as they were generally more of an upper-class). They took it over from the Roman Iberians. Who were of course descendants of Roman settlers and earlier settlers after Rome took Hispania from the original inhabitants, the Carthaginians. Who were of course not the original inhabitants as they had taken the land from the original inhabitants. Who of course were not the original inhabitants either because ... and so on at least back to Homo Sapiens arriving and taking that peninsula from Neanderthals (depending on how that went on).
Quote from: Blankman;1091765... and so on at least back to Homo Sapiens arriving and taking that peninsula from Neanderthals (depending on how that went on).
Just a guess, given that Europeans have a small percentage of Neanderthal in their DNA is that it went on... rather well. :D
Quote from: Blankman;1091755If that were true, nobody would bat an eye at caucasian Americans trying on Japanese clothes. Japan was not colonized by Europeans, in fact it was a colonizing power itself and took over Korea, parts of China, former German colonies in the Pacific etc. Japan is also a super-prosperous nation today, with one of the world's largest economies, lots of leading multinational companies (Toyota, Honda, Mitsubishi, Sony, Canon etc) a generally prosperous population and enormous amounts of cultural exports (seen a samurai movie? A Studio Ghibli film? Played a Nintendo game?). There is no way that Japan can be considered a poor put upon nation, or its people victimized by colonization. And yet, dare to exhibit Kimono's and encourage people to try them on and guess what happens (https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-trending-33450391)? It's all about surface judgments about ethnicity and an insane and completely inaccurate idea of how cultures work and interact with each other.
It's the marxist "theory" of how you don't own your pencil because you didn't manufacture it from scratch from trees you own and graphite you own because yo can't own the land. But applied to culture, but of course they stop looking back at the moment the evil white demon conquered anybody and never consider prior conquests and empires as either conquerors, colonialists or evil.
So the Mongols didn't rape and pillage across the whole world (the parts they could anyway), and all populations in Asia don't have Mongol ancestry because of all the rape.
So the Crusades were not an attempt to take back from the muslim empire what was taken by force. Neither all the black and white slaves taken by the muslim empire count as slavery because reasons.
Their religion makes zero sense and should be laughed at mercilessly.
Let's try to get back to the more specific topic of RPGs.
One of the RPGs I appreciate the most is the Legend of the Five Rings RPG.
Apart from the cultural appropriation silliness, this RPG should appeal the most to the SJWs' sensibilities (I use the word loosely ;-).
I mean, the world of Rokugan is a one-ethnicity pseudo-China-Japan empire, with the Powers that Be so xenophobic they don't want to have anything to do with the rest of the world, thank you very much ! it is ruled by a rigid etiquette, among the samourais anyway, with infractions often punishable by death (social or otherwise) : just the kind of civil society the SJWs dream for !
And the Big Baddies of the world are literally infected with Evil, so you can - and do - slaughter them mercilessly without feeling like you play some kind of colonial oppressor !
And the icing on the cake ? Apart from a far away land about which Rokugani (the inhabitants of Rokugan) don't give a hoot, there are no White Men in this world !
Come on, you SJWs bastards : give me five or what :-D ! ?
Quote from: Lychee of the Exchequer;1091835I mean, the world of Rokugan is a one-ethnicity pseudo-China-Japan empire, with the Powers that Be so xenophobic they don't want to have anything to do with the rest of the world, thank you very much ! it is ruled by a rigid etiquette, among the samourais anyway, with infractions often punishable by death (social or otherwise) : just the kind of civil society the SJWs dream for !
I never cared for "Oriental World" systems as they invariably do not capture the differences between the cultures and therefore quite shallow. It is like making the only difference between European cultures being funny accents and different mustache configurations.
Quote from: Lynn;1091875I never cared for "Oriental World" systems as they invariably do not capture the differences between the cultures and therefore quite shallow. It is like making the only difference between European cultures being funny accents and different mustache configurations.
Welp, there goes my medieval authentic setting!
More connected to rpgs specifically, when worldbuilding, make use of how cultures differ and how cultural mixing actually happens. Also use how culture can be connected to and not connected to ethnicity. And don't use the modern US racial designations to stand in for ethnicities in your fantasy world. "White" didn't mean anything in ancient Rome. The Romans saw themselves as Roman and Latin. The Samnites were seen as a different people, despite them also being from central Italy. And they had different customs and cultural ideas.
Later, when Julius Caesar fought the Gallic wars and annexed Gaul, this wasn't just the Romans invading everything. They were already allied with several Gallic tribes, helped defend them against German invasions and then kind of refused to leave. And Rome had already controlled two areas of what they considered Gaul for a long time before this. Gallia Cisalpina, today known as Northern Italy, and Gallia Transalpina, basically the Mediterranean coast of France. When Caesar eventually made it back to Rome he filled the Senate up with a lot of Gauls from these two romanised provinces. He also granted everyone in Gallia Cisalpina full Roman citizenship. They were Gauls, but they talked like Romans, dressed like Romans, did pretty much everything like Romans. I don't think a lot of them had been cheering on Vercingetorix just because he was a Gaul.
Quote from: 3rik;1091465Seen on RPGGeek:
Link: https://rpggeek.com/geeklist/250272/item/6968534?commentid=8833105#comment8833105
Some morons have tried to push that over on BGG too. Only someone from that culture can do the art, write the story, design the game.
L5R, like TSR's Oriental Adventures, doesn't try to be culturally accurate. It's an amalgam of tropes and myths put into a blender. Much like D&D. Bushido, on the other hand, tries to be accurate to Japan's myths tied into the samurai era.
But I don't consider Bushido superior to L5R for being more tied into history. At the end of the day, L5R is Katana Fantasy and OA is Chow Mein D&D and being concerned about their accuracy misses the point. AKA, if you don't look to D&D for Europe's history, don't expect Asian fantasy games to be insights into Asia's history.
Quote from: Altheus;1091720Yeah, and no-one but Welsh people should be allowed to write for Pendragon because the characters are the proto-welsh Cymric people.
Or Lord of the Rings. Apparently he based some aspects or got some inspiration for the Hobbits on some welsh communities. Considering how short some of my welsh relatives are... can totally believe it.
And again we come back to the lunacy of these SJWs.
Everything is racist in their eyes. As I noted before. Depict some culture accurately? You are appropriating their culture or the depiction is racist because it is "stereotypical". I've seen both leveled at games in the last year alone.
Just make your damn game. These fruitcakes wont buy it anyhow and will sooner or later attack you no matter what you do. The rest of the gaming community could care less and will buy the game if its good.
Quote from: Omega;1092189Some morons have tried to push that over on BGG too. Only someone from that culture can do the art, write the story, design the game.
Yeah, you know it's complete horseshit, but you also know it's not gonna make a difference if you bring that up so you decide just not to bother.
Quote from: Lychee of the Exchequer;1091835And the icing on the cake ? Apart from a far away land about which Rokugani (the inhabitants of Rokugan) don't give a hoot, there are no White Men in this world !
If you look at the art everyone in Rokugan seems pretty white.
Quote from: Shasarak;1092307If you look at the art everyone in Rokugan seems pretty white.
Or, more accurately, very light-skinned Asian or European/Asian mixes. It's like K-pop bands with swords and prayer scrolls.
Quote from: HappyDaze;1092309Or, more accurately, very light-skinned Asian or European/Asian mixes. It's like K-pop bands with swords and prayer scrolls.
Take my avatar for example. Looks pretty white.
Quote from: Shasarak;1092307If you look at the art everyone in Rokugan seems pretty white.
Because in China, Japan and Korea (and much of the rest of Asia), light skin is considered beautiful by most for both men and women. Even among these three, the range of skin tone is extremely broad. That these Asian cultures represent this as beautiful and in their games, manga and anime, it gave the illustrators something to mimic.
Quote from: Lynn;1092415Because in China, Japan and Korea (and much of the rest of Asia), light skin is considered beautiful by most for both men and women. Even among these three, the range of skin tone is extremely broad. That these Asian cultures represent this as beautiful and in their games, manga and anime, it gave the illustrators something to mimic.
It was considered a high status sign to have lighter skin, because the peasants worked under the sun. From there it became "beautiful". The same happens in India.
Quote from: GeekyBugle;1092426It was considered a high status sign to have lighter skin, because the peasants worked under the sun. From there it became "beautiful". The same happens in India.
For that matter, when Athena wants to make Penelope look more beautiful, she makes her "whiter than freshly carved ivory".
One of Juno's stock attributives is "white-armed". And even Penelope's maids - house maids - had white skin according to Homer.
One would guess this is all for the same reason: high-status women in ancient Greece stayed secluded and did not get a tan.
Quote from: GeekyBugle;1092426It was considered a high status sign to have lighter skin, because the peasants worked under the sun. From there it became "beautiful". The same happens in India.
Also of note is that, until food became so plentiful in first world countries that even the poor had enough to eat (and much of our labor force is now employed in more indoor sedentary occupations), being a bit plump was also considered more attractive as it was another sign of your wealth and status.
Now days the signs of wealth and status is to be tanned and lean because it implies you have enough free time to sunbathe/tan and to work out/buy healthier foods relative to the general population.
Quote from: GeekyBugle;1092426It was considered a high status sign to have lighter skin, because the peasants worked under the sun. From there it became "beautiful". The same happens in India.
Yes, but also currently as well. Sometimes a tanned look came become trendy for a short time, but it is a rarity as compared to perceived beauty of
unflawed, light complexion.
Quote from: Lynn;1092579Yes, but also currently as well. Sometimes a tanned look came become trendy for a short time, but it is a rarity as compared to perceived beauty of unflawed, light complexion.
After centuries of some cultural artifact being present in a particular culture it will keep on popping back maybe forever. This still fails to demonstrate racism, unless you think Indians (the true ones with a dot not a feather) are racist against themselves. They are a classicist culture, as was and still is most of Asia. Symbols of higher status will keep on being considered "better" be it a white, smooth and soft skin (even in the hands), or some garment.
Quote from: GeekyBugle;1092594After centuries of some cultural artifact being present in a particular culture it will keep on popping back maybe forever. This still fails to demonstrate racism, unless you think Indians (the true ones with a dot not a feather) are racist against themselves. They are a classicist culture, as was and still is most of Asia. Symbols of higher status will keep on being considered "better" be it a white, smooth and soft skin (even in the hands), or some garment.
I'm not familiar enough with Legend of the Five Rings to have an opinion on that. However, traditional caste in India is hereditary - not just about culture or money. So I would say Indians can be racist against themselves (higher caste vs lower caste), just as Chinese can be racist against themselves (Han Chinese vs Uighur Chinese or others) or Americans can be racist against themselves (white Americans vs black Americans).
Quote from: jhkim;1092600I'm not familiar enough with Legend of the Five Rings to have an opinion on that. However, traditional caste in India is hereditary - not just about culture or money. So I would say Indians can be racist against themselves (higher caste vs lower caste), just as Chinese can be racist against themselves (Han Chinese vs Uighur Chinese or others) or Americans can be racist against themselves (white Americans vs black Americans).
If the discrimination is based on caste, not on race how the fuck can it be racist? And the part about the caste being hereditary IS cultural, unless you happen to think there's some biological component that prevents the castes from intermingling.
As for the Chinese, huge fucking country with lots of ethnicities, yes, of course there can be prejudice among different ethnicities.
In regards to American Whites vs American Blacks: American is the culture, not the race. So of course there can be racism there.
Now how does any of this demonstrate their wish to have a softer and lighter skin is somehow based on racism? Or are you just trying to move the goal post?
Quote from: jhkimI'm not familiar enough with Legend of the Five Rings to have an opinion on that. However, traditional caste in India is hereditary - not just about culture or money. So I would say Indians can be racist against themselves (higher caste vs lower caste), just as Chinese can be racist against themselves (Han Chinese vs Uighur Chinese or others) or Americans can be racist against themselves (white Americans vs black Americans).
Quote from: GeekyBugle;1092604If the discrimination is based on caste, not on race how the fuck can it be racist? And the part about the caste being hereditary IS cultural, unless you happen to think there's some biological component that prevents the castes from intermingling.
There is nothing biological that stops the castes from intermingling -- just as there is nothing biological that prevents whites from intermingling with blacks or Jews. Anti-miscegenation laws and customs are cultural constructs -- just like caste laws. But they are cultural laws *about* supposed hereditary traits of the grouping. Nearly everyone would say that anti-miscegenation laws are racist.
Mostly, this seems like a difference of nomenclature. The castes are not generally called races, but they are a different hereditary grouping with different features -- which is the same as race. They are similar and have lived in close proximity for a long time - but the same was true of, say, Aryans and Jews in Germany -- or Hutus and Tutsis in Rwanda. Some people don't call Hutu/Tutsi divisions racist either.
I don't want to get particularly hung up on a word. Do you feel there is an important difference between "cultural prejudice based on genetic group" and "racism"?
Quote from: GeekyBugle;1092604As for the Chinese, huge fucking country with lots of ethnicities, yes, of course there can be prejudice among different ethnicities.
In regards to American Whites vs American Blacks: American is the culture, not the race. So of course there can be racism there.
Now how does any of this demonstrate their wish to have a softer and lighter skin is somehow based on racism? Or are you just trying to move the goal post?
Wait, whose wish to have softer and lighter skin? People in India? I think people wanting to lighten their naturally-dark skin can definitely be based on racism. Here's an article about the use of skin bleaching cream in India, for example -
https://scroll.in/pulse/850030/skin-lightening-indias-obsession-that-is-becoming-a-medical-problem
As the article puts it,
QuoteMultinational cosmetics brands have found a lucrative market: global spending on skin lightening is projected to triple to US$31.2 billion by 2024, according to a report released in June 2017 by the research firm Global Industry Analysts.
The driving force, they say, is "the still rampant darker skin stigma and rigid cultural perception that correlates lighter skin tone with beauty and personal success".
"This is not bias. This is racism," says Sunil Bhatia, a professor of human development at Connecticut College. Bhatia has recently written in US News & World Report about "deep-rooted internalized racism and social hierarchies based on skin color".
In India, these were codified in the caste system, the ancient Hindu classification in which birth determined occupation and social stratum. At the top, Brahmins were priests and intellectuals. At the bottom, outcastes were confined to the least-desired jobs, such as latrine cleaners. Bhatia says caste may have been to do with more than occupation: the darker you looked, the lower your place in the social hierarchy.
Whether one wants to call it "racism" or not - the bias against people with naturally darker skin is stupid and wrong.
Quote from: jhkim;1092624There is nothing biological that stops the castes from intermingling -- just as there is nothing biological that prevents whites from intermingling with blacks or Jews. Anti-miscegenation laws and customs are cultural constructs -- just like caste laws. But they are cultural laws *about* supposed hereditary traits of the grouping. Nearly everyone would say that anti-miscegenation laws are racist.
Anti-miscegenation laws ARE racist, but you are conflating caste with race or ethnicity.
Quote from: jhkim;1092624Mostly, this seems like a difference of nomenclature. The castes are not generally called races, but they are a different hereditary grouping with different features -- which is the same as race. They are similar and have lived in close proximity for a long time - but the same was true of, say, Aryans and Jews in Germany -- or Hutus and Tutsis in Rwanda. Some people don't call Hutu/Tutsi divisions racist either.
Castes aren't called races or ethnicities because they aren't, they are a social class system not based on your race or skin color(most of the time) but on how much money your family had, it's like the aristocrat looking down his nose at the poor, middle class or new rich. "Aryans" (it has been proven they weren't) and Jews are two separate ethnic groups tho, so to call it racism is correct. You seem to think all prejudice and discrimination is race based, it isn't.
Quote from: jhkim;1092624I don't want to get particularly hung up on a word. Do you feel there is an important difference between "cultural prejudice based on genetic group" and "racism"?
Yep, you think all prejudice is ethnic or race based, when you have a caste system like we had here in México that was based on to what race your parents belonged this is a system based on racism, when the aztecs had a caste system based on social position it's not race based, ergo prejudice and discrimination yes, but not racism.
Quote from: jhkim;1092624Wait, whose wish to have softer and lighter skin? People in India? I think people wanting to lighten their naturally-dark skin can definitely be based on racism. Here's an article about the use of skin bleaching cream in India, for example -
https://scroll.in/pulse/850030/skin-lightening-indias-obsession-that-is-becoming-a-medical-problem
As the article puts it,
Whether one wants to call it "racism" or not - the bias against people with naturally darker skin is stupid and wrong.
LOL, you quoted me explaining from where this comes and yet here we are.
Lets see, the peasants worked under the sun, ergo their skin was darker, and also coarser because of their physical labor. The rich fucks didn't and when they went out they had servants with umbrellas protecting them from the sun, ergo their skin was lighter and softer for lack of physical labor.
So to have a lighter and softer skin became a symbol of social status and so desirable, it's not out of the Indians being racist against themselves, it's about the Indians being classist fucks who look down their nose to the poorer than they.
So again, prejudice and discrimination yes, racism no, because it's not about the race or the skin color (really) but about what it represents as a social and economical symbol.
There are many reasons people are prejudiced against one another, not always their race, it could be social, economical, tribal hatred for past wrongs, religious.
Hope this time I managed to explain to you that wanting a different skin color isn't always racist, but somehow I doubt you're really trying to understand but to score points in some woke game.
I wonder if there is evidence of India, China and Mexico having a "social preference" for lighter skinned people (aka, the concept of nobles being protected from the sun) BEFORE those people met Europeans.
Lets put it in gaming terms:
In the last fantasy campaign I GMd Elves, Dwarfs, etc weren't races but species (as I'm wont to do), so not able to interbreed. Now, I had several different "kinds" of elves, the high born, wood elves, dark elves, each living in different places and looking different (because evolution) but same species and so able to interbreed. The high born were all kinds of colors but most were kinda white/yellow, the wood elves were brownish/greenish and the dark elves (living in fucking caves) were the palest of all. Each and every one looked down their nose to the others, the high born because they are royalty, the wood ones because they are the true way of the elves, protecting the forests, and the dark ones because they didn't deal with humans so they didn't have that stench on them.
So there was prejudice among the different kinds of elves, but it wasn't racial it was social, and from the dark elves towards humans because fuck those mortals. In the last example you get closest to racism, not exactly the same since they are different species but still close enough.
And there was prejudice also against other sentient species, some because of what they are, some because of what they do. So Orcs aren't welcome in human, dwarf or elven "towns", because of what they do (kill, rape, pillage and eat you).
Now back to the real world, European nobility used to want to look whiter, because the peasants worked in the sun and were tanned. Racism? Nope, classism.
Quote from: Spinachcat;1092631I wonder if there is evidence of India, China and Mexico having a "social preference" for lighter skinned people (aka, the concept of nobles being protected from the sun) BEFORE those people met Europeans.
In México there's no such preference, in India and China yes, they did it before the first contact with Europeans. Just like the European nobility used to wear makeup to look whiter.
Quote from: GeekyBugle;1092628Lets see, the peasants worked under the sun, ergo their skin was darker, and also coarser because of their physical labor. The rich fucks didn't and when they went out they had servants with umbrellas protecting them from the sun, ergo their skin was lighter and softer for lack of physical labor.
So to have a lighter and softer skin became a symbol of social status and so desirable, it's not out of the Indians being racist against themselves, it's about the Indians being classist fucks who look down their nose to the poorer than they.
So again, prejudice and discrimination yes, racism no, because it's not about the race or the skin color (really) but about what it represents as a social and economical symbol.
The discrimination might have some sort of mythological roots from working in the sun -- but in practice and effect, it is *actually* about skin color. Someone in India can be wealthy, successful, and cultured -- but still suffer discrimination because of the hereditary color of their skin. The same thing happens in Nigeria, and Jamaica, and the U.S. Many racists will say that they have good reasons to be biased against dark-skinned people -- but their myths, excuses and/or rationalizations don't change the fact that they're fucking racist.
Being biased against the hereditary color of someone's skin isn't classism, because it's based on hereditary physical characteristics -- not wealth or culture.
Quote from: jhkim;1092645The discrimination might have some sort of mythological roots from working in the sun -- but in practice and effect, it is *actually* about skin color. Someone in India can be wealthy, successful, and cultured -- but still suffer discrimination because of the hereditary color of their skin. The same thing happens in Nigeria, and Jamaica, and the U.S. Many racists will say that they have good reasons to be biased against dark-skinned people -- but their myths, excuses and/or rationalizations don't change the fact that they're fucking racist.
Being biased against the hereditary color of someone's skin isn't classism, because it's based on hereditary physical characteristics -- not wealth or culture.
Dude it's not mythological, people that work under the sun get a tan (except black people I guess?), since the ones that did this were also Indian but of lower status, and the rich didn't get a tan it became a symbol of wealth.
Why do I even bother? I have explained it to you several times, you refuse to understand from where it comes, that it's not mythical, nor about race but about a symbol of wealth.
What I'm saying is you keep on thinking like you want, I happen to know from where it comes in the very specific case of India, China and Europe (Yes, Europeans also used to want to look whiter than the peasants weird huh?)
Now go ahead and cry
RACISM!tm all you want.
Quote from: GeekyBugle;1092634In México there's no such preference,
Do we know if the Aztecs/Incans/Mayans had any such preferences as existed in India, China and Europe?
Quote from: Spinachcat;1092659Do we know if the Aztecs/Incans/Mayans had any such preferences as existed in India, China and Europe?
Can't speak about Inca culture, but neither Mayans nor Aztecs or any other ethnicity had any custom about using something to appear lighter that I know off. But you have to remember that here they were really behind in many aspects (even if in astronomy they kicked Europe's ass 7 ways from sunday). So maybe that is something that evolves in a more developed society? Or maybe they were too busy sacrificing their enemies to the gods and eating their still beating hearts and participating in ritual cannibalism? (Pozole was originally made with human meat)
Quote from: GeekyBugle;1092647Dude it's not mythological, people that work under the sun get a tan (except black people I guess?), since the ones that did this were also Indian but of lower status, and the rich didn't get a tan it became a symbol of wealth.
Why do I even bother? I have explained it to you several times, you refuse to understand from where it comes, that it's not mythical, nor about race but about a symbol of wealth.
What I'm saying is you keep on thinking like you want, I happen to know from where it comes in the very specific case of India, China and Europe (Yes, Europeans also used to want to look whiter than the peasants weird huh?)
It's mythological when prejudice is based on *hereditary* skin color rather than a tan. Suntanned skin is not something inherited by children. We know that unquestionably in the world today, but India still has prejudice over hereditary skin color.
Is your claim that discrimination based on hereditary skin color is definitely *not racist* in the cases of India, China, and Europe? If so, do you then agree that in the Caribbean, Mexico, and the U.S., discrimination based on hereditary skin color is racist?
I can see that argument, but I don't think it folds out as neatly as that. Yes, being out in the sun does actually tan people -- but this can also become a chicken-and-egg situation if people who are *born* darker-skinned are considered fit only for manual labor, and are forced into such work - and prevented from intermingling with genetically lighter-skinned people. For example, within Europe, there were eugenics movements during the 19th and early 20th century. They were concerned about intermingling with traditional races like Africans, Jews, and Roma -- but also with various theories of the criminal behavior among whites. I don't think that neatly separates into racism and classism, since their theories often held that most criminals were a distinct subrace of whites that could be separated out. Casare Lombroso's "The Criminal Man" (1911), for example, attempted to identify the characteristics of a criminal / socially-defective race. The eugenicists were concerned with genetic impurities both from foreigners and from domestic groups.
When prejudice is over hereditary skin color and other hereditary attributes of a traditionally separate breeding group -- and considered a problem to be bred out -- then I think it is as much racism as it is classism.
Quote from: jhkim;1092667It's mythological when prejudice is based on *hereditary* skin color rather than a tan. Suntanned skin is not something inherited by children. We know that unquestionably in the world today, but India still has prejudice over hereditary skin color.
Lets see, if the Indians that don't get exposed to the sun are lighter than the ones that do, which one is the hereditary skin color?
Quote from: jhkim;1092667Is your claim that discrimination based on hereditary skin color is definitely *not racist* in the cases of India, China, and Europe? If so, do you then agree that in the Caribbean, Mexico, and the U.S., discrimination based on hereditary skin color is racist?
No, my claim is that wanting to be lighter skinned stems from lighter skin being a symbol of wealth and social status in all of those cases.
Quote from: jhkim;1092667I can see that argument, but I don't think it folds out as neatly as that. Yes, being out in the sun does actually tan people -- but this can also become a chicken-and-egg situation if people who are *born* darker-skinned are considered fit only for manual labor, and are forced into such work - and prevented from intermingling with genetically lighter-skinned people.
Something that puts the chart ahead of the horses, in India, Europe and China the elites were lighter skinned because of lack of exposure to the sun, in Europe when things changed the status symbol became being chubby, because you could eat enough to gain weight. IF they were putting in place laws to those effects it would be very worrying and I think egeenics at least if not racism.
Quote from: jhkim;1092667For example, within Europe, there were eugenics movements during the 19th and early 20th century. They were concerned about intermingling with traditional races like Africans, Jews, and Roma -- but also with various theories of the criminal behavior among whites. I don't think that neatly separates into racism and classism, since their theories often held that most criminals were a distinct subrace of whites that could be separated out. Casare Lombroso's "The Criminal Man" (1911), for example, attempted to identify the characteristics of a criminal / socially-defective race. The eugenicists were concerned with genetic impurities both from foreigners and from domestic groups.
Yes, In Europe well after the elites used to wear makeup to look whiter, by a few centuries. Linear time. This isn't happening in India (who knows about China those commies are liable to do anything), the caste system is disintegrating thanks to education, meaning the poor can get educated and stop being poor. But their wish to look lighter remains because it was a symbol of wealth, just like it was to have smooth skin in your hands and feet. But you keep on focusing solely on the skin color, why is it?
Quote from: jhkim;1092667When prejudice is over hereditary skin color and other hereditary attributes of a traditionally separate breeding group -- and considered a problem to be bred out -- then I think it is as much racism as it is classism.
But Indians are born the same color (more or less) and they see remaining lighter as a symbol of wealth, and now beauty, together with having smooth hands and feet (yes even the men), because it's about not being a peasant but someone that doesn't do manual labor, now please keep obsessing over the skin color while ignoring the rest it's very informative.
Quote from: jhkim;1092667When prejudice is over hereditary skin color and other hereditary attributes of a traditionally separate breeding group -- and considered a problem to be bred out -- then I think it is as much racism as it is classism.
That's fair. Although, I'm unsure how its racism when it occurs within the same ethnic group. AKA, unsure how Indians, Chinese or Europeans preferring lighter members of their own ethnic group is racist. I understand what you're saying when its various ethnic groups interacting and judging each other.
Of course, the stereotyping of Race with Behaviors isn't a modern invention. You see such stereotyping in antiquity, long before the dominance of European nations.
Humans love to attribute Good Stuff to people who look like them, then attribute Bad Stuff to everyone else.
Mankind is a fucked up species.
Quote from: Spinachcat;1092680That's fair. Although, I'm unsure how its racism when it occurs within the same ethnic group. AKA, unsure how Indians, Chinese or Europeans preferring lighter members of their own ethnic group is racist. I understand what you're saying when its various ethnic groups interacting and judging each other.
Are all Indians really the same "race?" There are hundreds of languages, ethnic groups, and regions there, never mind China.
Quote from: ThatChrisGuy;1092681Are all Indians really the same "race?" There are hundreds of languages, ethnic groups, and regions there, never mind China.
excellent question, sadly we don't really know, because it's haram for any scientist to even ask. Never mind if it could help with health issues, etc. It could someday be used by someone to claim racial superiority ergo it must be a racist study and only a racist would ask the question. That's the sad state of almost all scientific institutions in the world.
What is race? where does one end and another begin? what's ethnicity? Good questions with no answer (that I know off), except if you count the authentic wacists, they do have answers, that funny enough always come to white race superior, mixbreeding bad. So I tend to not take anything they say seriously.
Quote from: GeekyBugle;1092670But Indians are born the same color (more or less) and they see remaining lighter as a symbol of wealth, and now beauty, together with having smooth hands and feet (yes even the men), because it's about not being a peasant but someone that doesn't do manual labor, now please keep obsessing over the skin color while ignoring the rest it's very informative.
Skin color was the topic that was being discussed, so I think it should be addressed. That's sticking to the topic, not obsession. I quite disagree about your point here. Indians are not born with anything close to the same color - even given. There is a huge range of ethnicities within India - speaking different languages, with different features including skin color as well as other features.
[ATTACH=CONFIG]3534[/ATTACH]
That's Nandita Das on the left, and Karishma Kapoor on the right -- both famous actors. Das isn't tanned from working out in the sun - she's born dark-skinned. Das has also been an activist pushing for more dark-skinned representation, such as in this interview:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=emoCRb4wAU0
It's a point that some people in India consider quite important.
I think this topic is also getting muddled because the issue of time. One can look at "preference for white skin" in the modern day through the lens of the effect of American marketing campaigns in print, movies and TV in the 20th century, but there is the complication of how (and if) this preference existed pre-contact with Europeans.
Also, I imagine the situation is even more complicated with ex-colonial nations where there exists centuries of interbreeding with the European ruling class (voluntary and otherwise). I also imagine the situation is even more complex when dealing with India or other ex-colonies which were major trade hubs for thousands of years so the amount of interbreeding to create "high vs. low" caste "ethnicities" would have occurred.
Oh well. Gotta nuke Earth from orbit. It's the only way to be sure the plague of Man does not spread.
Quote from: jhkim;1092684Skin color was the topic that was being discussed, so I think it should be addressed. That's sticking to the topic, not obsession. I quite disagree about your point here. Indians are not born with anything close to the same color - even given. There is a huge range of ethnicities within India - speaking different languages, with different features including skin color as well as other features.
[ATTACH=CONFIG]3534[/ATTACH]
That's Nandita Das on the left, and Karishma Kapoor on the right -- both famous actors. Das isn't tanned from working out in the sun - she's born dark-skinned. Das has also been an activist pushing for more dark-skinned representation, such as in this interview:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=emoCRb4wAU0
It's a point that some people in India consider quite important.
Lets see, the point was Indians wanting to look lighter.
And to counter my argument you use the argument from an intersectional racist. Well no, that's not fair, I don't know if SHE is a racist or an intersectional feminist, but her arguments are. This are the same arguments about including more of X group in your fiction because Psychos can't empathize but with themselves so they need to see themselves "represented on media.
Now lets see if you can wrap your head around this and stop moving the goal post:
The argument was Indians are racist because they want to have lighter skin, my counter argument was that no, this comes from a different place, namely high class vs low class and their characteristics. (Lighter skin and softer feet and hands) vs darker skin and coarser feet and hands)
Then you started to move the goal post to discrimination. Which is a very different argument.
So you mean to tell me that in a british colony now you have mixed race people with lighter skin? WOW! Mind blown! And of course, in the present day, given Indians TRADITIONAL look upon skin tone and texture maybe the lighter one has an advantage, is this discrimination? maybe is it racism? Maybe. BUT the preference for lighter skin didn't originate from a race based place.
Clear enough or do I need an abacus?
I asked my Indian friend for her opinion of race in India. She said that she does not really care about race and on the other hand she does like to see Lighter skin.
From my studies and experiences it is mostly a carry over of elites (or at least wealthy) having the luxury to be indoors and go pallid, whereas the commoners had to work outside and darkened from exposure. It also only recently changed in Western society due to industrial factory & white collar work outpacing farming in the past few centuries due to the industrial revolution. It seems to have been a global demarcator of status for heavily stratified societies, like a sumptuary law for one's skin exposure to the sun. :) I would not read it so much with modern attitudes...
Quote from: Spinachcat;1092688I think this topic is also getting muddled because the issue of time. One can look at "preference for white skin" in the modern day through the lens of the effect of American marketing campaigns in print, movies and TV in the 20th century, but there is the complication of how (and if) this preference existed pre-contact with Europeans.
I expect Pundit is going to swoop is for that reason.
This makes me wonder if anyone has incorporated accentuated appearance into their game cultures. Skin lightening is a good example. For example, 'ear molds' for elves that want their ears to grow a certain way.
Quote from: Lynn;1092756I expect Pundit is going to swoop is for that reason.
This makes me wonder if anyone has incorporated accentuated appearance into their game cultures. Skin lightening is a good example. For example, 'ear molds' for elves that want their ears to grow a certain way.
No, but I do include cultural prejudice in most of my fantasy campaigns and also "specieism" since in my world the different "races" aren't races but species.
Quote from: GeekyBugle;1092633Lets put it in gaming terms:
In the last fantasy campaign I GMd Elves, Dwarfs, etc weren't races but species (as I'm wont to do), so not able to interbreed. Now, I had several different "kinds" of elves, the high born, wood elves, dark elves, each living in different places and looking different (because evolution) but same species and so able to interbreed. The high born were all kinds of colors but most were kinda white/yellow, the wood elves were brownish/greenish and the dark elves (living in fucking caves) were the palest of all. Each and every one looked down their nose to the others, the high born because they are royalty, the wood ones because they are the true way of the elves, protecting the forests, and the dark ones because they didn't deal with humans so they didn't have that stench on them.
So there was prejudice among the different kinds of elves, but it wasn't racial it was social, and from the dark elves towards humans because fuck those mortals. In the last example you get closest to racism, not exactly the same since they are different species but still close enough.
And there was prejudice also against other sentient species, some because of what they are, some because of what they do. So Orcs aren't welcome in human, dwarf or elven "towns", because of what they do (kill, rape, pillage and eat you).
Now back to the real world, European nobility used to want to look whiter, because the peasants worked in the sun and were tanned. Racism? Nope, classism.
Quote from: Lynn;1092756This makes me wonder if anyone has incorporated accentuated appearance into their game cultures. Skin lightening is a good example. For example, 'ear molds' for elves that want their ears to grow a certain way.
In Shadowrun, I have humans with fetishes, especially for elves. There are street docs who cater to elites who want to "go goblin" and change their appearance. It's akin to those Elvis & Marilyn Monroe gangers.
Quote from: GeekyBugle;1092628Anti-miscegenation laws ARE racist, but you are conflating caste with race or ethnicity.
Not necessarily racist. It may be just a desire to keep what makes your culture undiluted as it were. Or worse.
It may even be a resistance to forced mixing as part of a pogrom to subsume or erase your race and culture. Having your ethnicity, and possibly your culture, effectively bred out of existence.
It may also be well intentioned. Put it place to try and "save" some race or culture. But invariably it gets out of hand and sooner or later someone, or lots of someones will use it as a racist bid for segregation. If it was not that from the get-go.
All of these elements can make for interesting cultural quirks in a RPG setting. And some have been used before. The backstory for Thunder Rift has some elements of this in the race hatred between dwarves and elves which came to a bloody head when a dwarf and elf had a child together and both sides banded together to kill the whole family. Then were so mortified afterwards at what they had done that it in some ways helped heal the rift between the two races.
Quote from: Spinachcat;1092819In Shadowrun, I have humans with fetishes, especially for elves. There are street docs who cater to elites who want to "go goblin" and change their appearance. It's akin to those Elvis & Marilyn Monroe gangers.
That is actually a thing in the Shadowrun setting. Theres mention of bodymodding to appear as elves in the books and pretty sure a few NPCs are noted as having had bodymods to appear as some other race.
Quote from: Omega;1092832That is actually a thing in the Shadowrun setting. Theres mention of bodymodding to appear as elves in the books and pretty sure a few NPCs are noted as having had bodymods to appear as some other race.
Agreed. I just include that very regularly, especially to piss off Elf PCs who get accused of being posers.
I feel bodymods would be extremely common, like tattoos today.
And with the fantastical being reality in SR, people would fetishize being non-human so you'd see people with angel wings, devil horns, cloven hoofs, cat ears, full fluffy kitten conversions, etc.
Quote from: Spinachcat;1092852Agreed. I just include that very regularly, especially to piss off Elf PCs who get accused of being posers.
I feel bodymods would be extremely common, like tattoos today.
And with the fantastical being reality in SR, people would fetishize being non-human so you'd see people with angel wings, devil horns, cloven hoofs, cat ears, full fluffy kitten conversions, etc.
+10 for the neko waifus :D
Quote from: Omega;1092831Not necessarily racist. It may be just a desire to keep what makes your culture undiluted as it were. Or worse.
It may even be a resistance to forced mixing as part of a pogrom to subsume or erase your race and culture. Having your ethnicity, and possibly your culture, effectively bred out of existence.
It may also be well intentioned. Put it place to try and "save" some race or culture. But invariably it gets out of hand and sooner or later someone, or lots of someones will use it as a racist bid for segregation. If it was not that from the get-go.
IRL yes, racist and tyrannic. Culture isn't preserved by race because it is the original public domain framework of knowledge, which has nothing to do with biology. While some ethnicities have some specific association of members being of a particular race, that does not validate their existence. This is why cultural appropriation is nonsense.
But if your elves and humans don't want to co-mingle, that works out just fine in a fantasy medieval society.
Quote from: GeekyBugle;1092857+10 for the neko waifus :D
You know Neko Waifus are going to be a thing!
Also, I expect people will bodymod their pets. AKA, who wants a rainbow kitten? A dog who looks like a bear or dire wolf?
And bodymod cults...oh yeah, entire cults who look identical, the ultimate conformity.
Quote from: Spinachcat;1092852Agreed. I just include that very regularly, especially to piss off Elf PCs who get accused of being posers.
I feel bodymods would be extremely common, like tattoos today.
And with the fantastical being reality in SR, people would fetishize being non-human so you'd see people with angel wings, devil horns, cloven hoofs, cat ears, full fluffy kitten conversions, etc.
Quote from: GeekyBugle;1092857+10 for the neko waifus :D
Then add in Changelings and things get really funky. People suddenly expressing animal traits, partial metamorphoses, and other odd things and off you go to even crazier antics from the bodymodders.
Quote from: Lynn;1092870IRL yes, racist and tyrannic.
When your culture is strongly tied to your race, no it isnt racist for them to not want to be diluted or subsumed. They may still interact with other peoples and cultures. They just dont want to be co-opted. Some native americans act that way. As do a few other people.
Quote from: Omega;1092910When your culture is strongly tied to your race, no it isnt racist for them to not want to be diluted or subsumed. They may still interact with other peoples and cultures. They just dont want to be co-opted. Some native americans act that way. As do a few other people.
What part of ANY culture is biological?
Yes, identitarians are gonna act like identitarians. Which is why I hate all the bunch never mind if they call themselves SJWs or some supremacist movement, they all act as if Culture = Race. Sorry but no.
As a mixed race mexican I'm too white for the racists on "the left" and too brown for the racists in "the right". And both act as if my culture had anything to do with my ethnicity.
Quote from: Omega;1092910When your culture is strongly tied to your race, no it isnt racist for them to not want to be diluted or subsumed. They may still interact with other peoples and cultures. They just dont want to be co-opted. Some native americans act that way. As do a few other people.
They are placing the collective 'good' of their culture above the individual liberty of their members, as if that has some superior value over other cultures, and by their own definition race (which is fallacious and scientifically ignorant anyway), then that is the
epitome of racism.
Some Native American tribes have some specific requirements for measurement based on blood quantum, but that requirement is in regards to tangible benefits and not necessarily values.
Quote from: Lynn;1092954They are placing the collective 'good' of their culture above the individual liberty of their members, as if that has some superior value over other cultures, and by their own definition race (which is fallacious and scientifically ignorant anyway), then that is the epitome of racism.
Some Native American tribes have some specific requirements for measurement based on blood quantum, but that requirement is in regards to tangible benefits and not necessarily values.
Depends. Not all cultures are equal - first and foremost. You need context. And just because you value your culture over another's doesn't mean that is necessarily racist at all. Bigotted? Maybe. Prejudiced? Probably. The Culture defines the mores of its constituents which can be comprised of *anything* with one sole understanding: the constituents have to agree in the social contract of being a member of that culture. That's it.
If your culture accepts anyone that shares in the values of that culture, race becomes *far* less of an issue. High-trust societies are capable of incredible feats that smaller or larger cultures that are low-trust, simply cannot begin to deal with. It also matters in the form of the governance of those cultures, based on its inherent values. So a culture that does value the rights of the individual *ideally* should be stronger as a collective. The problem is when the individuals within that culture form stronger sub-cultures based around other immutable characteristics rather than such ideals. This is *precisely* how you dismantle such societies.
While it's true that racial demographics are *large* part of a culture, it is categorically untrue that ALL cultures are simply based on race. But it does stand that the least tolerant of cultures are often the strongest in the short term. Case in point - collectivist sub-cultures in the West rant and rave about the importance of their sub-culture at the demonization of their parent-culture. To what end? The sub-culture becomes intolerant of the primary-culture to the point of convincing themselves the primary culture and its mores and values are *invalid*. Racism is when you're actively persecuting on the basis of race. I don't accept that thoughts/words <> actions.
Unity of ideals is more important that diversity of appearance. This is largely why I laugh at D&D as it is presented today.
Quote from: jhkim;1092645The discrimination might have some sort of mythological roots from working in the sun -- but in practice and effect, it is *actually* about skin color. Someone in India can be wealthy, successful, and cultured -- but still suffer discrimination because of the hereditary color of their skin. The same thing happens in Nigeria, and Jamaica, and the U.S. Many racists will say that they have good reasons to be biased against dark-skinned people -- but their myths, excuses and/or rationalizations don't change the fact that they're fucking racist.
Being biased against the hereditary color of someone's skin isn't classism, because it's based on hereditary physical characteristics -- not wealth or culture.
FWIW I can confirm much of this. And sometimes it is definitely racism in every sense of the word, because the upper casts often see themselves as descended from the "pure" and light-skinned Aryans. It's a weird mix of social class and race.
EDIT: forgot to mention my wife’s family and many of her friend’s families tried to keep their families “fair” by only marrying into light-skinned families. And they are all Muslims but a lot of it is inherited from old Hindu traditions. The Pakistanis were also racist against people from Bangladesh (then East Pakistan) because they were “fairer” and “purer Muslims”.
Quote from: tenbones;1092966Depends. Not all cultures are equal - first and foremost. You need context. And just because you value your culture over another's doesn't mean that is necessarily racist at all. Bigotted? Maybe. Prejudiced? Probably. The Culture defines the mores of its constituents which can be comprised of *anything* with one sole understanding: the constituents have to agree in the social contract of being a member of that culture. That's it.
The context was already within the scope of argument on which you are expanding.
By itself, culture has no value that isn't subjective, and you can love your brand all you want in your own head.
Expressions of culture can have recognized and specific value, ownership, cost and the like. But nobody actually owns culture. That's why cultural appropriation is so much nonsense.
Institutionally pressuring people to maintain a culture that requires someone to keep to their own biological tribe is racist, just like a bar owner hanging a sign that says "Whites Only" because he wants to maintain the ambiance of the bar. He's claiming its culture, but the implementation is racist. Drawing a line between us (being of the same culture AND race ) and everyone else and then pitching consequences over crossing that line is about both culture
and race, and not just culture.
Quote from: GeekyBugle;1092927What part of ANY culture is biological?
That's an area of study that will never get funded!
I would guess all human culture is influenced by human biology, but I don't believe there is enough biological differences between ethnic groups for that aspect of our biology (hair, eye, skin color) to determine culture.
But who knows. Only an AI would have the lack of human bias necessary to examine such a question.
Quote from: Lynn;1092990That's why cultural appropriation is so much nonsense.
My bulgogi taco says cultural appropriation is delicious!!
https://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/korean-bulgogi-taco-recipe-2346079
Quote from: Spinachcat;1093017That's an area of study that will never get funded!
I would guess all human culture is influenced by human biology, but I don't believe there is enough biological differences between ethnic groups for that aspect of our biology (hair, eye, skin color) to determine culture.
But who knows. Only an AI would have the lack of human bias necessary to examine such a question.
None, or is so diminute it makes no difference, otherwise you couldn't adopt a different culture than that of your race, and Black people from different countries in Africa prove it wrong, also if compared to Black people in USA, Caribbean, Europe, different cultures.
Culture is informed and limited by geography not by biology, I recommend you to read Germs & Steel.
Quote from: Spinachcat;1093018My bulgogi taco says cultural appropriation is delicious!!
https://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/korean-bulgogi-taco-recipe-2346079
That's what you get when you dine at the Melting Pot and avoid the Salad Bar :cool:
The thing people forget is that cultures are not static monoliths, they flow with ideas, clothes, music, food all moving about and mixing together splitting up, combining in new and unexpected ways in the melting pot. So, we have chicken tikka masala as the national dish of GB. Was that cultural apropriation?
Were we appropriating American culture when our youth started wearing baseball caps?
Quote from: Altheus;1093062The thing people forget is that cultures are not static monoliths, they flow with ideas, clothes, music, food all moving about and mixing together splitting up, combining in new and unexpected ways in the melting pot. So, we have chicken tikka masala as the national dish of GB. Was that cultural apropriation?
Were we appropriating American culture when our youth started wearing baseball caps?
The issue of "cultural appropriation" is more complicated than either side makes it out to be. Not everybody is offended by the same thing. Human cultures are complicated like that. Context is extremely important.
While in the abstract social justice is an admirable cause, in practice it is easily taken too far. Not every instance of so-called "cultural appropriation" is actively harmful nor criticized by members of the culture appropriated. Again, context! Cultures don't exist in a vacuum.
When a white girl wore a qipao to prom, she was criticized by Americans but not by Chinese citizens. When Cyberpunk 2077 featured Haitians in a demo, it was praised by Haitians (because representation is an issue) but criticized by Americans. These are clearly overreactions.
When J.K. Rowling wrote about how skinwalkers, which are the Navajo equivalent of
Malleus Maleficarum-style satanic witches, are really a persecuted minority in the Potterverse (and also conflated all first nations people into a monolithic block)... she was rightly criticized for it. What she did was completely unnecessary.
Skinwalkers, like a number of concepts from first nations religions, have been subject to extensive appropriation to the point that most modern people who hear about them won't know about their native origins, context or native culture in general. No exaggeration: there are more people who have heard of skinwalkers as creeypasta fodder than know the navajo people even exist. It isn't enough for First Nations peoples to still lack sovereignty and be second-class citizens, Euro-Americans have to exploit their culture for entertainment. Did you know that native religions were banned in many places until very recently? Until the indigenous tribes are out of poverty and have their sovereignty back, this will always be cultural appropriation.
By contrast, China is a growing superpower with aspirations to conquer the world. Obviously a Utah girl wearing a qipao to prom isn't going to be seen as offensive in China. Chinese women wear qipao in cigarette ads.
Quote from: Altheus;1093062The thing people forget is that cultures are not static monoliths, they flow with ideas, clothes, music, food all moving about and mixing together splitting up, combining in new and unexpected ways in the melting pot. So, we have chicken tikka masala as the national dish of GB. Was that cultural apropriation?
Were we appropriating American culture when our youth started wearing baseball caps?
Chicken tikka masala is also the national dish of this south Florida house. I once posited an RPG scenario based on the film "The Hundred-Yard Journey" about an Indian cook learning to be a French chef. For the life of me, I could not think of that as a positive progression. That is probably cultural prejudice on my part.
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1093068The issue of "cultural appropriation" is more complicated than either side makes it out to be.
No it isn't, it's very simple, it's the left racists ways to keep cultures "pure", cultural segregation, but instead of claiming it dilutes and makes impure "white" culture they claim the inverse. In practice the same shit.
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1093068Not everybody is offended by the same thing. Human cultures are complicated like that. Context is extremely important.
"If someone tells me that I've hurt their feelings, I say, "I'm still waiting to hear what your point is."
In this country, I've been told, "That's offensive" as if those two words constitute an argument or a comment. Not to me they don't.
And I'm not running for anything, so I don't have to pretend to like people when I don't."
Christopher Hitchens
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1093068While in the abstract social justice is an admirable cause, in practice it is easily taken too far.
In the abstract it's written to appeal to people's emotions, in the real world it will always end up "taken too far". This is by design and the only end possible.
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1093068Not every instance of so-called "cultural appropriation" is actively harmful nor criticized by members of the culture appropriated. Again, context! Cultures don't exist in a vacuum.
Please cite one instance when
actual harm was inflicted by "culturally appropriating" anything. Hurt fee fees and offense don't count.
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1093068When a white girl wore a qipao to prom, she was criticized by Americans but not by Chinese citizens. When Cyberpunk 2077 featured Haitians in a demo, it was praised by Haitians (because representation is an issue) but criticized by Americans. These are clearly overreactions.
Thus proving my point that this is a BS term invented by white supremacists with a guilty conscience to enforce cultural segregation, just as they are pushing (and getting) actual racial segregation.
QuoteWhen J.K. Rowling wrote about how skin-walkers, which are the Navajo equivalent of Malleus Maleficarum-style satanic witches, are really a persecuted minority in the Potterverse (and also conflated all first nations people into a monolithic block)... she was rightly criticized for it. What she did was completely unnecessary.
"
rightly criticized for" a depiction of a fictional thing in a fictional universe. Only rightful criticism would be to complain it breaks canon, except it doesn't since it's an entirely new fictional universe of her creation.
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1093068Skin-walkers, like a number of concepts from first nations religions, have been subject to extensive appropriation to the point that most modern people who hear about them won't know about their native origins, context or native culture in general. No exaggeration: there are more people who have heard of skin-walkers as creeypasta fodder than know the Navajo people even exist. It isn't enough for First Nations peoples to still lack sovereignty and be second-class citizens, Euro-Americans have to exploit their culture for entertainment. Did you know that native religions were banned in many places until very recently? Until the indigenous tribes are out of poverty and have their sovereignty back, this will always be cultural appropriation.
appropriation noun
the act of taking something for your own use, usually without permission:
The author objected to the appropriation of his story by an amateur filmmaker.Notice how it has to do with transgressing someone's rights? But it just so happens that any religion the "Native Americans" held is in the public domain, there's no copyright holder ergo there's no one that is being hurt by using any parts of it even in a disrespectful manner.
The second part reveals the Marxist origins of this BS term, it's all about power politics, it's all about the oppressor vs the oppressed, but since the "Native Americans" can write their own stories depicting their culture as they want there's no oppression going on about using their culture. This second part is also inserted as a loophole to allow the "oppressed" to "appropriate" the "oppressor" culture because power politics need to be addressed. And the oppressor can't be the oppressed even if their postmodernist Marxist BS says it can, and even if they always go around crying about offensive shit. In short is a way for them to be hypocritical and have a way to excuse their hypocrisy.
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1093068By contrast, China is a growing superpower with aspirations to conquer the world. Obviously a Utah girl wearing a qipao to prom isn't going to be seen as offensive in China. Chinese women wear qipao in cigarette ads.
No, it's not about being a superpower, this is more power politics BS, it's about being unhinged lunatics or not.
By using and enjoying the other's culture we grow closer and come to appreciate what we have in common more than what we don't. This is something that doesn't align with the Marxists behind grievance studies interests. They need to divide us by race, gender, sexuality and to pit us one against the other to be able to control us.
That said greetings, be happy if you can.
Quote from: GeekyBugle;1093086appropriation noun
the act of taking something for your own use, usually without permission:
The author objected to the appropriation of his story by an amateur filmmaker.
Notice how it has to do with transgressing someone's rights? But it just so happens that any religion the "Native Americans" held is in the public domain, there's no copyright holder ergo there's no one that is being hurt by using any parts of it even in a disrespectful manner.
The second part reveals the Marxist origins of this BS term, it's all about power politics, it's all about the oppressor vs the oppressed, but since the "Native Americans" can write their own stories depicting their culture as they want there's no oppression going on about using their culture. This second part is also inserted as a loophole to allow the "oppressed" to "appropriate" the "oppressor" culture because power politics need to be addressed. And the oppressor can't be the oppressed even if their postmodernist Marxist BS says it can, and even if they always go around crying about offensive shit. In short is a way for them to be hypocritical and have a way to excuse their hypocrisy.
No, it's not about being a superpower, this is more power politics BS, it's about being unhinged lunatics or not.
By using and enjoying the other's culture we grow closer and come to appreciate what we have in common more than what we don't. This is something that doesn't align with the Marxists behind grievance studies interests. They need to divide us by race, gender, sexuality and to pit us one against the other to be able to control us.
That said greetings, be happy if you can.
How much do you actually know about this topic? I've done a lot of research for papers and it's quite horrifying. This isn't some marxist ploy. Power dynamics are very real and it does hurt people a lot.
Appropriating elements of native religions and mutilating them until unrecognizable, as is typically the case, doesn't remotely make you appreciate their culture. That's like saying that depicting Santa Claus being crucified, or depicting Mary Magdalene as a robot in the far future, or the short film "Fist of Jesus", or porn stars dressing as priests in pornography, etc makes you more appreciative of Christianity. It clearly doesn't. Even if it's not intended to be offensive and not found offensive, it isn't helpful to the cause of uniting people.
Cultural appropriation does hurt people. I just explained that was the reason that native tribes were banned from practicing their own religion for a century. They were banned from their own religions. Children were taken from their families, sent to reeducation camps and horribly abused. That's the most extreme form of cultural appropriation. Along with the genocides and rapes and such, that's why they don't like being appropriated. It causes them nothing but harm. They were subject to holocaust horrors and still haven't been apologized to or compensated. Did you not know about that?
Please provide me evidence that J.K. Rowling's or Algernon Blackwood's appropriations made people more appreciative of native tribes and by extension had a positive effect on the appalling conditions in which they currently live. Provide me evidence that burning the torah makes people more appreciative of jews. Provide me evidence that tearing down Confederate statues makes people more appreciative of the South.
Near as I can see, being disrespectful of people's beliefs breeds contempt for those people. That's why politics have become so viciously polarized. Ignoring the horrors of our past only means we'll repeat those horrors in the future.
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1093113Cultural appropriation does hurt people. I just explained that was the reason that native tribes were banned from practicing their own religion for a century. They were banned from their own religions. Children were taken from their families, sent to reeducation camps and horribly abused. That's the most extreme form of cultural appropriation. Along with the genocides and rapes and such, that's why they don't like being appropriated. It causes them nothing but harm. They were subject to holocaust horrors and still haven't been apologized to or compensated. Did you not know about that?
How is any of that Cultural Appropriation? Its like saying the Trail of Tears is Cultural Appropriation.
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1093113Please provide me evidence that J.K. Rowling's or Algernon Blackwood's appropriations made people more appreciative of native tribes and by extension had a positive effect on the appalling conditions in which they currently live. Provide me evidence that burning the torah makes people more appreciative of jews. Provide me evidence that tearing down Confederate statues makes people more appreciative of the South.
Well, they've got you yapping about it, so, ultimately, I'm less appreciative of native tribes because of your leftist babble. Not because I'm disrespectful of their beliefs, but because I'm sick of having shitheeels harp on the idea that cultural appropriation is a thing, and that it's bad. Native tribes are not your shield.
Aren't you appropriating their right to be offended on their own behalf?
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1093113How much do you actually know about this topic? I've done a lot of research for papers and it's quite horrifying. This isn't some marxist ploy. Power dynamics are very real and it does hurt people a lot.
So you're an ideologue from some grievance studies field, gotcha.
QuoteAppropriating elements of native religions and mutilating them until unrecognizable, as is typically the case, doesn't remotely make you appreciate their culture. That's like saying that depicting Santa Claus being crucified, or depicting Mary Magdalene as a robot in the far future, or the short film "Fist of Jesus", or porn stars dressing as priests in pornography, etc makes you more appreciative of Christianity. It clearly doesn't. Even if it's not intended to be offensive and not found offensive, it isn't helpful to the cause of uniting people.
Why should anything I or somebody else do with Christian beliefs (or any other for that matter) have to make people appreciate it? Nice way of trying to sneak in some BS restriction on freedom of speech. As for the second part, do I really need to quote Hitchens on "that's offensive!" again?
QuoteCultural appropriation does hurt people. I just explained that was the reason that native tribes were banned from practicing their own religion for a century. They were banned from their own religions. Children were taken from their families, sent to reeducation camps and horribly abused. That's the most extreme form of cultural appropriation. Along with the genocides and rapes and such, that's why they don't like being appropriated. It causes them nothing but harm. They were subject to holocaust horrors and still haven't been apologized to or compensated. Did you not know about that?
Lets see, cultural appropriation was the cause the native Americans were banned from practicing their religions. So the European settlers were practicing them and didn't want the Natives to be able to? You sure it wasn't because of their idea that they were worshiping the devil and needed to be converted to Christianity and thus saved? How is it cultural appropriation any of that? It just doesn't follow from your own premises, but of course, you're an ideologue from some grievance studies BS.
You haven't proven that a) that was cultural appropriation or b) that your BS term hurts anybody.
QuotePlease provide me evidence that J.K. Rowling's or Algernon Blackwood's appropriations made people more appreciative of native tribes and by extension had a positive effect on the appalling conditions in which they currently live. Provide me evidence that burning the torah makes people more appreciative of jews. Provide me evidence that tearing down Confederate statues makes people more appreciative of the South.
From back to front, destroying a cultural artifact or prohibiting a cultural expression isn't you taking it for your use. Next, I haven't had to explain this since my days arguing with Young Earth Creationists but: The burden of proof isn't in me that doesn't believe your BS claims but on you making the BS claim.
QuoteNear as I can see, being disrespectful of people's beliefs breeds contempt for those people. That's why politics have become so viciously polarized. Ignoring the horrors of our past only means we'll repeat those horrors in the future.
Well you can't see very well, any idea is open for criticism and ridicule, and any religion too. This includes using it in ways the people that believe in it might think of as disrespectful or offensive. And no, being able to criticize anything doesn't mean we're just like the Nazis (thought you could sneak that one past me did you?).
Quote from: Shasarak;1093114How is any of that Cultural Appropriation? Its like saying the Trail of Tears is Cultural Appropriation.
It isn't but he's a snake oil peddler from some grievance studies field.
Quote from: kythri;1093116Well, they've got you yapping about it, so, ultimately, I'm less appreciative of native tribes because of your leftist babble. Not because I'm disrespectful of their beliefs, but because I'm sick of having shitheeels harp on the idea that cultural appropriation is a thing, and that it's bad. Native tribes are not your shield.
Aren't you appropriating their right to be offended on their own behalf?
It's the Baizuo's burden.
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1093068The issue of "cultural appropriation" is more complicated than either side makes it out to be. Not everybody is offended by the same thing. Human cultures are complicated like that. Context is extremely important.
We live in a time where people enjoy being offended. The ultimate answer is who cares? Because ultimately, their feelings are meaningless. If giant comedy sombreros sell, then they will be sold.
Every culture is just fodder for every culture which encounters it. That's how humans work. We will constantly steal from each other any bits which seem interesting. Korean bulgogi is tasty, thus it will be added to other foods. Chinese dresses look sexy, thus their designs will be used by fashion houses. Baseball hats are useful, thus you find them worldwide.
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1093068Until the indigenous tribes are out of poverty and have their sovereignty back, this will always be cultural appropriation.
It's doubtful how many "tribes" will even exist in 50 years, let alone 100. Probably only the largest tribes with the most profitable casinos. The small tribes are already scrambling to keep any bloodlines as most of who is left now is 1/2 or 1/4 or less.
They will never have sovereignty. Nobody is interested in foreign countries operating inside their turf. They will assimilate and/or vanish. "Native" families will go from 1/2, to 1/4th, to 1/8th, to 1/16th in a few generations. Who knows if the 1/4ths will even keep any of the culture?
But that's the nature of man and the nature of time. One culture dominates another into oblivion.
Seems we have lot more grievance appropriation than cultural appropriation going on here....
You're right and I'm sorry. I'm clouded by emotion and unable to construct a proper argument. Nobody can stop appropriation. I have no right to get offended on behalf of others. I have no right to speak for other cultures. I would like to respect and appreciate other cultures on their own merits. I accept that some cultural practices are ethically unsound and subject to criticism. I don't want to take unwarranted authority over and mutilate the facets of other cultures for entertainment.
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1093174Nobody can stop appropriation.
It cannot be stopped. Not now or ever. It is the nature of Man's interaction with his fellows.
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1093174I have no right to get offended on behalf of others. I have no right to speak for other cultures.
You have the right to free speech about anything you like.
But concern over "cultural appropriation" is bullshit virtue signalling, however, you are absolutely free to virtue signal as much as you like and you will not be banned.
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1093174I would like to respect and appreciate other cultures on their own merits.
You are free to do that. Nobody will stop you.
Meanwhile, I will eat bulgogi tacos listening to Maori metal flipping through sites on mythical monsters from non-white cultures looking for kewl stuff to steal without mercy.
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1093174I don't want to take unwarranted authority over and mutilate the facets of other cultures for entertainment.
You are free to do that. Nobody will stop you.
I, however, have total authority to do WTF I feel like with any culture for my entertainment. I can twist, mutilate, re-interpret and do whatever I like and then make sweet cash from it!
Quote from: GeekyBugle;1092695So you mean to tell me that in a british colony now you have mixed race people with lighter skin? WOW! Mind blown!
That's not why. The Higher Castes in India in general terms had lighter skin, since forever.
Also, this thread has gone completely off-topic.
Post only in relation to RPGs!