One easy solution is that...

Those open race cities are few and far between. Everywhere else is mostly one race with or without other races tolerated.

Open race cities happen because everywhere else isnt so open. Sooner or later someone will get fed up with that and found their own city based on a more tolerant viewpoint.

Other cities may seem tolerant, but when you scrutinize whats going on you likely see things arent so rosy and all those "aliens" are allowed simply because its profitable in one form or another. You'll also tend to see more pairings of relatively human-like races and everyone else may not be so welcome. Or flip it around and humans and demi-humans arent so welcome.

Sorting out whats really going on can be half the fun.

In my view, adventurers are weirdo outcasts. That's why you can have the menagerie of races in your group. But when the zoo crew comes to town, the people are going to look askance at your group.

Quote from: Ashakyre;933268Most elves are really just humans with pointy ears. Forest Spocks, if you will.

Forest Spocks!!! That's awesome.

And you're right. Most races in RPGs are just humans with stat mods and kewl powerz. You could just use human tribes and re-arrange the demi-human templates to them.

I run OD&D with only humans and the world is suffering because Dwarfs and Elves are locked in a genocidal war against each other. Moreover, I'm taking the stance that races that can live 1000 years can easily have much of the population at high levels. If a human can go from 1st level to 10th level in 10 years (often less), then why can't demi-humans do that too.

Quote from: TristramEvans;933285As for my own games? It entirely depends. Warhammer Fantasy has a rich history of intense antagonism between races and the struggle for dominance underpins everything in that game, but generally when I run it I have all PCs as humans living in the Empire.

In the fantasy setting I'm currently running, it is quite literally The Otherworld of European myth; a place outside of Time, somewhere in between the world of dreams and the world of the dead. It was populated by a series of invasions, basically, one dominant race pushing out the older creatures, with the last invaders being the Sith, who drove the Fomhoire into the sea. Likewise the Fomhoire enslaved the giant Fir Bholgs, who now are all but extinct, a few solitary remnants leading solitary lives deep in the Mountains. Before them were the...well, that's a secret actually. Complicating matters, The Otherworld is bordered by Hell and a Tithe is paid each year in "rent" to the Legions of The Howling, the terms of a treatise after the Godwar. Meanwhile a sudden influx of humans has led the Sidhe to believe they are the next invading peoples, and some are preparing for war.

I think I'd like to create a table for waves for migration patterns. A simple chart that documents who arrived and in what order, assuming whoever arrived most recently has the more vital society, and perhaps the older waves have the most mystical knowledge. I'm aiming for a game that a GM can run with minimal prep.

Quote from: TristramEvans;933285But all of that is so setting specific its really not generally applicable. You need to come up with the setting first, then work out racial relations. An realize that "racism", as we understand it these days, is a modern concept, and completely alien to most thinking throughout the majority of human history.

Nailed it!

The recent Thunder Rift thread reminded me that races very not getting along is part of the theme of the setting and its history. Even classes not getting along.

Quote from: Spinachcat;933303In my view, adventurers are weirdo outcasts. That's why you can have the menagerie of races in your group. But when the zoo crew comes to town, the people are going to look askance at your group.

It's done a lot because it works. I'm making my own game and want a wider array of options though... and as I get older letting the characters be connected to the world intrigues me more.

Quote from: Spinachcat;933303I run OD&D with only humans and the world is suffering because Dwarfs and Elves are locked in a genocidal war against each other. Moreover, I'm taking the stance that races that can live 1000 years can easily have much of the population at high levels. If a human can go from 1st level to 10th level in 10 years (often less), then why can't demi-humans do that too.

Sounds like a cool campaign premise!

I find that Dragon Age presents a believable variant of human-elven relationships, if you choose to follow the Western European model;).

Of course, that's not the only possible model, and frankly, for most of history even in Western Europe, race was orders of magnitude less important than class, religion and citizenship. That still means you'd have abused minorities, it's just that they wouldn't be racial minorities:p!

It's really hard to express alienness. I mean, Star Trek had a hell of a time, quickly suffering into "forehead of the week!" repetition -- and that was when they were being professionally paid trying to explore the differences between possible alien cultural attitudes. We really don't get paid for that level of forethought of quality writing in world building prep, so failing shouldn't be a crushing thing for us GMs here.

It's straight up hard to make the alien not some sort of Earth-analog cultural pastiche.

The big thing to remember about Cosmopolitanism is: it favors greater density, opportunity to borders (either proximity, ports, or lax enforcement), and isolation from dominance.

One reason the Gold Rush left such an imprint in San Francisco is because it was rapidly all three. It exploded in population, it was essentially on a frontier hard to access and control, and thus a population isolated in general (let alone from a singular dominant culture, beyond "Western Civ.") had to rapidly put aside differences to survive against Nature and Hunger.

It is quite easy to have large cities feel very ostracizing to outsiders (pre-Adm. Perry Edo). Easy to also have borders where little exchange happens (usually natural boundaries, e.g. mountains). And it is easy to have rather homogenous populations rather distinct and/or isolated from a dominant culture's power (bedouins, Touareg, Kurds, etc.).

But if you get the right mix, and have a greater enemy (again, Nature works very well here,) Cosmopolitanism is an acceptable societal shift for survival.

Now with genuine aliens? It's basically running a cultural stereotype to its logical conclusion. Hard to see how Cosmopolitan life easily germinates everywhere -- friction is far more likely. So keeping Metro behaviors the exception, not the norm, should be an easy sell for setting coherence.

That said, some players don't want to deal with ANY of that, AT ALL. At that point, you either stick to your guns as GM and arbiter of setting, or you might as well throw away your game. Just like letting someone drive from the passenger seat a recipe for disaster, so too is full player veto rights over your game. They have feet, they can walk away.

Quote from: AsenRG;933338Of course, that's not the only possible model, and frankly, for most of history even in Western Europe, race was orders of magnitude less important than class, religion and citizenship. That still means you'd have abused minorities, it's just that they wouldn't be racial minorities:p!

You can't have racism without races.

Quote from: Ashakyre;933250One of the things that easily identies pink slime fantasy is the ease with which the diffferent races happily coexist for each other. In Tolkien's Middle Earth, Dwarves were a lesser god's shoddy attempt at creating his own race, and the elves never really had much to do with them. ....

You need to read the Silmarilion.  The Dwarves and elves "ignoring" each other also meant ignoring the others requests for aid against the forces of evil.  The elves and dwarves did also fight extended blood-feuds/wars with each other.  It's amazing the dwarves and elves ever fought, the elves far outnumbered the dwarves, the dwarves were never many, and the dwarves loved to live in places the elves contested.  Between elves and dwarves there were few if any of the pressures that led to conflict yet they found it none the less.  Lastly the elves fought wars with each other.  By the time you get to the Hobbit and Lord of the Rings both dwarves and elves are dying and dwindling peoples; yet you still see reference to wrongs that were done a thousand years ago.

I just handwave it. We already live in a crapsack world, I don't need to worry about that shit in my RPGs.

Startrek had to take their customers with them, so they couldn´t get too excotic.

Usually racisms drops when (and as long) you can find another profiting way of discrimination or exploitation of a third party that works better together and bound by a common idea:
Kommunism, Piratism, Islam ... .  

For those third parties on the other hand ... .

Quote from: Ashakyre;933250....

For me, it's a conundrum. Players want to be able to have their own unique characters and I want to design lots of different races ideas, but you're basically forced to have cities where all the races coexist in some kind of tenuous peace. You can't have a playable race that prefers to keep to itself, or anything too weird to be accepted in human society. In a sense it kills the sense of otherness I need for the second half of a hero's journey. There needs to be societies that convey a sense of otherness or differentness. If your starting location is already radically cosmoploitan, how do you do that?

Then just have those societies.  It's no conundrum unless your players incessantly whine about how there half-orc demon spawn is discriminated against by the humans.  Species favoritism should be part of the campaign, and is implied in the original D&D rules.  What happened, I believe, is players not wanting to accept any down side for picking an outsider species.

You can easily have both.  A city with many species yet with undercurrents of racism.  Medieval Spain is a good example.  In the larger cities Muslim, Christian and Jew mixed and traded freely.  Although Christians and Jews were second class citizens and had special quarters, in practice, especially if you were powerful or wealthy, it did not matter so much unless you were looking to marry or seeking political power, and even then.

QuoteI just don't know how to achieve a post apocalyptic fantasy with humanity straining with a population that acts as though they grew up on the Cosby Show.

Why would you want to achieve that?  Just because people in your fantasy world may have stereotypes and prejudices against other species doesn't mean characters of that species couldn't enter the city, trade and generally do what they generally want.   The barriers they do face are means to drive adventure.  Unless of course they pick a species that is hated and despised (e.g. an Orc), but why would you allow those to be playable as PCs?

QuoteFor those that see the same incongruence, ideas for how to resolve this dilemma? How to bring a diverse party together without it seeming contrived?

I don't see the same incongruence.  Diverse parties come together for their own reasons.  In a way it depends on how diverse.  Never is there a party formed of species that are ancient blood enemies.  It is more likely that a human from kingdom x is not welcome in kingdom y because of competition between the kingdoms.  That is, such problems are based more on politics than species.  In a world where you have species dedicated to killing and eating you, orcs, trolls, ogres, etc. you don't need to demonize you erstwhile allies based on skin color, pointy ears or facial hair, when you already have an "other" to really hate.  

QuoteEdit: It just seems that racial tolerance is too much of a luxury for a resource scarse society, where people will close ranks and take care of their own first. Bit I want people to be able to play different characters.

It depends on how resource scarce it is.  Cooperation does not equal tolerance.  If things are really bad resource wise then everyone will be out for themselves and what will be most important is the strength of your arm.  I can see species that thrive in environments unpleasant to humans being considered allies in a resource poor world.  When resources are scarce you don't have the luxury of conquering and occupying hostile lands, better to trade, and save your weapons for those who want to occupy your lands...other humans like yourself.

Quote from: Ashakyre;933351You can't have racism without races.

Well technically no, but humans in history (and today) have no problem hating and exploiting people of other cultures even if of the same "race."  Heck, even within the same culture people used difference in tribe or caste to discriminate.  Humans seem to have an endless ability to justify such.

In my campaign, dwarves and elves cultures act in ways that a human culture never would.  They are much more insular, self-absorbed, homogenous, far more law abiding, and not driven by the need for territorial expansion.  So elven and dwarven "kingdoms" are rarely a threat if unprovoked.  They have concepts of property and rights that may seem contradictory to humans and excessive.   Players that play elves and dwarves can act however they want in my campaign, I let them know what the typical elf or dwarf would do but only for informational purposes.  The fact that they are out adventuring makes them odd enough from their people.

In my campaign, humans are the species you most need to look out for.  Humans will commit the most vile acts against there own kind.  Good and trustworthy humans can often be the mouth pieces for the most evil of rulers.  It's hard to deal with humans as they rarely honor any long-term deal, a 10 year deal is a lifetime to a human.  Humans are always looking to expand, and unlike stupid orcs, they are inventive and a real threat to sane species everywhere.

Suggestion: the Babylon 5 model--the races do hate each other, are at each others throats, routinely war... and the PCs are all part of a diplomatic microcosm of their world where everyone has to make nice. Make up some relatively coherent excuse why people from this diplomatic mission are now adventuring together (PCs are the true diplomats kids just hanging around and bored and decide to adventure, Cataclysm happens and diplomacy is irrelevant, but everyone was there together and now is working together to survive far from home, etc.). Enmities intact, racism intact, motivation to work together achieved. Can't do this every campaign, but it's good for a single campaign.

Or make it like some of the British and French wars, where the war is "the King's war" and doesn't really affect the common folk. This would mean making only certain resources rare, rather than the basics (food, water, and shelter.) I believe I recall stories of early scientists getting excited, taking ship to other countries, and then having to send back for papers, when they discovered the countries were at war.