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Post by Alex Newall on Nov 12, 2015 10:09:06 GMT
Oil tycoon elf is categorically the best idea for an NPC ever.
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Post by rainbowdeity on Nov 19, 2015 12:54:30 GMT
I dread to think how much this discussion will be encouraging him to continue to act this way in future episodes. Duly noted *pop* *glug glug glug glug*
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Jonny
Member of the Order of the Quill
Host of The Magnus Archives
Turns out I was a ghost all along.
Posts: 114
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Post by Jonny on Nov 19, 2015 14:33:29 GMT
On a slightly serious note, the way RPGs describe fantasy and alien races has always made me ever so slightly uncomfortable. I mean, I know it's not actually racist because, crucially, elves and goblins and such don't exist, but lines like "Tall, noble, and often haughty, elves are long-lived and subtle masters of the wilderness" or "Often fierce and savage, sometimes noble and resolute, half-orcs can manifest the best and worst qualities of their parent races" sound like they could be written by some properly racist 18th century anthropologist. It just weirds me out a bit.
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Post by Alex Newall on Nov 19, 2015 20:06:37 GMT
It very much is a problem with the entire genre. Ultimately it is tracing its roots to a simpler (and lets be frank, often openly racist world view.)
Unfortunately game systems frequently tie into this world view. Inherent race bonuses always make me a little... twithcy. In campaigns I tend to deliberately put in a few characters of all the races who go very much against the grain but then the trap is that they are defined by what they aren't.
Truth be told its a bit of a minefield and one I fear may come back and bite me in the bum.
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Post by grumblyarcher on Nov 19, 2015 22:32:20 GMT
I've always found that fantasy racism tends to be a product of poor writing on the author's part and is best defeated and subverted through better writing and characterization. If your character's defining trait is them being an elf or an orc and you rely solely on the tropes about their race to fill in for an actual personality then you're doing it wrong. It does not hurt to utilize them from time to time but using them constantly is a crutch.
Now, I've got just enough of a background in various sciences to be able to wax poetic on nature versus nurture, the social contract, discrimination, relative morality, ethnocentrism, psychopathology, societal pressures, criminal and biological psychology but I doubt you all want to read that much into it and I'm sure I'd get at least some of it completely wrong.
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