Results 31 to 60 of 112
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2018-02-23, 03:30 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Oct 2012
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- In the Playground, duh.
Re: Playing Races, Genders, Sexual Orientations, and Sexual Identities with Respect
I think that being a player role-playing games provide a great opportunity for you to learn about the experiences of a minority group, if the DM is familiar with these experiences. I absolutely think that there's a lot you can get from a well-written game where the prejudices and challenges of being a member of that minority are fully explored. Hell, that's why people write books about it too. I've written before why I think that tabletop roleplaying games have the potential to be the last word in artistic expression, neatly punching out basically every other medium with video games coming a close second and other types of games running a less-close second (see the Progenitus effect for why games in general are good at conveying meaning. I feel like I had a better post about it, though...) and part of the reason why is that they let you experience from your character's point of view, to an extent.
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2018-02-23, 03:39 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Mar 2012
- Location
- Dallas, TX
- Gender
Re: Playing Races, Genders, Sexual Orientations, and Sexual Identities with Respect
It sounds like you went with the "manly embrace" concept found in ancient Grecian literature, and found in Spartan and Theban soldiery? So you play up sexual orientation more as an abstract desire to cleanse the pallette of violence and warfare rather than a matter of gender and identity labels or constructs.
Most of the world I create when I run campaigns is run this way, because that's mostly how I think. In my IRL life gender and identity labels do not occur to me as prerequisites for love and affection. I am attracted to an individual because I feel a strong connection of love, and I only really have enough emotional energy to feel that way for one person at a time. So it's easy to relate that in my games. But it makes matters of love and romance feel rubber stamped, and I'd like my worlds to be more vibrant than that without feeling cliched. How do you handle unique expressions of this sentiment?PbP Junk and Stuff:
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I am currently not a player in a game, and would be mostly interested in joining 5E games.My Campaigns:
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2018-02-23, 03:41 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Nov 2013
Re: Playing Races, Genders, Sexual Orientations, and Sexual Identities with Respect
On the humorous side there are my 5E characters I've played in one shots where in this group we're allowed two characters because we're a small number of players. I play a monk named Chip and a sorcerer named Dale. They are an entertaining troupe "Chip 'n Dale" aka "The Shirtless Wonders". They do acrobatic stunts instead of their 'dancing', or both, depending on the audience. It was the DM who called them the "Ambiguously Gay Duo".
Ambiguous is accurate. A situation never came up to be definitively answered. They'll share a room at an inn, but that's not enough evidence so to speak. I haven't decided myself. The ambiguity is fun to play.
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2018-02-25, 03:38 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Sep 2009
- Gender
Re: Playing Races, Genders, Sexual Orientations, and Sexual Identities with Respect
You do research on whoever it is you want to play and hopefully get to know an individual who fits the rough description. You then use that as basis for your character, regardless of how well you can get "into" them. Getting inside the head of another person who is genuinely different from you is always difficult, internalizing such viewpoints can only happen with time. Accept that your role, and your interpretation of your role, won't be ready the moment you are finished filling your sheet. Only long-term play and practice will allow you to develop a caricature into a character. Yes, they are points on a continuum - almost every RPG character begins their life as a caricature, and any nuanced character can turn into a caricature if the player isn't paying attention.
Originally Posted by inexorabletruth
Exceptions exist for players who insists elves indeed do represent some real group, and player who are hardcore about some particular version of elves. You should not take example of the former group and can safely ignore the latter group when not using their pet version.
Originally Posted by inexorabletruth
Oh, no, wait... you want to play cultures inspired by real ones in context of kitchen sink fantasy like D&D?
*sigh*
Okay, let me paraphrase myself from the thread over at Friendly Banter: diversity and representation are two different things. It is a questionable thought to begin with that any fantastic character is truly representative of any real person or group of persons. It doesn't matter if or how much they are inspired by the real world. Your black gay spanish knight templar who fights dragons in faux-medieval Central Asia is not a representative of blacks, gays, knight templars, or anyone else. They are only representative of "what inexorabletruth could imagine and thought was fun to play today".
Same goes if you play a stereotypical feudal samurai in faux-medieval Europe. Out of the three complaints you make, I will only admit the third: yes, using pre-existing archetypes, stereotypes, tropes, cliches etc. is less effort than implementing things to realistic fidelity or coming up with things from scratch. You are entitled to call such practice "lazy", but there is a strong reason why things are done this way, explained in detail as far back as 1st Edition AD&D Dungeon Master's Guide by Gary Gygax. To paraphrase: complete fidelity to reality and complete originality require the game's players to be hyper-competent multitalents with degrees in history, physics and whatnot. It's not a realistic expectation for a game. You are allowed to do the lazy thing because it makes for a faster, playable game.
And now to your other two complaints:
1) who are the real people being insulted, and what is the mechanism they are getting insulted by?
Chances are the only person being insulted is yourself, you are just using imagined response of the other people as a smokescreen. For example, the Japanese people? They are generally just fine with crazy stereotypical samurai, they use those themselves all the time. No real Japanese person will be worse off for you using a stereotypical samurai in your game. The only real exception goes for if you fail to acknowledge your crazy stereotype as such, which, given you started this discussion, isn't likely going to be a problem, now, is it?
The only time when 1) is likely to happen at all, is when actual representative of some group is at your table, and for some reason you are trying to act as representative of their group. This situation is often quickly defused by asking them if your interpretation is plausible, or by not pretending to be their representative to begin with.
2) This is highly subjective and, worse, comes with an element of self-fullfilling prophecy. That is: sure, if you honestly think unrealistic portrayals cheapen roleplay, they will do so (to you), but why do you think so to begin with?
Like, I know that poor portrayal can take you out of a game due to being distractive, comical or what not. If, say, a player who clearly does not know Finnish suddenly tries to hold a serious in-character speech Finnish, I will have to work on my poker face. But that is my opinion of their roleplaying, not their or anyone else's opinion of roleplaying. They might actually be doing the best they can. They might feel they're really in-character right up untill my poker face fails.
And that's the problem with your complaint number 2). It's unrealistic to expect perfection from your fellow players. There are countless little errors which could take you out of game, which are not result of laziness, lack of concern, or whatever. They do not cheapen the experience, because you were not realistically going to get more value from the game to begin with. People constantly fall prey to stereotypes without meaning to, you can't change that without changing how people think on a fairly deep level. Also remember: what seems stereotypical or cliched will depend on exposure. Somewhere out there, there is a player to which the stereotypical samurai is a completely new thing, and they won't think of it as either stereotype or cliche unless someone else insists it's one.
Originally Posted by inexorabletruth
Accidental "isms" are not.
We, on the side of event organizers, have decided to pay no heed to the sort of people who see, say, a Finnish teenager using dark make-up to cosplay as their favorite manga character, as offensive use of "Blackface".
Why? Because event organizers serving as moral guardians would force people to walk on eggshells and make the atmosphere of the hobby intolerably suffocating. It would also hit new and young hobbyists the worst, as they can't be expected to know where the lines happen to be drawn by whoever is being most activist at the moment.
We follow the standard set by Finnish law, and that's it.
Or in other words, there is no dilemma in using dark make-up or crossdressing as a good-faith attempt to portray your character. I can fetch you pictures of people doing both last week if you want to. If someone wants to be insulted and have their sense of being insulted taken seriously, it's on them to prove the intent was to insult or that some real harm has been done."It's the fate of all things under the sky,
to grow old and wither and die."
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2018-02-25, 05:23 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Feb 2015
Re: Playing Races, Genders, Sexual Orientations, and Sexual Identities with Respect
I can understand it for fantasy religions instead of real religions. Because portraying priests or rituals of real world religions without having any clue about the corresponding doctrin can be grating fast and insulting religious feelings is easy.
But i never got that argument for races. Fantasy races never live in any cultures that are remotely close to what e have today. And pretty much all the race stuff for humans is purely cultural as there are no significant biological differences. Thus portraying some human race in a fantasy setting has nothing to do at all with the real world issues with that particular race. So where is the difference to a pure fantasy race ? (Outside of fantasy races sometimes having significant biological differences).
It is slightly different if you really copy some real world cultures for your fantasy world. But then again, none of the players is from any of those historical cultures. Why would it seem easier to play some long gone culture which had predominantly people with a similar skin colour to some other long gone culture which had predominently people with a different skin colour ? Both options should be equally foreign experiences.
Everything else gives "race" for humans far more credit than it should have. There is nothing significantly different between humans of different races. Or their experience if you disregard culture. There is not something like a "black cultural idendity" spanning continents and millenia. That is why science long abandoned the concept of human races.
As for cosplay in Germany : Don't use forbidden symbols. Yes, there are a lot of Manga-/Anime characters of Faux-Nazi-Germany and some do show a lot of swasticas, but you are still not allowed to show them as part of your costume.
Everything else is accepted. Cross-dressing is not a problem. And "blackface" is an American thing, it is not seen as insulting to blacks to use color to look black as part of a costume. Because we didn't have those shows here. Instead doing so is traditionally part of some christmas play costumes as one of the biblical three wise man is always shown as black since the middle ages as acknowledgement of the african coptic Christians (especcially Ethiopia).Last edited by Satinavian; 2018-02-25 at 05:35 AM.
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2018-02-25, 05:47 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Sep 2009
- Gender
Re: Playing Races, Genders, Sexual Orientations, and Sexual Identities with Respect
It primarily seems to come from mistaking diversity for representation, and applicabilty for analogy. See other thread.
That is: a weird pointy-eared thing does not look like real human, and is hence usually not taken to represent any real human.
A dark-skinned human looks like some real humans, so is taken to represent some real humans.
By extension, treatment of weird pointy-eared thing in a game is not taken to imply anything about real humans. Through a leap of logic, treatment of dark-skinned humans is taken to imply something about real humans.
Note that this is not hard rule, exceptions exist. For example, an author could make their weird pointy-eared things an analogue to some real group of humans, and a savvy player could use this to draw conclusions about the author's message. On the flipside, even if the pointy-eared thing is analogy of nothing, you might still be able to learn something about it.
But no matter which way the train of thought goes, it's always questionable. Because fictional people in fantastic circumstances aren't really representative of anyone."It's the fate of all things under the sky,
to grow old and wither and die."
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2018-02-25, 07:51 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Mar 2012
- Location
- Dallas, TX
- Gender
Re: Playing Races, Genders, Sexual Orientations, and Sexual Identities with Respect
And so... to clarify my questions (not complaints):
What methods and techniques do you use to get into character and overcome the obstacles of accidentally superimposing yourself onto the character you are playing or playing a two dimensional caricature of your character?
I'm talking about method acting as a role playing technique for developing the subtler aspects of your character (i.e. the nuances of a personality that is sculpted, or influenced by, the cultural and societal aspects and ramifications of race, gender identity, and sexual orientation) with respect to the archetype being represented and with a heightened level of verisimilitude. This is all assuming the game being played allows for, and encourages, this kind of roleplay.
This not an attempt to discourage this kind of RP, defend it, or feel better/worse about it. This is an effort promote discussion about it in the hopes that those of us who enjoy this type of in depth roleplay can hone their skills by sharing with and learning from techniques and practices being used, and how those techniques and practices worked out.
Obviously communication is not my best skill, so I apologize if I've been unclear. It's one of the reasons I enjoy role play as much as I do. It feels like a safe playing field for practicing how to interact with people. Therefore, I'm hoping this post clarifies my original intent. If it does, I may just add this to post 1.PbP Junk and Stuff:
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I am currently not a player in a game, and would be mostly interested in joining 5E games.My Campaigns:
For the Republic of Ishtar! A 5E Campaign
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Jormengand's Advice on Character Development
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2018-02-25, 08:03 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Oct 2015
- Location
- Berlin
- Gender
Re: Playing Races, Genders, Sexual Orientations, and Sexual Identities with Respect
Pure fantasy races almost always come as a complete package of race and culture, often quite monolithic when it comes to that, starting with their primary deity and separate pantheon, while humans come in a broad variety of colors and culture, with very well defined difference between those (interestingly enough, I know only the old Wilderlands setting that actually adds real fantasy variants to human, like skin-color ranging from spotty purple to pure red, blue and green).
Groundwork: Get to know the setting, get to know the game rules and get comfy with the expectations your group has about how the actual game should be played. Might sound totally trite, but we're talking about RPGs and how they portray "heroes", doing stuff that no sane person would ever do, potentially surviving multiple fireballs and such. No use in aiming for a level of "verisimilitude" that doesn't touch on with what is going to happen in the actual game. To use PF/Golarion as an example, while itīs interesting to see what a commoner in Cheliax does, what matters is what an adventurer from Cheliax does.
Know yourself: Even with some advanced training, you are still you and that comes attached with some baggage like certain patterns, behaviors and reactions. While that can be suppressed for a while, that's a certain level of stress and needs control, being a sure bet that you will slip from time to time, so superimposing yourself on your character canīt really be avoided. So be honest with yourself here, curb your ambitions a bit and go for what you actually can portrait just fine, avoid what you know will not work for you. (Example: I've a rather deep voice and my native dialect is bavarian, which is rather "slow" compared to other german dialects, especially the northern ones, so I'm really bad at voice-acting something "small and cute" like an excited halfling but can do the menacing Judge Dredd growl just fine).Last edited by Florian; 2018-02-25 at 08:36 AM.
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2018-02-25, 09:33 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- May 2004
- Location
- Enterprise, Alabama
- Gender
Re: Playing Races, Genders, Sexual Orientations, and Sexual Identities with Respect
Well as a cis-Native American, I'd like you to know we aren't all that different from you likely. I mean, sure we have magic powers, but essentially we are the same.
I mean, it really depends on how much their ethnic background is ingrained in their sense of being. Otherwise, we are just like pale skins, (whites).
If they grew up tribal, ten it would have more impact on their being. I didn't so I act more white-ish.
Spoiler:
This is not the conversation point... this is just an example:I imagine cosplayers, especially crossplayers, have a similar dilemma. As a white male, passably straight, let's say I wanted to cosplay as, say... Sailor Moon. There are many conventions where I live that won't allow this, even if I make an effort to cover all the "private bits". The problem gets more severe if I want to cosplay as a dark elf. Even though the race doesn't technically exist in this world, it's hard to imagine a scenario where this would be a culturally acceptable cosplay. It's hard to tell where the line crosses from heartfelt roleplay of a character or concept you love, to some form of accidental "ism."
And so, I thought this would be a nice place to discuss what we do to get into character and really play true to the nature of the culture we are trying to emulate. Also, if anyone wishes to share their questions/concerns/frustrations with roleplay outside of your specific cultural purview, they are welcome to do so here. How do you handle the RP? What are some challenges you've faced playing your character and were you able to overcome it? If so, how? If not, maybe the collective minds on the forum can help.Last edited by Starbuck_II; 2018-02-25 at 11:23 AM.
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2018-02-25, 10:41 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Mar 2012
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- Dallas, TX
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Re: Playing Races, Genders, Sexual Orientations, and Sexual Identities with Respect
I knew it!
Therein lies the subtlety of the RP I'm referring to. You know what acting white-ish is, implying that there are cultural seasonings which can effect RP from that perspective. And this is where I want to dig in.
Not counting what I've seen from media entertainment, historical exhibits, guest visits to my school when I was a child, and one casino, I've only had two genuine interactions with Native Americans.
One was at my granddad's funeral in Oklahoma, and another in Germany. Neither led me to believe that our lives and experiences were similar. In fact, the experiences were existentially jarring, in a wonderful yet tragic way.
Spoiler: A Little Exposition for PerspectiveMy granddad was not well loved by his family by anyone but me. To everyone he knew he was a violent, philandering, alcoholic with sexual proclivities that were generally deemed unacceptable, even abhorrent, in his era (bisexual). He collected divorce papers with the same veracity as he pounded Wild Turkey (which I had actually seen him use instead of milk for his cereal, and performed jazz piano for tips at a series night clubs throughout Oklahoma. He squandered his inherited wealth on liquor, drugs, sex, gambling, and music instruments, and never treated anyone with respect or compassion. But he was always good to me. He taught me how to play the drums and the piano, inspiring my love of music. He taught me to dance, and he never said an unkind word to me. I don't know why I was the exception, but there it is. I lost track of him in the last decade of his life when he vanished into a reservation and never returned. According to what I learned at the funeral, he spent the remaining days of his life drinking and getting high on the reservation.
So, it stands to reason, that his funeral was somewhat awkward. His family arrived, relieved to see him gone, disgusted and frustrated to be there, but interested to see if any of his trust fund remained to be parceled out amongst the surviving members.
That was when the Native Americans arrived: filing in like an army of woe, weeping and sobbing as if each were a parent who had lost their child. They praised his life and lamented his passing.
They loved him... lots of them loved him. I never had the luxury of finding out why. After the funeral, the Native Americans returned to the reservation as far as I know. I was just a boy at the time, and wasn't really sure if it would be appropriate to talk to them about their experiences with my granddad. In retrospect, I wish I would've had the courage to do so.
______
In Germany, I met a group of musicians dancing and singing in the striezelmarkt. Recognizing the traditional clothing, cheekbones, and complexion as Native American, I walked up to toss in a few marks and enjoy the show. Afterwords, I found out they were selling CDs. Forgetting, for a moment, that I was in Germany, I walked up to them and started speaking to them in American English. I've never been looked at with such hatred before after doing so. The dancers eyes were a fierce glare of wrath and contempt, that I felt inexplicably ashamed of myself. Figuring I must've just confused the man by speaking the wrong language, I switched to German. "No, I heard you the first time." he snapped. "Show me your money first, then you can have a CD." I gave him the money, and he shoved a CD at me. I had so many questions about what brought him here, and how long the group had been travelling, and if they ever performed any shows in America... typical fanboy questions (I really enjoyed the group). But he just kept staring at me contemptuously before turning his back on me and walking away.
I read the literature inside the CD jacket. It was filled with rage and heartbreak about the things European immigrants to America did to his people. Apparently, most of his songs on the album were about the tragic decimation of his people by the white immigrants. It was a great album. I didn't understand a word of it, though.
And that's about all I know about Native Americans. It seems even the internet, with all its vast resources, has blanketed knowledge of the culture, or disseminated misinformation about it. Or should I say them? There seem to be a slew of Native American cultures out there, each with unique languages, histories, art, and cultural perspectives in both the here and then. I created a Native American for a 3.5 campaign that didn't get very far, inspired by the Shawnee tribe. Fit into the classic tropes, he was a loincloth clad, tomahawk wielding, face-painted, barbarian, and all around 2D stereotype with no other depth beyond a cool look, stern visage, and a quiet wisdom. The core concept was riveting to me... but the lack of data to formulate my fluff left a vacuum in the RP that I could only fill with stereotypes. I was ultimately frustrated with the character, and relieved when the campaign died.
I'm not even sure how to play the dialect, accent, or colloquialisms of the culture, other than to utterly white wash it, or play into some of the most basic stereotypes of the source material.
How would you recommend I come to a better understanding of the character I attempted to build?Last edited by inexorabletruth; 2018-02-25 at 11:15 AM.
PbP Junk and Stuff:
My Characters:
I am currently not a player in a game, and would be mostly interested in joining 5E games.My Campaigns:
For the Republic of Ishtar! A 5E Campaign
My PbP color is dark red.
My Player Registry
My DM Registry
Jormengand's Advice on Character Development
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2018-02-26, 05:03 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Feb 2013
- Location
- Sweden
Re: Playing Races, Genders, Sexual Orientations, and Sexual Identities with Respect
My recommendation would actually be to use your personal experiences, even if you discarded that idea yourself.
I don't mean your personal experiences as to casual meets or based on what you've seen in other media, I mean experiences from actual friends or at least acquaintances you've spoken to a lot.
It is a lot harder to disrespect a group when you have friends in that group. Similarly, it is a lot easier to see how the group is quite similar to yourself when you have friends in it. So my advice is simple; try to befriend someone who is of a particular race, gender, sexual orientation or whatever that you want to portray. If you can meet and interact with a couple of people, you will find that no two of them are exactly the same either, which will help you avoid stereotypes or caricatures.
On the flip side, culture DOES matter. It does not define a character, but it does give people of a certain group common experiences which shape them somewhat.
In any case, as a GM I have portrayed a lot of different races, genders, sexual orientations, sexual identities etc. So far noone has accused me of being disrespectful (and my groups have similarly been almost as diverse). Get to know the people, learn to like them, befriend them, and you're not going to WANT to be disrespecting.
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2018-02-26, 11:02 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jan 2006
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Re: Playing Races, Genders, Sexual Orientations, and Sexual Identities with Respect
Be...careful...with this. Befriending people only because they have "marginalized" traits is dangerously close to tokenism. Now, admittedly, you CANNOT make friends, in a real sense, if that's all you think about them, but the fact you're seeking them out for friendship for that reason inherently is hazardous to the notion of actually making friends in a genuine sense.
Culture doesn't define everything about a character, but it is far more important than skin color or even sexual orientation. People are what they do, not what they look like.
One thing that personally roils me every time I see it is when people conflate culture and skin color (I'd say "race," but that's ambiguous on a D&D-heavy forum...and depending on the setting, actual D&D-style racial differences can have genuine differences other than culture). It is highly racist to assume that comments on a culture are comments on a race associated with that culture. Culture includes behaviors and mannerisms, and it's okay to not like certain behaviors and mannerisms, just as it's okay to admire others. It's highly racist to assume that all people with a particular skin tone will behave in a manner you disapprove of because there is a culture that is predominantly made up of people of that phenotype. It is equally racist to assume that any distaste for a particular culture is based upon disliking people who have a particular phenotype that dominates that culture.
Culture matters a lot more than how somebody looks, though how they look - particularly voluntary things like clothing styles, hair styles, makeup, jewelry, or tattoos - can be an indicator of culture. But unless it's important to make a snap decision for safety purposes, it's foolish to judge based solely on appearance. It's particularly foolish and actively racist to do so based on involuntary, inborn phenotypical traits. Whether you're doing it by saying you can't trust somebody of a particular phenotype because of a culture, or by saying it's racist to judge a culture because it is practiced by those of a particular phenotype.
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2018-02-26, 11:11 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- May 2016
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- The Lakes
Re: Playing Races, Genders, Sexual Orientations, and Sexual Identities with Respect
Indeed. Exactly.
And that is where we start getting into the dire underlying problem with the notion of "X culture" where X is a superficial phenotype trait.
I try to make it very clear in my worldbuilding that if a "culture" and a "race" appear to be synchronous, it's because most people of that "race" are raised in that culture for social/political/economic/geographic reasons, not because those cultural traits are inherent to that "race".
When different "races" are actually distinct species or subspecies, then there are species traits, and cultural traits, and the two interact, but someone from species X raised in culture A will tend to be different from someone from species X raised in culture B, or someone from species Y raised in culture A or B.It is one thing to suspend your disbelief. It is another thing entirely to hang it by the neck until dead.
Verisimilitude -- n, the appearance or semblance of truth, likelihood, or probability.
The concern is not realism in speculative fiction, but rather the sense that a setting or story could be real, fostered by internal consistency and coherence.
The Worldbuilding Forum -- where realities are born.
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2018-02-26, 02:04 PM (ISO 8601)
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- May 2004
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- Enterprise, Alabama
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Re: Playing Races, Genders, Sexual Orientations, and Sexual Identities with Respect
See, now you already have a vast wealth of knowledge from your own experiences you could have pulled from.
Now, first, the musician:
song and instruments including dance are very much important in most tribes. While some cultures had writing, oral traditions are big among the all tribes. Almost all tribes felt the impact of colonist took their land by force or cheating them out of it. So he has anger for the what past people did to other past people (mostly because the they were his past people). So he also had stern visage, but only because he saw you as one of those who were apart of the attackers. Likely he has a jolly face when by his friends.
So you could have made your character have a respect deep for music or even play a instrument himself during downtime (or multiclassed to Bard so you'd use in combat).
This is also why your granddad probably taught you because it is important to him. So he care enough to share it with you.
Now, vices: liquor is a strong one, fire water is dangerous as we are easily alcoholics (something genetically I guess), which is why I don't drink just in case. Sex and gambling is not unique an issue, but eh.
So you can add those if you desire.
So even without changing much you can redo that character:
Native American for a 3.5 campaign that didn't get very far, inspired by the Shawnee tribe. Fit into the classic tropes, he was a loincloth clad, tomahawk wielding, face-painted, barbarian, but the has a great love of music.
Maybe he sings ancestral songs around campfire. Maybe he has special words for things. You can make him a drunkard or not your choice. You can make him a gambling man even. He believes in fate in all things so he loves to risk it all every once in a while.
After all, this is fantasy so you can incorporate all tribes in this guy if you like.
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2018-02-28, 10:15 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Feb 2013
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- Sweden
Re: Playing Races, Genders, Sexual Orientations, and Sexual Identities with Respect
You are correct, you should not befriend people for the sole reason that they hold some sort of "marginalized" trait. You should befriend them because they are good people (and if they are not, you should avoid them regardless of race or sexuality).
My point was more that I find that the best way to treat a group with respect is to have friends in the group.
If you, for some reason, never encounter people in your life with a different skin color, different cultural background or whatever, you should probably expand the circles you move in. Take up activities that are not solely dominated by "your own group".
Also, I find it quite unlikely that anyone has managed to live their life without encountering anyone who is not hetero-normative (that is the word right?). So all you need to do is to make sure to be open-minded and friendly and you'll get to know at least *someone* who is not hetero-normative.
If you don't have a friend of the opposite gender, I can only say... WTF? How did you manage to exclude half the population from your friends list?
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2018-02-28, 10:58 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Mar 2012
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- Dallas, TX
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Re: Playing Races, Genders, Sexual Orientations, and Sexual Identities with Respect
This is pretty helpful! I'd like to know a bit more about the dialects (to proper effect his accent when speaking common), colloquialisms, religion, art (particularly pertaining to music), and takes on love and romance to fill him out, but this is a way better start than what I had.
Maybe my character will get a script re-write and I'll throw him into another campaign. The core concept was enticing, and I want to give it a proper run-through.PbP Junk and Stuff:
My Characters:
I am currently not a player in a game, and would be mostly interested in joining 5E games.My Campaigns:
For the Republic of Ishtar! A 5E Campaign
My PbP color is dark red.
My Player Registry
My DM Registry
Jormengand's Advice on Character Development
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2018-02-28, 05:10 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Aug 2005
- Location
- Toronto, Canada
- Gender
Re: Playing Races, Genders, Sexual Orientations, and Sexual Identities with Respect
At the risk of "Well, Actually"ing you about your own genetics, I was under the impression that the belief that Native Americans are more likely to lack the genes that prevent alcoholism is based mostly on shoddy research done by white scientists in the early 20th century.
There is a quite long article on the subject here, but the short version is that those old studies mostly ignored environmental factors, and alcoholism has been shown since to be much more dependent on environmental factors, poverty, and generational alcohol use than with anything inherent. The original instances of alcohol use were largely due to European alcohol being a lot stronger than North American alcohol, and on Europeans also being heavier drinkers, giving them built-up resistance to their own alcohol that the cultures they met didn't have yet.
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2018-02-28, 11:26 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Feb 2018
Re: Playing Races, Genders, Sexual Orientations, and Sexual Identities with Respect
Without derailing (because you have heaps of great responses), I do have something to add here. Following your example about men not being allowed to cosplay a female character, but women are very welcome to cosplay a male character (costume example below). In a perfect world where gender equality exists (and likewise a world where minorities were never treated with disrespect) a male could cosplay a female, a white person could throw on a wig and paint their skin colour dark... In a perfect world where everyone respects everyone. The problem is that at the moment we are going through a huge social change, and as a huge group we are trying to figure it out, we are collectively working out what is okay and what is not. The white-cis taking roles of the non-white-cis (ie whitewashing), or the male taking roles that a female could play (e.g. the lack of female super hero movies, or the disproportionate amount of male extras in a crowd scene), is an issue, a big current issue. So when a man cosplays as a woman (or a white puts on blackface, or a person pretends to be transgender), they are saying that they either don't care about the issue or are ignorant of it.
Spoiler: Example of female cosplaying a male
For me when I roleplay I like to completely avoid the idea of my race or gender being treated differently (in any kind of negative sense). This is a fantasy setting, so a huge part of my fantasy is to treat every character as equal. A dragonborn, a tabaxi, and halfing female barbarian walk into a huge city, and... no one baits an eyelid. I know that a lot of people discuss making dragonborns "attract attention"and stuff (and I realise that the backstory even suggests it), however I completely refuse that rule. Sure the dwarf might be the best choice to talk to the other dwarves at the tavern (give him advantage because they are wondering if they were born in the same city or if he knows anyone that they know), but there is no disadvantage to the tiefling walking up and trying. Because, wouldn't it be great to live in a world like that~!Last edited by Kaibis; 2018-02-28 at 11:26 PM.
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2018-03-01, 01:30 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Jan 2006
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Re: Playing Races, Genders, Sexual Orientations, and Sexual Identities with Respect
Honestly, I think women can get away with crossplaying more than men can in Cosplay because male costumes tend to be less revealing. The more you can layer and cover up, the easier it is to disguise the uncomfortably obvious presence or absence of certain parts.
The stigma against men dressing as women is also stronger in modern society than it is for women dressing as men. There are very few outfits that people will actually say, "Wait, why is she wearing that? She's a GIRL!" about these days, outside of very specific events where there's a clear dress code. Nobody bats an eye at a woman in the most dapper of tuxedos unless it's at a formal ball.
Men wearing dresses is...not normal. People gawk, point, laugh, or try not to do so.
There is also the odd fact that women's clothing, even when particularly covering, is designed to explicitly flatter the feminine form. Men's clothing, while normally designed to at least passably do so for male forms, can be retailored to do the same for a woman. A fitted women's tuxedo will not disguise her sex, but will flatter her just fine.
Some of this, again, goes back to the male clothing simply being more covering (outside of swimwear and the like).
Thinking about it, I suppose a man wearing a retailored dress, designed to actively flatter the male form, would probably easily be mistaken for wearing a medieval-style robe. Or a greek-style or scottish-style "kilt." (I put this in quotes because I understand real kilts are more than "men's skirts," and involve particular tartan patterns and accessories. I apologize if I'm wrong about this.)
I would, frankly, be highly embarassed to wear clothing as tight-fitting as most notably female garb, even if I were physically fit enough that I'm not showing paunch in the process. But that's because I'm used to men's wear, which is quite concealing and doesn't cling.
Heck, I've occasionally wanted to cosplay as Dark Schneider, but I know I couldn't pull it off. And that's not even crossplaying!
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2018-03-01, 01:55 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Feb 2018
Re: Playing Races, Genders, Sexual Orientations, and Sexual Identities with Respect
idk, every time we have a mufty day at school, all the boys put on girls school uniforms. I suppose they *are* doing it for a laugh, but no one is laughing at them, only with them.
When the OP mentioned a male wearing a sailor moon costume, I assumed he was making he male-appropriate (similar to the Dr Who cosplay that I posted. Many female cosplayers create skirted versions of Dr Who outfits. I don't see why a man couldn't make a male version of a sailor moon costume.
E.g.
Spoiler: Mixed gender sailor moon cosplay
I realise I have both put an argument for not cosplaying minorities, and then have also shown appreciation for cross-gender cosplays. Truthfully, I love cross-gender cosplays, I just also appreciate that we are in a period of time where there are other important factors that influence whether it is appropriate or not. For now it is not appropriate for a white-cis-male to cosplay anything other than a white-cis-male.
Back on topic, as a female, I feel so uncomfortable with a male playing a female character with me *if* the gender is emphasised, or worse, the character becomes sexualised. If they have picked the character because they really wanted to model "Captain Phasma" or "Aria Stark" then fair call. But if I sit down to a tabletop game with a man playing a female character, I am honestly expecting them to grab their own boobs and get silly about it. I mentally gird myself for the stupidness will probably occur.
As a female I already put up with a lot of over-sexualisation. I understand having a limited range of miniatures/avatars (because sure, their are less female players), however it upsets me when the small range that I am presented with is full of boobs, hourglass hips, and sexy posing. Those female characters are not for me, they are *also* for the males. Then when a male player decides to plonk down a hyper-sexualised female character onto the table, I am ready to leave. I was joining a game on roll20 recently in which a male player offered up a picture of his character. It was clearly not even the same class as what he had describe, but it was huge boobs, and a slit up to the crotch. I am not going to play with him.
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2018-03-01, 03:22 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Feb 2015
Re: Playing Races, Genders, Sexual Orientations, and Sexual Identities with Respect
I disagree. If the character that is to be shown is a valid cosplay inspiration itself (which might exclude some offensive carricatures and the like), then the cosplay is appropriate. It is utterly irrelevant who the cosplayer is. Yes, some people have a harder time to achieve a recognizable or convincing costume, but that doesn't cahnge anything for appropriateness.
Back on topic, as a female, I feel so uncomfortable with a male playing a female character with me *if* the gender is emphasised, or worse, the character becomes sexualised. If they have picked the character because they really wanted to model "Captain Phasma" or "Aria Stark" then fair call. But if I sit down to a tabletop game with a man playing a female character, I am honestly expecting them to grab their own boobs and get silly about it. I mentally gird myself for the stupidness will probably occur.
Also it is prejudiced. Do you also presume that if a women plays a male character that that character will surely be all playing with his **** ?
As a female I already put up with a lot of over-sexualisation. I understand having a limited range of miniatures/avatars (because sure, their are less female players), however it upsets me when the small range that I am presented with is full of boobs, hourglass hips, and sexy posing. Those female characters are not for me, they are *also* for the males. Then when a male player decides to plonk down a hyper-sexualised female character onto the table, I am ready to leave. I was joining a game on roll20 recently in which a male player offered up a picture of his character. It was clearly not even the same class as what he had describe, but it was huge boobs, and a slit up to the crotch. I am not going to play with him.
Doesn't have anything to do with crossplaying.Last edited by Satinavian; 2018-03-01 at 03:39 AM.
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2018-03-01, 03:32 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Feb 2018
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2018-03-01, 03:54 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Feb 2015
Re: Playing Races, Genders, Sexual Orientations, and Sexual Identities with Respect
Well, it is certainly possible. Can't really argue with personal experience especcially with players from around the globe who might experience different gaming cultures.
But after decades of gaming in several different cities i estimate the percentage of cross-gender characters who are sexualized at all at about 5-10%. Which is not significantly different from sexualized characters who share the sex of their players. (Also most of those sexualized characters both male and female were played by women but due to the overall number being so low and thus sampling error becoming high i would not generalize that aspect too much)
So yes, i find your experience quite surprising.
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2018-03-01, 04:49 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Feb 2018
Re: Playing Races, Genders, Sexual Orientations, and Sexual Identities with Respect
Ah, the issue might be in the wording. If you re-read my original quote, I didn't say I wouldn't play with a man who had a female character, I said I wouldn't play with a man who was sending out all the signals that they were about to play a hyper-sexualised female character (e.g. the half-naked female avatar of the wrong class). I will err on the side of "I do not want to waste my time" when it comes to giving them the benefit of the doubt, that is an experience thing (or an "I'm too old for this ****" thing). It's currently (for reasons mentioned above) really distasteful to play (roleplay, cosplay..) a minority character that you have no understanding of, for me personal I feel the same about men playing women (really with the exception of someone cosplaying via roleplay, if that makes sense, I get why someone would want to play a Brienne of Tarth character).
As to why I see more, lots of reasons. I am probably looking for it / noticing it (in a 'guard up' kind of way). Possibly (though only theorising) the nature of online RPGs (ie roll20, where we don't see facial reactions, generally don't know each other, and use googled avatars) means guys feel more okay being inappropriate (idk).
I mean, it is just my experience as one women (who has been online for over 20 years) interacting with males* - the guard has to go up. Just last Sunday I had a male character act uncomfortably suggestive with my male character. Another player mentioned that I wasn't playing a female, and the offending player immediately retconned the incident (worth mentioning, that creating males characters/avatars is a 101 defensive move for women on the internet). The guy did not apologise for being sexual without discussing this with me, he had only known me for twenty minutes (He was joining our game) but felt like it was okay to have his character make advances. He should have had an out-of-game conversation ("Hi, I'd love to RP-ing a romantic relationship, are you interested?" or "Hi, I want to have a really flirty character, is it okay if I flirt with your character?"), if the out-of-game conversation is too awkward, then the in-game one is going to be much much worse.
*I have a very close white-male friend, he is all non-cis, however he was shocked to learn how much the experiences of a white-women differ to a white-man. I assumed that because he was non-cis that he was completely aware, but I was very wrong. So I am trying to not assume that everyone knows this, I realise that it can a big eye-opener.Last edited by Kaibis; 2018-03-01 at 04:50 AM.
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2018-03-01, 04:49 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Oct 2015
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- Berlin
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Re: Playing Races, Genders, Sexual Orientations, and Sexual Identities with Respect
While I would prefer attractive women to play topless or actually naked, best when the session also has sushi and a good whiskey or rum, I'm with Satiavian on this: Last time I had this happen, so guy playing an comically horny female, was during my teens when hormones ran the highest. That's now some decades in the past and the later cross playing experiences rather showed that sex and gender are pretty irrelevant things.
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2018-03-01, 04:53 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Sep 2009
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Re: Playing Races, Genders, Sexual Orientations, and Sexual Identities with Respect
Originally Posted by Kaibis
No?
Then get real.
"White-cis-males" cosplaying as whatever is a near total non-issue and people who make claims to contrary only make the hobby hostile to a pretty fat share of potential hobbyists. And again, this attitude hits young and inexperienced hobbyists most.
Translated to the roleplaying environment, the quoted kind of attitude is a good way to ensure that a segment of the hobby is type-locked to only playing characters of their own ethnicity and gender, never learns to play anything else, and never produces any content with that much-desired "diversity" and "representation", out of fear of offending someone. Doesn't sound particularly desireable to me.
Related is your ridiculous idea that a person cosplaying as someone of different gender or race must be either ignorant or apatheic towards minority problems. This is homologous to the idea that gay men putting on drag is somehow disrespectfull to women. It's ridiculous on a logical level - nothing about the act requires apathy or ignorance - but also on the practical level. Like, baked into the argument is the assumption that if a man goes through serious trouble to put on make-up and wear feminine clothing, suddenly they will understand feminine troubles less? Come on.
In reality, motives to cosplay various characters are countless, and knowledge of minority issues may as well inform a costume decision than not. Translated to a roleplaying environment, someone might choose to play a different ethnicity or gender for the specific purpose of examining that kind of character's position in the game world, or to make a point about the reality of such a character. You should not make assumptions of their motives without additional proof.
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@Segev: yes, in normal events, a man dressing up as a woman (etc.) is something bizarre.
Carnevals, costume balls (which cosplay events by definition are), live-action roleplays, tabletop games and acting are not normal events.
In Europe, there is a tradition going back hundreds of years that a man dressing up as a woman is fine in a carneval, a costume ball, or on the stage. This isn't just a cosplay thing, but a general thing. Same goes to dressing up as another race or ethnicity. Throwing hissy-fits about the practice is a fairly recent conceit and effectively stands on a series of bad-faith assumptions (like the above assumptions of ignorance and apathy).
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@Satinavian: my experience of female-majority groups is that they are not any less prone to engage in low-brow humour or sexual antics. Female players using their male characters for some weird form of sexual gratification totally is a thing. (Lord save me from my friend's little sister's Yaoi fantasies!)
The reason why we associate this behaviour with men is a matter of hobby demographics. Let's suppose that each player has 20% of being a pervert. In a group of one woman and four men, which is more likely: that the perv is woman, or that the perv is a man?
The discussion is further skewed by history of the hobby. Shortly: during 2nd edition of AD&D, TSR made a conscious decision to market their product to kids and sanitized it in many respects compared to 1st edition. This worked in that 2e and its licensed products penetrated pop culture and the market fairly well, but it also gave rise to the idea that RPGs need to be particular type of PG-13 heroic fantasy. Since many current gamers grew up during this era and view it with rose-tinted lenses of nostalgia, we get the situation where PG-13 heroic fantasy is the default and sexual things are either too juvenile or too adult to game.
The default is quite different in those pockets of the hobby which grew up on, say, Cyberpunk or Vampire, as part of the allure for those games was that they dealt with "adult" stuff that (A)D&D did not.
I look hopefully into the future where kids I raised on Lamentations of the Flame Princess will make gore, murder and rape the new default."It's the fate of all things under the sky,
to grow old and wither and die."
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2018-03-01, 05:05 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Feb 2018
Re: Playing Races, Genders, Sexual Orientations, and Sexual Identities with Respect
You sound like a great person to play with. I agree, this is the way it should be. For me, there are no stats differences between male and female, so their is zero benefit in-game to playing a cross-gender character (idk, maybe a player has their 8yo daughter playing with them, so they play a female paladin because it makes their daughter happy... there are heaps of good reason to play a cross-gender character).
Back to my way-back post, and giving my thoughts on the OP question. This stuff shouldn't matter, and I would love to live in a world where it didn't. Currently it does matter, for really good important reasons, minorities be races, sexual identities, or gender, are kindly asking to not be "whitewashed". I won't explain it all, I can't, I am only grasping the importance of it myself. But I know this is a period when it is respectful to not mimic something that you do not fully understand. Ie. I wouldn't play a transgender character, or even a gay character.
tl;dr It's a really big and important issue, so we tread carefully, with respect, and don't whitewash (or anything that resembles that)
Also, I feel like I might be derailing the thread. Apologies.Last edited by Kaibis; 2018-03-01 at 05:10 AM. Reason: deleted some rambling irrelevant stuff
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2018-03-01, 05:43 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Oct 2015
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- Berlin
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Re: Playing Races, Genders, Sexual Orientations, and Sexual Identities with Respect
In short: Donīt transport intra-cultural battles into a hobby, especially not in places that don't have the problem(s) in the first place.
I never cease wondering about the "blackface" thing and Iīd get seriously angry if someone would try to argue with me about crossdressing when I'm on my way to the annual Rocky Horror Picture Show event.
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2018-03-01, 05:53 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Mar 2016
Re: Playing Races, Genders, Sexual Orientations, and Sexual Identities with Respect
I think that you are overthinking this.
It is no harder to roleplay someone who is gay or a different gender etc, than it is to roleplay someone who is very different to you in myriad of other ways. Often the being gay or a different gender will be less of a difference, and thus easier to roleplay than other differences.
Take the character in your signature, Carric Hollmion, for example. Even if Carric were a different gender, sexuality than you, and trans as well, there are other characteristics he has which are likely to be far more intrinsic to his character and more removed from your reality than gender, sexual preference and ethnicity.
For example, the simple fact that Carric is a Wood Elf is probably more of a difference from you than sexual preference or gender would be - not only is he more biologically different from you than any human race my some margin, his culture is also more different, the reactions he receives from other races will be more distinct than any human ethnicity. He is a ranger and skilled in a range of weapons, and presumably you are not, which again is probably more of a difference from you than (say) gender would be. If you are not chaotic neutral and do not subscribe to his motto of "when I'm strong I'll take what I want", that ideological difference is probably larger then (say) sexual preference would be. If any of his ability scores are very different from yours that is another difference which probably has more bearing on his day to day life than his gender/sexual preference. Being an adventurer in a magical world is more different from you than being (say) trans in this world.
I suppose what I am trying to say is that every time you roleplay you are roleplaying someone who is far further removed from yourself in terms of experience and outlook than another human who has a different race, gender or sexual preference would be. If you manage to play wizards (or even fighters) how hard can it be to play someone who is the opposite gender?
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2018-03-01, 06:27 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Oct 2015
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- Berlin
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Re: Playing Races, Genders, Sexual Orientations, and Sexual Identities with Respect
Difficult topic to get into and even more difficult to elaborate on without getting the thread locked due to politics.
You (apparently) argue from a position that has a "leading culture" which is imposed upon everyone and suppresses any kind of "sub-culture" instead of just assimilating and incorporating it. That is actually a quite rare state that either happens in some very isolated countries, or in countries that are so large with such a far-flung population that they needed the artificial construct of "dominant culture" to have at least something that the populace has in common to start with.