I've seen a lot of discussions over the years about playing the opposite gender. For some it's okay, for others it's a problem, and it is often done very poorly, though not always.

However I have never seen an issue about playing a different race, by which (of course) I do not mean elves and dwarves, but other ethnicities.

I've seen many a bad stereotypical Asian over the years, usually monks, the occasional native American (who is usually played as semi-literate, embarrassingly enough) not a lot of people playing African-American's though.

Would that be considered offensive? Just curious...
This message was lightly edited by a moderator, as it was the wrong forum, at 17:45, Sun 05 June 2016.

I've been trying to branch out into playing other ethnicities.  The games died off before I could fully flesh out my characters though.

I will never understand people in a roleplaying hobby/community getting upset at the idea of people trying to find some empathy for a gender they are not irl, so I can't imagine extending that to an ethnicity, religion or species that they're not irl either.  If all my characters were the same nationality, religion, etc. as me roleplaying would be extremely boring.

As far as it being offensive, how do you judge something so subjective as that?  Offense is never given it is only taken.

I was one of the ones who posted asking for advice one. The general consensus was just play the character, I was thinking to much about it.

Often human racial background just doesn't matter, as it so often doesn't in RL until someone makes an issue of it.  So unless the player has a picture of the character, making it obvious, probably most people don't even think about it.

Agreed. As a rule of thumb, I'd say that if one is looking for things to play up to better seem like that race, then they're on a bit of a knife's edge, because stereotypes are the easiest such aspects to find.

That is an interesting point, are you really play another race, or simply using an ethnically specific portrait? The Star War's movies are an example of how simply using the accent can get some people upset, is there anything about ethnic identity that you can use that won't be taken the wrong way, other than a portrait?

The problem with Star Wars and Transformers was they used those accents on characters that was, well, no other way to put it other than they were a mockery of the race.

On the other hand, I see nothing wrong with taking traits from another group to flesh out a character. Only crazy people get upset about that.  Like the girl who attacked a boy for having dreadlocks calling it 'cultural appropriation.' Or the people who got upset that a cosplayer used bodypaint to look like another race because the character was dark skinned and the cosplayer was not.
This message was last edited by the user at 16:47, Mon 06 June 2016.

One of the advantages of participating in RPOL is the chance of broadening and deepening one's creative writing. That implies trying out that which differs from the RL you.

Regardless of what one tries, I think one should respect one's avatar if for no other reason that, IMO, what you put into your avatar affects who you are and your repertoire.

Being a GM, I include NPCs of various genders and ethnicities in my stories. As such, I will sometimes use a dialect to put the character across. I might also play some characters as dumb or silly, flirty or cowardly, in addition to those that are clever, brave, strong, generous, etc. I write pre-generated PCs with all these characteristics and more.

What I always try to be very careful about is not to play or write stereotypes for any character. When I have had players portray someone of a differing gender or ethnicity in my games, I'm glad to report that I've never had anyone lean on an offensive prejudice of that group.

>>> drewalt: If you think people can't deliberately give offense to others, I think you have been very lucky or very sheltered. Watch some political coverage and I guarantee it will come up.

Getting offended at a political opinion means objectivity and rationality have been abandoned in favor of ideology and emotional investment in same.

In reply to Piestar (msg # 7):

Well, you there's never going to be a guarantee that someone won't take something the wrong way. I think one should do their best to play in good faith, and not take umbrage if someone expresses concern. Ideally, the person with the concern will also see the interest in playing someone of a different race or gender or the like and will be willing to offer a compromise or third approach, rather than just wanting the portrayal to stop.

It depends, is the player attempting to play a strong character or are they playing a mockery of said ethnicity.  If the player would be embarrassed to play the character in front of someone of the corresponding ethnicity then they shouldn't be playing it.

That's a really good point. Gaming on RPoL allows a level of anonymity that can be a bit seductive.

I tend to play genders about 60/40, I enjoy playing a female character for party balance and role-playing opportunities. I transferred a character from here to another site where you actually share chat, and quickly discovered that it was a lot harder to play a female, in a group with real females, when they can hear my voice. I wasn't embarrassed, but the other player was clearly uncomfortable, and it made things awkward.

I don't think I would play another female in that format.

Not sure how that would work, race wise. I do remember back in the day, when no one listed the ed. number because there was just AD&D, players who would play monks with a stereotypical Charlie Chan or King Fu style broken English, but we had no Asians in the group. I wonder if that would have made the players less comfortable with that style of humor.

... I'm not sure it's as much about being embarrassed, as how the other player feels. As in, you might be embarrassed to do so, because the actual person from another race might point out how accurate some stereotypes really are.

Personally, I'd avoid the stereotypes which were clearly created not so much about how they were, but how other groups -wanted- them to be. I'd avoid accents, because I don't do accents well. (Even typed). And I would probably try to avoid too much discussion about how 'hard it is to be my race/gender/whatever'.

It largely depends on how much exposure you have to the other group, and how much of it is based on movies/books. Generally, we have most likely come across people of the opposite gender. But much exposure to other races/cultures/etc have we had? Enough to make a non-stereotyped portrayal of one?

Do you think it would be any different based on the game/genre/culture in which you are playing? Being Asian or Black in a fantasy game without any of the real world history seems to be to have a different baseline from playing a historical game, or playing in a modern setting.

I haven't seen any games set in the Civil War era, but I have seen games played in the Chinese/Japanese world in the twenties and thirties, which historically was pretty tense racially.

In reply to Piestar (msg # 16):

I do. Because I think playing a minority group in a setting where that's tense, can make it feel like, no matter what your intentions, you're belittling the struggle these groups had.

Now if -everyone- was playing it, because that was the setting, I'd probably let it pass. But if you were the only one, and someone who actually was of that culture took offense, I think at the least you should volunteer to change your character. Just because you didn't mean to offend, doesn't mean you shouldn't consider how it's affecting others, in particular in those times.

But in fantasy/sci-fi games, it is usually more 'just happens to be that race/gender'.

...why is gender, race, species even a concern? If I play a male or female character, what makes that character who they are is what they do and say, which wont be affected by the gender but the background. Like the only actual difference is the body shape and parts.

The issues I have had with guys playing girls is when it is clearly just so they can make the female a total slut. I'm a dude, but i still find that callow and shallow.

Racially there are a lot of negative stereotypes, and even some positive ones that make people uncomfortable. Hard to believe, but making the Asian guy good at math can upset some people. If you were to play a black male as a drug dealing, Ebonics talking pimp, I think some people would get upset. If I were to play a villain as a southern white male, with strong accent, Confederate flag and the like, I think there might be some people who get upset at that as well.

To be fair, I've seen girls playing girls doing that as well. Sometimes it's even fit the character; though it's best if it's just a known thing rather than something we see alluded to all the time.

But also, gender, race and species -affects- the background. Usually, females don't act like males and vice versa. Sometimes they do; but they often don't. It's even more pronounced with race.

In reply to willvr (msg # 20):

I guess I was a bit unclear, it isn't a bad thing to have a sexually aggressive female character, it just becomes an issue when that is all they are, every comment, every gesture, every action is predicated on the fact that the character is a sexual joke.

I also find it rather humorous how many female characters will have a charisma of ten or twelve, and describe themselves as raving and use pictures of gorgeous woman. The personality required for that to balance out would be nearer to Dr. Mengele than the flirty character that results.

In reply to Piestar (msg # 21):

Aaah okay. Yeah. I've seen that.

Part of the problem is the pictures available. It's doable to find a horrendously ugly character. It's definitely easy to find a picture of a gorgeous woman. It's not quite so easy to find someone about average, or a bit above or bit below. And then beauty is in the eye of the beholder and all that. We had a debate about that in one of the games; about whether certain characters should have the attractiveness value given in game or not.

I had a wonderful character who was an illusionist with a low charisma, and I played her as a doughty spinster type. Would sleep apart from the men, etc. She was a blast, and I thought portrait fh17004 a perfect capture of her personality. Currently trying finish working on a another homely female and I am using a picture of Calamity Jane, if you know her, a wild west character looking like a youngish Ma Kettle. (fh19027)

I've never really had a problem finding homely characters of either gender.

I'm in the camp of people who think that, as long as the character is played legitimately, race is a non-factor.  I mean, Finn could just as easily been played by ANY ethnicity and the character would still work.  For that matter, so could Rey (at least, given what little we know of her...depending on who her parents are, ethnicity could become an important factor...)

I think it comes down to a question of whether you're playing a character that makes sense, but just happens to be a given ethnicity, as opposed to playing the ethnicity and trying to make that the character (playing the stereotype, as someone described it above).  If you're playing the PERSON, you're okay...if you're playing the LABEL, you're pushing your luck if you worry about someone taking offense.

In reply to facemaker329 (msg # 24):

I think you've blurred the line between race and ethnicity. Finn is racially black, but he is in no way ethnically African American.

To play as if ethnicity is a non-issue is almost an insult in one sense, as it boils us all down into one puddle of grey goo and removes the part of ethnic differences that are supposed to be so valuable and cherished, according to the people who gave the Leveraging Diversity classes for my last employer. (Hilarious crowd, they had no clue what they were doing sadly enough, telling us to ignore and embrace ethnicity in one breath.)

Guilty as charged, I suppose.  Still...

I worked with several women who were of Greek ancestry.  Most of the time, you'd never know it...I wouldn't have known it, save for their last names and the fact that, at the time, there was a Greek festival in one of the nearby cities and they couldn't stop going on about how excited they were for it.  I have known, at different points in my life, five or six Armenians.  Again, aside from the occasional explicit statement about their ancestry, they were just like everyone else I knew.  I've worked with a few people of African descent...which was a little more obvious, visually, and because of that, they tended to make jokes about their own ancestry and upbringing out of habit...but overall, they were just like anyone else I worked with or grew up around.  The Vietnamese kid that played trombone in my high school marching band?  Aside from a slightly more difficult name to pronounce and a few visual differences, he was just another kid in an American high school.

It's an issue if you choose to make it an issue.  Some people insist on making it an issue.  Some people are just busy being who they're going to be and don't want to spare the time and energy talking about it to make it an issue.

So, the most honest answer I can give to your question is, yes and no.  Some people will find it incredibly offensive, some people won't give it a second thought (unless you make it a jingoist caricature of an interpretation, and then I hope they take exception to it).  I work with people of several different ethnic and racial backgrounds and it makes no difference to me, or to pretty much anyone I work with...but I know that those same people can go somewhere across town and likely get a much less open acceptance.

Roleplaying games aren't like Hollywood, where people are upset because the lead is ALWAYS a white male and parts that should be cast with specific ethnicities are cast with the the same white-bread actors.  Diversifying your cast of characters is kind of what that whole movement is about...getting people to start to see that the hero doesn't always have to be some square-jawed straight white male, and that the woman doesn't always have to be the love interest/damsel in distress, and being a different ethnic background doesn't automatically relegate you to sidekick status, at best.  Telling someone that they should only roleplay their own ethnicity or gender is akin, to me, to telling screenwriters that they can only use characters of their own ethnicity or gender...and that would get really boring, really fast.

Wow, people do that over here. Fudge. I thought that was just -rpsite that cannot be named due to age restrictions- and such, I'd expect more developed character here then genitals on legs :P

Stereotypes have that effect on people, personally I just find them bland. If I can peg your entire dialogue and thought process just by your first two posts and your character  description you've made a 2D character and it's boring.

... Hang on a minute; is the debate really about whether one should play different ethnicities? Because in that case I heartily think you should. I just think you should be careful about doing it; so you're not blatantly offensive.

Yes, I think that on occasions ethnicity can govern how someone acts. I've met some like that, who never let you forget what they've been through, that you haven't. But to state that you can only play your own gende, your own ethnic group well... you might as well say you can only play your own social class or whatever. Shouldn't be done.

Well let me ask you a question.

You're playing a Jewish person during the middle ages. How do you, in game, show that you are a member of this ethnicity, beyond saying 'hello, I'm Jewish."

Alternately, you're playing an urban African American youth in (or from) the ghetto in a Modern game, what traits would you give him?

Remember, the line is thin, show enough traits to show you are actually playing that ethnicity, but avoid anything offensive.

In reply to Piestar (msg # 29):

Middle Ages Jew: depending on the specific century and country, there's articles of clothing and fashion that tended to be part of the typical look for many different groups in an area. For that matter, that assumes the character wants to be identified, and isn't simply passing themselves off as a gentile

Modern Urban African-American Youth: again, style and manner of dress, articles and manner of speech. You can "dress" a character without going into racist stereotype. And the important question again, is the character looking to be identified a certain way?

What traits wouldn't be up for debate though? Would you say that a child of the ghetto has issues authority, requires to be respected at all times, resorts to violence to deal with many issues, has the limited vocabulary and grammar skills that often come with grossly underfunded schools? Or do we pretend that growing up in such an environment has no impact on the people who grow up there?

And what about the Jewish fellow, would he have the stereotypical large nose? Not necessarily, but he would be circumcised, and if he were caught passing, probably killed.

Of course in modern D&D role-playing has become passe, few players like the limitations of alignment, and when was the last time you ran into a dwarf who was taciturn, disliked the outdoors and distrusted elves. Have races in-game become nothing more than the series of pluses and minuses and stats and bonuses and feats that come with them? How much easier is it for ethnicity to be reduced to a profile picture without any character, as there are no bonuses for playing a Black person, or a White person or an Asian.

Of course it would have an effect. But why should it have the -same- effect for everyone? Why can't he want to prove that he's -better- than everyone assumes him to be?

When was the last time whether someone was circumcised came into a game? When was the last time it was even mentioned they were?

I don't know what DnD games you're playing, but I find that RPing is more in vogue now than it's ever been. RPing is more than just taking a racial stereotype, whether fantastical or real, and playing it to the hilt. Why not break the stereotype of the taciturn dwarf?

Yeah, race has a part in creating one's character. But you don't know how being that race, or having that background, will effect anyone, because it effects everyone differently.

You do realize that circumcision was how Jews were often identified, right? In anti-Semitic areas it was historically not uncommon to strip a man of his trousers to see if he was a Jew.

As to your other point, of course you can play the ghetto raised kid as wanting to get out, or wanting to improve himself, but that would be made evident by what he did, not who he was.

Considering someone who 'breaks' the stereotype a role-player is nonsensical though, it's like considering paint spilled on the canvas and smeared about randomly as much a piece of art as the works of Da Vinci or Michelangelo.

No one praises an actor who plays a shattered war veteran without any of the characteristics of one. It is playing within the characteristics that makes up the act or art of role playing. Playing a dwarf as if he were some 15 year old white kid from Redondo Beach, because that is who the player is, is role playing the way swimming in a kid's wading pool deserves a gold medal from the Olympics.

The effort of matching your character to what he (or she) is supposed to be used to be the point, not the ability to maximize your DPS. That's roll-playing, not role-playing.

If other people can't recognize your characters race and class based totally on your role-playing and not because you say "Hey, I'm a dwarf," then your not doing race, or ethnicity very well.

And you know what, plenty of people play that way, and have a blast, more power to them, just not my cup of tea.

Yes. I also know that level of detail is how you get in trouble. And that assumptions that all races are the stereotype is how you cause offense.

The fact is -not- all beings of one race are a stereotype. I'm not even sure most are. Stereotypes are -not- a good thing.

So you play, what seven foot tall dwarves and rail thin super-model hobbits?

Everyone plays fighters as fightery, and mages as magicy, theives tend play to their sterotype, and it would be weird of they didn't.

Not all stereotypes are bad, for example I imagine all light sockets will shock me if I stuck a spoon in them. Some stereotypes are valuable.

And when playing a role, they are pretty important. Heck, without stereotypes, playing against them is meaningless, not empowering and great role-play.

A chatty dwarf is possible, sure, but it means nothing without the context that this is unusual, and the repercussions that dwarf would feel from not only his community, but the humans and elves who should be surprised.

Close to home example, my Dad grew up in a seriously bad neighborhood in East LA thru the thirties and early forties. The internal sterotypes did not allow for people like my dad, who was brighter than average, so he was required to play his talents down, which made it harder to get out, but he did thru the military, When he got out, he went to UCLA in the GI Bill, and his own family had trouble accepting him for acting like he was 'better than them'. Tough to deal with  when your own father scoffs at your accomplishments.

Is there anything similar in this new age of role-playing you play in? Does a talky dwarf have to deal with how people react to that? Or the fact that he now hangs with elves? Lucky not to get lynched...
This message was last edited by the user at 02:34, Fri 10 June 2016.

Used to play a dwarf who was ostracised by his community for being "too elf-y".  He loved nature - he liked nothing more than walks in the forest and considered birds and butterflies far more beautiful than any  coloured rock.  He played a flute that he had made himself, rather than a proper dwarvish instrument, like a drum or the bagpipes.  Gold, to him, was just another boring metal, though almost as pretty as some beetle carapaces.

His mother cried a lot when he was young, and his father eventually kicked him out of the clan, which is why he became an adventurer instead of a miner or a smith.

To me stereotypes are boring to play - heroes are assumed to be above the average, quite unlike the typical inhabitants of their world, and I prefer to play characters of whatever type/race that are a little bit to a lot different.  I've played a mage who was bone idle and preferred not to stir himself to use magic if he could get away with it, a dashing, swashbuckling Dwarf, a fashion-conscious Gnome (to him a certain period in the Forgotten Realms history was known as the Time of Trousers) who carried on (admittedly one-sided) conversations with his non-magical sword, a dark and gritty Halfling cutthroat, a well educated Barbarian (his father wanted nothing but the best for his son), and a priest who was only in it for the Smiting.  :>

You are certainly in the majority Skald, but I think for many boring also means difficult, and it's the effort that makes it all worthwhile for me. It's the difference between checkers and chess. Checkers is certainly easier, but there is a certain beauty that the more complicated game can generate.

Coloring outside the lines is only artistic if you know how to color within the lines, and the times that you stray outside of them are considered. Simply scribbling all over the page isn't something that takes any effort, and role-playing with no regard to the stereotypes is pretty much the same thing, most of the time.

Now that is very true - the old adage that you need to know the rules before you break them.  Happily played stereotypical characters for years and years, and still do so on occasion without finding them boring ... :>

A better way to say that just crossed my mind. Breaking stereotype can be fun, ignoring them is lazy. I would also be more impressed with a character that kept most of the stereotypes, and specifically broke one or two of them.

A lot of stereotypical characters are also either unplayable or a great detriment to things. This is particularly true in the fantasy setting.
The loner ranger who doesn't speak a word and goes off on his own is particularly disruptive, and this extends to the brooding dark silent loner whatever in most settings.
So is the drunken dwarf fighter outside taverns or fighting, the dumb orc barbarian is worse, and nevermind the classic paladin.

Unless you pretty much don't play them as such, just as twists of the stereotype or characters with a softer tone of it and a whole lot more depth. Stepping away from the cardboard cutout is a good thing.
This message was last edited by the user at 06:39, Fri 10 June 2016.

So, Jackson Pollack, basically?  *grin*

Seriously, there are so very many different ways to play characters.  My best friend played a troglodyte in a Palladium game, to the nines...dumb, illiterate, barely coherent at times, as likely to use his crossbow as a club as he was to bother cocking it and shooting...

In that same game, I was playing a troll who was a trained martial artist...but acted like the stereotypical troll around anyone outside the party.

And, contrary to the statements made about stereotypes being blatantly offensive...in my experience, there are good reasons why stereotypes develop.  The problem becomes when people ONLY see the stereotype.  For instance, I work in entertainment...and, not surprisingly, a lot of the entertainers I work with are homosexual.  Some of them have been every bit the 'squealing queen' stereotype, others are very definitely NOT that type at all.  I can see why the stereotypical gay man (as depicted in The Birdcage, for example) has come into being...but I don't assume every gay male I meet is going to act like Armand or Albert (or Agodar, for that matter).

When I play military characters, there are certain stereotypical aspects of military personnel that I often use...but I try to make my characters more than just a conglomeration of R. Lee Ermey, Clint Eastwood, and Dale Dye roles...those provide a framework, but I try to come up with some distinctive, universally human traits, as well as the hard-bitten, loud-and-foul-mouthed drill instructor type.  It works for me, and seems to work for most of the people I play with.

There is no one right or wrong way to play a character.  You may look at the standard formula for a dwarf, for instance, and see great delight in trying to stay within those strictures for what a dwarf 'should' be.  Ron, on the other hand, obviously looked at those and said, "Why in the world should ALL dwarfs be like that?  I want to go to some wild extreme AWAY from that."  I look at it and say, "Well, I like this, this, and this...but I don't think I need that or that."  None of us is playing the dwarf inherently better or worse than the others...we are infusing some part of ourselves into the dwarf and amplifying what we see as the most noteworthy results.  My dwarf, however, might make you want to pull your hair out, and your dwarf might bore me to tears.  But that's why I don't ask you to play my dwarf, and I don't ask to play yours...the characters are what work for us, as players, and (hopefully) for the GMs and other players with whom we play.

If it doesn't work for you, don't try and do it that way...find some other option that does.

The crux of the point, well defined. The question is, when you run into a character that is difficult to play, do you face the challenge, or simply decide alignment means nothings, paladins can party with thieves without effort, etc. That was the reason the 1st Ed. Barbarian was such a badly designed class. All the balance was in the role-play, and no one was willing to put in the effort. Almost no one, I loved the looks on the party's faces when they used my find magic ability, and were stunned when I destroyed everything I found. Much like reality, no characters motivation should be so meta-game informed as to behave in the best interests of the party.

It's clear that 80%-ish of players will take the latter path. I just prefer otherwise.

In reply to Piestar (msg # 43):

I prefer to create characters that when played straight, they won't be wholly disruptive to the fun of everyone else in the table, that's just as bad as rules lawyering your way into having everyone else in the table not have fun, just in a different way.

So no, the paladin won't be a cardboard cutout, he'll be either unorthodox, have a decent enough excuse not to murder the party thief, or just be in a party where it won't be a problem.
Your barbarian example is the kind of character that is fun, once. And likely only for 3~4 scenes before the joke gets old, unless said barbarian is far more than the cutout, or the party is such that he isn't a problem.

It's not about 'challenge', there's no challenge in the stereotype because, as a stereotype, is so shallow that there's no depth there. To go beyond that into something that's actually playable is to step away from it. You twist things, you add far more depth, you ignore it and jump wildly away from it, you contrast your character to it, but playing it straight with nothing else to it? bleh.

In reply to tsukoyomi (msg # 44):

See, you fall into the 80%, and that's cool. I prefer playing with a party that makes the effort to learn to live with a character, bad traits and all. No fun in a game where everyone is part of one giant self-loving organism. Well, not for me.

Imagine if everyone wanted to play the Oriental Adventures setting without the stereotypes. Throw out Bushido, and Buddhism and all the culture traits that make the setting different. Might as well be playing a game of Clue. It's the effort needed to play within the restrictions that make it fun. Imagine trying to play a board game where people simply ignored any rule they didn't like. "Nope, not going to pay your rent there on Boardwalk." Or "Nope, not gonna roll my defensive dice to defend the Ukraine, and you can't make me."

It would be a wonderful world if we could simply ignore the people whose behavior we don't like, but isn't that half the challenge of the work-a-day life? it's the same, for me, in role-playing.

As to the barbarian, my character was too useful to the party, it didn't seem too much of an effort for them not to flaunt their magic in front of me when they knew I didn't like it. I worked in an office full of religious people, I didn't feel the need to walk around telling them how stupid I thought their religion was.

All in all, if role-play is too difficult a concept, you can always find roll-players, and that's okay too, if that's what you find fun. I don't.

Oh, I don't know ... there's even a Prestige Class the Forsaker in Masters of the Wild Sourcebook for D&D v3.0 that takes that 1st Ed concept to its extreme (as well as destroying magic items must refuse/resist magical healing) - surely there's an RP challenge for the rest of the party to work around that ?  "No, no .. this sword isn't magical - just got some nice traditional tribal engravings on it.  Just looks like it's on fire, but that's because I coat it with this special natural tree sap ..." <grrrins>

Sure, it's difficult dealing with a barbarian that REALLY hates magic ... but only a tad moreso that dealing with a paladin that will brook not even the faintest trace of evil, or a thief that habitually steals from his comrades.

Wouldn't play one myself, but I'd develop coping strategies if someone else was playing one.

What were those famous last words ?

"I'm not sure I should be travelling with you people.  My holy sword says that everyone in this group is an assassin except me."

;>

In reply to Piestar (msg # 45):

Funny you go on condescendingly about rollplayers, right after flaunting that your barbarian was only tolerated so the party could get one more meatshield. Why was the party really tolerating the barbarian instead of going to the nearest tavern and hiring some less disruptive slab of meat? was it just for the metagame reason that it was your character? is that kleptomaniac thief really necessary or can they replace it with the next street rat for a few coppers? should they travel with the homicidal maniac paladin or hire a cleric of a more sensible deity? these are characters that are only traveling with the party because metagame.

Roleplaying is a social activity you do for fun, part of that is not crushing the fun of everyone else. There's a line between 'a little prickly' and fun-crushing, much like there's a line between friendly ribbing and unbearably insulting.

If a character concept is going to fall strictly on the later, as many full on stereotypes played straight are wont to do unless under very specific circumstances, maybe it's a better idea to play someone else, particularly when they rarely have ingame reasons to even be with the party other than 'you meet at a tavern...'
This message was last edited by the user at 08:04, Fri 10 June 2016.

In reply to tsukoyomi (msg # 47):

You totally miss the point, my barbarian wasn't a difficult person to play with because of my choices, it was because I played him by the rules. the rules of role-playing were what gave that class any sense of balance. Would you prefer a jigsaw puzzle that one giant slab of a single color and made up of eight square pieces? Well, maybe yes, that does seem to be the role-playing game you are fighting for.

Certainly there is a line between fun-crushing and a little prickly, but there is also the difference between getting pleasure from playing the game, or being one of those people who only want to play if everything goes easy and perfect and if that requires cheat-codes that's fine. Leet, I believe the term is, that nephew whose ten and still cries if he loses at Monopoly.

A good party, in the kind of game I like, has rough edges, but reasons that they need to (or choose to) stick together. Elves and dwarves working together in the Tolkien? Yes, but with all the rough edges that made the stories a joy to read. Imagine Legolas and Gimli if they hadn't been both completely of their race, with their prejudices and prides, but forced to work together for the common good and eventually forging a lasting friendship? In the game you seem to be lobbying for, they would have simply been the best of friends from day one. And no one would remember the books today.

In reply to Piestar (msg # 48):

So.. you didn't choose a class that would make him problematic to get along with others? wasn't it your choice to play the special snowflake everyone had to work around?

Why is "wanting everything to be easy and cheating" wanting to play a game where it makes sense for the characters to be traveling together and not grabbing choices that either don't interact with the party at all or are automatic TPKs 2 minutes in if played straight?

Why are you bringing up Tolkien, when the characters were very much deeper than the stereotype (not that there was much of a stereotype at the time), exactly what I've been advocating since the first post? Gimli might have been a dwarf with contempt for elves, but he wasn't a drunk, he was more than just a fighter, he was a lot less prickly than the modern straight stereotype, making him not a complete pain to travel with, he was capable of grudging admiration from pretty much the get go. In short, he is in several ways different, softer, and in many ways deeper than the cardboard cutout.
This message was last edited by the user at 08:38, Fri 10 June 2016.

Boromir tried to take the ring, Gandalf was prone to wandering off on his own (Hobbit more than LOTR), Frodo and Sam struck out on their own because the former didn't trust the rest of the party.  Aragorn put the lives of the two other hobbits ahead of the main quest.  Pippin's curiosity about the Palantir put everyone at risk by alerting the enemy.

Which side of the discussion were you on again ?  <grrrins>

I quite agree that the game is far more enjoyable when the party basically all get along, and one player's character choices can really mess that up ... but that kind of player could just as easily derail a game by playing a stock standard fighter.

Barbarian smashes magic items ... the rest of the party ask him why and reason with him, explaining that magic is no better or worse than his axe - it's the use to which it's put.  Barbarian grows a little as a person ... much like Gimli changed his attitude over time, overcoming the traditional Dwarf/Elf antagonism to become first friendly rivals and then firm friends with Legolas.

1st Ed Barbarian (and 3.5 Forsaker) is perhaps an extreme example, but ideology driven character types - Paladin, Druid and quite a lot of Clerics (if they stick closely to the beliefs of their chosen religion) - can be just as problematical.

Not to mention games where characters are evil by design.

To me it's more about the players than the characters - the right group of players can work with anything.  Though personally I still wouldn't take a magic-hating Barbarian to the table.  :>

Boromir was getting mind-whammied by the ring, can't really blame the guy for failing a will save right? Gandalf was a GMPC if there ever was one, saving party members is saving party members, sometimes you fail your disable device or knowledge check...
Of course, the big split is the kind of thing most games outside pbp or similar formats wouldn't have survived, or tried for that matter, just because it looks pretty in a book doesn't make it less of a mess in tabletop.
This message was last edited by the user at 16:10, Fri 10 June 2016.

Considering Tolkein's dwarves were the inspiration for the stereotype of the D&D dwarf, it's odd to hear you say he wasn't that much of... what, not much of what he was the archetype of the race.

And despite your apparent rage, I've said many times, your style of play is not only fine, but the way most people play. You remind me of the days when I played Never Winter Nights (what an addictive game that was) and I played in a server that did not allow PvP. About 85% of the servers allowed some sort of PvP, but gosh darn it if people whom you remind me of badgered the DM for having his own place for people who didn't like PvP. They never changed his mind, but sadly they drove him into quitting running his world all together.

I was given that barbarian to play, all the characters were pre-set, and we had to be pretty high level because low level barbarians cannot even party with a mage or cleric at level one. Not if you played by the rules.

Speaking to Skalds point, I was once in a campaign where an unpleasant character decided to play a Drow. Now I am old school, Drow are de facto evil in the minds of the normal character. Drzzt (or whatever his name was) is only special in a world where that's true. I always felt it ironic that the tale of the ultimate outcast generated a world where good guy Drow are as common as hotdog vendors in New York. Anyway, he not only played a race which the GM admitted had a prejudice about it, but he then chose to sneak up on us at night. He was shocked (shocked I tell you) when we slaughtered him.

A reasonable player, and half-way decent role-player would have found a better way to introduce himself to us.

Another example, I am trying out 5th edition (not a big fan, but we'll see. Feels like it was build to please power-gamers, the type of people we all laughed at back in the old days.) I went with a ranger character with the pirate background. When I joined with the party, it turned out there was a character whose background had him hating pirates. The GM, being of the same mind set as Tsukoyomi, just assumed we all got along and off we went to fight stuff. After the session me and that player lamented the fact that we didn't get to/have do deal with the friction between us.

And after all, isn't the role-playing between the characters the bread and butter of a good game? How much can there be if everyone is simply assumed to be singing Hakuna matata and sharing in group hugs? But I know the answer to that, most games I come into contact with are not about that kind of stuff, it's about killing monsters, getting treasure and becoming mega-powerful. Modern players brag about finding a feat or class combination that 'breaks the system'. It's about 'winning' in a far more personal sense than the style I like to play.

Heck, back to Tolkein, Bilbo's character was a hella difficult guy for the party to deal with, from the get go. If they had fit together so well at the start as they did at the end, the story would almost have no reason to exist.

Still curious to see if anyone thinks Oriental Adventures would be any fun if you stripped it of the cultural trappings...

Meanwhile, Piestar, you seem determined to live up to the stereotype of the Edition Warrior.



Culture =/= cultural trappings. Culture =/= stereotype. The latter are, at best, a simplified, bullet point version of the former.
This message was last edited by the user at 22:07, Fri 10 June 2016.

Not sure what that term means. You gotta remember, I'm an old person, I don't keep up with all the young people slang. Please explain...

It's hardly new. I have old issues of Dragon where the letter column is filled with tracts bemoaning the 'dumbing down' and 'power gaming' and 'roll-playing' of each new edition over the later, going back at least to AD&D 1e.

Anyway, addressing the original point, and speaking as someone who studied anthropology: to actually understand a culture takes years of immersion, at a minimum. That's not an option for most RPers for real-world cultures, let alone fantasy cultures. So working with stereotypes, whether that means adhering to or diverging from them is really the only tool we have. The problem is that they're a crap tool, that stereotypes exist only in the eye of the beholder, and that they may bear no relation to the referent. At best, you can emulate surface behaviours and traits, but with no understanding of the thought processes and value- or necessity-structures that produce them.

So as long as you accept that rather than playing X you're playing your impression of the Cliff Notes, X for Dummies, Baby's First version of X and accept with good humour that you're ignorant as hell on the matter, it's probably okay. Provided everyone around the table feels the same way.
This message was last edited by the user at 22:31, Fri 10 June 2016.

Ahhh.... I think I picked your meaning out of your snottiness there, and yes, that would define me perfectly. The debate between role-playing and roll-playing will go one. I can only assume you are a fan of 'roll playing', your comments have a very Leet feel to them, good for you. You have a million times more people to play with than I do, you would think that the fact that your side of the argument has so clearly, and drastically won would make you a little more cheerful...

Oops, almost missed your edit back there, culture (emoji) something or other. Culture as defined by the culture trapping? No clue what you are trying to say. Culture meaning stereotype, ummm, nope. There are stereotypes that are not cultural. To say that culture is 'only' a stereotype is a gross over simplification of reality. Which ever way you run that, it doesn't really make sense.

That symbol was 'does not equal'. I know you said you're old, but you're not older than maths, surely? *winks*



Well, you know what they say about assumptions.

Any RPG (and any edition thereof) can be role-played or roll-played. Have you read accounts of how Gygax used to run games? It was often a mathematical battle of wits and dice between him and the players, not the characters. Almost pure roll-playing. Some systems are inclined more one way than the other: I couldn't play D&D 4e because it felt like a board game, something like Warhammer Quest, rather than an RPG. D&D 5e is a big swing back towards a role-playing focus, and feels a lot more like AD&D 2e than it does 4e or even 3e. 2e was my introduction to the game, so it hit a pretty sweet nostalgia spot for me.
This message was last edited by the user at 22:50, Fri 10 June 2016.

Ahhh, no, when I did math the strike was thru the equal sign, something I am guessing our keyboards don't offer. You were making one symbol out of three, I thought it was a sequence.

Wow, you keep editing posts, maybe it would be better to make a new one when you have something to add, because otherwise the person you are conversing with might never see it.

So, to your point about culture, I don't see that we disagree in general, but perhaps in the specifics. Absolutely, takes years to study a culture to get even two or three layers beneath the surface. My argument, however, is that rather than using the inability to know the whole thing as an excuse to toss things like ethnicity out the window, that the depth  and complexity is a reason to try and deploy as much as we can, even it's only a few cultural traits, to show respect for the diversity of our varied cultures.

I'm not saying being counter-cultural is bad, when it's relevant, but it should be with effort and a recognition of what you are being counter too, not just because everyone ignores culture.

Mildly humorous example, Jimmy Wang Yang. He was an Asian pro-wrestler (you can find his theme song on YouTube, listening to it now, but still uncertain when and where links are allowed.) Before (and after) him, every Asian wrestler's persona was steeped in their Asian-ness. This guy was a shyte kicking, cowboy boot wearing country music loving good ole boy! It was a great angle, but heck, there are dozens of cowboy wrestlers too. What made him interesting was that he was an Asian who acted like a Cowboy. It made him different. (Heck of an entertainer too, never got the push he deserved.)

What I am saying is, if you play an atypical character, there needs to be some sense that it is atypical, or you're just not doing anything. To be overtly literal, you are playing a role, you are just being yourself in a dwarf body with a big axe and armor, probably talking like a pirate.

As to Gygax, I'm grateful for what he created, but I don't think he was any great genius. It was considered common knowledge that Dave Arneson wrote the players handbook and Gygax stole it. I actually found a weird self-published, cardboard and paper, hand bound book by Gygax when I was University. It was supposed to be something like a studious alternate history of WW II, but it was clearly just a journal of him writing down what happened while playing a war game, and it was really poorly done.

I know the origins of the game were born within a group of historical war-gamers, and I can see how dice rolling would be significant. That said, you can see in the various iterations of the Greyhawk world that story telling was not totally alien, but very important. They don't spend all that time giving your cultural trapping and racial traits because they don't think role-playing is important.

Anyway, I started before 1st edition, I was playing with the old blue box edition of basic D&D, and many of my early gamer friends had started with the White Box of original D&D. Spent most of my formative years in 1st ed., though I did dabble in Gamma World, Traveler, Boot Hill, Role Master, Tunnels and Trolls (who had some fun solo adventures, sort of like choose your own adventure books on steroids) and a couple of Super Hero games. The one I wanted to play but never got the chance was Metamorphosis Alpha. My experience with 4th ed was not happy, but playing 5th doesn't seem like that much of a step back. The characters in my game feel more like they should be in a superhero game than a gritty fantasy world.

Are people from Asia identical to the stereotype?
The dwarf stereotype draws from tolkien, yes, then adds a couple other sources, and distills only the most annoying and notorious traits into cliff notes. Is it a wonder that the cliff notes barely resemble the original? that played straight the result is an annoyance who's only good at swinging an axe that will derail any campaign that isn't happening on a dungeon or a tavern?

So apparently having a GM that can't be bothered to read is the same as having a game where the friction does not get to the point of unplayability, got it.

*snort* please, it is as if you've never heard what old school d&d had been played as by many, or even bothered to read the DMG-equivalent of most modern games.

Most of your whining of the newer editions has zero to do with 'rollplaying', and everything to do with the fact that you're expecting one genre but playing another, you're expecting something grim and gritty while nabbing a box designed for high fantasy, and not the tame kind either. Of course they feel like superheroes, that's pretty much the genre they're trying to portray.


That's a fair point, part of doing things respectfully is, well, not making your character be the cliff notes with nothing else there to it. Twist it, expand it, add depth, don't play all of them, contrast it to the cliff notes, anything other than using them like some kind of shopping list and calling it done.

You seem imply there was an actual dwarf culture? Not sure if you mean people like Peter Dinklage or something else.
As to Asian stereotypes, having been to Asia, living there for several years, there is a very strong tendency for people to behave like the stereotype. That said, you continually ignore my point, that it is okay to play against type, but it is only relevant if the type exists and there are repercussions from said culture if you stray too far.
You seem to be trying to force the idea that 'if not everyone acts like the stereotype, the then culture doesn't exist.' Which is odd, considering your self-proclaimed occupation.


I would guess he reads, he is a college English professor, but that is again not what I said. His gaming emphasis, rush to the combat, took the fun out of things for several of us.
Why have a character if you're not going to role-play. I could just as easily have a set of numbers akin to a Star Fleet Battles ship layout.
I can see the problem here though, because apparently any friction is enough to make a game unplayable for you. For people who play the way I play, the friction is what makes the game playable, and enjoyable. I have had more fun playing a 1st ed. 1st. level character with one spell and situations requiring thought and role-playing than  I would have ever had with a guy I knew whose character



Wait, on the one hand you understand the depth and complexity of culture, but on the other you can't understand why I don't know how everyone else in the world played the game? Maybe that *snort* comment referenced drugs and not derision.
I know how the people I played with played, and when people had some ridiculously powerful item or trait they were laughed at, or snorted at, if you prefer. I know what was in the dragon magazine, and there was nothing akin to first level characters designed to be so powerful they could single-handedly take out a Roper, for jiminies sake.  (how is single handedly not in the spell check vocabulary, but ssingle-high- handedly and single-off-handedly are?)
That was what happened when the power gamer in my 5th ed. group played his Arracocra (sp?) Monk, and was at first level apparently able to hit three times, then roll out of range to be attacked back, several rounds in a row.
I would not be surprised to find that house rules existed back in the day, when AD&D first came out, the idea of originality and creating house rules was very common. You wouldn't have found an article in the very early Dragon magazines that didn't say the DM's rule superseded the books.
I remember the day that changed, and the Dragon told players the rules trumped the DM. Very odd.


If you don't realize how ridiculous your comment sounds here, there is nothing I can do to explain it. To think that a first level character should be as potent as modern batman is bizarre beyond comprehension.

Most of your whining of the newer editions has zero to do with 'rollplaying', and everything to do with the fact that you're expecting one genre but playing another, you're expecting something grim and gritty while nabbing a box designed for high fantasy, and not the tame kind either. Of course they feel like superheroes, that's pretty much the genre they're trying to portray.

That's a fair point, part of doing things respectfully is, well, not making your character be the cliff notes with nothing else there to it. Twist it, expand it, add depth, don't play all of them, contrast it to the cliff notes, anything other than using them like some kind of shopping list and calling it done.
</quote>
Again, simply ridiculous. The proper use of a cliff-notes version of a culture is to use it to build the loose framework within which you character lives, not to be set on fire to heat your pop-tarts. You treat Cliff-notes as if they are meaningless, but they are educational, and in some cases give the student an insight reading the original wouldn't get.

Note how I touch on all your comments, and not simply ignore the stuff I don't like. It's called 'an adult discussion'. Try it sometime.

I think my problem is that I'm not sure how 'here's a caricature of how I perceive other cultures' is exactly respectful. As I said, it may be necessary given how hard it is to truly represent others (the alternative would be excluding people from playing other races or cultures, which doesn't help anyone to my mind), but there needs to be an awareness that, at best, you're doing well-intentioned pantomine.

...which is a pretty good definition of roleplaying in general, now that I think about it.

I think expecting awareness is pretty much akin to demanding everyone join your religion. Many people don't care about cultural awareness and many simply aren't capable of grasping the complexities of this world, many unaware of the layers upon layers of their own culture, much less someone else's.

That said, let me see if I can find another way to make my point.

Take one.

You're dating a new girl, she said she loved flowers, but you forget what her favorite was. Is it wiser to (a) bring her some flowers anyway or (b) simply bring no flowers at all.

I would go with (a).

Take two.

You have two choices on your date, (a) buy her a caricature of herself from a street artist, or (b) buy her a blank piece of paper from a stationary store.

Take three.

I guess what I am trying to say is that even the creation of a caricature is more respectful then pretending that their culture does not exist.

example one

People who claim that because you can't catch all drug dealers, you shouldn't try to catch any.

Ridiculous, right, but it is the meaning of what a lot people say when they disagree with the efforts of law enforcement.

Hope something there helps make my opinion more clear. Don't expect you to necessarily agree, but even if you understand it, it was worth the effort.

No, I'm implying the fantasy dwarf stereotype draws from several fictional characters, of course, being a stereotype it turns into a caricature, a caricature that is largely unplayable straight. Which is apparently the problem, I see the word stereotype and think of a caricature of something that is often fairly insulting, you see the word stereotype and it somehow lacks any of those implications.

You're starting from the assumption that the stereotype is exactly the culture with no deviation, granted, there isn't much to go on with a fantasy culture, but if you truly care about the background you're writing, you can at least add some humanity, some rationality to it, some more depth than just a checklist before using it as such.

what? are you mistaking me for dirigible? and when have I said that at all?

Back to a more real world example, say you have a culture, then you have a stereotype, often an insulting caricature as seen from the outside and just as often tinged with a good dose of racism. Most individuals are unlikely to act like the stereotype, many may adhere to some of the traits, and the worst examples, often those looked down upon by the same culture, may adhere to nearly all of them.
Other times, the stereotype is a caricature of how the culture looks at it's own worst traits. Would you say that USA's culture is the same as, say, Hommer Simpson? should I consider all people from the country to be Hommer Simpson clones and everyone that strays from that would face dire consequences?

I would guess that he doesn't, at least when it comes to the history/biography section of your character sheets, or he simply didn't care and saw no reason to include them in the adventure. Or perhaps it was simply a matter of miscommunication on what type of game you all wanted to play.
Or maybe he doesn't believe he has the skill to pull it off, or he feels the group is too new and wants to get a handle of how much is too much before including such things.

Mind you, if he only did that with the first combat, well, there are benefits to an early first fight from both a storytelling, social and mechanical perspectives, it's not a bad plot hook, it lets you know just what kind of players you're dealing with, and it lets you plan or adjust your adventure to be more fun while the players are busy having their post-battle back-patting.

I'm sorry, but after several posts this is just being deliberately obtuse.
How is not wanting a game where the friction does not get to the point of unplayability implying zero friction? is it a checkbox for you? is it either a hugbox or the drow assassin trying to murder the party 5 minutes in because "mah concept!" or the paladin gutting the thief the first time he sees him trying to unlock the door of the evil dungeon? is the idea that I'm advocating some middle ground so difficult to comprehend? a middle ground based on roleplay, where the characters are played true to their concept, only that their concepts are chosen so they don't hit 'derail beyond recognition and ruin everyone else's fun' levels?

You've been around long enough, and interested in the hobby long enough, to at least have spotted the wargame roots, and you demonstrated a scorn to the kind of game Gigax ran. You don't need to know how everybody else in the world played the game to be aware that the 'rollplay' you're moaning about is not some newfangled invention of those annoying new kids.

Oh please, if you pick any sourcebook of any vaguely decent game system, you'll see Rule 0 being stated on pretty much all of them, from old school all the way to the newest systems.
You'll also see, particularly in newerish games, a great deal of care and love put into explaining what it's all about, how to handle things so everyone has fun, how to construct an interesting tale, how to model storytelling aspects and when to drop the rules to the side.
If you've never bothered to read that because you were only interested in the mechanics of the new system, if your powergamer obsessively read the rules but skipped a full chapter dedicated to this, if your GM just skipped reading it, then I'm sorry for you.

If all the players are at that level, well, you're simply playing a more superheroish game, if not, then you have a problem player.
But let's not kid ourselves, it wasn't some newfangled kids that started that trend, it was a trend that existed all the way back to the wargame roots, and I'm fairly certain it's a problem as old as games have existed. Are you telling me that you have never met or heard of someone trying that kind of rulelawyering with Monopoly? card games? Clue? never seen a kid cheat in hide and seek?

It IS a problem that exhibits worse behavior when companies either not being as careful as they should be with the things they print or just wanting to sell more stuff and not caring, but let's not kid ourselves, that powergamer would powergame no matter what game you pick, if it is someone that routinely pulls that, it's someone you might not want in your table, or at least someone you might want to have a stern talking to.


You're assuming an arbitrary idea of what first level means, but first level only really means "what the game assumes most adventures start at". Just because one system designed for a more gritty feel assumes first level is "threatened by a cat" doesn't mean another system or edition, designed for a more heroic feel, can't have first level be guys that are already past their rat catching days and are ready to be actual, serious adventurers now.

Some system are dedicated to the low magic, gritty feel you seem want, and that's fine, there's enough systems that there ought to be many that cater to your preferred genre. Or perhaps you want something that starts at the dirt bottom? that's fine too, plenty of systems do that as well.

But many systems are looking at modeling something where the starting characters are already skilled/powerful/awesome/special in their own right. That's fine too, there are plenty of books and movies that start that way, and many people that want to roleplay that.

The problem comes when you want and expect the first, and pick a system on the second category, obviously, your starting characters aren't where you want starting characters to be, and the game takes a heroic feel that is just not what you wanted.
This message was last edited by the user at 02:03, Sat 11 June 2016.

It depends on the stereotype or caricature, doesn't it? You don't have to go far to think of plenty of stereotypes which do more harm than good. Examples you yourself gave:



I would be extremely leery about including some or all of those in a PC or NPC.

In reply to Dirigible (msg # 65):

Okay, we've drifted back to the original topic, which I like. obvious any stereotype is better than none when we are dealing with fantasy races. Dealing with real world ethnicies, things are a bit more nuanced.

Here is what I have to say about the black stereotype which you brought to the fore. You are never going to please everyone. Let's use TV for an example.

If you had no blacks at all, there will be complaints.

If you show a black family is impoverished and struggling, you get complaints, prime example Good Times. Yes, a lot of people praised it as an attempt at showing the struggles of lower class urban black America, but they got a lot of complaints for calling it a negative stereotype.

If you show an affluent black family, there are blacks who will complain that is it 'unrealistic'. Case in point, the Cosby show. Sure, plenty of people say it as a positive example of what is possible but there were plenty of detractors saying it was 'unrealistic' and failed to show the real struggles of black Americans.

So yes, people can get upset regardless of what you do.

That said, if the circumstance was that I was playing in a modern or near-future game, or even not too distant past, (imagine the learning potential of a game set in the sixties south during the heyday of the civil rights movement), damn right I would play poor urban black characters with most if not all of those characteristics.

You want to see an intense moment in role-play imagine an affluent African American going into a poor neighborhood and try to explain how easy it is for them to fix their lives. That would be something else...

It is a far greater insult, in my mind, to pretend that there is no difference in being black in America, and I can see really good stories to be told with the richest of backdrops possible, the one based on our own reality.

Anyway, my suggestion to people who are leery of such things, stick to fantasy games, or far future stuff. None of those traits would make sense if I was blacking a black Jedi or Storm Trooper. The one point I have tried to make that seems to get overlooked is that there is no wrong way to roleplay, I just think my way has merit.

Quick step back ... been thinking on't, and to my mind, the reason the 1st Ed barbarian was playable was because back then gaming was face to face, so I was playing with Andy, Bob, Carol and Dave, and we were all friends anyway ... so if one of us was playing a barbarian, we focused on the advantages and worked around the disadvantages.  And yes, more roll-play than role-play in those days.  Fast forward to online gaming, and all I see is the mage that's going apoplectic - and in most cases, I don't know their gamer handle, let alone their real name and heaven forbid anything at all about their real life.  So while in the old days my mates and I would laugh about the barbarian's hang ups and then go watch a movie, nowdays there's little if any of that wider social context.  Online rightly or wrongly the character is equated with the player and vice-versa.

And back up to date ... while there are many many social issues in the real world, race, gender etc ... that's not something I'm looking to bring to the gaming table.  Sure, that might not be realistic, but in a world of fireballs and dragons, I'm good with that.  :>

But all that boiling together of Dwarven myths and legends was done on Tolkein's side  of things, and his distillation is the one upon which D&D dwarves are based. You may (and I am guessing do) have a deeper understanding, but we are discussing the race as it is discussed within the D&D framework. Going beyond that is more than simply stretching the point.


How have we drifted back to writing. Certainly if I was writing a novel or a script I would like to do more research, but we are talking about role-playing, and while I am not assuming that the stereotype of all that  a culture is, I am assuming that within the context of a game it is unrealistic to expect or demand more.
You almost make my point there however when you say you have to add humanity to it. That statement implies that the character in based in, and growing out of the stereotype. It isn't 'more depth' to say 'I want my character to behave however I feel at the moment' that is less depth, and less humanity (Or dwarfity, or elfity, whatever.)


No, that was actually what I was getting out of your posts.


Your casting a wide net there, but I don't see that it's catching anything relevant. What exactly do you think common stereotypes include? Asians eat rice, and a lot fish. Certainly not all encompassing, but you try playing a character who is exactly like three billion people. If you're saying 'if you can't be like everyone at the same time, you should play?" You want to play the Average American by playing your character like Homer Simpson? Not a huge compliment, but I would certainly recognize it, and would think you were making from of me, as an American Male, by doing it. I would prefer it to playing the Average American as a Harvard Educated philanthropist who holds no racists thoughts and is a perfect (yet non-denominational) Christian, because while there may be an American like that, he's not representative of the fat part of the bell curve.
You see to imply that if I play a retarded person as slow, or a crippled polio victim as paralyzed, it is some giant insult, but when Larry David played a retarded clerk on LA Law, all he got was praise for his ability to make the character so recognizably retarded. By portraying the stereotype. That's what won him two emmys.


Fascinating, your entire diatribe agrees with my point.


Nonsense, we had no reason to be together, and no understanding of why we went where we did. It wasn't some forced happenstance, it was simply assumed that for the ease of playing, no friction would be allowed, and my friction, in this case, I mean 'any personal interaction'.


You say that, but every level of human interaction mentioned has resulted in your response that it would make a game unplayable for you.
Case in point, my barbarian. I don't think it was huge imposition on the party to know what my characters attitude towards magic was, not because he was my character, but because by the rules, that was how every barbarian behaved.
I've yet to see anything you say advocate a middle ground, your party line seems to be 'everyone must behave in the most friendly fashion'. It puts me in mind of A Brave New World, it seems so mind numbingly cloying. That may be where you think the middle ground is, I disagree, that's not the middle ground any more then the Pope is agnostic. You have argued, repeatedly, that 'concept' takes not the backseat to party unity, but isn't allowed in the car. Your concept of a Paladin who doesn't care about behavior that falls outside of his honor code isn't a role-playing construct, it's a fighter with a bunch of cool abilities that will help us 'win'.
But it wasn't a problem in many games, because the party and the thief role-played that they understood the Paladin so they hid the thiefly behavior. Which isn't, by the way, unlocking a door, it's unlocking someones door illegally. Not so subtle a distinction in my mind.


You've been around long enough, and interested in the hobby long enough, to at least have spotted the wargame roots, and you demonstrated a scorn to the kind of game Gigax ran. You don't need to know how everybody else in the world played the game to be aware that the 'rollplay' you're moaning about is not some newfangled invention of those annoying new kids.</quote>
Having never played with  Gygax, as you apparently claim to have, I can speak only to your one dimensional definition that all his games were dice-oriented fight fests. If that is what he play, yes, I will cast aspersions on it. If, however, I look at the growth and expansion of the game, I find it hard to believe that is the only way he played, and I would go so far as to say his game 'grew' out of roll-playing into 'role-playing'.
Speaking of which, roll-playing is hilariously not only not new, archaeology suggests it may be one of the oldest game forms in existence. What I  dislike is that a game which seemed to depart from roll-playing, and whose departure is what made it great, is being reduced to the lesser form. It is how I suspect you might feel if suddenly people had their cars pulled by horses again.

Specifically talking about D&D here, but I am poor and new systems cost way too much money for me. I only own a Pathfinder payers handbook because I found one for $35.00 bucks. I have never actually read 3.5 or 5th ed., my experiences are based on playing with other peoples help.
I have read a few free or cheap systems found on line though, and when (for example in the Window) the storytelling aspect of the game is given primacy, there are no rules to enable (or stop) power-gaming, the GM simply has to throw those kind (your kind I am guessing) out of the game.
Played in some superhero game awhile back, and the only thing that stopped it from being fun was that there was a powergamer who had a hissy fit if he wasn't always the bestest, fastest, most importantest little buttercup in the game. The DM wasn't up to the job of curtailing his behavior, so I quit, which was a shame, because there were some good roleplayers in the group, but if your not having fun, don't play, is my hard and fast rule.



Even first level Batman wasn't as disgusting as  modern Batman. I grew up when he was mostly a detective and I could learn how to detect counterfeit money or tell if a guy was left handed by the way he wore his belt.

That said, if there is one game where I don't feel first level characters should be super heroes, it's D&D. My idea of first level comes from books like the Hobbit and the Trilogy, and if Bilbo, on page three, ran into a grizzly bear and tore it in half with his Super-Vorpal Hobbit-Kick-Of-Doom, it would have been a very different, and for me, less enjoyable book.

What we did when we wanted to be powerful in the old days was start an adventure with tenth level character, or fifth if we wanted a bit less horsepower. What are you going to do with 5th edition if you do want to play humbler, more day-to-day people? Nothing, because they are born gross.

Even if I play super hero games, I want my first level character to be less powerful than he he will become.

I guess the difference between the style I am championing and the new wave of D&D systems is that my character, if he became cool, did so thru my actions as a player, by the story that was told, the process of the game was to be cool. My younger friends who pay 3.5 can spend hours trying to generate and maximize a character, and the coolness is based, not on the result of creativity and story telling, but because they knew how to put their metaphorical lego's together in the most interesting fashion.

Much the way I don't cheat at Clue or Risk, because it reduces the feeling of accomplishment, and heck, if I can't have fun losing I should play, is the way I feel about the dominant power-gamer style of play.

That was certainly the way most people played it, they wanted the good stuff for playing a  barbarian, so they ignored the stuff they didn't like. As I said, the mistake  was in making the bad stuff ignorable, it was all role-play stuff. Imagine if instead, the barbarian had been given all that cool stuff, and a d6 for hit points. Much more balanced. Clearly the game designers expected the role-play aspects to be the way people played, but they were being unrealistic. I'm guessing people like me who tried to play it by the rules were few and far between.

As to the racial/ethnic stuff, finding a level of gaming where it doesn't detract from your fun is the way to go. Imagine the outrage if you tried to play D&D where women were treated the way they were in the real middle ages, oh the outrage.

Who remembers that in 1st ed. AD&D different genders had different max stats? Weeeee....

you've entered the realm of judging other people for what they enjoy.  Never really makes sense.  You have dang good reasons for enjoying lowl evel play.  I have dang good reasons for not.  We can both enjoy the games we play.  so who cares how other people play?

We can, not sure why my defending the style I like comes across as an attack to you. Usually that's a sign of being defensive, which most shrinks will say means you harbor a hidden dislike of yourself, but I think that's foolish. It is awesome that you enjoy gaming, and only expected that you would like to game the way you like to game.

Doesn't mean my way is wrong though. Why does the existence of people who game in ways different from you make you so unhappy?

Nothing stopped players from starting at any power level they wanted in first addition, why can't I lament the fact that the games starting line is now more powerful then I enjoy. For years people wanted, and got games that had tougher and more powerful levels. TSR created an entire set of rules dedicated to the Immortal levels (set 5) for people who wanted that. Power gamers have been catered to for decades, you're not winning, you have won. Your style is now the default style.

But because I decide to whimper and lament, I'm imposing on your good time?

That's rather unfair of you, in my opinion.

Ha, that was a joke, power gamers don't want fair, they want DOMINANCE! Cheat codes! Lesser players to call noobs. This is the life's blood of the power gamer!

Hehehe... or not.

again, you're using a lot of generalizations that are fairly negative.  just because people want to be higher than 1st level doesn't equate to using "cheat codes" (which pretty much universally implies you're doing something wrong) or wanting dominance or power gaming.  Those all have fairly negative connotations.  And even if someone DOES want to do that, what's wrong with that?  it's something you do for fun.  if I enjoy wading through armies of goblins like a golden panzer tank in armor, why can't I?
The only time it would be a problem is if two players with opposite sensibilities ended up in the same game.  Then it would likely mean one of them needs to bow out, and that would be a discussion for the pcs and the gm.  But implying either type of play is wrong, just doesn't really make a lot of sense.

I didn't attack the style of game you prefer.  my first post was actually aimed at both people in the argument, English just doesn't have a second person plural, so you is the best I can use.  I think it's fine it you want to play starting level.  It just isn't something all people enjoy.  But if you enjoy it, go for it.  Have a ball.
This message was last edited by the user at 05:15, Sat 11 June 2016.

Negative is in the eye of the beholder. I knew quite a few Leets who reveled in their cheat codes, and actually go self-esteem from winning thru cheating.
If you think these words have a negative connotation, then it seems we may have a similar attitude towards these folks.
I also knew a few who hid their cheating because they were ashamed enough not to want the fact known, but not ashamed enough not to cheat.


 
Exactly what I said, it's apparently you who has an issue with it, why else would you need to feel defensive when I have already said, good for you?


I agree, that's what I have said all along, neither style of play is wrong.
And, amazingly enough, a really talented DM can make the game work for both of them, it only becomes a deal breaker when that doesn't happen. I never quit a game, just because someone plays a style other than mine, the situation also has to include a DM either unwilling or unable to make the game fun for me as well.


While I agree, I feel you miss the key point of my lament, with 5th ed (and to a greater degree 4th ed) has made first level so potent it's already beyond what players like me enjoy. As I have said several times, power gamers have always had the option to start at higher level, when the lowest level in the system is pretty effectively sixth or seventh level, the system has no way to scale down. I feel a bit marginalized that the system, by design, doesn't really allow for low level games. Not when first and level characters are half-way to Godzilla in DPS (had a player claim that with the current system his low level Paladin could deal 100 hit points in a single round. I never had a tenth level fighter of any type who could do that.)
As a previous discusser pointed out, there are systems out there that may offer low level play, but D&D is, to me, the Gold Standard, so it's sad to see it move so completely in this direction. That plus the vast majority of other systems seem to stop being supported after a short people of time, and I really don't know how I would find such a system with so many out there.

I guess you'll just have to stick with lower iterations of D&D.  I've never played anything past 3.5, and I'm quite content.

and, no, cheating always has a negative connotation.  The fact that you consider starting higher level equates to cheating implies a negative view of it.  That's not just my perception.  But it doesn't really matter, my view won't change how you play, just as yours won't change how I play.  and that's just fine.

That's true, as long as we're all having fun, that's all that counts.

I do still disagree with your use of always, it may always have a negative connotation for you, but there are people who don't feel the same way, heck even cultures that do.

Google the riots in India by students who protested their right to cheat on exams. They claimed it was their right to cheat, because people had been doing so for a very long time. Not the only culture to work that way, either. In Mexico the practice of the police taking bribes is simply a fact of life. Mexican's driving home from the US for Christmas often bring extra presents just for the cops to take. They call the cops right to this extra income the mordida, the little bite. And it's not just cops...

none of those examples break the rule that cheating is viewed as negative.  If it wasn't viewed as negative, the students wouldn't need to justify their actions, and the police wouldn't call it bribes and at least pay lip service to hiding it.  Both of those instances, they aren't saying what they do is right, they're just saying they should be allowed to get away with it.  If the action was right, and ok, and above board, no one would call it cheating.

Cheating means to break the rules.  In an RPG, anything agreed upon by the GM and the players isn't cheating, even if it rewrites every aspect of the game books.  It's just modifying the game so that everyone enjoys it.  If I run a vampire game, and decide that bullets do half damage to vampires to play up on their inhuman, undead nature, and make them a step above humans, is that cheating?  No, it's just house rules.  Increasing a character's level, or giving them bonuses, or making them a god is no more cheating than creating a new race, a new weapon, a new spell.  It's just part of the game you're playing.
This message was last edited by the user at 06:45, Sat 11 June 2016.

In reply to gladiusdei (msg # 76):

It wasn't seen as negative by the students though. You seem to think the view that cheating is bad is universal, but there are plenty of cheaters who disagree. The fact that you think all cheating is wrong doesn't make it so, anymore than their belief that cheating is acceptable makes that right either.

History is full of examples where cheaters win, and they are lauded for it. All's fair in love wand war they say. When Rommel lowered his 88's to fight off tanks, he was 'cheating' by the British concept of the rule of war, I think he was smart in doing so.

Cheating, by definition, means going against the rules, so of course if an action has been placed within the rules, it's not cheating. I've played some capture the flag games on line where everyone used all the cheat codes. It seemed silly, but it wasn't cheating, (despite the use of the term 'cheat code')

That said, I've known many a player to rig the dice, or simply lie about their roll when the DM was down the table, and they thought it was okay. I knew a player who got so frustrated with a particularly difficult dungeon, so he bought the module to read it's secrets. People do cheat, and they almost always find a way to justify in their mind. It is rare to find a cheater who would admit to the fact.

By that argument, murder doesn't have a negative connotation because some people choose to do it.  The word cheating has a negative connotation.  People who 'cheat' like your examples, would argue what they were doing was not cheating, not that is good.

There are people who think murder is good. There are no universal moral rules, they are all human constructs. You cannot have a connotation without a person to feel it, not every person feels the same connotations.

Funny, we seem to have come full circle, different cultures have different connotations, among other things. None of them are 'right' or 'wrong' but it seems built into the concept of 'connotation' that people will assume their own are right.

I wouldn't recommend it, because they are pretty boring, but there was a generation of British philosophers who claims that, by using pure logic, that the British standard for beauty, music and art was what was (surprise) what was the height of fashion in Britain at that time.

Racism at it's finest...

I'm not going to add to this discussion. It has gone too far from the original topic.

But this comment:



You are really opening a hornet's nest. That's usually the argument used to justify everything we normally don't accept in our society such as murder, rape, racism, incest, etc. by those committing said acts.