Yes, MORE on religion and role playing

[S'mon]

Hi Librisia/Krista.

Re the colour black, I think you're putting the cart before the horse.  I have never seen anyone but anti-racists use the connection between black as the 'evil' colour and 'black' as a skin colour to argue that people classed as racially black are 'evil'.  White racists don't do that.  If they did, Hitler wouldn't have dressed his SS in black shirts.  Black is seen as the scary, 'cool' colour - black trenchcoats, black Goth outfits, black leather biker jackets.  However hard you try, the colour and its association with darkness, fear & badness simply doesn't have a racial connotation per se.  

From what I know* of racially sensitive Americans (ie, Americans who are attuned to the racial classification system of their culture, consciously or subconsciously), when they look at someone and decide if they're going to classify them as 'black', 'white' or Hispanic they look primarily at things other than skin tone - hair and especially facial features.  You can be classed as 'black' in the USA while having a skin tone lighter than most 'whites'.

Tolkien came from south Africa originally.  Despite that, from what I can tell he shared the concerns of his era and his country - primarily Class not Race.  Class is still very important in the UK, although I think this is lessening.  In the USA it's much less important, and Race is much more important.  I guess it can be hard for Americans to appreciate that racial questions are less important in many other countries, and of course racial classifications are very different.  No European truly understands the American concept of Hispanic or la Razza for instance (I know I don't!), which is particularly tough on Spaniards & Portugese visiting the Americas...

*I'm white male British, married to an American from Tennessee.

[S'mon]

Fact is, if blackness as a marker of evil didn't fit with the racist agenda of U.S. cultural enterprise, it would have ceased to be used.  Don't fool yourselves.  

Colours have connotations - black is evil, scary, cool.

I don't think the connotations of black as a colour bear any resemblance to racial prejudices, though.  Racial stereotyping from white culture I'm familiar with would typically be that 'blacks' are violent, aggressive, stupid and possibly lazy.  Also more guilt-free and readier to enjoy life.  In fact these stereotypes are more like traditionally associated with the colour red - the colour of fire and blood.  Black-as-the-evil-colour if anything connotes values closer to steretypes about 'whites' - cold, calculating, villainous.

Of course people can perceive things differently; I'm only discussing the 'internal aspect' of racist 'white' cultural associations.  Someone classed as racially 'black' may see the cultural association of colour black=evil as being applied to them.  I'm just arguing that that association simply doesn't exist in the minds even of white racists.

[John Kim]

Sure, a cigar is just a cigar.  But when you keep choosing the same KIND of cigar over and over and over and over and over and over, the cigar becomes a symbol of the way you view the world, no matter what the "origins" of your choice of cigar might have been.

It's a good point.  It is the pattern which is important, not any particular case.  For example, I think that condemning the Drow in particular isn't quite right.  It's just one black-skinned matriarchal culture which happens to be evil.  It could be an interesting contrast to the good matriarchal cultures, and the good black-skinned races in D&D.  Except...  Where are they?  Maybe I'm missing something, but I don't see them.  I think this is the significant point, not a single example of Drow in isolation.  

What many of us see in that mirror is distorted and maimed because all of the reflections given back in that mirror tend to look like YOU (white, middle class, male, heterosexual).  Not only do we need feminist game design, we need womanist game design (African-American women's issues), we need Africanist game design, we need Queer game design... the list goes on.

I think it's possible, Lehrich, to have these kinds of game designs - or as Kim illustrated, to use current games to further these agendas.  

Well, I'm a little wary of the word "need".  I would like to have such games because I think they would be fun to play (in the sense that I think diversity adds interest).  I know of many others who feel the same way.  However, I don't think it is right to demand this of any game designers or publishers.  It is up to the people who make such games to show that there is a demand.

[James Holloway]

Let me add to that reading: How many upper class people of African descent do you think there were in England in the 1940's-50's?  :-)Krista

Probably just Haile Selassie.

As for the idea that certain types of play have traditionally appealed more to female players than others*, I think that (based on limited anecdotal evidence, of course) that's probably true. The stumbling block is coupling it with a GNS category. Take out the word Narrativist and you're probably all right.

* In the aggregate, of course. In fact, I know plenty of female players who are grotesque power-mongers, but if I had to guess at the proportion of the total population I'd say it's lower.

John Kim makes a good point about stereotypes of women in games, but I have to say that this is probably dependent on the game and the writer. The Deadlands example sounds like it's specifically based on Doris Day in "Calamity Jane." There's hardly any of that kind of thing in, say, Call of Cthulhu, even though it set in a very sexist society, probably because "manly" pursuits like fighting and what-all aren't really emphasized in the game as being very important.

[C. Edwards]

So the "cigar is just a cigar" argument fails here, because obviously, to myself and others in this discussion, it's NOT just a cigar anymore. It's difficult, but stop taking it personally. Why not ask us to help you understand why it's not just a cigar? By getting defensive and saying, "well I'M not sexist/racist/homophobic!" you're not necessarily worsening the problem - but you aren't being part of the solution, either.

I'm not M.J., but I'd like to address this issue.

I realize that there are things some people view as "cigars" and others view as "not just cigars", and I understand their reasons for doing so. The thing is, those reasons criss-cross the spectrum from "paranoia", "persecution complex", "oblivious white hetero male", "minority sympathizer", and a whole host of other points of view.

So, while you can point at , say, the whole Drow concept and say "that is NOT just a cigar", there is actually a very good chance that to whoever created the Drow, and to those who encounter the concept, they are just a cigar. No projection of racial or gender bias needed to exert itself for such an invention.

I simply don't think that we do the issues of race and gender prejudice any favors by insisting that imaginary constructs, such as the Drow, that may or may not have stemmed from some bias and have many possible explanations outside of bias, are definitely "not just cigars". That's just taking a straw man (or Ferengi) and beating it repeatedly to make a ruckus. I think the whole issue deserves a more substantive approach.

Oh, and as for the meaning of symbols changing over time. Yes, they do, but not for everybody.

-Chris

[C. Edwards]

*edit: multi-post

[C. Edwards]

*edit: heh, seems I posted in triplicate.

[Valamir]

Chris, Amen

In fact, I find taking legitimate important issues like racism and sexism and homophobia and trying to search for and claim evidence for them everywhere, including in adolescent RPG munchkin fantasy characters...simply cheapens the whole thing, and makes it much easier for nay sayers to point and say "see how ridiculous those people are".

[Mike Holmes]

Uh, just to be clear, I was being a tad facetious. Or rather, I don't see the problem with Drow. Hence my terse "All Terrible" was meant to be sarcastic (I didn't think a winkie emoticon would make sense there). For all you short memoried people, we've actually been over this point before in spades. My personal opinion, FWIW, is, like I said above, that people are probably unneccessarily reacting to these things. Moreover, my overall point was that it's up to you as an individual to decide what's offensive and what's not, and vote with your pocketbook.

John, I didn't say where any such education would have to take place. Nor even that it should. Just that this is where the ground up solution would have to come from in general terms, if one thought there was a problem.

I don't care what y'all think about whether drow are a racist portrayal or not. Won't affect my play, either way. And I don't see what you can do about these things if they do turn out to be problematic, other than changing your buying habits. To each his own.

Mike

[John Kim]

In fact, I find taking legitimate important issues like racism and sexism and homophobia and trying to search for and claim evidence for them everywhere, including in adolescent RPG munchkin fantasy characters...simply cheapens the whole thing, and makes it much easier for nay sayers to point and say "see how ridiculous those people are".

I agree with you that concluding from an isolated fictional creation like Drow is silly.  I'm curious about whether you agree with my earlier examples, though, where I (for example) looked at all cases of female characters appearing in the Last Unicorn Games Star Trek book -- or in adventures like "The Greenland Saga".  

I'm also not sure what your point is about adolescent munchkin fantasy is.  In my experience, adolescent munchkin fantasy is frequently quite sexist -- often obviously so.  I don't see how this is a terribly controversial point.  It's like saying that beer commercials are sexist.  Now, it is socially much more important whether, say, company CEOs are sexist rather than whether 13-year-old boys are sexist.  But I think it is ridiculous to try to argue that sexism doesn't exist in adolescent fantasies.

[Valamir]

I'm curious about whether you agree with my earlier examples, though, where I (for example) looked at all cases of female characters appearing in the Last Unicorn Games Star Trek book -- or in adventures like "The Greenland Saga".

Here are my thoughts on those.

1) I'm real hesitant to take a couple (or even a dozen) exerpts from a book and draw a broad conclusion that they are evidence of endemic sexism.  I'll grant you they deserve a raised eyebrow but barring more compelling evidence I'm inclined to conclude that at the end of the day, its just a potato after all.

2) I believe that a source book (movie, novel, whatever0 that is attempting to emulate original material (historic or literary) should endeavor to do so faithfully.  Looking back on OST you see alot of females of questionable nerve who stood in the shadow of stronger male characters.  So IF one is going to point fingers, start with the original but I can't blame the new for being faithful to the old.

3) Sex sells.  Saying sex sells, and capitalizing on the fact that sex sells IMO does not constitute sexism.  Call it bad taste.  Call it capitalist greed compromising artistic integrity, but I don't consider successful sales tactics to be any sort of -ist.  The marketers job is to sell product.  The strategy might be pathetic, but if it sells then the marketer did their job.

I find what Avalanche did with their covers abhorrant.  Not for any of the often cited "demeaning to women" reasons that get thrown around.  No, I think they were demeaning to the authors.  While not of the calibre of GURPS as far as historical research goes, there was still some solid background there put into a more easily digestible bite size ready for adventure format that really could have been a top drawer product line.  If I had been an author of one of those books, I'd have been insulted that they felt the need to sell my word via cheescake rather than on its merits.

[M. J. Young]

Habits versus prejudices.

People have habits; it is a function of our mental and physical processing that makes it possible for us to accomplish things in this world: most of the things we do, we do because we have trained ourselves to do them that way. We don't think about them when we do them, and we learned them at some point for reasons which made sense at the time.

I'm an asthmatic; cigarette smoke is crippling. I consider very rude for people to smoke around me. If they ask if I mind, I try to explain that I do mind, because it doesn't take much exposure to the smoke to leave me gasping for breath. On the other hand, I don't think that people are being rude if they're sitting in the smoking section of the restaurant puffing on their cigarettes and the smoke drifts my direction. These are strangers; they have no idea that they're potentially endangering me, and have no intent to be rude. Now, if they were specifically blowing their smoke into the non-smoking area, that would be rude.

If I do something that offends you, even if I do it repeatedly, I need to be told that my habits are offensive, and given the opportunity to attempt to change them. If I'm doing something for reasons that offend you, that's different.

On a thread some time back, I used the word "Oriental" to describe people from the Far East generally, and someone said that was a very offensive word to use--"Asian" would be better. I had no idea that Asian people were offended by the designation "Oriental", but if they are, I'm certainly going to make an effort to change my usage. That's the difference between a habit and a prejudice.

Does that make sense?

--M. J. Young

[John Kim]

1) I'm real hesitant to take a couple (or even a dozen) exerpts from a book and draw a broad conclusion that they are evidence of endemic sexism.  I'll grant you they deserve a raised eyebrow but barring more compelling evidence I'm inclined to conclude that at the end of the day, its just a potato after all.  

Well, I'd be happy to provide more data.  I did try to address this by showing all fiction text portraying females rather than just excerpts.  I can provide further text, of course.  There are also female characters included in six of the 37 mechanics examples in the rules (again, this is complete throughout the book, not selected cases).  Two of these (pages 87 and 93) are examples of taking medical problems as disadvantages.  Three of them (pages 101, 103, and 161) have the character making a perception or sensor check -- never combat or an active role.  The sixth (page 104) is this:

Nurse Purvis uses her own Charm skill to resist Ensign Genchoks'  romantic overtures (i.e., his attempt to use Charm on her), since they wouldn't make a good couple -- his blue skin tone clashes with her uniform.

I can of course type in the other five examples as well.  Give me a little time.  

2) I believe that a source book (movie, novel, whatever0 that is attempting to emulate original material (historic or literary) should endeavor to do so faithfully.  Looking back on OST you see alot of females of questionable nerve who stood in the shadow of stronger male characters.  So IF one is going to point fingers, start with the original but I can't blame the new for being faithful to the old.  

OK, here I disagree.  First of all, I despise literal adaptation.  A movie which portrays scene by scene exactly what is in the book is dull and pointless.  The idea that you can and should just present the old without any of your own ideas is abhorrent to me.  There can and should be new ideas which inform and comment on the old.  All of the good RPG adaptations (like all good adaptations in general), in my opinion, have changed their source.  

Second, if you write it, you should be prepared to stand by your work.  People can and should judge you for it.  If you don't like it, don't write it -- or at least write about how you don't like it.  

3) Sex sells.  Saying sex sells, and capitalizing on the fact that sex sells IMO does not constitute sexism.  Call it bad taste.  Call it capitalist greed compromising artistic integrity, but I don't consider successful sales tactics to be any sort of -ist.  The marketers job is to sell product.  The strategy might be pathetic, but if it sells then the marketer did their job.  

Here I totally disagree with the underlying logic.  Again, you are responsible for what you do.  For example, I may act in a racist manner to get ahead -- say by subtlely making slurs against someone whom I are competing for a job with.  The fact that I successfully benefitted from this doesn't make the act any less racist.  Racism and sexism are always motivated by self-interest.  You disempower another in order to gain power for yourself.  

That said, I don't think sex is sexist.  For example, I would say that Buffy benefits from sexiness, but the show at least has a definite feminist agenda.  It is a choice whether to show competant, liberated, sexy women or trashy cheesecake.  Now, it may be that the cheesecake sells better because of who you are marketting to -- but that just goes back to my point above.

[Thuringwaethiel]

In fact, I find taking legitimate important issues like racism and sexism and homophobia and trying to search for and claim evidence for them everywhere, including in adolescent RPG munchkin fantasy characters...simply cheapens the whole thing, and makes it much easier for nay sayers to point and say "see how ridiculous those people are".

I don't know about others, but I've never been hard pressed to find those aspects in just about any part of life. No need to search when things are thrown at one's face. Not hard to claim foul when one is hurt to tears day after day. Of course being female makes me more "tuned" when it comes to sexism, whereas racism doesn't "stick out" that much (I'm white). Still I am not stupid enough to claim that racism does not exist, or arrogant enough to say it's not a big deal.

Yes, there are those who cry "wolf, wolf" until no one cares. It is easy to label any feminist or race activist with that, when you don't want to talk about the issues. But remember the end of the story? There was a wolf, and it came.

Furthermore, this is a RPG forum. A design forum. A theory forum. I thought here one could analyze the existing games, adolescent munchkin or not. I thought some people here want to create games that no more are clones of the adolescent munchkin tradition. If you don't see the problem, or do not care, please let the rest of us discuss about it in peace.

RPGs are a dear hobby to me. I tend to "wander around" searching interesting ideas etc. If I encounter something unappealing, am I not allowed to address it? Some have questioned what makes girls roleplay and what drives them away. I'm providing my share of answers.

I agree with you that concluding from an isolated fictional creation like Drow is silly.

I'm not sure if this is directed to me, but if so, let me refute the claim. I wasn't concluding anything from the drows (I could, but didn't get there yet). Drow females were brought up as an example of strong female characters. I pointed out that the culture behind them, controlled by them, is (one of) the most evil in the world. Yes, PCs can be aligned otherwise, but that means they are the expections, rebels, outcasts, fugitives. As a baseline, drows are evil. And the strong woman = evil woman is ages old sexist stereotype.

No, one can't make wide assumtions based on drows alone, but one can't present them as an example of equality between sexes (or races), either. I wouldn't use a Middle-Earth half-orc as a favouring example of mixed races. (They have good abilities, and they're described as something of an abomination to creation itself.)

I was tired to begin with, and these issues are not light to me. Going to sleep. Apologies for typos and bad english.

[Valamir]

Yup, you and I disagree on a number of funamentals John

Movies portraying historical or literary events should endeavor to be as literal to the source as possible given the difference in medium.  To do otherwise is IMO the height of hubris.  The idea that some hollywood screenwriter can somehow "improve" upon a work of literature that stood the test of centuries is completely ludicrous to me.  If you want to deliver a different "message" then come up with unique material.  Don't take existing material and twist it into something else and then call it "artistic vision".  I call it "too damn lazy to come up with completely new stuff and trying to cash in on someone else's fame"


Further I completely and utterly disagree with your definitions of racism or sexism being about depowering others in order to gain power for self.  That's not an -ism.  That's life.  The proof is in your own example.  If you compete for a job by using slurs against your competition...you may well be an untrustworthy, backstabbing, treacherous SOB.  But its completely immaterial what gender or race your competition was.

Being a back stabbing SOB, makes you a back stabbing SOB.  If by chance your target was black, that doesn't suddenly make you racist.  To say it does is the very definition of inequality.  Under this logic being a backstabbing SOB against a white guy means you're only guilty of a single offense.  But if one then says its racist if against a black guy they've made it two offenses.  As if somehow being horrible to a minority is a worse crime than being horrible to someone who isn't.

Being a horrible person is being a horrible person.  Just because the target of your behavior feels that they belong to a "disempowered group" doesn't suddenly make you an -ist.  You're still just a horrible person being horrible.


Are there legitimate issues that still need to be solved before all people are equal.  Absolutely.

But too often words like "misogynist" or "racist" or "homophobe" have nothing whatsoever to do with helping solve that problem, and everything to do with one group using labels as a lever to gain power over another group.  At this point these words become just another form of hate speech no different than nigger or faggot or dago.

NOT that I'm in anyway saying anyone on this thread was using them like that.  But I do want to make the point that this is why I do not simply accept carte blanche every time someone (well intentioned or ill) says "aha...evidence of -ism".  Real life doesn't ever fit into such nice neat little labels.