## Purpose:
This group is for issues relevant to gamers of color, primarily as
it relates to the American experience and definition of race, and the
issues minorities have in a hobby almost defined by their near
absence.

This list is -OPEN- to people of all races.

It is understood that the purpose is -BOTH- for ethnic minorities
to discuss topical to forum issues, and for others to come to
understand them and perhaps join in within the framework of
minority-ethnic issues with that topic and respecting the minority
perspective therein.

This is not a place for the promotion of racism or racial stereotypes,
but for coming together and sharing experiences and perspectives. It
might be a place to discuss how to advocate for racial sensitivity in
gaming, and how to help fellow gamers come to understand and relate
to minorities, it can also be a place to discuss how to get more people
of diverse ethnic and racial backgrounds into the hobby of table top
roleplaying games.

There are people who believe that race/ethnicity has no place in
discussion, and / or that minorities have no place discussing it. This list
is logically not for them, and it would be appreciated if they not try to
attack the list. This list is for those who have found issues of race to be
a real and present force in their lives and their hobbies, and  wish to
address how it impacts their particular hobby of roleplaying.

By 'gamer' this list is meant to welcome 'roleplayers', 'MMO players',
'TCG players', 'wargamers', 'Chess / Go players', and other 'gamer
hobbyists' who feel a need to examine racial and ethnic issues in
their hobby.

## Rules of Discussion:
1. This -is- a somewhat political group, and as long as the discussion
    is relevant to the group purpose political discussion will be
    allowed.

2. Personal attacks, racial, ethnic, class, and religious slandering
    will not be tolerated.

3. For now, discuss what seems relevant, and we'll see what rules are
    needed.


## About the Moderator:
I'm arcady, and you can find my posts on a variety of gaming boards. I
also write fiction and do digital art (with a deviantart gallery under
my handle). I am racially mixed - near equal parts Asian, North American
Native, South American Native, and Caucasian. I'm nearly 34, married to
an Asian non gamer, and a student of Political Science and Criminal
Justice.

For moderation, I will try to take as a light a hand as I possibly can,
and I am very sensitive to the need to not show bias in that for any one
side. Keep it civil, and you hopefully might be able to forget that the
list has someone running it.

--- In RoleplayersOfColor@yahoogroups.com, arcady <arcady0@...> wrote:
>
> Lord Hades wrote:

>
> The best attempt at a counter argument I've been given was over
> 'Oriental Adventures' wherein a staff poster from WotC responded that
> they had 'consulted the Asian guy who works at WotC and he didn't see
> any issue'.
>
> - That notes the level of blinders they have on. That was the level of
> their opening their eyes to an issue. One random guy around the coffee
> machine during break with a funny word on his name tag...
>
>
> Interesting. I have never really considered race as its portrayed in
the game itself but then I don't know that RPG's are any more or less
discriminatory than most other forms of American entertainment.

Lord Hades wrote:
> Hey folks! Happy New Year! (Have I posted since then?)
>
> Are there any Black fantasy authors that actually work with some of
> the Big Boys like Wizards or White Wolf? If so, who are they?
>
> You know, I was thinking about something: do RPG's intentionally fail
> to represent diversity or is it that they market to the people who are
> most obviously buying their products?

Having argued with a number of RPG publishers and writers on forums and
lists over the year, I can only conclude it is 'intentionally
unintentional'...

Or rather, they intentionally refuse to notice and refuse to pay
attention to the impact of the messages in their products.

They put blinders on, so that when they go out into the storm, they can
claim they don't see any problems in the weather. By doing to, they can
claim to have no bias over it.

But that's a fiction at best. It is like removing the steering wheel of
your car before getting on the freeway so you can claim you weren't
driving recklessly. Maybe you weren't, but that's only because you were
hardly driving to begin with...


There are many minority fantasy authors, but most of them avoid the RPG
industry. And I highly doubt it is for lack of interest in the concept
of an RPG. Thankfully, WotC and WW are very small potatoes in the
fantasy industry, only having clout in table top gaming.


With a blinded philosophy, many RPGs feel perfectly comfortable in
pulling from whites from segregated backgrounds (suburban raised for
example) when writing products that deal with race. As a result you get
things like the 'blacksplotation d20' book that came out a few years
ago, or the Drow origin were their skin is black because they sinned
(just as once preached to explain Africans in southern churches, and
into the 80s among Mormons). And of course, so many other examples...


The best attempt at a counter argument I've been given was over
'Oriental Adventures' wherein a staff poster from WotC responded that
they had 'consulted the Asian guy who works at WotC and he didn't see
any issue'.

- That notes the level of blinders they have on. That was the level of
their opening their eyes to an issue. One random guy around the coffee
machine during break with a funny word on his name tag...



--
<0){{{{>< http://home.comcast.net/~brianfwong/
/0)\ - -- Blog: http://www.livejournal.com/users/arcady0/
\(@/ - -- Art: http://arcady.deviantart.com/
http://www.renderosity.com/mod/gallery/browse.php?user_id=3261
The law in its majestic egalitarianism, forbids the rich as well as the
poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread.
--- Anatole France

Mike Pondersmith of old R.Talsorian Games is Black (though I guess they didn't
do much fantasy...). I don't know if this counts but the wife of one of the
major writers for D+D is black (and I understand she's a gamer as well).

   As for the comments - yeah, I had that too in university. In junior high
school I lived in a majority black neighborhood so all the gamers were black
(and a few hispanics) and the occassional white guy. We moved to an all white
neighboorhood when I was in high school and that's when I heard the occassional
comment like that - though half my group was black then anyway. But we were
ragged on.

Kynn Bartlett <nextofkynn@...> wrote:
           On 2/6/07, Lord Hades <hades3030@...> wrote:
> You know, I was thinking about something: do RPG's intentionally fail
> to represent diversity or is it that they market to the people who are
> most obviously buying their products?

It's one of those chicken-and-egg things, I think.

In my experience, I've gamed with a number of black gamers -- probably
a higher percentage of gamer-friends have been black than my friends
in general.

--Kynn

--
Kynn Bartlett <NextOfKynn@...>
Photographer, Writer, Editor
Tucson, Arizona
http://kynn.com





Stan Ward
mencelus01@...


---------------------------------
Now that's room service! Choose from over 150,000 hotels
in 45,000 destinations on Yahoo! Travel to find your fit.

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

On 2/6/07, Lord Hades <hades3030@...> wrote:
> You know, I was thinking about something: do RPG's intentionally fail
> to represent diversity or is it that they market to the people who are
> most obviously buying their products?

It's one of those chicken-and-egg things, I think.

In my experience, I've gamed with a number of black gamers -- probably
a higher percentage of gamer-friends have been black than my friends
in general.

--Kynn

--
Kynn Bartlett <NextOfKynn@...>
Photographer, Writer, Editor
Tucson, Arizona
http://kynn.com

Hey folks! Happy New Year! (Have I posted since then?)

Are there any Black fantasy authors that actually work with some of
the Big Boys like Wizards or White Wolf? If so, who are they?

You know, I was thinking about something: do RPG's intentionally fail
to represent diversity or is it that they market to the people who are
most obviously buying their products? Personally, I know that I'm
often the only Black guy hanging out in the RPG section at Borders and
most of the roleplaying groups I have ever been a part of in the past
were 100% white. In fact, 95% of the Black people I have ever told
that I roleplay respond with either confusion, ridicule, suspicion, or
a mixture of all three. "Dungeons & Dragons?!" they ask incredulously.
"Isn't that the game that all those white boys were killing themselves
over a few years ago?" Or, "You play WHAT?" Or the best one I ever
heard was, "Black people don't play stuff like that, man. You hang
with too many white boys!"

Jane Doe wrote:
> Has anybody created or come across a game that deals directly with
> stereotyping?  I was half asleep when I came up with a game about
> stereotypes about African Americans.  No name or anything, just crazy
> ideas.  Anybody see or come up with something similar?
>

I can't think of anything. There are plenty of games that go into
stereotypes in an over the top 'tongue in cheek way' as if that made it
ok, but I can't think of any that directly challenge them. At least not
'off-hand'...

Sometimes the question can also be - how do you challenge a stereotype
without falling into stereotypes?

--
<0){{{{>< http://home.comcast.net/~brianfwong/
/0)\ - -- Blog: http://www.livejournal.com/users/arcady0/
\(@/ - -- Art: http://arcady.deviantart.com/
http://www.renderosity.com/mod/gallery/browse.php?user_id=3261
The law in its majestic egalitarianism, forbids the rich as well as the
poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread.
--- Anatole France

Has anybody created or come across a game that deals directly with
stereotyping?  I was half asleep when I came up with a game about
stereotypes about African Americans.  No name or anything, just crazy
ideas.  Anybody see or come up with something similar?

## Purpose:
This group is for issues relevant to gamers of color, primarily as
it relates to the American experience and definition of race, and the
issues minorities have in a hobby almost defined by their near
absence.

This list is -OPEN- to people of all races.

It is understood that the purpose is -BOTH- for ethnic minorities
to discuss topical to forum issues, and for others to come to
understand them and perhaps join in within the framework of
minority-ethnic issues with that topic and respecting the minority
perspective therein.

This is not a place for the promotion of racism or racial stereotypes,
but for coming together and sharing experiences and perspectives. It
might be a place to discuss how to advocate for racial sensitivity in
gaming, and how to help fellow gamers come to understand and relate
to minorities, it can also be a place to discuss how to get more people
of diverse ethnic and racial backgrounds into the hobby of table top
roleplaying games.

There are people who believe that race/ethnicity has no place in
discussion, and / or that minorities have no place discussing it. This list
is logically not for them, and it would be appreciated if they not try to
attack the list. This list is for those who have found issues of race to be
a real and present force in their lives and their hobbies, and  wish to
address how it impacts their particular hobby of roleplaying.

By 'gamer' this list is meant to welcome 'roleplayers', 'MMO players',
'TCG players', 'wargamers', 'Chess / Go players', and other 'gamer
hobbyists' who feel a need to examine racial and ethnic issues in
their hobby.

## Rules of Discussion:
1. This -is- a somewhat political group, and as long as the discussion
    is relevant to the group purpose political discussion will be
    allowed.

2. Personal attacks, racial, ethnic, class, and religious slandering
    will not be tolerated.

3. For now, discuss what seems relevant, and we'll see what rules are
    needed.


## About the Moderator:
I'm arcady, and you can find my posts on a variety of gaming boards. I
also write fiction and do digital art (with a deviantart gallery under
my handle). I am racially mixed - near equal parts Asian, North American
Native, South American Native, and Caucasian. I'm nearly 34, married to
an Asian non gamer, and a student of Political Science and Criminal
Justice.

For moderation, I will try to take as a light a hand as I possibly can,
and I am very sensitive to the need to not show bias in that for any one
side. Keep it civil, and you hopefully might be able to forget that the
list has someone running it.

> I'd be interested to hear more of Jane's ideas of directions and
> inspirations to take from urban Black culture that don't just mimic
racist
> stereotypes.

I have ideas, but I keep laughing.  I can't think of anything serious
if I take it to the most extreme level I can.  Perhaps using comedy to
highlight these things would be instructive.

I'll have to get back with you on the scenarios I cooked up.

I don't play too many video games:

WoW, Guild Wars, Neverwinter Nights 2, Civilization, and Sims 2. Haven't
played the last two in many months, and only started the first two
recently (summer for GW, Christmas for WoW). And I only got NWN2 to work
after Christmas, and have spent all of ten minutes in it.

NWN2 is basically Forgotten Realms - with all inherent problems of
racial and ethnic patronism and tokenism.

Guild Wars does in my opinion the best job I've seen to date. It is
human only from the play point of view, and the non humans are very
alien - amphibians, plant and reptile people.

But among the humans there are to date three broad ethnic groups -
themed around European, Asian, and African.

They did publish the European setting first, and it is the longest and
largest as it spent 5 year in game development whereas the other two
came only once they found the game would be a success and had a year of
development each. But the African themed one is the best - it is the
most vibrant and well told story, and the people in it (NPC) seem much
more -there-.

Most impressive is that none of the three cultures bears resemblance to
any real world culture - and yet all are obviously taken from real world
'mega-ethnicitis'. They are all original cultures, themed around human
ethnic profiles. And none of them feel patronizing or 'black face' or
'stereotyped.

Wheras in table top roleplay, any Asian themed setting is going to be
about Ninjas and Dragon Ladies, and any African setting is going to be
about jungle bunnies (for lack of a polite term)... Guild Wars avoids this.

Hope for -us- is that the African themed setting was written by Jeff
Grub - who we can only hope will now decide to do something for the
table top RPG world that is just as rich. I hear he did Al Qaudim, in
fact that might have come up on this list.

Guild Wars: Nightfall, the African themed setting, shows that in the
time since the late 80s he has only improved were so many of his peers
have only further descended.

So... I'm hoping, but not holding my breath.

As for table top RPG experiences, I have absolutely none. About the best
I can come up with is 'avoid fantasy' or 'WoW has a table top version'.

I -want- to say Tekumel, but it is a little over-done in its
pseudo-Mayanism. I also would like to be able to say Turakian Age for
Fantasy Hero, but it has some flaws... and I was frustrated that all the
non-white cultures had extreme female oppression... (historically, until
about 1920, European culture was worse for women than almost every
Native American group in either North or South America, and until the
1970s when they faced a sudden slide backwards, even Afghanistan and
Iran had better treatment of women... But there is a common claim that
only whites treat women well - yet White women could not own property or
money in the USA until the late 1800s, and had no legitimate political
voice until the 1920s, and women 'of color' under the US government were
still being sterilized against their will into the 1970s)

erg... ranting... That 'how colored people treat women' thing is one of
my hot-points.

Let's see...

Oh yeah...

Kalamar at least had a vibrant African themed Island Continent, but by
the time I left DnD in 2003, they still hadn't published anything for it
other than what it said in the main book - you knew it was the most
advanced and wealthy place in the land, but nothing was ever set there...

In terms of non-humans, it also, while still constrained by the DnD
alignment system, breathed a lot more life into Hobgoblins and even Orcs
- the Hobgoblins are a PC race there, and seem a bit like Klingons in
Chainmail (wait, Klingons already wear chainmail...). The publishers had
planned to do the same with 'dark elves' but they used a 'Dungeons and
Dragons' branding license rather than d20 and as a result WotC required
them to delete their own dark elves and put in 'Drow' - complete with
the, far as I recall, 'have black skin because they sinned' angle...


It's a pretty dim picture in table top RPGs. I think video games have it
better off because they have a wider market. Table top RPGs are 90% made
by suburban white males born in the 50s through 70s in fairly
mono-ethnic communities and marketed to the same narrow group. Video
games are made by people all over the world, and marketed likewise. If
you did some of what goes on in table top RPGs within the video game
industry you'd get knocked out of the market at best.

Video games went through a very Japanese influenced period. Which made
them both more monoethnic, and yet more diverse. More monoethnic because
Japan has even worse racial attitudes than the USA... But less than
that, they injected a lot of Japanese culture into video games and
western popular media with the popularization of anime. More diverse
because this gave westerners exposure to an 'alien culture' on its terms
rather than their own - so it did not come over as a 'subjugated
culture'. We still have strong stereotypes, but it is mixed in with a
lot of Japanese pop culture and 'pop-mythology' like 'Inuyasha' and
'Final Fantasy' - which are today more influential sources for fantasy
than Tolkien among the 'younger kids'.

Many video game companies are setting up HQ in Korea... Which used to
call itself the hermit kingdom for a reason. Up until the mid 90s Korea
prided itself on a lack of outside cultural influences other than the
historic connections with China and Japan - but even with those two,
cultural importation from Japan was illegal (anime for example, had to
be smuggled in like narcotics - although 'Manwa', which is Korean
comics, and their own animation, have a similar style - in fact even
during the ban most Japanese animation was made in Korea after being
keyframed in Japan).

rambling...

Korea today has flipped, and is on a big 'internationalization and
cultural importation' trip. So we might see an even broader horizon for
video games as their management shifts to Korea. Guild Wars is made by
an American company that is owned by Korean company - and the Asian and
African chapters happened -after- this buyout. So that may be a sign of
things to come.

Or they might fall victim to American stereotypes and continue the
pattern. Korean distaste for Africans comes largely from two sources -
"Korea Town" in LA - and the shops Koreans were encouraged to open in
project communities there, and American movies. Koreans have strong bans
against lying and misrepresentation in media, and a culture that is very
'beleiving' of what 'the system' puts forth. So they watch our movies
and see how blacks are portrayed and think it is true.

So, too much exposure to our media without matching exposure to our
people could taint them, and as a result taint the coming generation of
video games...

But it might not be as hard to break that barrier as it is to reform
American perceptions of race. Korean 'racism' against various non-Asian
groups is not as strongly entrenched. You'll never get Koreans to like
Japanese, but you might be able to change their views of Blacks,
Hispanics, and even Caucasians - as those views are newer.

Now... this is on topic somewhat...

Because once again, they're behind the coming generation of video games.
And video games today have the influence over pop culture perceptions of
genre fiction that literature once had. The next generation of table top
RPGs is likely to be copied from video game norms rather than the
reverse as was once true.

So... I don't see much today, but I do see a trend for the future that
might be hopeful, or at least just different.



Stanley Ward wrote:
> That brings up an interesting question - what games (computer or paper) seem
to get the race thing right, or at least, seem more representative?
>
> For example, arcady mentions WoW that seems to treat races as distinct,
equally prejediced groups.
>
> I'm playing through the old Fallout 2 now, and what I find surprising is that
many of the town leaders are non-white (mostly black it seems), as are many of
the side characters. This in itself isn't terribly interesting, but how they are
treated are: basically, these non-white characters are normal, in that some are
good, some are evil, some are scummy, etc. Also, even better, none have any
"stereotypical" activities or actions. Characters of any race (or gender, I
should add) are equally as likely to be guards, leaders, or whatever. Quite a
surprise.
>
> Same for DitV. I just got it for Christmas and I'm reading it now and I am
shocked that the author describes race at all, and how it is dealt with. Only
thing missing is how the Faith deal with, say, blacks from the 'slaving East.'
Unless I missed it. The little book does talk about how foreigners are dealt
with in general, however, and the specific "Native American" analog in the game
world.
>
>
> Stan Ward
> mencelus01@...
>
>  __________________________________________________
> Do You Yahoo!?
> Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
> http://mail.yahoo.com
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>
>


--
<0){{{{>< http://home.comcast.net/~brianfwong/
/0)\ - -- Blog: http://www.livejournal.com/users/arcady0/
\(@/ - -- Art: http://arcady.deviantart.com/
http://www.renderosity.com/mod/gallery/browse.php?user_id=3261
The law in its majestic egalitarianism, forbids the rich as well as the
poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread.
--- Anatole France

--- arcady <arcady0@...> wrote:

> Always thought Tolkien was British. But being South
> African only
> furthers my point. Those guys are somewhat
> notorious...

Now who is being bigoted?  Under apartheit, "British"
(ancestory) were second class citizens.  "Colored"
(mixed ethnoi) were a distant third, followed by
"Asian" (mainly from pre-independence India - Ghandi,
for instance), then another gap and "Bantu" (real
African).  Are you accusing Alan Payton and all those
other "whites" who fought against apartheit?  Some of
them were even Boors.

> Wasn't speaking to folklore anyway. Modern fantasy
> has specifically
> warped a lot of mythic races into a race war
> conflict that in many ways
> mirrors that perceived among white-supremacists.

Some do, some don't.  Picking and choosing certain
features of certain individuals, and then applying it
to all, whether they have those features or oppose
them, is the very definition of prejudice.

> The very fact that folklore doesn't have this same
> extreme racist
> negativity helps point out that our 'heroes of
> fantasy literature and
> gaming' had less than noble intentions.

Then you should play those fantasy games which base
their setting on real folklore - with all its
diversity.  They deserve player support, as they
seldom have the support of "large" (by game
definitions) corporations, particularly the
multinational ones.

Paul Cardwell

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
http://mail.yahoo.com

That brings up an interesting question - what games (computer or paper) seem to
get the race thing right, or at least, seem more representative?

For example, arcady mentions WoW that seems to treat races as distinct, equally
prejediced groups.

I'm playing through the old Fallout 2 now, and what I find surprising is that
many of the town leaders are non-white (mostly black it seems), as are many of
the side characters. This in itself isn't terribly interesting, but how they are
treated are: basically, these non-white characters are normal, in that some are
good, some are evil, some are scummy, etc. Also, even better, none have any
"stereotypical" activities or actions. Characters of any race (or gender, I
should add) are equally as likely to be guards, leaders, or whatever. Quite a
surprise.

Same for DitV. I just got it for Christmas and I'm reading it now and I am
shocked that the author describes race at all, and how it is dealt with. Only
thing missing is how the Faith deal with, say, blacks from the 'slaving East.'
Unless I missed it. The little book does talk about how foreigners are dealt
with in general, however, and the specific "Native American" analog in the game
world.


Stan Ward
mencelus01@...

  __________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
http://mail.yahoo.com

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Hello to all,  I had a nice little intro that just disappeared into the
ether. Perhaps it was a sign that it was too long. So here are the
basics: My name is Julia, I'm 36, I live in Western Massachusetts with a
non-gaming, but game-friendly husband, and our 2 daughters, and I'm
African American. I'm part of a 5 person gaming group that started this
summer, and we meet about once a week. We just finished playing a really
fun campaign of Sorcerer. We've also played Dogs in the Vineyard, and
done some play testing of each other's games.  I'm currently writing a
rpg set in the Antebellum US South. Depending on the day, it's called
Steal Away Jordan, or Get Away Jordan. All PC's start out as slaves,
attaining freedom is not necessarily yor ultimate objective (staying
alive is a more dire goal). Most of the rules are done, I have the
GM'ing guidelines and the historical information to finish, and then
we'll see where it goes. I've playtested it once, and so far so good. I
was encouraged that I only knew one of the  3 players before the
playtest, the story ran pretty smoothly all things considered, and best
of all, the players, in one 3 hour setting, managed to create characters
that totally transcended racial stereotypes.  If it's okay, I'd like to
solicit more playtesters. Email me, and I'll send you a pdf of the
draft, which should be ready in another week or so.  So there's the
abridged version. Nice to meet you all!  Julia My blog where I am known
as Parthenia: luckylamb.blogspot.com

Christopher Dyszelski wrote:

> I think perhaps my presentation of Oprah's show may have led to this so
> I'll clarify.

I simplified your statement for my ends... :)

Guilty as charged...

Halfway through my post I realized I was doing it, and that it wasn't
necessarily obvious that Oprah was saying what I implied she said. But
it enabled me to put forth what I was trying to say.

Mostly, I was wanting to attack people like Bill Cosby and Ward Connerly...

- Groups that try to shift blame into blaming their own people.

I once read that once oppression starts, the most effective instrument
of continuing it is the internal conflict among the victims to shift
around the burdens and blaming. I read that in relation to sexism, but
it applies to racism just as much.

Of course, often an equally bad tactic can be to attack the oppressor.

The only path that seems to be viable is the somewhat 'hippie notion' of
'can't we all just get along?' - multiculturalism. Anywhere it gets air
time over assimilation / dominance / separatism, conflict and oppression
go down.

But now I'm ranting off course.


--
<0){{{{>< http://home.comcast.net/~brianfwong/
/0)\ - -- Blog: http://www.livejournal.com/users/arcady0/
\(@/ - -- Art: http://arcady.deviantart.com/
http://www.renderosity.com/mod/gallery/browse.php?user_id=3261
The law in its majestic egalitarianism, forbids the rich as well as the
poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread.
--- Anatole France

Jane Doe wrote:

> My suggestion was to move away from nostalgia.  Nostalgia pretty
> much encourages racist thought patterns ("Gone with the Wind,"
> anyone?).  By injecting modern ideas of certain concepts, most
> notably coolness, I think we could move into a fresher direction.
> Going to contemporary urban black culture for inspiration seems to
> have many intriguing possibilities.  Of course, if we use sources
> that perpetuate racist stereotypes, it'll turn out to be more of the
> same.  I'm pretty sure that no one is interested in that.
>

Good notion there.

My current planned project was to make an 'Industrial Fantasy' setting
lacking such notions of escapism. I personally cannot stand 'escapism'
for how it triggers a revival of 'racism as simple and pure'.

I have had many flame wars on RPG-board with people who try to explain
to me that the 'Good' 'Evil' divide among races is just escapism into
simplification.

Finally, I just started saying, "what does it say about a person who
wants to escape into a racist utopia where the other races are evil?"

If 'your' (as in the general RPG-fandom culture) escapism is Hitler and
Andrew Jackson's dream come true, that says something nasty about 'you'.

I too love fantasy. I love mythic and magical worlds. But mythos is
never escapism. It is often very intense, political, and harsh.

For my Industrial Fantasy setting, I wanted to move the tech into the
era of about 1900-1920, and the 'political science' into 1910-1930... to
give it a sense of edginess and conflict - a fantasy world wrapped up in
conflicts of emerging mass media, worker rights, art as politics, magic
as politics, ethnic conflict, industrialization, and emerging nationalism.

But the base location I was building it around featured people with
African features and Mekong Delta cultural-root.

In doing things like this however, it might drive my imagination, but I
know it will alienate the many players who desire exactly the opposite
of what I want.

It frustrates me to no end, but even my own players want to 'escape into
a racist utopia'.



--
<0){{{{>< http://home.comcast.net/~brianfwong/
/0)\ - -- Blog: http://www.livejournal.com/users/arcady0/
\(@/ - -- Art: http://arcady.deviantart.com/
http://www.renderosity.com/mod/gallery/browse.php?user_id=3261
The law in its majestic egalitarianism, forbids the rich as well as the
poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread.
--- Anatole France

Kynn Bartlett wrote:
> On 1/1/07, Lord Hades <hades3030@...> wrote:
>> I agree with everything you folks are saying but I dont think the answer
becomes  focusing on making representations of white peopele less magical or
special in gaming. In my game I try to make everyone's culture/race/religion
unique and powerful in its own way.
>
> One of the ways in which white people are special in roleplaying games
> is by being the "default." Other races may be diverse and represent
> various other cultures, but European whites are the baseline.
>

Oooohh...

This one drives me nuts.

I do 3D art as well as gaming, and I get a lot of ads for texture packs,
3D figure models, and so on... And when describing non-whites they are
always called 'ethnic'.

Why am I 'ethnic' but a white person isn't?

I mostly ignore it there, because I would get nowhere... but I have my
share of flame wars with people who comment everytime they see an Asian
face-model that it is underaged or cartoony...

In gaming, it is often even worse. A comment from a player of the online
game Guild Wars reminds me of an assumption seen in table top RPGs to a
greater extreme:

(summarizing from memory)
'no American could feel at home in this setting'
- In reference to an Asian themed setting, followed up by a desire to
return the game to 'a place like -our- home, such as in the first
chapter of the game, based on a fantasy Europe.'

Because after all, I presume they imply, then it wouldn't be 'ethnic'
anymore...


When I called them a racist, I got flamed en mass...


> An example of this can be seen in World of Warcraft, in which the
> "humans" are English/white American/Western European in culture and
> appearance, the "dwarves" (their closest allies) are Scottish, and the
> further away you get from humanity, the more likely you are to find
> non-Anglo races portrayed. The "trolls" are black Jamaicans, the
> "tauren" are Native Americans, and the rarely seen "pandaren" are
> Asian.

A good point. I got that game for Christmas, and have been playing it
like mad the past few days. On the positive side for it, no race is evil
by nature and while there is a race war it is driven by "the failings of
human nature" (in this case, sentient nature) and not 'racism is a good
thing' like in DnD.

ie: it is a political conflict of ethnic strife. But neither side is
'Good' or 'Evil'.

I like this aspect of the game. All sides get fair treatment, and by
being a third party observer you can see that their conflict is not
justified, but they have made a mess of their own affairs - much as
ethnic groups do in the real world when they come into contact - and in
WoW each side assumes the other is evil, but the truth isn't so.


Oh... and my human character on WoW, Sanali on the medvih server, has
the complexion of a woman from India and black hair. I did that on
purpose. I noticed what you are talking about, and I wanted to make a
'brown person' and then wander around the game and see how unique I was
for it...

In Guild Wars, in the Africa themed chapter, most of the PCs are blond,
blue eyed, and white.

I can understand that so many Caucasians want to play in their own skin,
but why do modern people still fall for Hitler's uber-myth...?

- Blond blue eyed people are rare in the real world... And Caucasian
culture still thinks they are the best of their kind... Something that
is just bizarre. I can understand attraction to the semi-exotic (close
to home, but still different - getting best of both desires), but it is
just overdone.


> Thus humanity is equated with Anglo culture, and inhumanity with
> non-whites. The fact that noble values are ascribed to many of these
> "non-human" races does not really mitigate the core assumption that to
> be human is to be Western European.

A genuine concern. WoW does a better job than most of the other games,
but it still has this flaw.



--
<0){{{{>< http://home.comcast.net/~brianfwong/
/0)\ - -- Blog: http://www.livejournal.com/users/arcady0/
\(@/ - -- Art: http://arcady.deviantart.com/
http://www.renderosity.com/mod/gallery/browse.php?user_id=3261
The law in its majestic egalitarianism, forbids the rich as well as the
poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread.
--- Anatole France

I want to first thank Arcady for some historical info to support my points
about the lack of historical perspective in American culture and reminding
me of the systematic erasing of connections to African culture that slavery
induced.  I also appreciate Jane's links to the ways that African culture
still does survive in American black culture. She also makes some good
points to support how the elves had to get out from under their oppression
in Tolkein's Silmarillion (though I still haven't been able to handle
slogging through that whole thing) and how that is the origin of her seeing
parallels between African Americans and Elves.

Arcady said "Oprah's idea that blacks should recapture their history is a
good one.
But blaming her own people for it's loss is misguided.  It is even
misguided to blame present day blacks for not recapturing it.
They have so little connection today, and the loss was so thorough, that
while it is virtuous to know and understand it, it is above the call for
what a normal person should be expected to achieve. It would be like
calling it a failing of Modern whites that they haven't recaptured the
glory of Rome."

I think perhaps my presentation of Oprah's show may have led to this so
I'll clarify. Oprah was lamenting how the younger blacks don't even know
much about the sacrifice of the civil rights generation and that seems to
me to be owning a failure of education that is not so distant or impossible
as recapturing the knowledge of early African empires.  That's where my
rant about the faddish nature of American culture comes in...even something
less than 100 years old is "ancient" foreign and thus presumed
uninteresting, unnecessary, and unreachable in our current modern world.
Thus Jane's point that there are still traces of African culture that many
Americans (of all ethnicities) remain ignorant of is important.  It is only
by knowing as much of our history as we reasonable can and accepting it in
all its good and bad that we can really know ourselves and then be free to
choose to create something different. I appreciate this list as a place for
me to learn more about history, experiences, and their effects on people.

I also found it interesting in the article Jane sighted that while Africans
that were enslaved seem to have been assumed to have lost all of their
original cultural remnants and thus African Americans are assumed to be the
products of "slave culture", the Israelites who were enslaved in Egypt
maintained their original culture.  I think the difference here is that the
history gets to be written by the victors and ultimately though enslaved in
Egypt, the Israelites conquered that strip of land that remains contested
but wrote a well popularized translated and documented "history" of their
people.  That's again where I see the connection between certain fantasy
versions of Elves and certain groups of Jewish people. For example, we want
our own land, to do our own thing, without people treating us differently,
to solely intermarry among our people, and to maintain a sort of mystical
connection that others can't possibly understand unless you convert, but
even then you aren't fully one of "us."

I like Lord Hades spin on how the elves disagree about how to handle human
expansion. That's a level of complexity for a group that makes them more
interesting to me and that then gets connected to the PC's as a tool for
those different factions, even her parent's differing perspectives.

I'd be interested to hear more of Jane's ideas of directions and
inspirations to take from urban Black culture that don't just mimic racist
stereotypes.

Thanks for a lively New Year discussion!

Peace,
Hermetic

On 1/1/07, Jane Doe <afro_dyte2000@...> wrote:
> You know, just once, I want to see a setting that uses a non-white
> culture as the default and talks about those exotic, barbaric pale-
> skinned folks from a continent that isn't drawn on the world map.  Not
> in spite, mind you, but just to see what the reaction would be.

The Al-Qadim setting for 2nd Ed. AD&D was pretty close to this. Not
perfect, but still my favorite setting for gaming by any major game
publisher.

--Kynn

--
Kynn Bartlett <NextOfKynn@...>
Photographer, Writer, Editor
Tucson, Arizona
http://kynn.com

That is certainly true.  Unfortunately, when you point this sort of
thing out, you're either preaching to the choir or trying to convert
those who prefer to live in denial.  Either way nothing really
changes UNLESS the information is used to point things in a
different direction.

For instance, I find nothing wrong with the concept of humanlike
beings with a deeper connection to magic (for lack of a better
term).  What gets on my nerves is the often tacit assumption that
these are by necessity white people.  I don't mean lacking melanin
or having naturally oily hair.  There are plenty of black people who
fit that description.  It goes deeper than that.  Trying to put
words into something very hard to express, I'd say that the
underlying presumption is that white cultures, at their "purest,"
are innately perfect, that all the strife and baggage comes
from "the others."  If non-whites would just accept and live by
the "fact" of white superiority, everything would work a lot more
smoothly.  In other words, "we wouldn't oppress you if you were more
civilized, like us."

But the question is, "What do we do?"  Believe it or not, despite
the things that get on my nerves, I LIKE fantasy.  I LIKE fairy
tales.  I need the make-believe to illuminate the real.
Unfortuantely the tendency is instead to escape into make-believe,
not only rendering it impotent and irrelevant, but also enabling the
same attitudes that hamper intercultural relations today.

So, what do we do?

My suggestion was to move away from nostalgia.  Nostalgia pretty
much encourages racist thought patterns ("Gone with the Wind,"
anyone?).  By injecting modern ideas of certain concepts, most
notably coolness, I think we could move into a fresher direction.
Going to contemporary urban black culture for inspiration seems to
have many intriguing possibilities.  Of course, if we use sources
that perpetuate racist stereotypes, it'll turn out to be more of the
same.  I'm pretty sure that no one is interested in that.

But this idea wouldn't leave me alone.  I was reading about
Tolkien's elves (not in LotR, but in things like the Silmarillion
and the History of Middle-earth series), I was struck by how little
they resembled the white people I knew or learned about in school.
They reminded me more of the black people I knew.  Not just
entertainers, either.  I mean people like MLK, Malcolm X, WEB
DuBois, Richard Wright, Langston Hughes, the Buffalo Soldiers,
Vivien Thomas, and a lot of people whose names we never hear about.
People who work in subservient roles but don't live in it.
Preachers, mediums, witch doctors, and others who subvert the "magic
negro" stereotype by daring to use their power for their own benefit
and for the benefit of their families and communities.  And let's
not get into fictional sources, of which there are too many to count.

To bring that back to gaming, I could easily imagine a setting where
elves are in accord with a people who resemble contemporary African
Americans and are in discord with a people who resemble contemporary
white Americans (and white people from other cultures, imaginably).

> By "we" I mean gamers as a group -- including game designers --
not us
> on this list in particular.
>
> "We", with few exceptions, follow mythologies which make white
people
> special and magical white people (i.e. "generic" fantasy elves)
> super-special.

> One of the ways in which white people are special in roleplaying
games
> is by being the "default." Other races may be diverse and represent
> various other cultures, but European whites are the baseline.

> Thus humanity is equated with Anglo culture, and inhumanity with
> non-whites. The fact that noble values are ascribed to many of these
> "non-human" races does not really mitigate the core assumption that
to
> be human is to be Western European.

You know, just once, I want to see a setting that uses a non-white
culture as the default and talks about those exotic, barbaric pale-
skinned folks from a continent that isn't drawn on the world map.  Not
in spite, mind you, but just to see what the reaction would be.

On 1/1/07, Lord Hades <hades3030@...> wrote:
> I agree with everything you folks are saying but I dont think the answer
becomes  focusing on making representations of white peopele less magical or
special in gaming. In my game I try to make everyone's culture/race/religion
unique and powerful in its own way.

One of the ways in which white people are special in roleplaying games
is by being the "default." Other races may be diverse and represent
various other cultures, but European whites are the baseline.

An example of this can be seen in World of Warcraft, in which the
"humans" are English/white American/Western European in culture and
appearance, the "dwarves" (their closest allies) are Scottish, and the
further away you get from humanity, the more likely you are to find
non-Anglo races portrayed. The "trolls" are black Jamaicans, the
"tauren" are Native Americans, and the rarely seen "pandaren" are
Asian.

Thus humanity is equated with Anglo culture, and inhumanity with
non-whites. The fact that noble values are ascribed to many of these
"non-human" races does not really mitigate the core assumption that to
be human is to be Western European.

--Kynn


--
Kynn Bartlett <NextOfKynn@...>
Photographer, Writer, Editor
Tucson, Arizona
http://kynn.com

Kynn Bartlett <nextofkynn@...> wrote:                                  By
"we" I mean gamers as a group -- including game designers -- not us
  on this list in particular.

  "We", with few exceptions, follow mythologies which make white people
  special and magical white people (i.e. "generic" fantasy elves)
  super-special.

  --K
I agree with everything you folks are saying but I dont think the answer becomes
focusing on making representations of white peopele less magical or special in
gaming. In my game I try to make everyone's culture/race/religion unique and
powerful in its own way. On a side note - if you want DIVERSITY in a game -
check out the EVERWAY system. Awesome diversity. Jonathan Tweet designed it -
and he is a White guy married to a Black woman.







       "There was thunder, there was lightning, then the stars went out, and the
moon fell from the sky."
         - Bone Machine, Tom Waits




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> So to turn to gaming, I would imagine this
kind of short-sightedness is
  > what pisses the elves off too. But they are not so easily co-opted
  into the
  > "forget and forgive" because they outlive the humans and their great
  great
  > grandfather was a part of that civilization 1000 years ago, that you
  deny
  > existed or see as "noble savages" and likely they can show you the
  evidence
  > because its been kept in the family.  In that sense the Elves are
  more like
  > the Jewish folks in their keeping of culture alive, if at times
  secretive
  > and xenophobic.


To comment on the part of this about elves and humans...in the campaign I
designed for my wife, her father was part of an elven extremist group that
refused to simply go gentle into the good night when manking started to expand
and conquer their forest territories. They formed into a terrorist organization
that started waging a guerilla war on humanity. Although she still doesn't know
it yet, my wife's character (an elven sorceress named Leta) is actually a very
powerful weapon created by her father before he was killed in battle with her
mother - who was more of a peaceful elven noble/wizard and wanted to see her
people get along with the human upstarts.







       "There was thunder, there was lightning, then the stars went out, and the
moon fell from the sky."
         - Bone Machine, Tom Waits




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> If you look at enough sources, you can find anything anywhere.
> Particularly when the selection is selective... :) I'd suggest
> exercising caution in reading too much into seeming connections
between
> cultures.
>
> While the Algonquin might have concept X which is vaguely similar
to the
> German concept Y, the guys living across the river to each of the
above
> might have no such concept at all - and the connection between X
and Y
> might, in the details, be distant at best.

There's no reading into anything because it's not my own research
I'm referring to.  However, I wasn't trying to make the two concepts
equivalent.  They most emphatically are not.  One could state that
the elves we know of via the vast majority of fantasy literature
have little in common with real mythology.  BUT, what I felt most in
need of mentioning was the fact that alternative sources for the
general concept do exist, sources that do not perpetuate the
assumption of white superiority.

## Purpose:
This group is for issues relevant to gamers of color, primarily as
it relates to the American experience and definition of race, and the
issues minorities have in a hobby almost defined by their near
absence.

This list is -OPEN- to people of all races.

It is understood that the purpose is -BOTH- for ethnic minorities
to discuss topical to forum issues, and for others to come to
understand them and perhaps join in within the framework of
minority-ethnic issues with that topic and respecting the minority
perspective therein.

This is not a place for the promotion of racism or racial stereotypes,
but for coming together and sharing experiences and perspectives. It
might be a place to discuss how to advocate for racial sensitivity in
gaming, and how to help fellow gamers come to understand and relate
to minorities, it can also be a place to discuss how to get more people
of diverse ethnic and racial backgrounds into the hobby of table top
roleplaying games.

There are people who believe that race/ethnicity has no place in
discussion, and / or that minorities have no place discussing it. This list
is logically not for them, and it would be appreciated if they not try to
attack the list. This list is for those who have found issues of race to be
a real and present force in their lives and their hobbies, and  wish to
address how it impacts their particular hobby of roleplaying.

By 'gamer' this list is meant to welcome 'roleplayers', 'MMO players',
'TCG players', 'wargamers', 'Chess / Go players', and other 'gamer
hobbyists' who feel a need to examine racial and ethnic issues in
their hobby.

## Rules of Discussion:
1. This -is- a somewhat political group, and as long as the discussion
    is relevant to the group purpose political discussion will be
    allowed.

2. Personal attacks, racial, ethnic, class, and religious slandering
    will not be tolerated.

3. For now, discuss what seems relevant, and we'll see what rules are
    needed.


## About the Moderator:
I'm arcady, and you can find my posts on a variety of gaming boards. I
also write fiction and do digital art (with a deviantart gallery under
my handle). I am racially mixed - near equal parts Asian, North American
Native, South American Native, and Caucasian. I'm nearly 34, married to
an Asian non gamer, and a student of Political Science and Criminal
Justice.

For moderation, I will try to take as a light a hand as I possibly can,
and I am very sensitive to the need to not show bias in that for any one
side. Keep it civil, and you hopefully might be able to forget that the
list has someone running it.

Jane Doe wrote:
>> Part of my problem with elves is that they are always "the fair folk"
>> in literature and myth -- myths that, of course, stem from a racist
>> European perspective.  They are light skinned and light haired and
>> light eyed because we've chosen those myths and not others as the
>> basis for fantasy.
>
> Strangely enough, you can find elves and similar creatures just about
> anywhere.  The Algonquin have something about "star people."  I
> haven't read much about them, but I remember them being handsome and
> magical.  Pretty much any culture that has a class of beings called
> spirits has beings of a nature similar to what we call elves.

If you look at enough sources, you can find anything anywhere.
Particularly when the selection is selective... :) I'd suggest
exercising caution in reading too much into seeming connections between
cultures.

While the Algonquin might have concept X which is vaguely similar to the
German concept Y, the guys living across the river to each of the above
might have no such concept at all - and the connection between X and Y
might, in the details, be distant at best.


--
<0){{{{>< http://home.comcast.net/~brianfwong/
/0)\ - -- Blog: http://www.livejournal.com/users/arcady0/
\(@/ - -- Art: http://arcady.deviantart.com/
http://www.renderosity.com/mod/gallery/browse.php?user_id=3261
The law in its majestic egalitarianism, forbids the rich as well as the
poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread.
--- Anatole France

By "we" I mean gamers as a group -- including game designers -- not us
on this list in particular.

"We", with few exceptions, follow mythologies which make white people
special and magical white people (i.e. "generic" fantasy elves)
super-special.

--K

On 12/31/06, Kynn Bartlett <nextofkynn@...> wrote:
> Right. My problem is that we select the myths of elves which emphasize
> our racist cultural values.
>
> --Kynn

--
Kynn Bartlett <NextOfKynn@...>
Photographer, Writer, Editor
Tucson, Arizona
http://kynn.com

Right. My problem is that we select the myths of elves which emphasize
our racist cultural values.

--Kynn

On 12/31/06, Jane Doe <afro_dyte2000@...> wrote:
> > Part of my problem with elves is that they are always "the fair folk"
> > in literature and myth -- myths that, of course, stem from a racist
> > European perspective.  They are light skinned and light haired and
> > light eyed because we've chosen those myths and not others as the
> > basis for fantasy.
>
> Strangely enough, you can find elves and similar creatures just about
> anywhere.  The Algonquin have something about "star people."  I
> haven't read much about them, but I remember them being handsome and
> magical.  Pretty much any culture that has a class of beings called
> spirits has beings of a nature similar to what we call elves.
>
>
>
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>


--
Kynn Bartlett <NextOfKynn@...>
Photographer, Writer, Editor
Tucson, Arizona
http://kynn.com

> Part of my problem with elves is that they are always "the fair folk"
> in literature and myth -- myths that, of course, stem from a racist
> European perspective.  They are light skinned and light haired and
> light eyed because we've chosen those myths and not others as the
> basis for fantasy.

Strangely enough, you can find elves and similar creatures just about
anywhere.  The Algonquin have something about "star people."  I
haven't read much about them, but I remember them being handsome and
magical.  Pretty much any culture that has a class of beings called
spirits has beings of a nature similar to what we call elves.