Call for diversity in D&D rulebooks

[Tetsubo]

http://boingboing.net/2012/04/11/call-for-diversity-in-dd-rule.html
--
Tetsubo
Deviant Art: http://ironstaff.deviantart.com/
YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/user/tetsubo57

[dr...@bin.sh]

Alien mind control rays made Tetsubo <tet...@comcast.net> write:
> http://boingboing.net/2012/04/11/call-for-diversity-in-dd-rule.html

even dragonborn come in ten different colors.

--
._n_______n_. dr...@bin.sh (CARRIER LOST) <http://www.bin.sh/>
| --------- |== -----------------------------------------------------------
I"/""|"|Z7""' "A sucking chest wound is Nature's way of telling you
lJ | | to slow down."
|_l

[Alcore]

It comes down to who writes the books, who illustrates the books,
who edits and publishes the books, and *** who buys the books ***.

I *DO* like diversity.

But people tend to forget that 72.4% of all Americans identify as
"white" and another 2.9% identify as multiple/mixed race. (Data
from 2010 census.) That means that (roughly) 3 out of 4 characters
*should* look mainly caucasian if the fantasy distribution is to be
similar to the real one among the primary authors and market of the
game.

The fact is that D&D has plenty of diversity, and expresses a lot
of it in a game design where you can choose to play characters of
completely different species. The real world has NOTHING on the
racial diversity of D&D's universe.

I suppose I understand the desire of folks to see faces (and skin
color) that looks like their own. As a person of pan-European
descent, and who is solar-phobic, I am a glorious pale color. This
makes it pretty easy for me to relate to most of the images I see.
The kicker is that I ALSO relate to the other charactes as well.

I imagine that if you are black or asian, then your first-choices
for role models might seem a bit more constrained in American
media...

But in D&D you can be anything. If playing a Half-Orc isn't ethnic
enough for you, what is?

[Rast]

Alcore wrote...

> But people tend to forget that 72.4% of all Americans identify as
> "white" and another 2.9% identify as multiple/mixed race. (Data
> from 2010 census.) That means that (roughly) 3 out of 4 characters
> *should* look mainly caucasian if the fantasy distribution is to be
> similar to the real one among the primary authors and market of the
> game.

If you want to be realistic about actual RPG customers in America, it's
going to be at least 90% white.

As for authors, well, I'm going to guess that the typical game design
company looks like this, except with a lot less women:

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/04/10/an-obama-campaign-
photo-that-looks-like-a-young-republican-rally.html

[tussock]

Rast wrote:

> If you want to be realistic about actual RPG customers in America, it's
> going to be at least 90% white.

Here we see, that because Rast only knows white people, only white
people share his hobbies. Because seriously, black people in the US are just
as likely to be an RPG nerd. That should not need to be said out loud.

> As for authors, well, I'm going to guess that the typical game design

> company [...]

Is like almost all companies and thinks it's funny when you don't hire
minorities or women, on account of how no minorities or women work in their
terribly special "white male" niche. No need to even interview any.

*FUCK RACISM*, and it's dear white male brother SEXISM. Eh.

--
tussock

[tussock]

Tetsubo wrote:

> http://boingboing.net/2012/04/11/call-for-diversity-in-dd-rule.html

You know what real diversity would be? How about some fat-ass women as
detailed characters. How about a short character who isn't a criminal. How
about a character who clearly drinks a lot of piss. A man with a beard who
isn't Evil. How about some hobgoblins who aren't the "yellow peril", or the
old variety of skin and hair colour in Orcs, Goblins, Ogres, and every other
fantasy species.

A matriarchy, a peaceable nation based on some non-european medieval
culture (or at least something other than the late Norman dynasties), a gay
hero, people with accents (*and other languages*!) who aren't evil or
needing to be saved, ....

Shit, how about a white-skinned evil humanoid race: even _one_.

--
tussock

[Alcore]

On Monday, April 16, 2012 7:02:54 AM UTC-5, tussock wrote:
> Shit, how about a white-skinned evil humanoid race: even _one_.

I believe these are often called "Players"... Certainly this race many not always be white skinned, but as was previously observed, the objective demographics of this race place it with white skin about 3/4ths of the time when they are residents of the United States in 2010.

[Tetsubo]

My dwarves are a matriarchy. And my drow are albinos. How about that?

[Tetsubo]

But... but White Male Privilege might die off! What would we do without
*WHITE MALE PRIVILEGE*!!! Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!

[D.J.]

On Mon, 16 Apr 2012 15:40:19 -0400, Tetsubo <tet...@comcast.net>
wrote:

>On 4/16/2012 8:02 AM, tussock wrote:
>> Tetsubo wrote:
>>
>>> http://boingboing.net/2012/04/11/call-for-diversity-in-dd-rule.html
>>
>> You know what real diversity would be? How about some fat-ass women as
>> detailed characters. How about a short character who isn't a criminal. How
>> about a character who clearly drinks a lot of piss. A man with a beard who
>> isn't Evil. How about some hobgoblins who aren't the "yellow peril", or the
>> old variety of skin and hair colour in Orcs, Goblins, Ogres, and every other
>> fantasy species.
>>
>> A matriarchy, a peaceable nation based on some non-european medieval
>> culture (or at least something other than the late Norman dynasties), a gay
>> hero, people with accents (*and other languages*!) who aren't evil or
>> needing to be saved, ....
>>
>> Shit, how about a white-skinned evil humanoid race: even _one_.
>>
>
> My dwarves are a matriarchy. And my drow are albinos. How about that?

I don't see a reason for drow to be dark skinned... they live in
caves, no sunlight. Albinos.
.
JimP.
--
Brushing aside the thorns so I can see the stars.
http://www.linuxgazette.net/ Linux Gazette
http://www.drivein-jim.net/ Drive-In movie theaters
http://story.drivein-jim.net/ A story Feb, 2011

[Tetsubo]

On 4/16/2012 4:22 PM, D.J. wrote:
> On Mon, 16 Apr 2012 15:40:19 -0400, Tetsubo<tet...@comcast.net>
> wrote:
>> On 4/16/2012 8:02 AM, tussock wrote:
>>> Tetsubo wrote:
>>>
>>>> http://boingboing.net/2012/04/11/call-for-diversity-in-dd-rule.html
>>>
>>> You know what real diversity would be? How about some fat-ass women as
>>> detailed characters. How about a short character who isn't a criminal. How
>>> about a character who clearly drinks a lot of piss. A man with a beard who
>>> isn't Evil. How about some hobgoblins who aren't the "yellow peril", or the
>>> old variety of skin and hair colour in Orcs, Goblins, Ogres, and every other
>>> fantasy species.
>>>
>>> A matriarchy, a peaceable nation based on some non-european medieval
>>> culture (or at least something other than the late Norman dynasties), a gay
>>> hero, people with accents (*and other languages*!) who aren't evil or
>>> needing to be saved, ....
>>>
>>> Shit, how about a white-skinned evil humanoid race: even _one_.
>>>
>>
>> My dwarves are a matriarchy. And my drow are albinos. How about that?
>
> I don't see a reason for drow to be dark skinned... they live in
> caves, no sunlight. Albinos.
> .
> JimP.

Because they are *EVIL*. Duh.

[Paul Colquhoun]

On Mon, 16 Apr 2012 15:22:52 -0500, D.J <pongb...@cableone.net> wrote:
| On Mon, 16 Apr 2012 15:40:19 -0400, Tetsubo <tet...@comcast.net>
| wrote:
|>On 4/16/2012 8:02 AM, tussock wrote:
|>> Tetsubo wrote:
|>>
|>>> http://boingboing.net/2012/04/11/call-for-diversity-in-dd-rule.html
|>>
|>> You know what real diversity would be? How about some fat-ass women as
|>> detailed characters. How about a short character who isn't a criminal. How
|>> about a character who clearly drinks a lot of piss. A man with a beard who
|>> isn't Evil. How about some hobgoblins who aren't the "yellow peril", or the
|>> old variety of skin and hair colour in Orcs, Goblins, Ogres, and every other
|>> fantasy species.
|>>
|>> A matriarchy, a peaceable nation based on some non-european medieval
|>> culture (or at least something other than the late Norman dynasties), a gay
|>> hero, people with accents (*and other languages*!) who aren't evil or
|>> needing to be saved, ....
|>>
|>> Shit, how about a white-skinned evil humanoid race: even _one_.
|>>
|>
|> My dwarves are a matriarchy. And my drow are albinos. How about that?
|
| I don't see a reason for drow to be dark skinned... they live in
| caves, no sunlight. Albinos.

Camouflage. Dark skin makes it easier to hide in dark places. Kind of
ruined by the (usually) white hair, but you can always wear a hat/hoodie.


--
Reverend Paul Colquhoun, ULC. http://andor.dropbear.id.au/~paulcol
Asking for technical help in newsgroups? Read this first:
http://catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html#intro

[Rast]

tussock wrote...

> Because seriously, black people in the US are just
> as likely to be an RPG nerd.

I can't tell if you're being sarcastic or you really believe that.

[tussock]

D. J. wrote:

> I don't see a reason for drow to be dark skinned... they live in
> caves, no sunlight. Albinos.

Not really. There's no selective advantage to pale skin when there's
*no* sunlight, but a clear one to their night-raiding surface activities
with automatic charcoal (dominated by sexual selection given their society
structure). They won't have done the millions of years needed to go
translucent (or ghostly blue-pink with white patches, in the case of us
iron-laden fatty mammals).

Drow should have skin colour variations too, use something like shades
of pale blue to deep purple with a few outcast green ones. Work with that
unique hair colouring like birds do. Fake rear eye patches like butterflies.

--
tussock

[tussock]

Alcore wrote:

> as was previously observed, the objective demographics of this race
> place it with white skin about 3/4ths of the time when they are
> residents of the United States in 2010.

Subjective *by definition*, human races don't actually exist.

Seriously, look up what those numbers mean, and how that's treated in
other countries. The thing where you treat Slavs, Aryans, and Mediterranean
peoples as being a homogeneous "white race" that differs from "Mexicans" and
"Freed Slaves" is *entirely* bullshit cultural baggage.

--
tussock

[tussock]

Tetsubo wrote:

<snip>

> My dwarves are a matriarchy. And my drow are albinos. How about that?

You're confusing race with social structure in the first one. Have some
matriarchies spread around different races, have larger or equal-size
females in some of the races, also have patriarchies, communist cults,
religious states, and dictatorships in various dwarf strongholds (their
isolation should spawn endless variant societies).

With the second, albinos are a much smaller minority group than Jews,
but you've still managed to label them as universally Evil there. When I say
do a an evil white guy race, I mean "northern Europeans", eh; that thing
where the white guys (humans, surface elves, dwarfs, hobbits, and gnomes)
aren't automatically good and everyone differently toned isn't always here
to steal your property (and women aren't always property, and dominant women
isn't an evil-race trait, and bla bla bla bla bla bla).

So good, you've put some thought into it. Keep thinking. 8]

--
tussock

[Jim Davies]

On the grave of tussock <sc...@clear.net.nz> is inscribed:

> Shit, how about a white-skinned evil humanoid race: even _one_.

derro

--
Jim or Sarah Davies, but probably Jim

D&D and Star Fleet Battles stuff on http://www.aaargh.org

There is no God. But there is pudding!

[Tetsubo]

On 4/17/2012 3:58 PM, Jim Davies wrote:
> On the grave of tussock<sc...@clear.net.nz> is inscribed:
>
>> Shit, how about a white-skinned evil humanoid race: even _one_.
>
> derro

Careful, you'll set off tussock's Politically Correct Alarm System.

>
> --
> Jim or Sarah Davies, but probably Jim
>
> D&D and Star Fleet Battles stuff on http://www.aaargh.org
>
> There is no God. But there is pudding!

[tussock]

I can't tell if you're being sarcastic or you're really an ignorant
racist, but I'm going to go with the latter given your posts thus far.

You want to show your "90% white" number is based on something other than
your own ignorant, racist conjectures, go ahead.

--
tussock

[tussock]

Tetsubo wrote:
> Jim Davies wrote:

>> tussock wrote:
>>
>>> Shit, how about a white-skinned evil humanoid race: even _one_.
>>
>> derro

Nice catch, though they're gradually turning blue. 8]

> Careful, you'll set off tussock's Politically Correct Alarm System.

If you're not careful, it's really easy to heap shit on disadvantaged
groups in your society without even noticing that you're doing it. *This
very thread* turned up "eh, why bother putting dark skinned characters in
the books, most of us are white anyway". AKA: White Male Privilege.

I happen to have moved around enough to have been on the wrong end of
that a few times, been excluded for normal, everyday stuff because of an
accent.


D&D doesn't even do languages any more, because, you know, "most of us
only speak english anyway". As if experiencing a lack of knowledge about the
dominant local language is a bad thing. Dicks.

--
tussock

[Harold Groot]

On Tue, 17 Apr 2012 00:02:54 +1200, tussock <sc...@clear.net.nz>
wrote:

>Tetsubo wrote:
>
>> http://boingboing.net/2012/04/11/call-for-diversity-in-dd-rule.html

> You know what real diversity would be?

OK, you might still be talking about the artwork in the books - but
I've got no control over that. What I DO have control over is the
characters I play.

>How about some fat-ass women as detailed characters.

Check. In 1st edition the druidic change shape to animal form was
limited to double the weight of the druid. I played a female druid who
weighed 350 lbs. in her normal form. I'll admit that there was an
in-game reason for the choice, but I nonetheless played her in her
normal form much more than in any animal form. That included plenty of
interactions with townsfolk - I even gave her a secondary skill as a
dancer (from before she gained weight for the druidic change shape
ability). What I did NOT do is play her as a weak-willed character
unable to control her appetite. She was more like a sumo wrestler in
attitude - it was simply part of the job. (Most sumo wrestlers are
people who would be of reasonably normal weight if they weren't
forcing their weight up by eating much more than they want to. After
they retire, the great majority go back down to a much more normal
weight.) She really wanted to enjoy a decent social life when she
came to town, but she lived with the consequences of the job choice
she had made.

>How about a short character who isn't a criminal.

Check. Many, in fact. I admit to a weakness for gnome illusionists
that dates to 1E, but there were halfling fighters and various others.
But when the game rules gave significant advantages to halfings when
they chose to be thieves, it's true that many people took the
advantageous path. I did myself, several times. I just didn't
restrict myself to ONLY choosing such a path. I played against type
fairly often.

>How about a character who clearly drinks a lot of piss.

OK, if you mean that literally then you got me on that one.

If you mean it in the Australian fashion (someone who drinks a lot of
beer) - I've played drunkards. One of them (a fighter, quite strong)
was always broke when he joined a group. (He thought he was a skilled
gambler - but he wasn't. He also commonly got drunk and got rolled by
prostitutes.) No armor, no weapon other than maybe a broken dagger,
no "Dungeon Kit" when he joined up (as high as 8th level, as I
recall). Usually the group would spring for some "up front" share of
the treasure out of their own pockets so their meat shield would last
longer - and of course, all the low level items found in treasure that
the others might disdain ("What, ANOTHER +1 weapon?!?") were
immediately sent his way.

If instead you mean a person with a certain abrasive attitude - that's
a tough one. Such an attitude can really slow down a game, and in
general it's easy for such a character to ruin the fun of the other
players. I'll sometimes bring in a character with some attitude, but
not one that I'd say would match what you might mean above.

>A man with a beard who isn't Evil.

Plenty. Also some women with beards that weren't evil <g>.

>How about some hobgoblins who aren't the "yellow peril", or the
>old variety of skin and hair colour in Orcs, Goblins, Ogres, and every other
>fantasy species.

OK, now we're out of the "common PCs" area. Usually playing such an
unusual character was ENOUGH diversity without trying to ALSO make it
an example of Orc, Goblin or Ogre diversity.

> A matriarchy, a peaceable nation based on some non-european medieval
>culture (or at least something other than the late Norman dynasties), a gay
>hero, people with accents (*and other languages*!) who aren't evil or
>needing to be saved, ....

Varying social structures, yes. And our games had plenty of PCs with
accents. In general, the other PCs would gradually adopt some of the
vocal mannerisms. It just seemed an inevitable thing. So we ran an
"All Accents" dungeon where EVERY player brought in a character with a
different accent. It was surprisingly difficult for everyone to keep
true to their own accent - even though these were all characters that
they had played many times before, people switched over to a different
accent quite often.

I've brought in Elves who had refused (from Elvish Pride) to learn
Common. I even had a character with a learning disability who had an
EXTREMELY limited vocabulary ("strong like bull, smart like tractor")
and would only react to the words he actually understood (I think it
was 65 words to begin with, it got up to 87 before he was retired).

I do tend to play humans more than others because the extra feat and
skill points tends to mean more to me than the racial abilities of the
other races (especially at medium levels and above). I did a count
once on my PCs and found I had chosen almost exactly a 50/50 ratio on
male/female. As for color - I'm currently playing in 3 games (a) a
black human female, (b) a brown human female, and (c) a male changling
(their natural form is pasty white, but he's almost never IN his
natural form). Backup characters in these games are (a) a white male
human, (b) a female half-elf and a male dwarf, and (a) a female shadow
gnome.

As for sexual orientation - of the above list of my 7 current/ready
characters, the brown human female is a lesbian and the male changling
is bisexual (and can change form enough to appeal to the desires of
any partner). None of them have actually HAD any sexual encounters
during the games (these groups aren't particularly heavy on
roleplaying, and we don't tend to focus on that aspect of roleplaying
when we DO roleplay) - but I know how they'll react if the situation
comes up.

[Harold Groot]

On Wed, 18 Apr 2012 07:26:40 GMT, que...@infionline.net (Harold
Groot) wrote:
>Backup characters in these games are (a) a white male
>human, (b) a female half-elf and a male dwarf, and
>(a) a female shadow gnome.

Huh. Don't know where those errors came from. That should be
"(c) a female WHISPER gnome."

PS - Yes, she's short and she's a criminal. (I didn't say that I
NEVER played a short criminal, just that I play short PCs both ways.)

[Rast]

tussock wrote...

> Rast wrote:
> > tussock wrote...
> >> Because seriously, black people in the US are just
> >> as likely to be an RPG nerd.
> >
> > I can't tell if you're being sarcastic or you really believe that.
>
> I can't tell if you're being sarcastic or you're really an ignorant
> racist, but I'm going to go with the latter given your posts thus far.

You really love to throw around that word.

> You want to show your "90% white" number is based on something other than
> your own ignorant, racist conjectures, go ahead.

It's based on my own observations at the game stores and college gaming
groups I've been to.

Perhaps your experiences have been different.

[D.J.]

On Wed, 18 Apr 2012 15:56:30 +1200, tussock <sc...@clear.net.nz>
wrote:

I've been going to the local to me sf/gaming convention since tbhe
early 1980s. Only one African-American couple for the first 20 years
came to it. This year I saw 5 African-Americans attending the
convention of 600 people. No Hispanics. Three people with Asiatic
backgrounds. I don't know of any Native Americans attending except for
myself and some relatives, and we don't much look Native American.

[D.J.]

On Wed, 18 Apr 2012 15:47:41 +1200, tussock <sc...@clear.net.nz>
wrote:

I asked my grandparents and great grandparents back when I was 6 years
old how come we didn't speak the languages of our ancestors, none of
whom spoke any version of English.

I was told it was decided back in the late 1800s that part of becoming
an American was to learn English. So they did it before my
grandparents were born.

Unfortunatley, the languages of my Cherokee and Comanche ancestors are
evidently the hardest to learn if you didn't grow up with it.

[Loren Pechtel]

On Thu, 12 Apr 2012 13:55:51 -0700 (PDT), Alcore <alc...@uurth.com>
wrote:

Actually, I see a bit of a different issue.

Skin tones reflect the climate to a fair degree with some variation
due to migration patterns. In the circa 1500 world people didn't move
around much. Even adventurers rarely move beyond the lands they are
from until they get to really high levels.

Without something to mix the population up I would expect near racial
purity in any given area. The books are actually too diverse! Areas
with lots of people of different skin color are normally campaign
settings.

[Loren Pechtel]

On Mon, 16 Apr 2012 15:22:52 -0500, D.J. <pongb...@cableone.net>
wrote:

>I don't see a reason for drow to be dark skinned... they live in
>caves, no sunlight. Albinos.

They raid the surface. Light skin confers no advantage, dark skin
improves their stealth.

[Justisaur]

On May 3, 8:07 pm, Loren Pechtel <lorenpech...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> On Mon, 16 Apr 2012 15:22:52 -0500, D.J. <pongbill...@cableone.net>

> wrote:
>
> >I don't see a reason for drow to be dark skinned... they live in
> >caves, no sunlight. Albinos.
>
> They raid the surface.  Light skin confers no advantage, dark skin
> improves their stealth.

I always think that Elves are the opposite of Humans, they don't have
melatonin, they have something else that whitens their skin from
exposure to sun. Really it's getting darker in sun that makes no
sense, you absorb more...

Elves must think us strange creatures indeed.

- Justisaur

[Tetsubo]

My drow never raid the surface. They are down *deep*.

[David Lamb]

On 16/04/2012 4:22 PM, D.J. wrote:
> I don't see a reason for drow to be dark skinned... they live in
> caves, no sunlight. Albinos.

If I recall correctly, there are plenty of critters whose skin colour
(beneath the hair, feathers, or scales) is black, or brown, or tan, or
pretty much anything else. Maybe the melanin issue (more near the
equator, less near the poles) is irrelevant for drow; maybe they don't
need vitamin D at all and protection from UV is irrelevant. So there's
perhaps some other skin chemistry that happens to result in a dark colour.

I'm more bothered by the dark skin, evil race thing. Maybe they should
have been green. or blue. Or whatever colour Lolth or her favourite
spiders might be.

[tussock]

Loren Pechtel wrote:

> Skin tones reflect the climate to a fair degree with some variation
> due to migration patterns. In the circa 1500 world people didn't move
> around much.

Yes they did. Like, hugely. World-spanning empires rose and fell a few
times on the way to 1500 with accompanying population shifts, and it's
almost the turn of the Spanish (who are a huge genetic mix by 1500).
Populations were plenty mobile in ancient and medieval times.

Sure, it's not the Age of Sail yet, but many nations are named after the
tens to hundreds of thousands of men who conquered them from the prior
inhabitants in the last few centuries.

> Even adventurers rarely move beyond the lands they are from until they get
> to really high levels.

Depends on the game world, that. FR modules and books sometimes send
characters on huge voyages at pretty low level, and the realms is also full
of historical and active empires, migrations, and climate shifts.

> Without something to mix the population up I would expect near racial
> purity in any given area.

*THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS RACE*! Good grief. Gene pool. Etc. Purity?
Most british were are either picts, latin, franks, germans (angles, saxons,
jutes), norman (or other norse), dutch, or various spanish types; or some
mixture thereof. Ignoring the resident minority groups. Pure *what*?

> The books are actually too diverse! Areas with lots of people of
> different skin color are normally campaign settings.

Rubbish. For example, the genes for red hair are shared by all primates,
and apparent in many human populations right through to Polynesians. It's
not Scottish or Irish, it's just a bit more common there. Almost all
expressive genes are the same way. People are not black or white, but all
shades of brown.

--
tussock

[Loren Pechtel]

On Sat, 05 May 2012 23:02:02 +1200, tussock <sc...@clear.net.nz>
wrote:

>Loren Pechtel wrote:
>
>> Skin tones reflect the climate to a fair degree with some variation
>> due to migration patterns. In the circa 1500 world people didn't move
>> around much.
>
> Yes they did. Like, hugely. World-spanning empires rose and fell a few
>times on the way to 1500 with accompanying population shifts, and it's
>almost the turn of the Spanish (who are a huge genetic mix by 1500).
>Populations were plenty mobile in ancient and medieval times.
>
> Sure, it's not the Age of Sail yet, but many nations are named after the
>tens to hundreds of thousands of men who conquered them from the prior
>inhabitants in the last few centuries.

The number of *PEOPLE* who actually moved far enough to be in a
different racial area is quite small, however.

>> Even adventurers rarely move beyond the lands they are from until they get
>> to really high levels.
>
> Depends on the game world, that. FR modules and books sometimes send
>characters on huge voyages at pretty low level, and the realms is also full
>of historical and active empires, migrations, and climate shifts.

Ok, I was thinking of Earth, perhaps it's not that way in FR. I've
never read the FR books at all.

>> Without something to mix the population up I would expect near racial
>> purity in any given area.
>
> *THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS RACE*! Good grief. Gene pool. Etc. Purity?
>Most british were are either picts, latin, franks, germans (angles, saxons,
>jutes), norman (or other norse), dutch, or various spanish types; or some
>mixture thereof. Ignoring the resident minority groups. Pure *what*?

"Pure" as in descended from only those who were of the ethnic stock of
the area. I don't mean it in a KKK sense.

>> The books are actually too diverse! Areas with lots of people of
>> different skin color are normally campaign settings.
>
> Rubbish. For example, the genes for red hair are shared by all primates,
>and apparent in many human populations right through to Polynesians. It's
>not Scottish or Irish, it's just a bit more common there. Almost all
>expressive genes are the same way. People are not black or white, but all
>shades of brown.

I'm thinking more of the basic skin color & body structure.

[Rast]

tussock wrote...

> > Without something to mix the population up I would expect near racial
> > purity in any given area.
>
> *THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS RACE*!

Oh c'mon, not even young-Earth creationists believe that.

If race doesn't exist, then how come they can test my DNA and tell me
what race(s) I am?

[Tetsubo]

Well, there are three very broad sub-divisions of humans, the Africans
(Negroids), the Caucasians and the Mongoloids. There *are* recognizable
differences between the three groups. For example the Caucasians have a
mutation that allows the adults to still consume milk. Unless you
develop a milk allergy as I have are are never able to eat cheese
again... I do so miss cheese. But all three groups can inter-breed so we
are the same species. I do get tussocks point though.

[D.J.]

On Sun, 06 May 2012 00:46:26 -0400, Tetsubo <tet...@comcast.net>
wrote:

>On 5/5/2012 9:53 PM, Rast wrote:
>> tussock wrote...
>>>> Without something to mix the population up I would expect near racial
>>>> purity in any given area.
>>>
>>> *THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS RACE*!
>>
>> Oh c'mon, not even young-Earth creationists believe that.
>>
>> If race doesn't exist, then how come they can test my DNA and tell me
>> what race(s) I am?
>
> Well, there are three very broad sub-divisions of humans, the Africans
>(Negroids), the Caucasians and the Mongoloids. There *are* recognizable
>differences between the three groups. For example the Caucasians have a
>mutation that allows the adults to still consume milk. Unless you
>develop a milk allergy as I have are are never able to eat cheese
>again... I do so miss cheese. But all three groups can inter-breed so we
>are the same species. I do get tussocks point though.

Yeah, we are all homo sapiens sapiens. The same species. But we are
different races under that same species. My racial ancestry is Native
American and European. Which means I have some Asian ancestry. Some
relatives have said we have other ancestry, but have presented no
information other than talk.

[tussock]

Loren Pechtel wrote:

> tussock wrote:
>> Loren Pechtel wrote:
>>
>>> Skin tones reflect the climate to a fair degree with some variation
>>> due to migration patterns. In the circa 1500 world people didn't move
>>> around much.
>>
>> Yes they did. Like, hugely. World-spanning empires rose and fell a few
>> times on the way to 1500 with accompanying population shifts, and it's
>> almost the turn of the Spanish (who are a huge genetic mix by 1500).
>> Populations were plenty mobile in ancient and medieval times.
>>
>> Sure, it's not the Age of Sail yet, but many nations are named after
>> the tens to hundreds of thousands of men who conquered them from the
>> prior inhabitants in the last few centuries.
>
> The number of *PEOPLE* who actually moved far enough to be in a
> different racial area is quite small, however.

No it isn't. People move so much you mostly can't even tell where their
ancestors are from. Most people don't know themselves beyond a century or
so, and if you only follow a name it's probably not genetic after 7
generations anyway (that's 128 or less people from the early 19th century).

>>> Without something to mix the population up I would expect near racial
>>> purity in any given area.
>>
>> *THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS RACE*! Good grief. Gene pool. Etc. Purity?
>> Most british were are either picts, latin, franks, germans (angles,
>> saxons, jutes), norman (or other norse), dutch, or various spanish types;
>> or some mixture thereof. Ignoring the resident minority groups. Pure
>> *what*?
>
> "Pure" as in descended from only those who were of the ethnic stock of
> the area. I don't mean it in a KKK sense.

How do you think the KKK mean it?

There are semi-isolated continents for long periods: sub-Saharan Africa,
Australia and nearby islands, the Americas, and Eurasia and north-Africa.
But people still aren't from where they're from. Most obvious traits
(including fair skin) came out of Africa with the first human migrations,
everyone else in the world is mostly just an inbred sub-set of the great
African variety.
Blond-haired and blue-eyed adults started in Syria fairly recently, but
variations in sexual selection practices have made it dominant in other
places and rare were it started. Hitler thought they were some sort of pure
strain of true Germans, and was wrong, because people just don't understand
that stuff.


If you want a world where there's no dark skinned or fair skinned people
mixing you need crazy dangerous physical barriers running east-west across
your entire continent that somehow still allow genetic variations for light
or dark skin to migrate to where they're most advantageous. You want no east
and west mixing you need a north-south barrier with similar properties.

--
tussock

[tussock]

Rast wrote:
> tussock wrote...
>>> Without something to mix the population up I would expect near racial
>>> purity in any given area.
>>
>> *THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS RACE*!
>
> Oh c'mon, not even young-Earth creationists believe that.

They believe black skin is a mark of a small tribal god's curse placed
on the descendants of one man just a couple thousand years ago. That's
*extremely* wrong.

> If race doesn't exist, then how come they can test my DNA and tell me
> what race(s) I am?

They can tell what part of the world certain recent genetic mutations
likely first appeared based on their rate of appearance in various areas
today (by ignoring all the mutations that are widely spread).

It's irrelevant though, because you can easily get 47 different answers
if they keep looking (less some for recent inbreeding). They could also give
you just one answer if they want to tell you where you're really from, the
Rift Valley in Africa, same as everyone else is.

--
tussock

[skirnir]

On May 3, 8:07 pm, Loren Pechtel <lorenpech...@hotmail.com> wrote:

>

> Actually, I see a bit of a different issue.
>
> Skin tones reflect the climate to a fair degree with some variation
> due to migration patterns. In the circa 1500 world people didn't move
> around much.

Weasel. And wrong.

> Even adventurers rarely move beyond the lands they are
> from until they get to really high levels.
>
> Without something to mix the population up I would expect near racial
> purity in any given area.

Without something like, um, the Roman Empire?

[skirnir]

On May 6, 6:23 am, D.J. <pongbill...@cableone.net> wrote:

> Yeah, we are all homo sapiens sapiens. The same species.

Elves are homo sapiens silvanus, orcs are homo sapiens piltdown.
Both subspecies were once native to Lemuria.

[Loren Pechtel]

On Sun, 06 May 2012 22:54:29 +1200, tussock <sc...@clear.net.nz>
wrote:

>Loren Pechtel wrote:
>> tussock wrote:
>>> Loren Pechtel wrote:
>>>
>>>> Skin tones reflect the climate to a fair degree with some variation
>>>> due to migration patterns. In the circa 1500 world people didn't move
>>>> around much.
>>>
>>> Yes they did. Like, hugely. World-spanning empires rose and fell a few
>>> times on the way to 1500 with accompanying population shifts, and it's
>>> almost the turn of the Spanish (who are a huge genetic mix by 1500).
>>> Populations were plenty mobile in ancient and medieval times.
>>>
>>> Sure, it's not the Age of Sail yet, but many nations are named after
>>> the tens to hundreds of thousands of men who conquered them from the
>>> prior inhabitants in the last few centuries.
>>
>> The number of *PEOPLE* who actually moved far enough to be in a
>> different racial area is quite small, however.
>
> No it isn't. People move so much you mostly can't even tell where their
>ancestors are from. Most people don't know themselves beyond a century or
>so, and if you only follow a name it's probably not genetic after 7
>generations anyway (that's 128 or less people from the early 19th century).

What happens now and what happened then are very different. It used
to be that the vast majority of people never went beyond a day or
two's walk from their place of birth.

>>>> Without something to mix the population up I would expect near racial
>>>> purity in any given area.
>>>
>>> *THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS RACE*! Good grief. Gene pool. Etc. Purity?
>>> Most british were are either picts, latin, franks, germans (angles,
>>> saxons, jutes), norman (or other norse), dutch, or various spanish types;
>>> or some mixture thereof. Ignoring the resident minority groups. Pure
>>> *what*?
>>
>> "Pure" as in descended from only those who were of the ethnic stock of
>> the area. I don't mean it in a KKK sense.
>
> How do you think the KKK mean it?
>
> There are semi-isolated continents for long periods: sub-Saharan Africa,
>Australia and nearby islands, the Americas, and Eurasia and north-Africa.
>But people still aren't from where they're from. Most obvious traits
>(including fair skin) came out of Africa with the first human migrations,
>everyone else in the world is mostly just an inbred sub-set of the great
>African variety.

Yeah, people migrated out of Africa. Since then, however, the
populations have remained separated enough that the various races
could develop. If there were the intermixing you say we would all be
of the same race. (And in time we will become one race as more and
more interracial couples reproduce.)

> If you want a world where there's no dark skinned or fair skinned people
>mixing you need crazy dangerous physical barriers running east-west across
>your entire continent that somehow still allow genetic variations for light
>or dark skin to migrate to where they're most advantageous. You want no east
>and west mixing you need a north-south barrier with similar properties.

I'm not saying there would be no mixing. I'm saying there would be
very little mixing. Basically everyone you see would be of the local
racial makeup.

[D.J.]

Ah, but Lemuria is fiction.

[Tetsubo]

On 5/7/2012 4:00 PM, D.J. wrote:
> On Mon, 7 May 2012 08:10:30 -0700 (PDT), skirnir
> <adwe...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>> On May 6, 6:23 am, D.J.<pongbill...@cableone.net> wrote:
>>
>>> Yeah, we are all homo sapiens sapiens. The same species.
>>
>> Elves are homo sapiens silvanus, orcs are homo sapiens piltdown.
>> Both subspecies were once native to Lemuria.
>
> Ah, but Lemuria is fiction.

Because elves and orcs are real... I've always found it interesting
that humans seem to be able to breed with everything. Not in my games
though. I have no 'half-races'.

> .
> JimP.

[Nicole Massey]

"skirnir" <adwe...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:7627ca96-b86c-4792...@ri8g2000pbc.googlegroups.com...

A recent dig in Scandinavia found a woman buried next to another one, and
DNA tests indicated clearly that one ofthem was clearly Norse and was buried
with typical honors afforded to women of the gentry while the other woman
was clearly Persian. (They also buried a ship with them) No one has
expressed a good reason for this, but it is an interesting dig to be sure.
We also have clear records of Norse warriors working as guards in
Constantinople.
Now, of course other people like the Mongols, Bedoin, and Plains indians
didn't ever leave the vacinity where they were born -- everyone knows how
static nomads are.

[Nicole Massey]

"skirnir" <adwe...@hotmail.com> wrote in message

news:0a0dbe8f-e4ef-4554...@h4g2000pbe.googlegroups.com...

Though there is substantial evidence to indicate that Lemuria couldn't exist
on this particular planet with current geographical and geological elements,
there is actually another species that was at one point contemporary with
humanity -- There were still surviving cro-magnon folks living on an island
off spain. Robert Silverberg spoke of them in a recent editorial in
Asimov's, with a lot of detail on them and their dying out.

[Justisaur]

On May 7, 1:11 pm, Tetsubo <tets...@comcast.net> wrote:
> On 5/7/2012 4:00 PM, D.J. wrote:
>
> > On Mon, 7 May 2012 08:10:30 -0700 (PDT), skirnir

> > <adweil...@hotmail.com>  wrote:

> >> On May 6, 6:23 am, D.J.<pongbill...@cableone.net>  wrote:
>
> >>> Yeah, we are all homo sapiens sapiens. The same species.
>
> >> Elves are homo sapiens silvanus, orcs are homo sapiens piltdown.
> >> Both subspecies were once native to Lemuria.
>
> > Ah, but Lemuria is fiction.
>
>         Because elves and orcs are real... I've always found it interesting
> that humans seem to be able to breed with everything.

So can Orcs. You've got Human, Ogre, Goblin, Hobgoblin all listed in
the 1e MM. It says all of those usually count as Orc though with only
a small amount as half or counting as the other race.

- Justisaur

[Jim Davies]

On the grave of "Nicole Massey" <ny...@gypsyheir.com> is inscribed:

I thought we were Cro-Magnon. The Neanderthals hung on in Gibraltar
about as long as they did anywhere. Denisovans and Hobbits survived
until quite recently, though I forget the details.

--
Jim or Sarah Davies, but probably Jim

D&D and Star Fleet Battles stuff on http://www.aaargh.org

There is no God. But there is pudding!

[Keith Davies]

Nicole Massey <ny...@gypsyheir.com> wrote:
>
> A recent dig in Scandinavia found a woman buried next to another one,
> and DNA tests indicated clearly that one ofthem was clearly Norse and
> was buried with typical honors afforded to women of the gentry while
> the other woman was clearly Persian. (They also buried a ship with
> them) No one has expressed a good reason for this, but it is an
> interesting dig to be sure. We also have clear records of Norse
> warriors working as guards in Constantinople.

The Norse traveled a long way. They didn't just raid the stuff in easy
striking distance of the fjords, they ranged across the Pacific and
throughout the Mediterranean.


Keith
--
Keith Davies "chain letter and chain mail...
keith....@kjdavies.org not the same thing, right?"
KJD-IMC: http://www.kjd-imc.org -- Naomi
Echelon: http://www.echelond20.org

[Keith Davies]

Loren Pechtel <lorenp...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> On Sun, 06 May 2012 22:54:29 +1200, tussock <sc...@clear.net.nz>
> wrote:
>
>>No it isn't. People move so much you mostly can't even tell where
>>their ancestors are from. Most people don't know themselves beyond a
>>century or so, and if you only follow a name it's probably not genetic
>>after 7 generations anyway (that's 128 or less people from the early
>>19th century).
>
> What happens now and what happened then are very different. It used
> to be that the vast majority of people never went beyond a day or
> two's walk from their place of birth.

'vast majority' can still be a long way from 'all'. It doesn't take a
lot to 'dilute' 'pure strains'.

Look at dog breeders -- in many cases they look for incredibly pure
strains (if they're not trying to develop new ones). It's really not
hard to 'contaminate' their work.

[~consul]

'tis on this 4/18/2012 1:19 PM, wrote D.J. thus to say:
> On Wed, 18 Apr 2012 15:56:30 +1200, tussock<sc...@clear.net.nz>
>> Rast wrote:
>>> I can't tell if you're being sarcastic or you really believe that.
>> I can't tell if you're being sarcastic or you're really an ignorant
>> racist, but I'm going to go with the latter given your posts thus far.
>> You want to show your "90% white" number is based on something other than
>> your own ignorant, racist conjectures, go ahead.
> I've been going to the local to me sf/gaming convention since tbhe
> early 1980s. Only one African-American couple for the first 20 years
> came to it. This year I saw 5 African-Americans attending the
> convention of 600 people. No Hispanics. Three people with Asiatic
> backgrounds. I don't know of any Native Americans attending except for
> myself and some relatives, and we don't much look Native American.

Is it where those conventions are located? I used to see a predominately white crowd when I went to ICON when I lived on Long Island, and probably more than 60% demo for San Deigo Comic Con. Anime Expo however, which had a good gaming group part in it, had over 70% latino & african american in the audience and lines.
Note that my numbers are just for impressions and a visuals, not any hard numbers.
--
"... respect, all good works are not done by only good folk. For here, at the end of all things, we shall do what needs to be done."
--till next time, consul -x- <<poetry.dolphins-cove.com>>

[~consul]

Aren't those spiders uhm, black, with those red spots? Lloth made them like her spiders?
Though I do see the argument about how dark-skinned equals evil is over-represented.

I just did a quick search for "White poisonous spider" and the images link mostly has the brown recluse. There was 1 albino/white spider called the Crab Spider or Flower Spider, looks neat, like it's made of glass. :D https://encrypted-tbn1.google.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSbTwTgCUTlILRgg-qdbjO4ZDqzAesCTTDIj4Uic2ZVuZ1vZlZY

Crap, I just got the willies scrolling through the other ones! :(

[Jim Davies]

On the grave of Keith Davies <keith....@kjdavies.org> is inscribed:

>Nicole Massey <ny...@gypsyheir.com> wrote:
>>
>> A recent dig in Scandinavia found a woman buried next to another one,
>> and DNA tests indicated clearly that one ofthem was clearly Norse and
>> was buried with typical honors afforded to women of the gentry while
>> the other woman was clearly Persian. (They also buried a ship with
>> them) No one has expressed a good reason for this, but it is an
>> interesting dig to be sure. We also have clear records of Norse
>> warriors working as guards in Constantinople.
>
>The Norse traveled a long way. They didn't just raid the stuff in easy
>striking distance of the fjords, they ranged across the Pacific and
>throughout the Mediterranean.

Pacific? They certainly made it to the Black Sea via Moscow and Kiev,
but that's a bit of a stretch. ITYM Atlantic.

[Jim Davies]

On the grave of ~consul <con...@dolphinsTAKEAWAY-cove.com> is
inscribed:

>
>I just did a quick search for "White poisonous spider" and the images link mostly has the brown recluse. There was 1 albino/white spider called the Crab Spider or Flower Spider, looks neat, like it's made of glass. :D https://encrypted-tbn1.google.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSbTwTgCUTlILRgg-qdbjO4ZDqzAesCTTDIj4Uic2ZVuZ1vZlZY

<pedant> they're not poisonous, they're venomous </pedant>

[tussock]

Jim Davies wrote:

> ~consul wrote:
>
>> I just did a quick search for "White poisonous spider" and the images
>> link mostly has the brown recluse. There was 1 albino/white spider called
>> the Crab Spider or Flower Spider, looks neat, like it's made of glass. :D
>

> <pedant> they're not poisonous, they're venomous </pedant>

When I google for venomous spiders, it shows me all the poison,
poisonous, and dangerous spiders too. Lets you be correct without missing
out on 90% of the webosphere.

When I google dangerous white animals, I get the white sharks, white
rhinos, white jellyfish, white-spotted hornet, white snakes, white frogs,
and white-tailed dear, but not a single white man.
Oh, wait, there's a picture of Australia. Close enough. 8]

--
tussock

[tussock]

Jim Davies wrote:

> Keith Davies wrote:

>> The Norse traveled a long way. They didn't just raid the stuff in easy
>> striking distance of the fjords, they ranged across the Pacific and
>> throughout the Mediterranean.
>
> Pacific? They certainly made it to the Black Sea via Moscow and Kiev,
> but that's a bit of a stretch. ITYM Atlantic.

There's a few folk in New Zealand (that by pure coincidence rather like
their shaved heads and that old swastika design), who insist that Vikings
discovered NZ centuries before the Maori ever got here. 8]

--
tussock

[Nicole Massey]

"Jim Davies" <j...@aaargh.NoBleedinSpam.org> wrote in message
news:2ghgq7h9g96pgb5up...@4ax.com...

> On the grave of "Nicole Massey" <ny...@gypsyheir.com> is inscribed:
>
>>
>>"skirnir" <adwe...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
>>news:0a0dbe8f-e4ef-4554...@h4g2000pbe.googlegroups.com...
>>> On May 6, 6:23 am, D.J. <pongbill...@cableone.net> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Yeah, we are all homo sapiens sapiens. The same species.
>>>
>>> Elves are homo sapiens silvanus, orcs are homo sapiens piltdown.
>>> Both subspecies were once native to Lemuria.
>>
>>Though there is substantial evidence to indicate that Lemuria couldn't
>>exist
>>on this particular planet with current geographical and geological
>>elements,
>>there is actually another species that was at one point contemporary with
>>humanity -- There were still surviving cro-magnon folks living on an
>>island
>>off spain. Robert Silverberg spoke of them in a recent editorial in
>>Asimov's, with a lot of detail on them and their dying out.
>
> I thought we were Cro-Magnon. The Neanderthals hung on in Gibraltar
> about as long as they did anywhere. Denisovans and Hobbits survived
> until quite recently, though I forget the details.
>

We have, at least according to Silverberg's article, some differences from
the cro-magnon folks. I'm not sure of the exact differences, though.

[Nicole Massey]

"Keith Davies" <keith....@kjdavies.org> wrote in message
news:slrnjqgiu5.al...@kjdavies.org...

> Nicole Massey <ny...@gypsyheir.com> wrote:
>>
>> A recent dig in Scandinavia found a woman buried next to another one,
>> and DNA tests indicated clearly that one ofthem was clearly Norse and
>> was buried with typical honors afforded to women of the gentry while
>> the other woman was clearly Persian. (They also buried a ship with
>> them) No one has expressed a good reason for this, but it is an
>> interesting dig to be sure. We also have clear records of Norse
>> warriors working as guards in Constantinople.
>
> The Norse traveled a long way. They didn't just raid the stuff in easy
> striking distance of the fjords, they ranged across the Pacific and
> throughout the Mediterranean.

And it wasn't only raids, either. They were also traders. Archeological
evidence has given the impression that one of the reasons for their raids
was glacial incursions into their normal lands, resulting in them needing
more resources to survive. But they were also known for their cloth,
especially "furred wool", a technique where additional threads were trapped
in the weave and weft to create cloth known for its warmth and water
repellant properties. One of these cloaks was considered to be equal in
value to a knarr.
And didn't you mean "Atlantic" instead of "Pacific" above? I know of no
Norse travels across the Pacific, but of course we have Leif Ericson as a
well known atlantic crossing. (A friend of mine was on that dig)

[Keith Davies]

Jim Davies <j...@aaargh.NoBleedinSpam.org> wrote:
> On the grave of Keith Davies <keith....@kjdavies.org> is inscribed:
>
>>Nicole Massey <ny...@gypsyheir.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> A recent dig in Scandinavia found a woman buried next to another one,
>>> and DNA tests indicated clearly that one ofthem was clearly Norse and
>>> was buried with typical honors afforded to women of the gentry while
>>> the other woman was clearly Persian. (They also buried a ship with
>>> them) No one has expressed a good reason for this, but it is an
>>> interesting dig to be sure. We also have clear records of Norse
>>> warriors working as guards in Constantinople.
>>
>>The Norse traveled a long way. They didn't just raid the stuff in easy
>>striking distance of the fjords, they ranged across the Pacific and
>>throughout the Mediterranean.
>
> Pacific? They certainly made it to the Black Sea via Moscow and Kiev,
> but that's a bit of a stretch. ITYM Atlantic.

Indeed I did.

[Keith Davies]

Jim Davies <j...@aaargh.NoBleedinSpam.org> wrote:
> On the grave of Keith Davies <keith....@kjdavies.org> is inscribed:
>
>>Nicole Massey <ny...@gypsyheir.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> A recent dig in Scandinavia found a woman buried next to another one,
>>> and DNA tests indicated clearly that one ofthem was clearly Norse and
>>> was buried with typical honors afforded to women of the gentry while
>>> the other woman was clearly Persian. (They also buried a ship with
>>> them) No one has expressed a good reason for this, but it is an
>>> interesting dig to be sure. We also have clear records of Norse
>>> warriors working as guards in Constantinople.
>>
>>The Norse traveled a long way. They didn't just raid the stuff in easy
>>striking distance of the fjords, they ranged across the Pacific and
>>throughout the Mediterranean.
>
> Pacific? They certainly made it to the Black Sea via Moscow and Kiev,
> but that's a bit of a stretch. ITYM Atlantic.

Indeed I did. I know they made it to Canada, I'm in Canada, I live by
the Pacific. Brain fart.

[Michael]

Am 5/6/2012 12:54 PM, schrieb tussock:
> Loren Pechtel wrote:
>> tussock wrote:
>>> Loren Pechtel wrote:
>>>
>>>> Skin tones reflect the climate to a fair degree with some variation
>>>> due to migration patterns. In the circa 1500 world people didn't move
>>>> around much.
>>>
>>> Yes they did. Like, hugely. World-spanning empires rose and fell a few
>>> times on the way to 1500 with accompanying population shifts, and it's
>>> almost the turn of the Spanish (who are a huge genetic mix by 1500).
>>> Populations were plenty mobile in ancient and medieval times.
>>>
>>> Sure, it's not the Age of Sail yet, but many nations are named after
>>> the tens to hundreds of thousands of men who conquered them from the
>>> prior inhabitants in the last few centuries.
>>
>> The number of *PEOPLE* who actually moved far enough to be in a
>> different racial area is quite small, however.
>
> No it isn't. People move so much you mostly can't even tell where their
> ancestors are from. Most people don't know themselves beyond a century or
> so, and if you only follow a name it's probably not genetic after 7
> generations anyway (that's 128 or less people from the early 19th century).

Perhaps in the last centuries. However in the middle ages - or as the
poster before wrote until 1500 - the majority of the population did in
their lives probably see only their village and the next larger town and
nothing else.
That does not mean that there have been some people who travelled
extremely far like ibn Battuta or Marco Polo and even more who routinely
made voyages across a continent for trading or in e.g. the roman army -
but long-range migration of large numbers of people really started only
after America was well discovered.

[Michael]

Am 5/6/2012 3:23 PM, schrieb D.J.:
> On Sun, 06 May 2012 00:46:26 -0400, Tetsubo<tet...@comcast.net>
> wrote:
>
>> On 5/5/2012 9:53 PM, Rast wrote:
>>> tussock wrote...
>>>>> Without something to mix the population up I would expect near racial
>>>>> purity in any given area.
>>>>
>>>> *THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS RACE*!
>>>
>>> Oh c'mon, not even young-Earth creationists believe that.
>>>
>>> If race doesn't exist, then how come they can test my DNA and tell me
>>> what race(s) I am?
>>
>> Well, there are three very broad sub-divisions of humans, the Africans
>> (Negroids), the Caucasians and the Mongoloids. There *are* recognizable
>> differences between the three groups. For example the Caucasians have a
>> mutation that allows the adults to still consume milk. Unless you
>> develop a milk allergy as I have are are never able to eat cheese
>> again... I do so miss cheese. But all three groups can inter-breed so we
>> are the same species. I do get tussocks point though.
>
> Yeah, we are all homo sapiens sapiens. The same species. But we are
> different races under that same species. My racial ancestry is Native
> American and European. Which means I have some Asian ancestry. Some
> relatives have said we have other ancestry, but have presented no
> information other than talk.

That info is obsolete. The current version is that there is only one
human race with some variations, but not enough to name it different races.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_race#Race

[David Lamb]

On 07/05/2012 6:25 PM, Keith Davies wrote:

> Nicole Massey<ny...@gypsyheir.com> wrote:
>> We also have clear records of Norse
>> warriors working as guards in Constantinople.
>
> The Norse traveled a long way. They didn't just raid the stuff in easy
> striking distance of the fjords,

If I recall correctly, the Rus, from which we get "Russia", were Norse.

[David Lamb]

On 07/05/2012 7:31 PM, ~consul wrote:
> 'tis on this 5/4/2012 9:19 AM, wrote David Lamb thus to say:
>> I'm more bothered by the dark skin, evil race thing. Maybe they should
>> have been green. or blue. Or whatever colour Lolth or her favourite
>> spiders might be.
>
> Aren't those spiders uhm, black, with those red spots? Lloth made them
> like her spiders?

Hmm. So, maybe Drow should have red spots, too?

[David Lamb]

On 08/05/2012 11:16 AM, Michael wrote:
> but long-range migration of large numbers of people really started only
> after America was well discovered.

Doesn't the Celt migration count? IIRC started somewhere in far eastern
Europe in the BC's, wound up in Britain and perhaps Spain a few hundred
years later. Perhaps not long range enough?

[DougL]

Probably not long range enough. It's basically caucasians all the way
as far as ethnicity is concerned. To fit the original topic you need a
distant enough migration that you get a definite mix of skin tones in
a single area in a single generation. The Celt migration was both too
short and too slow to do that (celts intermarried with locals, so they
wouldn't have all that distinct an appearance even if they'd gone
further).

D&D on the other hand has huge racial diversity! To the extent that
"race" has a definition, it's a very large genetic distinction within
a species. To the extent that "species" has a definition, it's a group
where some one member can produce viable fertile offspring with
effectively any other fertile member of the opposite sex.

In D&D land I submit for your consideration the Dragon, or the
Outsider, or.... D&D land quite clearly has only ONE living species.
It has members that can breed with pretty much any living thing, and
with some things that aren't living, hence every living thing is the
same species. That species has a large number of races and it is
always presented as having a large number of races and great
diversity, and these races are in fact called races in the rules.

DougL

[Loren Pechtel]

On Tue, 08 May 2012 12:41:01 -0400, David Lamb <dal...@cs.queensu.ca>
wrote:

There's little racial difference there. That's how most movement was
in that era.

[Loren Pechtel]

On 07 May 2012 22:28:13 GMT, Keith Davies <keith....@kjdavies.org>
wrote:

>Loren Pechtel <lorenp...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>> On Sun, 06 May 2012 22:54:29 +1200, tussock <sc...@clear.net.nz>
>> wrote:
>>
>>>No it isn't. People move so much you mostly can't even tell where
>>>their ancestors are from. Most people don't know themselves beyond a
>>>century or so, and if you only follow a name it's probably not genetic
>>>after 7 generations anyway (that's 128 or less people from the early
>>>19th century).
>>
>> What happens now and what happened then are very different. It used
>> to be that the vast majority of people never went beyond a day or
>> two's walk from their place of birth.
>
>'vast majority' can still be a long way from 'all'. It doesn't take a
>lot to 'dilute' 'pure strains'.
>
>Look at dog breeders -- in many cases they look for incredibly pure
>strains (if they're not trying to develop new ones). It's really not
>hard to 'contaminate' their work.

If there had been much contamination in the past we wouldn't have
races now.

[Jim Davies]

On the grave of David Lamb <dal...@cs.queensu.ca> is inscribed:

>On 07/05/2012 7:31 PM, ~consul wrote:
>>
>> Aren't those spiders uhm, black, with those red spots? Lloth made them
>> like her spiders?
>
>Hmm. So, maybe Drow should have red spots, too?

Teenage drow. Fear them.

[D.J.]

On Mon, 07 May 2012 16:26:05 -0700, ~consul
<con...@dolphinsTAKEAWAY-cove.com> wrote:
>'tis on this 4/18/2012 1:19 PM, wrote D.J. thus to say:
>> On Wed, 18 Apr 2012 15:56:30 +1200, tussock<sc...@clear.net.nz>
>>> Rast wrote:
>>>> I can't tell if you're being sarcastic or you really believe that.
>>> I can't tell if you're being sarcastic or you're really an ignorant
>>> racist, but I'm going to go with the latter given your posts thus far.
>>> You want to show your "90% white" number is based on something other than
>>> your own ignorant, racist conjectures, go ahead.
>> I've been going to the local to me sf/gaming convention since tbhe
>> early 1980s. Only one African-American couple for the first 20 years
>> came to it. This year I saw 5 African-Americans attending the
>> convention of 600 people. No Hispanics. Three people with Asiatic
>> backgrounds. I don't know of any Native Americans attending except for
>> myself and some relatives, and we don't much look Native American.
>
>Is it where those conventions are located? I used to see a predominately white crowd when I went to ICON when I lived on Long Island, and probably more than 60% demo for San Deigo Comic Con. Anime Expo however, which had a good gaming group part in it, had over 70% latino & african american in the audience and lines.
>Note that my numbers are just for impressions and a visuals, not any hard numbers.

The convention is in Mississippi; however, I didn't notice a large
number of non-whites at World Con in 1993 in San Francisco, CA nor at
a convention in Washington, DC. back ion the 1990s.
.
JimP.
--
Brushing aside the thorns so I can see the stars.
http://www.linuxgazette.net/ Linux Gazette
http://www.drivein-jim.net/ Drive-In movie theaters
http://story.drivein-jim.net/ A story Feb, 2011

[D.J.]

I don't much trrust wikipedia.

[D.J.]

On 07 May 2012 22:25:09 GMT, Keith Davies <keith....@kjdavies.org>
wrote:

>Nicole Massey <ny...@gypsyheir.com> wrote:
>>
>> A recent dig in Scandinavia found a woman buried next to another one,
>> and DNA tests indicated clearly that one ofthem was clearly Norse and
>> was buried with typical honors afforded to women of the gentry while
>> the other woman was clearly Persian. (They also buried a ship with
>> them) No one has expressed a good reason for this, but it is an
>> interesting dig to be sure. We also have clear records of Norse
>> warriors working as guards in Constantinople.
>
>The Norse traveled a long way. They didn't just raid the stuff in easy
>striking distance of the fjords, they ranged across the Pacific and
>throughout the Mediterranean.

Russ, Norsemen guards for an early King of Moscovy. Now the large area
around Moscow is called Russia.

[Alcore]

I offer "Tigons"/"Ligers" into consideration as well as Mules. (Tiger/Lion crossbreeds, and Horse/Donkey crossbreeds.) In both cases the pairing is rare but often successful, and the result is only rarely fertile to either parent species.

Cross-species pollination is actually fairly common among plant families. I've been told that ragweed can cross-pollinate with almost any of the citrus fruit species, and it produces some of the most awful tasting things you can imagine (and which are sterile).

Ultimately, nature has not cooperated with artificial human notions of taxonomic classification and so all sorts of wierd stuff happens here and there. Add a touch of magic on top of things, and I have no problem with bizzare half-breeds across quite distinct species.

[Rast]

David Lamb wrote...

Yeah! I saw a documentary last year about that. Kinda blew my mind.

[Nicole Massey]

"Michael" <Conjure...@t-online.de> wrote in message
news:jobdc3$esb$1...@tota-refugium.de...

Too bad DNA evidence doesn't support this. First there was the cultures who
got all over the globe in the first place, but we have clear migrations of a
sizeable number of folks pre-1500CE. There's the Chinese incursion into
central america during the Sho (I think I spelled that right) as one
example, And of course the multiple invasions of Great Britain by the Jutes,
Danes, Saxons, Frisians, and Normans, all of which happened long before
1500CE. There's the migration to Iceland, and though the men picked up wives
on the way, (a DNA analysis of the folks whose families are long term
residents of Iceland show 80% Norse/Swedish/Danish for men and about 60%
Scottish/English/Irish for the women, according to recent testing) they did
all of this long before 500 years ago. There's substantial migration on the
European sub-continent, and of course after the massive destruction of the
central American forests the American Tribals moved about to a sizeable
extent if they were plains dwellers. So archeological evidence doesn't bear
this contention out.

[Nicole Massey]

"David Lamb" <dal...@cs.queensu.ca> wrote in message
news:jobgcr$arm$1...@dont-email.me...

We have a lot of interesting things that track the migration of the people
we think of now as Norse, and that directly contradicts what a lot of Asatru
folks want to believe about a German connection to norse stuff. We can trace
the runes fairly far back, with elements of them present in Ethiopia BCE.
There is also a lot of runic markings found in Russia -- a friend of mine
found three filing cabinets in the big museum in St. Petersburg of rubbings
off runic sites that were destroyed during the Nazi invasion effort into
Russia -- they destroyed runic sites as a matter of course thanks to
Himmler's warped kind of proto-norse mythology as they didn't support the
new stuff he was trying to push on folks.

[tussock]

Loren Pechtel wrote:
> tussock wrote:
>> Loren Pechtel wrote:

>>> The number of *PEOPLE* who actually moved far enough to be in a
>>> different racial area is quite small, however.
>>
>> No it isn't. People move so much you mostly can't even tell where
>> their ancestors are from. Most people don't know themselves beyond a
>> century or so, and if you only follow a name it's probably not genetic
>> after 7 generations anyway (that's 128 or less people from the early
>> 19th century).
>

> What happens now and what happened then are very different. It used
> to be that the vast majority of people never went beyond a day or
> two's walk from their place of birth.

My parenthetical example colours the general point.


>>>> [...] Pure *what*?
>>>
>>> "Pure" as in descended from only those who were of the ethnic stock of
>>> the area. I don't mean it in a KKK sense.
>>
>> How do you think the KKK mean it?

Serious question there.

>> There are semi-isolated continents for long periods: sub-Saharan
>> Africa, Australia and nearby islands, the Americas, and Eurasia and
>> north-Africa. But people still aren't from where they're from. Most
>> obvious traits (including fair skin) came out of Africa with the first
>> human migrations, everyone else in the world is mostly just an inbred
>> sub-set of the great African variety.
>
> Yeah, people migrated out of Africa. Since then, however, the
> populations have remained separated enough that the various races
> could develop.

Seriously? Still? *THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS RACE*! There are constant
gradients of skin tone across vast distances that are hugely complex in
their inheritance and response to local climate and culture.
There are the tiniest of differences in adult bone and muscle growth
that are *vastly* overwhelmed by individual differences and even personal
experience.
There's, like, one gene for the lack of a wrinkle in your eyelid which
dominated eastern plains cultures and faced strong social selection there as
people without it were viewed as being retarded. There's a few things that
might not even be fixed genes, but rather meta-genetic cultural responses.

For reals. There is far more genetic diversity between any two Kalahari
tribesmen who speak different languages than there is beween Australian
Aborigines and Icelandic natives. If there's races, there's ten of them in
the Kalahari desert alone, even though to our eye they happen to look a lot
alike: and even they *are not genetically isolated*, not even close.

Hell, Icelanders all look alike because they're all effectively cousins
expressing a couple of common recessive genes.

> If there were the intermixing you say we would all be of the same race.
> (And in time we will become one race as more and more interracial couples
> reproduce.)

Sexual and social selection says otherwise. Powerful people *choose* who
to mate with, a process which revolves around appearance and relationships,
and historically some of the men had hundreds of children each, mostly with
women near their own local ideal of femininity.

But the genes that don't affect your appearance just don't give a shit.
It's easy to change what things look like, hard to change what they *are*.

>> If you want a world where there's no dark skinned or fair skinned
>> people mixing you need crazy dangerous physical barriers running east
>> -west across your entire continent that somehow still allow genetic
>> variations for light or dark skin to migrate to where they're most
>> advantageous. You want no east and west mixing you need a north-south
>> barrier with similar properties.
>
> I'm not saying there would be no mixing. I'm saying there would be
> very little mixing. Basically everyone you see would be of the local
> racial makeup.

You'd be wrong, but that's not stopping you.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Haplogrupo_E-ADN-Y.GIF

Lovely graphic that. Tell me where the one race starts and other stops,
while noting that every other gene in the 100% group's body will have a
totally different dispersal pattern (because the Y gene is limited to the
recent movement of males).

Note also, it's descended from a gene that probably originated in India,
despite being a West African descendant thereof.

--
tussock

[tussock]

Jim Davies wrote:

> Nicole Massey wrote:
>>
>> there is actually another species that was at one point contemporary with
>> humanity -- There were still surviving cro-magnon folks living on an
>> island off spain. Robert Silverberg spoke of them in a recent editorial
>> in Asimov's, with a lot of detail on them and their dying out.
>
> I thought we were Cro-Magnon. The Neanderthals hung on in Gibraltar
> about as long as they did anywhere. Denisovans and Hobbits survived
> until quite recently, though I forget the details.

There still are contemporary species, Chimps and Bonobos are likely
still cross-fertile with us, if rather unattractive and ethically
challenging (and infertile offspring of uncertain legal status).

But yeh, Cro-Magnon is us, the first Europeans. There was separately
evolving people with big brains in each major ecosystem until we came along
and, basically, used slightly less energy to get all the same shit done and
made them all go extinct as a result.
Poor old Neanderthal needed 10% more food than us to not starve, but
were otherwise almost certainly just like us, tools, culture, religion,
language, clothes, houses, and so on. They just weren't quite as efficient
in the body layout.

--
tussock

[tussock]

Nicole Massey wrote:

> We have, at least according to Silverberg's article, some differences from
> the cro-magnon folks. I'm not sure of the exact differences, though.

They're more strongly built than modern folk, probably down to the
megafauna hunting culture and diet (not exactly a desk job, meat vs bread).

They also had a slightly more developed facial structure. Humans the
world over have been selecting for baby-faced partners (and pets) as an
ongoing thing, most strongly in females.

--
tussock

[tussock]

Loren Pechtel wrote:

> Keith Davies wrote:

>> Look at dog breeders -- in many cases they look for incredibly pure
>> strains (if they're not trying to develop new ones). It's really not
>> hard to 'contaminate' their work.
>
> If there had been much contamination in the past we wouldn't have
> races now.

We don't, you fucking idiot.

--
tussock

[David Lamb]

On 08/05/2012 4:46 PM, D.J. wrote:
> On Tue, 08 May 2012 17:17:39 +0200, Michael

>> That info is obsolete. The current version is that there is only one
>> human race with some variations, but not enough to name it different races.
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_race#Race
>
> I don't much trrust wikipedia.

For what it's worth, I once heard David Suzuki, a well-known Canadian
geneticist, saying that there's no defensible scientific concept of race.

[Loren Pechtel]

On Wed, 09 May 2012 20:25:18 +1200, tussock <sc...@clear.net.nz>
wrote:

I know there is no basis for race in biology. Look at people,
though--there are obvious appearance groupings. That's what this
thread was about--skin color.

If there had been any appreciable amount of sufficiently long distance
travel in the past the groupings wouldn't exist today, we would all be
an average.

Thus when you look back to a world with little travel beyond that
permitted by high level magic you would likewise see any one area
consisting almost entirely of one general appearance.

After all, look at the results where the populations weren't
isolated--slave-descended blacks in the USA. Note how few of them are
nearly as black as blacks from Africa. That's because of major
interbreeding despite the discrimination that was rampant.

[D.J.]

On Wed, 09 May 2012 14:15:02 -0700, Loren Pechtel
<lorenp...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>On Wed, 09 May 2012 20:25:18 +1200, tussock <sc...@clear.net.nz>
>wrote:
>
>>Loren Pechtel wrote:
>>> Keith Davies wrote:
>>
>>>> Look at dog breeders -- in many cases they look for incredibly pure
>>>> strains (if they're not trying to develop new ones). It's really not
>>>> hard to 'contaminate' their work.
>>>
>>> If there had been much contamination in the past we wouldn't have
>>> races now.
>>
>> We don't, you fucking idiot.
>
>I know there is no basis for race in biology. Look at people,
>though--there are obvious appearance groupings. That's what this
>thread was about--skin color.
>
>If there had been any appreciable amount of sufficiently long distance
>travel in the past the groupings wouldn't exist today, we would all be
>an average.

Close to the equator, the melanin exists so people don't die of skin
cancer and still can make vitamin D from sunlight. Up by the Orkney
Islands, skin color is very pale, so they can still make vitamin D.

[Loren Pechtel]

On Wed, 09 May 2012 18:12:08 -0500, D.J. <pongb...@cableone.net>

wrote:

>On Wed, 09 May 2012 14:15:02 -0700, Loren Pechtel
><lorenp...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>>On Wed, 09 May 2012 20:25:18 +1200, tussock <sc...@clear.net.nz>
>>wrote:
>>
>>>Loren Pechtel wrote:
>>>> Keith Davies wrote:
>>>
>>>>> Look at dog breeders -- in many cases they look for incredibly pure
>>>>> strains (if they're not trying to develop new ones). It's really not
>>>>> hard to 'contaminate' their work.
>>>>
>>>> If there had been much contamination in the past we wouldn't have
>>>> races now.
>>>
>>> We don't, you fucking idiot.
>>
>>I know there is no basis for race in biology. Look at people,
>>though--there are obvious appearance groupings. That's what this
>>thread was about--skin color.
>>
>>If there had been any appreciable amount of sufficiently long distance
>>travel in the past the groupings wouldn't exist today, we would all be
>>an average.
>
>Close to the equator, the melanin exists so people don't die of skin
>cancer and still can make vitamin D from sunlight. Up by the Orkney
>Islands, skin color is very pale, so they can still make vitamin D.

Of course. The thing is that's a very slow process--if there were
substantial mixing of populations skin colors would average out anyway
despite the evolutionary pressures.

[tussock]

Loren Pechtel wrote:

> tussock wrote:
>> Loren Pechtel wrote:
>>> Keith Davies wrote:
>>
>>>> Look at dog breeders -- in many cases they look for incredibly pure
>>>> strains (if they're not trying to develop new ones). It's really not
>>>> hard to 'contaminate' their work.
>>>
>>> If there had been much contamination in the past we wouldn't have
>>> races now.
>>
>> We don't, you fucking idiot.
>
> I know there is no basis for race in biology. Look at people,
> though--there are obvious appearance groupings. That's what this
> thread was about--skin color.

There *aren't* obvious groupings. Everyone you want to say looks really
different doesn't look appreciably so compared to some nearby population,
and so on, until it gets to you, without any jump at all.
Continuum. People are grouped for historical reasons that aren't
standing up to scientific scrutiny. You can tell a dark skinned person from
a light skinned one because you can tell anyone from anyone, except
unfamiliar identical twins.

It's no more interesting to label people as black than it is to describe
them as tall. Tall's genetic too. Short and Tall cross to make middle-sized.
There's nothing special about skin colour, other than it had constant and
strong geographical selection pressures that overrode most others. So did
Short and Tall in some cases.

> If there had been any appreciable amount of sufficiently long distance
> travel in the past the groupings wouldn't exist today, we would all be
> an average.

*No we wouldn't*. The genes for skin tone are all there, in Africa.

As proto-chimp-men the ancestors are *pale* and *hairy*. Mutations
allowing the loss of body hair for cooling were accompanied by mutations for
extra melanin and vastly more sweat glands, but not everyone in Africa
carries all the new ones, and the older white skin genes live on as rare
recessive traits there even in the darkest populations. Like some people are
really hairy, and some people really sweaty, and some people are really
tall, and some people have really heavy brows. African gene pool, Eurasian
subset.

OK, there's one or two interesting new mutations outside Africa as well,
but they're not greatly significant. Blonds and such. Mostly it's just
sorting the same pool by skin tone to vitamin D/B9 balance.

> Thus when you look back to a world with little travel beyond that
> permitted by high level magic you would likewise see any one area
> consisting almost entirely of one general appearance.

You'd see almost entirely similar local appearance with a lot of travel
too. That's what selection pressures do for you. Meanwhile, genetic studies
show that people got around. A lot. Just not all the time, and not most
people when they did. Hell, history says it. Language says it. Culture says
it. Everyone was nomadic until /really/ recently, and most of them traded
women. Settled cultures kept warring, right from the start, moving into
conquered lands, taking local women (and thus preserving local genes).

> After all, look at the results where the populations weren't
> isolated--slave-descended blacks in the USA. Note how few of them are
> nearly as black as blacks from Africa. That's because of major
> interbreeding despite the discrimination that was rampant.

Africa hosts a *huge* range of colours, again, including in the slave
states, and there's darker beyond.

Thanks to racism, American populations were historically (still to a
lesser extent) sexually segregated despite being physically interwoven,
keeping their locally sub-optimal collection of skin tones relatively
intact.

The strange thing in the States is you never got a lot of the middle-
skinned people. You got dark, you got light, and you drew a line in the sand
that said they were different. But they're not. European populations carry a
subset of the genes carried by African populations, just with the ones for
dark skin having become locally extinct or very rare.

People aren't mixed race, they're mixed chromosomes, from a scattered
few of their ancient ancestors. Your first human ancestors had dark skin,
you just missed out on those genes, because your more recent ancestors lived
in a place that selected against them. Most recently you missed out on dark
skin genes because of cultural racism that prevented any of your near
ancestors marrying people who retained many of those genes, and technology
has defeated most selective pressures in the short term that would allow any
half-dark people to dominate most of North America again.

--
tussock

[Loren Pechtel]

On Fri, 11 May 2012 04:55:43 +1200, tussock <sc...@clear.net.nz>
wrote:

>> I know there is no basis for race in biology. Look at people,
>> though--there are obvious appearance groupings. That's what this
>> thread was about--skin color.
>
> There *aren't* obvious groupings. Everyone you want to say looks really
>different doesn't look appreciably so compared to some nearby population,
>and so on, until it gets to you, without any jump at all.

In other words, the mixing is a very slow process, what I've been
saying all along.

> It's no more interesting to label people as black than it is to describe
>them as tall. Tall's genetic too. Short and Tall cross to make middle-sized.
>There's nothing special about skin colour, other than it had constant and
>strong geographical selection pressures that overrode most others. So did
>Short and Tall in some cases.

It's relevant to label people black when the thread is about skin
tones. I don't care if someone is white, black or has purple
polka-dots, but the thread was asserting that the D&D artwork was
wrong because of a lack of diversity.

D&D societies would not have been diverse!

[~consul]

'tis on this 5/8/2012 9:09 AM, wrote David Lamb thus to say:
> On 07/05/2012 7:31 PM, ~consul wrote:
>> 'tis on this 5/4/2012 9:19 AM, wrote David Lamb thus to say:
>>> I'm more bothered by the dark skin, evil race thing. Maybe they should
>>> have been green. or blue. Or whatever colour Lolth or her favourite
>>> spiders might be.
>>
>> Aren't those spiders uhm, black, with those red spots? Lloth made them
>> like her spiders?
> Hmm. So, maybe Drow should have red spots, too?

I've seen drawings of them with red eyes.
Or their neighbor would love to sacrafice them in honour of Lloth and have the red spots be your own blood.
--
"... respect, all good works are not done by only good folk. For here, at the end of all things, we shall do what needs to be done."
--till next time, consul -x- <<poetry.dolphins-cove.com>>

[dr...@bin.sh]

Alien mind control rays made Loren Pechtel <lorenp...@hotmail.com> write:
> D&D societies would not have been diverse!

but D&D worlds should be. and D&D as a whole should be.

--
n_n n_n dr...@bin.sh (CARRIER LOST) <http://www.bin.sh/>
|"|n_n_n|"| ---------------------------------------------------------------
| | " " | | "Hit Hard, Hit Fast, Hit Often."
|_|_[T]_|_| <http://donjon.bin.sh/d20/power/>

[Loren Pechtel]

On 11 May 2012 15:01:38 GMT, dr...@bin.sh wrote:

>Alien mind control rays made Loren Pechtel <lorenp...@hotmail.com> write:
>> D&D societies would not have been diverse!
>
>but D&D worlds should be. and D&D as a whole should be.

But any group of people that is together is most likely of the same
skin color.

[tussock]

Loren Pechtel wrote:
> dr...@bin.sh wrote:

>> Loren Pechtel write:

>>> D&D societies would not have been diverse!
>>
>> but D&D worlds should be. and D&D as a whole should be.
>
> But any group of people that is together is most likely of the same
> skin color.

And the same height, same weight, same hair colour, length, waviness,
and style, same eyebrow thickness, same nose length, same brow prominence,
same cheekbones and chin, same clothes, same armour, same weapons used in
the same style, same language, same accent, same religion, same booze, same
foods, same names and naming conventions, same enemies and allies, same
hats, same shoes, same technology, same social bonds, same longevity, same
... except when they don't.

Can I just point out there's an Elf in those theoretical pictures, who
can cast fireball, and you seem to be complaining that the two humans, who
are probably wearing different fashions and arms separated by centuries here
in the real world, with modern beard trimming, and you're worried they have
different colour skin, because in the early medieval world it was hard to
cross deserts (except for the Nomads who lived in them).

Because the Persians didn't rule from Libya to the Indus. Pax Romana did
not include all Britain, Egypt, and Arabia. The lower Nile people did not
conquer the upper Nile people. The Moors never invaded Iberia. The Norse
didn't own a lot of large Mediterranean islands. The Mongols certainly never
conquered half the world. There was no Silk Road, despite all the silk and
spices. Or something.

Like the British empire is the first time anyone left home in two
thousand years, despite them speaking *English* of all the vastly
bastardised languages to happen, as if two thousand years is a long time.

--
tussock

[Rast]

~consul wrote...

> Anime Expo however, which had a good gaming group part in it, had over 70% latino & african american in the audience and lines.
> Note that my numbers are just for impressions and a visuals, not any hard numbers.

Mmm, I dunno.

http://www.norsemeat.com/animeexpo2011/animeexpo2011crowd.JPG
http://www.flickr.com/photos/popculturegeek/5917378773/sizes/o/in/photo
stream/
http://kalamarikastle.com/wp-content/gallery/anime-expo-2011/img_2596-
copy.jpg

My impression is that if "Anime Expo 2011 attendee" were a paying job,
rather than a fun way to spend the weekend, we might be looking at a
EEOC disparate impact lawsuit.

[dr...@bin.sh]

Alien mind control rays made Loren Pechtel <lorenp...@hotmail.com> write:
> On 11 May 2012 15:01:38 GMT, dr...@bin.sh wrote:
>>Alien mind control rays made Loren Pechtel <lorenp...@hotmail.com> write:
>>> D&D societies would not have been diverse!
>>
>> but D&D worlds should be. and D&D as a whole should be.
>
> But any group of people that is together is most likely of the same
> skin color.

how can you tell, if they're all wearing white robes?

--
n_n n_n dr...@bin.sh (CARRIER LOST) <http://www.bin.sh/>
|"|n_n_n|"| ---------------------------------------------------------------

| | " " | | "You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike."
|_|_[T]_|_| <http://donjon.bin.sh/d20/dungeon/>

[Loren Pechtel]

On 13 May 2012 01:22:38 GMT, dr...@bin.sh wrote:

>Alien mind control rays made Loren Pechtel <lorenp...@hotmail.com> write:
>> On 11 May 2012 15:01:38 GMT, dr...@bin.sh wrote:
>>>Alien mind control rays made Loren Pechtel <lorenp...@hotmail.com> write:
>>>> D&D societies would not have been diverse!
>>>
>>> but D&D worlds should be. and D&D as a whole should be.
>>
>> But any group of people that is together is most likely of the same
>> skin color.
>
>how can you tell, if they're all wearing white robes?

I'm not arguing that any race is superior.

I'm saying that in a D&D world you'll see very little mixing of skin
colors--it will be like Earth back then, basically everyone in an area
is of the same skin color. The sun provides a reason for the
differences and there's nothing big enough to undo this.

Thus blacks are superior in the tropics, whites are superior in the
high latitudes, brown is best in the lower latitudes.

[David Lamb]

On 13/05/2012 12:58 PM, Loren Pechtel wrote:
> I'm saying that in a D&D world you'll see very little mixing of skin
> colors--it will be like Earth back then, basically everyone in an area
> is of the same skin color. The sun provides a reason for the
> differences and there's nothing big enough to undo this.

Migration undoes it pretty darn easily. Skin colours don't adapt to a
new environment for tens of thousands of years -- witness the Native
American peoples, spread from the Arctic through the tropics to Tierra
Del Fuego, all with brown skin.

And D&D worlds I've heard of typically have huge wilderness areas for
all that adventuring. Lots of room for overcrowded people from anywhere
to migrate to, once the adventurers tame it.

> Thus blacks are superior in the tropics, whites are superior in the
> high latitudes, brown is best in the lower latitudes.

True, I suppose, but only relvant in the absence of migration.

[Rast]

Michael wrote...

> That info is obsolete. The current version is that there is only one
> human race with some variations, but not enough to name it different races.

Meanwhile, here in the real world the rest of us understand what the
word "race" means and know what race(s) we are, and are usually able to
figure out the race(s) of people we meet. When, for instance, we apply
for a job and are asked to check the box corresponding to our race [1],
we check the correct box, rather than the "race does not exist and this
question makes no sense" box [2].

Or, for another example, when we read that, "race of the victim was
found to influence the likelihood of being charged with capital murder
or receiving the death penalty, i.e., those who murdered whites were
found more likely to be sentenced to death than those who murdered
blacks", we don't think, "well, there's no such thing as race, so this
study is worthless".
http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/race-death-row-inmates-executed-1976





[1] For non-Americans: In the USA the government collects this
information to try to prevent employers from discriminating against
historically underprivileged races.

[2] There is no such box, though you're free to check no boxes or more
than one.

[Tetsubo]

Please stop using logic and reason in a race thread. You might hurt folks.

--
Tetsubo
Deviant Art: http://ironstaff.deviantart.com/
YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/user/tetsubo57

[Rast]

David Lamb wrote...

> For what it's worth, I once heard David Suzuki, a well-known Canadian
> geneticist, saying that there's no defensible scientific concept of race.

And yet any geneticist can, using science in a laboratory, determine
from a DNA sample, with a very high degree of accuracy, what "race" the
donor is.

[Tetsubo]

You can also tell that quite frequently from the bone structure of the
skull.

I think both Rast and tussock make good points. We are all the same
species. But there are recognizable sub-groups within our species. Most
folks call those 'races'. Yes, the term is loaded. But those sub-groups
are *real*. They are in our genes and literally in our faces. To ignore
this seems foolish to me.

[Loren Pechtel]

On Sun, 13 May 2012 13:24:40 -0400, David Lamb <dal...@cs.queensu.ca>
wrote:

>On 13/05/2012 12:58 PM, Loren Pechtel wrote:
>> I'm saying that in a D&D world you'll see very little mixing of skin
>> colors--it will be like Earth back then, basically everyone in an area
>> is of the same skin color. The sun provides a reason for the
>> differences and there's nothing big enough to undo this.
>
>Migration undoes it pretty darn easily. Skin colours don't adapt to a
>new environment for tens of thousands of years -- witness the Native
>American peoples, spread from the Arctic through the tropics to Tierra
>Del Fuego, all with brown skin.

We still see it here on Earth although it's being undone now. D&D is
set in far more ancient times, it would still be the way things were.

>And D&D worlds I've heard of typically have huge wilderness areas for
>all that adventuring. Lots of room for overcrowded people from anywhere
>to migrate to, once the adventurers tame it.

You're going to go to wilderness that's nearby, not distant lands.

Travels to distant lands are pretty much the forte of high level
adventurers. Given what the wilds tend to be like nobody else could
expect to survive such trips.

>> Thus blacks are superior in the tropics, whites are superior in the
>> high latitudes, brown is best in the lower latitudes.
>
>True, I suppose, but only relvant in the absence of migration.

The thing is some on here seem to think I'm a racist when in reality
I'm simply describing how things would have been.

[Loren Pechtel]

On Sun, 13 May 2012 14:38:52 -0400, Tetsubo <tet...@comcast.net>
wrote:

>On 5/13/2012 2:30 PM, Rast wrote:
>> David Lamb wrote...
>>> For what it's worth, I once heard David Suzuki, a well-known Canadian
>>> geneticist, saying that there's no defensible scientific concept of race.
>>
>> And yet any geneticist can, using science in a laboratory, determine
>> from a DNA sample, with a very high degree of accuracy, what "race" the
>> donor is.
>
> You can also tell that quite frequently from the bone structure of the
>skull.
>
> I think both Rast and tussock make good points. We are all the same
>species. But there are recognizable sub-groups within our species. Most
>folks call those 'races'. Yes, the term is loaded. But those sub-groups
>are *real*. They are in our genes and literally in our faces. To ignore
>this seems foolish to me.

Exactly. Race shouldn't matter other than perhaps in people's
romantic preferences. (Everyone has preferences, it's not racist to
have preferences that fall along racial lines.)

They're rapidly being bred out in first-world civilizations (the areas
with very high mobility) but they certainly existed in a major way in
the past.

[David Lamb]

I think I've also been responding from a "how would things work
objectvely?" perspective. I just think there are factors at work you're
dismissing; we have different opinions about how likely certain factors
would be.

Perhaps replace "migration" by "conquering army" since people like the
Mongols conquered a huge territory in medieval times, as did Arabs a few
hundred years earlier. Some Russians I've seen are basically standard
light-skinned Europeans, but their cheekbones look a bit more oriental.
Might be influence of the Mongol invasion.

[David Lamb]

I'm not a geneticist; are you? If you are I'll weight your opinion more
highly compared to Suzuki, who was a practicing geneticist at one point.

In any case, they find genetic markers that correlate well with certain
geographic origins, and people can have markers from more than one
origin. Which of the two (or hundred) do you count as defining their "race"?