Non white/heterosexual characters
James Cthulhu Kittock
so here goes...
There was a thread a good while back about role-playing
characters of the opposite sex from one's own. Now I
have a new question: has anyone ever played a character
of a different sexual preference than their own or
a human race other than basically caucasian (or whatever
is considered "standard" in their campaign world--
Asian characters in an Oriental Adventures setting don't
really count)?
I have only ever played an ascetic character with no
sexual preference whatsoever (the rest of the male ones
were love-starved romantics or else it wasn't relevant to
the campaign and never developed). And all of my characters
have been, surprise, white.
Minority gamers (who are truly a minority among gamers, from
my own experience)-- what do you think about this subject?
--james
--
James Kittock -- Class of 1992
Department of Computer Science, Duke University, Durham, NC 27706
Internet: j...@cs.duke.edu
UUCP: mcnc!duke!jek
Jeff Stehman
> Ok, an earlier post of mine made me wonder about this,
> so here goes...
>
> There was a thread a good while back about role-playing
> characters of the opposite sex from one's own. Now I
> have a new question: has anyone ever played a character
> of a different sexual preference than their own or
> a human race other than basically caucasian (or whatever
> is considered "standard" in their campaign world--
Do dark elves count? I played a drow-hating drow who lived
on the surface in a long-running campaign. The first several years of
his life on the surface were a pain. One problem was that he couldn't
blame those who hated him on first sight -- he did the same thing when
he ran into other dark elves.
Another campaign I was involved in eventually moved from the
'west' to 'asia,' and the white characters were suddenly in the very
minor minority. My character was no longer involved at that point,
though. I understand the mighty Brandon had to start wearing
pantaloons, and was not at all pleased about it. :-)
Although I never have, I don't think I'd have trouble running a
homosexual character, at not least with staying in character and keeping
the game serious (understanding motivation is another matter). After
all, every time one of my male characters was interacting intimately
with a female npc, it was a male gm playing the part of the female.
Jeff Stehman
91b...@gw.wmich.edu
for sexual preference in our characters originally as a joke. Now it is
pretty much standard practice. Unless you have someone who is a real
homophobe (we do), it isn't usually a problem. The games are all about
ROLE-playing, and if a player just can't role-play a sex scene, their
character shouldn't be sexually active. We have some characters who don't
act on their sexual impulses and others who pursue everything in a skirt
(or trousers). It's an individual choice. I guess the handbook leaves
sex out for a reason. ;-)
Just a note about our homophobe...in our last campaign he chose to play
a female character. Suprise! The party was all heterosexual that time!
He was NOT a happy camper... :-)
As for playing the opposite sex, that does occur within our campaign.
Again, it is up to the player. If a player thinks they can REALLY role
play the opposite sex, more power to them. I, however, usually chose
to play a female character because it's hard enough to figure out how
a woman would think in a given situation (which I have some experience
with!), without trying to figure out the belief structure and morals
of the opposite sex!
--
*************************************************************************
* \ "If you will just talk to me, I know I can *
* Lisamarie Babik \ help you. But if you keep making this *
* 91b...@gw.wmich.edu \ difficult, I'll blow your head off..." *
* \ - Dr. Henry Finston *
*************************************************************************
Nick Janow
> Now I have a new question: has anyone ever played a character
> of a different sexual preference than their own or a human race other than
> basically caucasian (or whatever is considered "standard" in their campaign
> world-- Asian characters in an Oriental Adventures setting don't really
> count)?
>
> ...And all of my characters have been, surprise, white.
The last time I was creating a character, I had the option of choosing the
character's race. It occured to me that all my previous human characters had
been caucasion. I thought it was time for a change, so I made him a Hindu.
I've been pretty satisfied with playing Fharhad (call me Fred) Chandrasekhar.
The only problem I've encountered is that my GM was annoyed at the overly long
last name. :-)
Next time I create a character, I won't automatically select a caucasian; I'll
consider the other possibilities. I haven't tried sexual preferences other
than hetrosexual; I don't think I'd be happy portraying a character with
preferences--sexual or other--that I personally don't like. I once tried
having a character that smoked, but I personally considered it too disgusting,
so I dropped that character's habit.
Ryk E Spoor
I've played a Black paladin (with BLOND hair, an odd mutation);
I've played an oriental monk in the midst of Middle-Earth. I've played
a Polynesian Sorcerer in a superhero univers. I've played gay males,
lesbians, bis of both sexes, aliens, dragons in both lizard and human
forms, Drow, Ogres, trolls, orcs, demons... In 15 years, I've probably
played just about every possible combination. Even a multiple (6!)
personality character whose character class, abilities, sexual preference,
and even body and race changed with stress.
You can play anything if you put your mind into it.
Sea Wasp
A Soldier Of God
>Ok, an earlier post of mine made me wonder about this,
>so here goes...
>
>There was a thread a good while back about role-playing
>characters of the opposite sex from one's own. Now I
>have a new question: has anyone ever played a character
>of a different sexual preference than their own or
>a human race other than basically caucasian (or whatever
Well, I wasn't, but I was playing a troll in shadowrun in a hack and slash run
who was a cannibal. This in its own isn't related... But one of the other
characters on the run was a char who decided what sexual orientation he was
going to be on a daily basis (het, homo, bestial, ... ad infinitum).
It just turned out that on the run we happened to be on together, he had
decided to be a necrophiliac, and we were fighting over the corpses..
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Steerpike Rex
I must admit, I have never really played characters of
differing sexual preference (unless you count the one or two female
charcters I have played). I don't think I've played characters of a
different race.
This is not something I feel I can really do a good job of.
For one, I find the idea of homosexuality (as in, me performing
homosexual acts) somewhat nauseating. Please don't flame me, I am
not gay-bashing. What others' sexual preferences are is their
buisness. Anyway, my point is that I have no earthly conception of
how to be homosexual -- its' not something I have any experience at,
or can relate to.
The same goes for those of differing race. Basically, either
they are going to be the same (in which case, you might as well not
have "race" in the campaign), or they will be different (in
experiences, culture, etc.). In the latter case (assuming that the
race in question is not a "made up for <RPG of choice> race"), I
really don't see how anyone not of that race could do a decent job.
I fear the result would be something like the plethora of
"blacksploitation" movies written and directed by whites.
It has been noted that writers "write about what they know."
I think the same is true for role-players. We role-play things that
we know -- either we imagine them, see them in movies, read about
them in books/manga/comics, or something like that. The same can
not really hold true for other races and sexual orientations. Maybe
you can view others as equal (as I do), but you can't really know
what it's like.
I'll say no more (today).
--------------------------------------------------------------------
"No one lives forever!!!"
Oingo Boingo
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Faye Levine
why, although I prefer male protagonists in my writing. Perhaps the
reason I like roleplaying men is because when I had Zayn, my female
character, she was a sort of dippy bitch.
That is to say, a bit too much like me. :-)
FLOM.
Chris Cheung
>characters of the opposite sex from one's own. Now I
>have a new question: has anyone ever played a character
>of a different sexual preference than their own or
>a human race other than basically caucasian (or whatever
>is considered "standard" in their campaign world--
>Asian characters in an Oriental Adventures setting don't
>really count)?
>
>my own experience)-- what do you think about this subject?
>
>--james
(I've been in a total of 3 campaigns... :-) wow, big gamer here, huh?! ;-) )
In the first, we were just having fun and we were just human and male, with
no distinctions in race or sexual preference.
In my second campaign, we were in a Medievil (sp? our webster server went
down... :-( ) setting in Europe. Most of us were your typical French, German,
English, etc... and sexual preference never came up.
In my third campaign, we are in/on a GM created world, with a similar but
different setting. The races are not the same as the "real world," but we're
all of the same race, which also happens to be the same as the majority of the
fantasy world we're on. We didn't choose sexual preferences, so I guess
the GM will assume we're all heterosexual which happens to be whatthe
most people are on the fantasy world. Most of our characters are right handed
unless we asked to be left handed. One player is left handed, because he wanted
the character that way, and since it doesn't affect the game much, his
character is left handed.
In this campaign, the GM's opinion is that in a "non-advance" society,
the education level is NOT high and therefore things we take for granted,
like equality, just plain doesn't exist. Also, most people in our fantasy
world are racists. The player characters, however, are assumed to have
been around quite a bit and/or are more educated than the average, therefore
we do not have to conform to anything.
For example, in our fantasy world, humans and elves have been fighting over
some land for MANY MANY years, and the fighting has JUST recently stopped.
Therefore, animosity (sp?! I wish they would bring up webster...) exists
between humans and elves. We were discouraged to have elves in our
party, since we'd have problems dealing with both human and elven villages.
Most of the party members however speak elven, which makes our party VERY
weird for the world we're in/on.
Well... not that I stuck with any one thread... but hopefully you get the
idea. After all, the semester is over, and webster is down...
Incoherently,
Chris.
==========================================
internet: che...@cs.buffalo.edu
uucp: {rutgers,boulder}!sunybcs!cheung
BITNET: cheung@sunybcs
WALKER, TERRY W
>...
>has anyone ever played a character
>of a different sexual preference than their own or
>a human race other than basically caucasian
I play an (Asian-)Indian, heterosexual halfling.
In reality, I am a pale, homosexual, 5'9" Texan.
I have been in a group where some of the players rolled the sexual
orientation of their characters. I chose mine. I am, however, creating
a new class of specialty priest of the Amer-Indian mythos which is
exclusively homosexual... the berdache priest. Heh.
- Terry Walker "The Mellow Tigger" Tww8297 @ Venus.Tamu.Edu
Melinda J. Klump
How could you play a female character if you have no concept of what it
is like to be a woman, but won't do the same thing for race or
orientation?
Just a question to make you think.
For those who have never played someone of a different orientation, give
it a try. Then let your character fall in love. It would be quite
interesting to find out what it is that you think makes members of the
same sex (MOTSS) attracted to each other.
It'll open your eyes to something you never thought you could understand.
one last note:
if you find acts between MOTSS nauseating, that is gay-bashing. period.
Getting disgusted by someone/thing is a response based on societal
training, and ridiculous.
It is an attraction to a certain gender that is the orientation: not
the aversion of the act not of your orientation
preaching done :-)
michael j pastor iii
guest on melinda's account
Chris Cheung
>I'm not really accusing you of being a homophobe, but...
>one last note:
>if you find acts between MOTSS nauseating, that is gay-bashing. period.
>Getting disgusted by someone/thing is a response based on societal
>training, and ridiculous.
>preaching done :-)
>michael j pastor iii
>guest on melinda's account
Hey... another preacher... :-)
1) Maybe you're not accusing anyone of being a homophobe, but you come off
as doing so.
2) "Getting disgusted by someone/thing is a response based on societal
training, and ridiculous." This maybe true, but I get disgusted when
I remember that people eat live baby rodents as a delicacy, or even
insects for that matter. Hey, I eat raw fish that I'm sure nauseates
other people. Is it ridiculous?? I don't think it really matters.
However, if I feel animosity towards someone because of what they
eat or do, that I MUST say is ridiculous.
"if you find acts between MOTSS nauseating, that is gay-bashing."
If you find eating flesh nauseating, that is flesh-eating-bashing.
Or is there some magical distinction reserved for gays? I think
the tone is very important, and from what I remember about the
original post, no offense was intended.
And if I used bad analogies... hey, I'm a CS major, not English. ;-)
ava...@maple.circa.ufl.edu
and fair, and my humans are Americanish or Spanish (once). The only exception
s are a few Spirit Folk and Hengeyokai, Oriental, and my NPC/PCs who are
Oriental Valley Elves. The majority have been the same race as I, even if
not the same gender. This is because it is hard to see most minorities in
a fantasy setting, since the base for frp is European. When I play a non
frp game, I play what comes natural to me, a white person.
This is a coincidence, but I am going to change that. Shadowrun is a good
game for racial intermingling. My next Shadowrun character is going to be
a Rastafarian Elf. (probably just rasta-looking, since I haven't had
experience to actually role-play a rasta-man) The name is Midnight.
A Soldier Of God
>
>if you find acts between MOTSS nauseating, that is gay-bashing. period.
>Getting disgusted by someone/thing is a response based on societal
>training, and ridiculous.
And throwing up when that person on the tv screen's stomach gets ripped apart
by (insert generic horror star) is violence bashing.
Yeah, right....
David Nalle
> has anyone ever played a character of a different sexual preference
> than their own or a human race other than basically caucasian (or
> whatever is considered "standard" in their campaign world-- Asian
> characters in an Oriental Adventures setting don't really count)?
I imagine you'll get a lot of 'yes' responses to this. I've played 2 female
characters over the years (maybe more, but only two who counted). Both were
heterosexual and relatively normal, though Metaxa had been abused as a child.
But talk about playing racial minorities! We run a campaign where there are
lots of races and different genotypes, and even a few non-humans. There are
several races which are actively persecuted and there have even been genocical
wars.
In that environment I've played a character with black skin from a very distant
land who didn't even speak a local language (at first) and had customs which
were viewed as barbaric. It was lots of fun. I've also played several non-
humans, one of whom (Udag the Batrag) wasn't even remotely humanoid in
appearance. And it all worked rather well once the character had proved his/her
worth regardless of racial origins.
Dave
David Nalle
> We started rolling for sexual preference in our characters originally
> as a joke. Now it is pretty much standard practice.
Why would you do this? Of all the areas to introduce randomness into a
game this part of character creation is so personal and so integral to the
character concept that it seems like a real violation of the idea of
creative role-playing.
DAve
Stephan Zielinski
>of a different sexual preference than their own or
Since I enjoy cultural anthropology, I have been known to play
non-white characters. I am willing to bet I am the ONLY person on the net
who has ever made a stab at running a Himalayan Brahmin... none of yer common
plains Hindus, now, I mean the full-blown Pahari thing.
I've run games set in the Roman Empire at its height, resulting in
parties containing quite a mix of characters-- one Celt, one Jew, and one
Nubian, for instance. I believe the LACK of interesting `minority' characters
is simply a result of lack of familiarity with other cultures. I'm lily white
m'self (OK, Polish, does that count as a minority this week?) but I figure I
could make a reasonable stab at playing a !Kung, Pahari, or Tongan (precontact
or Mormon!) Barriers to such gaming include:
1) Where do such characters fit into the game-world? The aforementioned
Pahari make no sense unless there's a Hindu society in the plains below;
Pahari culture is arguably a relaxed derivation of plains-Hindu culture.
(If anyone wants to argue that the plains Hindus are derivative of mountain
Hindus, go ahead, I don't care.) So the GM and I had to figure out where the
Pahari culture WAS. Now, this particular GM had ported the Forgotten Realms
to GURPS. I knew nothing of this game-world (still don't, the game folded
right quick) and we ended up handwaving something about a Banestorm...
happening recently enough the culture hadn't had much time to change. Most
fantasy world have a whole bunch of kingdoms, all cryptofrench or pseudoenglish,
and vague references to `other places' off the edge of the map. One would have
to wonder how a !Kung ended up in London. (Carrying a Coke bottle, perhaps?
[Just so you know, "The Gods Must Be Crazy" does not accurately depict !Kung
culture. !Kung kill. In fact, when !Kung characters speak in the film,
they're speaking gibberish. The director heard the actors talking and decided
that the language didn't sound exotic enough. So he told them to use more
clicks and pops.])
2) Monolithic approaches to magic. I'm fond of spellcasters and VERY
fond of religious spellcasters. GURPS isn't so bad that way; by ignoring the
implications of the spells and simply using the raw effects, I managed to wedge
the Pahari world view into something gameable. For instance, Pahari healing
is not yer European `Laying on of Hands.' To cast Major Healing,
the party would kick back and have a party (meat, alcohol, music,) and at some
point my character's wife would become possessed. Now, the gods love to dance,
but since they don't have bodies they can't; to get a favor from them, you have
to provide them with an outlet for their desires... A spirit would possess her
and dance, and eventually in return would heal the wounded fellow. We modeled
this as Ritual Spellcasting with Spectators; although the GM could care less
if we went ahead and did it `normally,' my character NEVER cast a spell without
justifying it under the Pahari world-view. Under most game systems, this would
be a Class VII Royal Pain. Under GURPS, it's just a Class I Royal Pain.
3) Inflexible GMs. I have been lucky; even the bad GMs I've dealt with
have been willing to let me weird out. But a young or insecure GM would be
trouble: take another example: GURPS Summon Spirit, page M63. Again, to cast
this spell, the Pahari caster would throw a party, and hopefully the dead
person's spirit would show up and possess the character's wife. But when the
spell succeeded, the GM described the atmosphere of the event in very European
terms: to white folk, the dead are FRIGHTENING and DANGEROUS. So he described
chills running down peoples spines and anxiety, THINGS moving in the shadows...
Now, I claim that to a Pahari, the dead are neither a threat nor particularly
spooky. When you die, eventually you're reborn. Big deal. So I leapt in
and suggested that this was not appropriate; the Western members of the party
may have been spooked out because they were talking to the dead, but MY
character certainly wouldn't have been.
4) Lack of separation of gaming system and culture. Take the most
egregious example I'm familiar with: AD&D V1. Inherent in the `class'
system is the societal role of the class; Paladins and Assassins have distinct
roles in the implicit culture. How do you implement a member of a Kali cult?
Or take Dragonquest (my system o' choice before GURPS): the skills all came
with descriptions of how practitioners fit into the surrounding culture. You
didn't learn Sex Appeal, you learned the *trade* of the *courtier*. It worked
fine if the embedded culture in question was European Medieval, but running
a game set in Japan would demand massive rules revisions.
Now, as far as alternate sexuality goes... I find that the question
doesn't come up much. Unless two participants in the game are interested in
role-playing a romance... and since most gamers I know are straight white
males, the idea fills them with anxiety. Usually discharged as satire and
mockery; I see a lot more whores and floozies go by than well-developed females
whom one's character might want to get involved with. Romance in RPGs is
touchy; folk have an easier time pretending the fellow across the table is a
Wise Respected Old Man than Potential MATE. Love is an intimate subject; when
it comes up in an RPG it's either laughed off, handwaved through, or simply
ignored. The levels cross; it rips itself out of the Let's Pretend context and
begins taking on real-world implications. If there are any gaming groups out
there that HAVE managed to role-play a romance between two characters (without
the players in question being each others real-world SOs!) I would be very
interested to hear about it. I've never seen it happen.
Lust would be a different question. I have gamed out the odd lustful
homosexual affair, but there was no romance involved. The genre was
modern-day James Bond fu; modern culture is not so intolerant of gays as
medieval european culture was. But this didn't count as playing a character
of a DIFFERENT sexual persuasion; I've taken to describing myself as
`predominantly straight;' my character was `predominantly gay.' (Come to
think of it, I usually play characters who are completely straight, but that's
not a hell of a leap.)
-Stephan Zielinski
--
The most exquisite pain is self inflicted.
SHAWN HICKS
>[...] Now I
>have a new question: has anyone ever played a character
>of a different sexual preference than their own or
>a human race other than basically caucasian [...]?
>--james
Yes. I have played both females and heterosexual characters. I have also played
female homosexual characters that started out male/het and were changed to
female. My GM thought it a neat curse to turn a guy into his fantasy female.
I did play a Dragonquest character called Whitesword who used to go into the
local rough tavern and ask for a "delightfully pale chardone'." He was called
Pinksword by his victims. ;> I don't recall ever specifically creating a
non-majority race character. We had black PC's and Asian PC's but I never
bothered to give any of my characters a specific race. I figured it really
didn't matter what race they were so why write it down? (With one exception,
I created a valley girl beach bimbo mage and she just *had* to be blond. I
wanted to be able to cast a death spell: "Like, die, you know?" and have the
victim sieze up and die. This was back in the early 80's when such things were
funny.)
___
\ \________________
| |_______________> InterNet: bali...@uns-helios.nevada.edu
/__/ //Ballistik// B0 c+ k s- e h+ r
Stephen Baillie
> Now, as far as alternate sexuality goes... I find that the question
>doesn't come up much. Unless two participants in the game are interested in
>role-playing a romance... and since most gamers I know are straight white
>males, the idea fills them with anxiety. Usually discharged as satire and
>mockery; I see a lot more whores and floozies go by than well-developed females
>whom one's character might want to get involved with. Romance in RPGs is
>touchy; folk have an easier time pretending the fellow across the table is a
>Wise Respected Old Man than Potential MATE. Love is an intimate subject; when
>it comes up in an RPG it's either laughed off, handwaved through, or simply
>ignored. The levels cross; it rips itself out of the Let's Pretend context and
>begins taking on real-world implications. If there are any gaming groups out
>there that HAVE managed to role-play a romance between two characters (without
>the players in question being each others real-world SOs!) I would be very
>interested to hear about it. I've never seen it happen.
This has happened to me once, at a convention. There were two characters (yes,
they were pregenerated, but who cares?), one a male half-elven bard and the
other a female human paladin, who were supposed to be interested in each other.
Now the other guy (who was playing the paladin due to a shortage of ladies)
took a little while to get used to the idea, but by the end of the module
the two characters had managed to become quite close. It was no problem -
we were both "in character" and fairly certain that we weren't interested in
RL (Me? I'm as straight as a board. A straight board that is ;-> ). I
personally was quite disappointed that the two didn't end up together
(this was because of a minor existance failure on the bard's part).
The main thing for this to be possible is just roleplaying - ie, playing
someone other than yourself.
I think that to roleplay someone different to yourself the only requirement
is a reasonable understanding of the other personality - this doesn't require
that you _be_ an example, just that you have some degree of understanding.
The better the understanding, the better you will be at playing that role.
Obviously, if you try to play yourself your results should be good. Although
it may be presumptuous to say I almost understand women at times (when they're
being coherent ;-> ), I have played females on occasion and done (IMHO) a
reasonable job. Trying to play a homosexual character would be a great
challenge to me as I fail to grasp the motivations for homosexuality.
Friendship between guys, sure. The rest... (To anyone who feels like flaming me
for this - I'm just trying to be honest. You wouldn't flame me for that,
would you??)
> Lust would be a different question. I have gamed out the odd lustful
>homosexual affair, but there was no romance involved. [bits deleted]
Sure, I could have a character actually get involved, but the understanding
would make roleplaying difficult. The character would tend to be more 2d
if I did this, but maybe I'd catch on eventually.
Steve.
"If these spirits have offended, think but this and it is mended:
That you have but slumbered here, while these visions did appear"
flames to /dev/null (best place for them, don't you agree)
bai...@mullauna.cs.mu.oz.au (Stephen Baillie)
paul-michael agapow
>so here goes...
>
>There was a thread a good while back about role-playing
>characters of the opposite sex from one's own. Now I
>have a new question: has anyone ever played a character
>of a different sexual preference than their own or
>a human race other than basically caucasian (or whatever
>is considered "standard" in their campaign world--
>Asian characters in an Oriental Adventures setting don't
>really count)?
Last year at Arcanacon there was a cyberpunk game that involved a
party of a two pairs of homosexual lovers. After the game, the
organiser made much ado about how this was great step forward
and that there had been not one instance of stereotypical roleplaying.
Alas, i feel (from observation) that this "triumph" was misplaced.
Most gamers tended to ignore the fact that their characters were lovers
and treated them like friends. Close friends in some cases but just
friends.
Me? i dunno - i think there is something in western culture that makes
a lot of gamers either unable to portray or scared to portray
homosexual characters, whilst maintaining thinly that they are open-
minded. Also it is interesting to contrast the sterotypical treatment
that diffrent racial types get with the above approach to homosexuality.
Hmpph.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
paul-michael agapow (aga...@latcs1.oz.au); AI Lab, LaTrobe University
"Face the world with a child on a stick" - Michael Leunig
Charles Jacob Cohen
>it a try. Then let your character fall in love. It would be quite
>interesting to find out what it is that you think makes members of the
>same sex (MOTSS) attracted to each other.
>
>It'll open your eyes to something you never thought you could understand.
>guest on melinda's account
Michael, just some quick points (hopefully r.g.frp won't have the same
discussions that soc.men and soc.women always have, but anyway :).
I don't think that a bunch of heterosexuals playing homosexual characters
will teach them anything. Maybe if the majority of the group were gays
and lesbians, then they would learn something.
But the other thing. I can't even figure out what makes me attracted to
members of the opposite sex! I mean, I know what I like, but I can't tell
you why I like it anymore that I can tell you why I like chocolate. So
I'm not sure that a gamer could "find out what it is that you think makes
members of the same sex attracted to each other." *However* it may turn
out that they really understand discrimination and stuff. - Chuck
(where is my .sig file???)
.
Ryk E Spoor
On the contrary; it's a perfect addition to the idea of creative
role-playing. It is one of the reasons I like randomly rolling a character.
You don't start with any preconceptions and you may suddenly find yourself
with a character with traits that you would NEVER choose left to yourself.
It is then MUCH more a REAL role-playing challenge to take up a character
that is undeniably YOURS but has traits you did not directly choose
and then ROLE PLAY it. Left to themselves, most people fall into a
rut, always playing similar characters. Rolling traits like that
randomly is a good way to kick yourself out of such ruts.
Sea Wasp
/^\
;;;
William Henry Timmins
Um, willie don't think so. If you find acts between MOTSS nauseating,
all you are guilty of is having a biased reaction to a situation.
If you avoid gay/lesbian/bi/etc BECAUSE of this reaction, that's prejudice.
If you act differently towards gay/lesbian/bi/etc, that's discrimination.
And if you do violence to gay/lesbian/bi/etc, that's gay-bashing.
Personally, I'm guilty of discrimination and biased reactions, but I'm
working on it.
-Me
James E. Kittock Esq.
>begins taking on real-world implications. If there are any gaming groups out
>there that HAVE managed to role-play a romance between two characters (without
>the players in question being each others real-world SOs!) I would be very
>interested to hear about it. I've never seen it happen.
Well, since you asked, actually, in the campaign I relief-DM'd (the first
DM graduated, the second wanted to play, so I got called up from the
minors!), we did have a male and female character (played by male and
female players respectively) have a romance and eventually ended up
getting married. Diana (the female player) did not have such a hard
time with this, she thought it was pretty fun. Paul (the male player),
got a little embarassed about it, but did an OK job. Not only were they
NOT each other's SO, they really tended to get on each others' nerves!
On the other hand, in the last campaign in which I played, the DM and
one of my fellow players were each others' SOs and eventually her
character ended up hitting it off with an NPC (played by the DM, of
course) travelling companion of ours in a vaguely romantic way...
needless to say, the rest of the party was pretty annoyed by this, and
one of us keeps hoping (out loud) he will finally get shredded in
combat, so maybe it is not always such a great thing.
After all, having your character & your SO's character be SO's is not
doing much roleplaying, is it?
Ryk E Spoor
>In article <1991May20.0...@agate.berkeley.edu> ste...@lurnix.com writes:
>
>>begins taking on real-world implications. If there are any gaming groups out
>>there that HAVE managed to role-play a romance between two characters (without
>>the players in question being each others real-world SOs!) I would be very
>>interested to hear about it. I've never seen it happen.
I've done it many times and seen it happen many other times. The most
dramatic instance for me was while I was playing Lord Tarellimade Shantrakar,
an exiled Prince of a small island kingdom, and he began travelling with
a party of adventurers. He became close with, and soon fell in love with,
the Lady Koriand'r (yes, very much like the Teen Titan.... in appearance
AND temperament!). Now, I happen to be a straight male, and the player of
Kory was also a straight male friend of mine, so there was no relationship
between US, that was sure! But the romance of Tarellimade and Koriand'r
became part of the epics of that world; we fought side by side, rescued
each other from fates worse than death, and finally were married after
saving my kingdom and my accession to the throne.
In another game that I was running, my SO was involved. However,
her character didn't get involved with any of the NPCs; instead she fell
for one of the other player characters.
I've seen it happen at least five other times, not counting the
several several times I have done it myself ( I find such interactions
add a lot of interest to the character... )
Sea Wasp
Jonah H Cohen
>if you find acts between MOTSS nauseating, that is gay-bashing. period.
>Getting disgusted by someone/thing is a response based on societal
>training, and ridiculous.
>
> It is an attraction to a certain gender that is the orientation: not
>the aversion of the act not of your orientation
>
>michael j pastor iii
Er, before the flames burn something to the ground... I believe what
the original poster Michael refers to meant was that he found the thought of
being involved in acts between MOTSS >himself< was distasteful. (and, IMHO,
such opinions are not the sole result of "societal training." Personally, the
phrase smacks too much of the PC Thought Police.)
I believe (pardon me if I'm wrong) what Michael meant was that if
you find the thought of >anyone< performing said acts nauseating, >that's<
homophobia. (And kinda strange when you think about it. Why anyone would give
a flying fig about what 2 consenting adults do in their own bed is way
beyond me.)
Nuff said.
Jonah Cohen aka Schneider :>
Charles Jacob Cohen
>Is this making more sense? A parallel in drama is when a great actor
>plays a slapstick comedy role when they've always been sheakespearean,
>or vice-versa.
Yes, it is making more sense. But remember that the shakespearian (however
it is spelled!) actor can't even attempt slapstick unless he has an idea
what slapstick is! - Chuck
Nick Janow
> For those who have never played someone of a different orientation, give it a
> try. Then let your character fall in love. It would be quite interesting to
> find out what it is that you think makes members of the same sex (MOTSS)
> attracted to each other.
>
> It'll open your eyes to something you never thought you could understand.
Role-playing is an excellent means of exploring and understanding other ways of
thinking/living. However, it is not always easy, and can mislead a person if
he rest of the group doesn't understand (what if the group is made up of
homophobes, who will torment the person trying to role-play a gay?).
While education gained from rpg'ing is a nice bonus, most people play it for
_fun_, not to improve their understanding of other people. If someone enjoys
playing characters of their own sexual preference and finds playing another
preference work, let them have fun!
Nick Janow
> Of all the areas to introduce randomness into a game this part of character
> creation [character's sex] is so personal and so integral to the character
> concept that it seems like a real violation of the idea of creative
> role-playing.
_Creating_ a character and creative _role-playing_ are two entirely different
things. It's possible to creatively role-play a character you didn't create
the character sheet for. I think it's easier to play a character that I've had
a part in the creation of, since I can decide against some things that I find
hard to role-play properly (ie. sexual preference, gambling). However, for
those parts of a character that I have no preferences about, I prefer to leave
to chance.
One person can be very creative in role-playing a character they didn't
generate from scratch; another can generate a character with one of those
"start with an image of the character, then fill in the attributes, etc"
systems and be very uncreative in role-playing it.
I think most people have come across players who play exactly the same
character, no matter what the attributes, race, career/class, age, etc. :-)
Melinda J. Klump
To add to this wonderful point: one of the most satisfying and
challenging roles for actors to play is that with a lot of ad-lib: you
never know what you are going to get, and if done well, it really shows.
That's why so many actors workshops have those instances where two
actors are on a bare stage while people yell out STOP! and then a
situation or character, or they themselves get on and start a new story.
A lot of comic book writers (myself included) like to take an old
character with a little or a lot of contradictory history and revitalize
them by salviging the more important aspects.
I much prefer generating a random character to the point of using the
height weight NPC tables and personality tables in the 1st ed. DM's
guide. Those characters have been by far the most interesting.
Melinda J. Klump
I don't think that a bunch of heterosexuals playing homosexual characters
will teach them anything. Maybe if the majority of the group were gays
and lesbians, then they would learn something.
But the other thing. I can't even figure out what makes me attracted to
members of the opposite sex! I mean, I know what I like, but I can't tell
you why I like it anymore that I can tell you why I like chocolate. So
I'm not sure that a gamer could "find out what it is that you think makes
members of the same sex attracted to each other." *However* it may turn
out that they really understand discrimination and stuff. - Chuck
(where is my .sig file???)
*************************
I've been having the worst time with this discussion because I've been
suffering from major writer's block here, and connot even get a p[oint
across: so the confusion is all my fault and please bear with me. I
agree with you chuck to some degree above. Maybe when you do something
that you normally wouldn't do under any circumstances (not from distate,
but from lack of reason or motivation), you gain a new perspective on
that instance (gay attraction) and the motivations for your own, which
you probably never thought of or took for granted.
Is this making more sense? A parallel in drama is when a great actor
plays a slapstick comedy role when they've always been sheakespearean,
or vice-versa.
Please, I'm not trying to flame anyone or make you all gay-positive P.C>
people. Being gay, and not having all my RPG pals know that,I always
had to play characters the opposite orientation *I* was to save my life,
as well as in real life. When I started RPGing, it allowed me to look
at motivations from an actors point of view, which made me understand
sexuality all the more.
Clay Luther
>Ok, an earlier post of mine made me wonder about this,
>so here goes...
>There was a thread a good while back about role-playing
>characters of the opposite sex from one's own. Now I
>have a new question: has anyone ever played a character
>of a different sexual preference than their own or
>a human race other than basically caucasian (or whatever
>is considered "standard" in their campaign world--
>Asian characters in an Oriental Adventures setting don't
>really count)?
I don't play, I GM, but here goes...
In all of my fantasy worlds, I have attempted to portray sex as sex was in
historical times, taking cues from large and successful early civilized
countries. Before the entry of monotheism, sex was often not a question of
preference, but a statement of power over another individual. The terms
heterosexual and homosexual and bisexual did not exist. A man could have sex
with whoever he wanted, as long as he had power over that individual. The
Romans made no distinction between a man with a boy or youth lover and a man
with a woman lover. However, there were taboos, some surprising to me. First,
as stated above, a man could take a boy or youth or woman as his lover. The
man could perform intercourse and receive felatio. However, the man could
*not* accept intercourse or give felatio (in Rome, such men were called
degenerare). If a man accepted intercourse from a slave, the "crime" was
punishable by death.
Once a boy reached the age of manhood, he was no longer subject to the older
man's affections. He was expected to find his own lovers, male or female. The
older man would also find a new lover.
Since women and slaves were second class citizens (literally property), the man
could continue to have sex with adult women and male slaves.
I have patterned my fantasy games after this. Civilized noble men have a good
chance of having had an older male (or female) lover during adolescence.
However, on reaching adolescence, the new man is expected to find his own.
In taverns and hostels, characters can easily find women and young men for
their pleasure. In fact, in frontier areas, boys are easier to come by than
women.
This is not to say I have formed a homogenous world based on the assumptions
above. Some cultures do not encourage same-sex relations at all. Others (for
instance, the culture formed around the worship of a pleasure god) encourage
same-sex relationships to the exclusion of others (heterosex is seen as a mode
of reproduction rather than an act of simple pleasure).
It works.
--
Clay Luther, Postmaster clu...@supernet.dallas.haus.com
Harris Adacom Corporation clu...@enigma.dallas.haus.com
Voice: 214/386-2356 MS 23, PO Box 809022, Dallas, Tx 75380-9022
Fax: 214/386-2159 Your mileage may vary. Void where prohibited.
Clay Luther
> This is not something I feel I can really do a good job of.
>For one, I find the idea of homosexuality (as in, me performing
>homosexual acts) somewhat nauseating. Please don't flame me, I am
>not gay-bashing. What others' sexual preferences are is their
Cheap shot. Very cheap shot.
Cort Odekirk
(just becuase its not worth it to sit their and try to enlighten what is by
and large an ironically narrow minded group of individuals), so in effect yes,
We do play characters with orientations other than our own, (same would play
for bi gamers).
Fortunatly I run more than I play and have managed over the years to form a
primarily gay group and opened the minds of the other groups I game in, so I
play whatever I want and feel is appropriate for the character.
I know most gamers like to play one type or a personality similar to their own,
I am a Theatre Arts major and run my characters and games with this in mind.
Gaming allows you to explore whole new ideas and personalities, this, for me,
is the real joy of gaming. I can be *me* anytime.
Hope that was helpfull, (without being to militant, I have a failing in that
direction sometimes :). It's nice to see someone else on the net not afraid
to mention the *G* word.
*************************************************************************
Corto&sumax.seattleu.edu * "Nice legs, for a human."
Maelstrom 1573 (SeattleBB) * - Worf, STNG
*************************************************************************
Darin McGrew
> It is one of the reasons I like randomly rolling a character.
>You don't start with any preconceptions and you may suddenly find yourself
>with a character with traits that you would NEVER choose left to yourself.
>It is then MUCH more a REAL role-playing challenge to take up a character
>that is undeniably YOURS but has traits you did not directly choose
>and then ROLE PLAY it.
I think I've picked up on a major difference between the various
factions in this discussion. Michael's enjoyment of roleplaying
appears to derive from playing as diverse a range of characters
as possible. Other players have different motivations behind
their roleplaying.
Character depth is what I find satisfying. Creating character
depth before play requires a lot of work from the player and GM,
so few people will bother unless they expect the character to be
around for a while. Creating (additional) depth during the
adventure requires a longterm campaign. Even when I had a lot
more free time (ie, while in college), I only played a couple
characters a year. Thus, to some degree my style of roleplaying
would prevent me from playing an incredibly diverse range of
characters, even if I wanted to.
There are many types of characters I don't want to play,
including thieves, rapists, assassins, alcoholics, and con
artists. I don't want to practice thinking in the ways these
characters would think. Sure, only roleplaying more wholesome
characters is "limiting", but that's the point; I avoid
practicing behaviour and thought patterns I wouldn't want to
engage in in real life. But at the same time, this allows me
more character depth, because I don't end up with characters that
are completely foreign to me or whose values (or lack thereof) I
find offensive.
Darin McGrew "The Beginning will make all things new,
mcg...@Eng.Sun.COM New Life belongs to Him.
Affiliation stated for He hands us each new moment saying,
identification purposes only. 'My child, begin again....
You're free to start again.'"
Ryk E Spoor
>michael j pastor iii, guest of mk...@andrew.cmu.edu (Melinda J. Klump) writes:
>> It is one of the reasons I like randomly rolling a character.
>>You don't start with any preconceptions and you may suddenly find yourself
>>with a character with traits that you would NEVER choose left to yourself.
>I think I've picked up on a major difference between the various
>factions in this discussion. Michael's enjoyment of roleplaying
is MINE, not Michaels...
>appears to derive from playing as diverse a range of characters
>as possible. Other players have different motivations behind
>their roleplaying.
>
>Character depth is what I find satisfying. Creating character
>depth before play requires a lot of work from the player and GM,
Also, you appear to be under the impression that character depth
can only be attained before play. Odd. I create the character depth
perhaps just before play, but certainly after rolling. But a lot of the
depth is created during play. I devote an immense amount of time to
every character I play. Usually after the first session I have enough
of an idea of the character so that I can go home and write a ten-page
background on him/her/it, filled with details on personal background,
temperament, relations, etc. I always try to avoid adding anything
that will modify the character's EFFECTIVENESS so as not to usurp
the GM's prerogative, although I may add things like a vendetta or
a phobia or some other axe to grind...
I do agree that there are some things that you may not want
to play, and in fact there are some that I don't want to play and
if they are rolled I ignore them and reroll. Rapists certainly
fit in that category. I've been barred in three worlds from playing
evil characters, but to be honest that was no great loss because
the enjoyment of the Dark Side wore thin real fast.
Sea Wasp
/^\
;;;
Darin McGrew
>In article <13...@exodus.Eng.Sun.COM> mcg...@ichthous.Eng.Sun.COM (Darin McGrew) writes:
>>michael j pastor iii, guest of mk...@andrew.cmu.edu (Melinda J. Klump) writes:
>>> It is one of the reasons I like randomly rolling a character.
>>>You don't start with any preconceptions and you may suddenly find yourself
>>>with a character with traits that you would NEVER choose left to yourself.
> [stuff deleted]
>is MINE, not Michaels...
I beg your pardon. You may have said something very similar, but
I just doublechecked the article I replied to. It was signed by
Michael, and the "From:" header listed Melinda's account.
I wrote:
>>Character depth is what I find satisfying. Creating character
>>depth before play requires a lot of work from the player and GM,
Ryk writes:
> Also, you appear to be under the impression that character depth
>can only be attained before play....
Not at all. A few sentences later, I wrote:
>> Creating (additional) depth during the
>>adventure requires a longterm campaign.
Maybe I should have made a stronger point of this. Even when
I've started play with a character with lots of depth, during the
course of play the character gains a lot more depth. Sometimes
I've started play with very little depth, and developed it over
the course of play.
Either way, developing this kind of depth requires a lot of time
(either before play, during play, or between sessions), which
makes it difficult to play more than a handful of characters in
this way.
Ryk E Spoor
>res...@unix.cis.pitt.edu (Ryk E Spoor) writes:
>> First, PLEASE KEEP TRACK OF YOUR ATTRIBUTIONS. This paragraph
>>is MINE, not Michaels...
>
>I beg your pardon. You may have said something very similar, but
>I just doublechecked the article I replied to. It was signed by
>Michael, and the "From:" header listed Melinda's account.
Quite so; but they were quoting from me in THAT letter; they may
have eliminated my header, but I know my own text; the capitalization, etc,
is mine precisely. If you look in that article at the references, you will see
me (unix.cis.pitt.edu)....
>Either way, developing this kind of depth requires a lot of time
>(either before play, during play, or between sessions), which
>makes it difficult to play more than a handful of characters in
>this way.
Guess it depends on how much time you have to spend on
gaming. Having gamed for 15 years, sometimes in as many as 5 campaigns
at once, I have at least 50 characters which are as well developed as
*I* am... maybe more so. Hell, I know more about the background and motivation
of at least ten to twenty of them better than I do my own. And the
background I create on the fly for most of them is almost as detailed
as my own. Ten pages of single-spaced text for each.
But you certainly do need a lot of time to make the REST of the
party know him/her/it well enough to ACT as though the character was
that detailed/real...
Sea Wasp
Clay Luther
Wow! You don't mean Koriand'r, daughter of Q'men and P'preeqa?
Mark Grundy
In article <1991May20....@latcs2.lat.oz.au>, aga...@latcs2.lat.oz.au (paul-michael agapow) writes:
> In article <6746...@moth.cs.duke.edu> j...@duke.cs.duke.edu (James "Cthulhu" Kittock) writes:
>> There was a thread a good while back about role-playing characters of the
opposite sex from one's own. Now I have a new question: has anyone ever
played a character of a different sexual preference than their own or a
human race other than basically caucasian (or whatever is considered
"standard" in their campaign world-- Asian characters in an Oriental
Adventures setting don't really count)?
> Last year at Arcanacon there was a cyberpunk game that involved a party
of a two pairs of homosexual lovers. After the game, the organiser made
much ado about how this was great step forward and that there had been
not one instance of stereotypical roleplaying.
As I recall, one pair was homosexual male; one was male and female.
It certainly wasn't the first time that I'd played a tournament as a
female or a gay. I seem to recall that a John Marshall Cthulhu game
from an early Sydcon was the first time I saw a gay character.
> Alas, i feel (from observation) that this "triumph" was misplaced.
Most gamers tended to ignore the fact that their characters were lovers
and treated them like friends. Close friends in some cases but just
friends.
Not the case with our group. There were two non-gratuitous love-scenes at
appropriate moments, which were described fairly graphically [although
not enacted :-)]. One occurred on the bonnet of a car, with the
owner/occupant too terrified to move from inside the broken-down vehicle.
The other was on the back steps of a nondescript Melbourne house while
the police were chasing the pair. Both seemed to fit the flavour of the
moment pretty well, I thought :-)
> Me? i dunno - i think there is something in western culture that makes a
lot of gamers either unable to portray or scared to portray homosexual
characters, whilst maintaining thinly that they are open- minded. Also
it is interesting to contrast the sterotypical treatment that diffrent
racial types get with the above approach to homosexuality.
As an ex-Western Suburbs Sydneyite, I understand what you mean. It
helps to have gay friends, I think. If your only conception of gay men
is child-molesters in lipstick and rubber handbags, then it's hard to
play anything that isn't a caricature.
There is (in my opinion) a surprisingly high representation of gay
and bisexual people among convention roleplayers, and quite a lot of
straight roleplayers have friends whom they know are gay. I don't know
that the cyberpunk was a triumph of social acceptance either; I think
that more likely it's just the people who played it.
Open-mindedness is not the same thing as understanding. A person
can be open-minded about gay people, but may still not know how to play
one. Under those circumstances, it's neither surprising nor an
indictment that they feel uncomfortable with the idea. Open-mindedness
is about how you handle _real_, not _imaginary_ situations...
--
----- ---- ------
ma...@arp.anu.edu.au Mark Grundy
David Nalle
> > There are many types of characters I don't want to play, including
> > thieves, rapists, assassins, alcoholics, and con artists. I don't >
> want to practice thinking in the ways these characters would think. >
> Sure, only roleplaying more wholesome characters is "limiting", but >
> that's the point; I avoid practicing behaviour and thought patterns I
> > wouldn't want to engage in in real life. But at the same time, this
> > allows me more character depth, because I don't end up with >
> characters that are completely foreign to me or whose values (or lack
> > thereof) I find offensive.
This goes along very well with the discussion of how heterosexual players should
be required to play homosexual characters to expand their horizons.
I never thought I would see it happening, but the 'political correctness'
movement, 'multiculturalism' included seems to be creeping into the world of
role-playing, and that's a really frightening development.
No longer will their be sexist, violent, racist or elitist elements in your
RPG worlds. Everything will be the same. You'll be spurned unless your world
consists of a single, egalitarian culture where everyone dresses, looks and
even talks the same. Everyone will be nice all the time and no one will ever
play an evil character, or even come into conflict with the forces of evil.
Adventures will consist of characters sitting around discussing how their
lives can advance the needs of mankind or PCkind as a whole.
Come ON, people. That's not the way humanity is. The thing which makes
role-playing work is that it reflects and magnifies the real world. It isn't
an escape from reality, it is ultra-intensified reality, more exciting, more
dangerous, more frightening than the real world. The evils are fouler, the
violence more intense, the bigotry more outrageous. It is an opportunity for
us to play out our negative feelings from the real world in an arena where
no one will be hurt. Why try to rip the guts out of it?
To deal with the specific comments Darin made: I'm no more a mad, slavering
criminal than he is, but I've played rapists and thieves and assassins and
alcoholics and con artists. Hell, I've even played a sexually deviant mass
murderer. But the point is that a PLAYED these roles, I did not beome the
roles. If he's going to repress all the twisted tendancies which may be in his
mind and not even express them in the harmless world of role-playing, then
what, exactly, is the point of role-playing at all? If it's a way to strive
to be the BEST you can be, then why bother? Your character's just an
incarnation of an improved you, and you'd be better off spending that time
in the real world trying to make the real you nicer.
Role-playing is a great didactic tool, but you don't learn much by trying s
something which isn't new and which doesn't challenge the imagination. If you
want to convince someone he doesn't want to be a bigot, make him PLAY a real
bigot, not a victim of bigotry. Nothing gets the message across better than
getting inside someone else's skin. That's what role-playing is all about.
Dave
Melinda J. Klump
The discussion up to this point
**************
>Is this making more sense? A parallel in drama is when a great actor
>plays a slapstick comedy role when they've always been sheakespearean,
>or vice-versa. Michael
Yes, it is making more sense. But remember that the shakespearian (however
it is spelled!) actor can't even attempt slapstick unless he has an idea
what slapstick is! - Chuck
**********************
so he talks to actors that do slapstick, or watches a lot of slapstick comedy.
so talk to us faggots and watch us fuck! :-)
just kidding though: off the hip is not necessarily bad to do: you're
going to find out eventually through trial and error what feels right
(motivations and actions) eventually. So do a little reading otherwise!
Would you play a samaauri or a celtic priest without research either?
Viktor Haag
>so here goes...
>
>characters of the opposite sex from one's own. Now I
>have a new question: has anyone ever played a character
>of a different sexual preference than their own or
>a human race other than basically caucasian (or whatever
>is considered "standard" in their campaign world--
>Asian characters in an Oriental Adventures setting don't
>really count)?
I am in a HarnMaster campaign (hi Brian) that is going quite well. My first
character was a young female harper (I am male), and the second character
I had was a simple glassblower, male, named Hain of Olokand. Hain was
indeed confused about his sexual orientation, and tending towards the gay
end of things, but in a feudal/medieval society like Harn this sort of
attitude is likely to get one burnt before pleased, so it was kept hush hush.
The other player characters had one opportunity to discover Hain's "dark
secret", but he denied his feelings, and claimed that he didn't want to
sleep with the girl in question because he was too busy staying alive, and
that he had some sort of nebulous religious conviction that prevented him
from "lying with a woman".
This mysterious androgyny, coupled with the combat skills that I kept hidden
until an effective moment, combined with my inordinately high intrigue and
orate skills, led the other players to beleive that the 'simple glassblower'
was obviously something much more dangerous ....
To this day the running joke in the campaign is that the glassblower's guild
is a front for organised crime, or something far worse ...
I suppose that this situation doesn't really count as fully playing an
overtly gay character, but his orientation did count in several role
playing situations, even though he was closeted rather firmly.
I thought that playing a closeted character first would be a smooth lead in,
should I ever try my hand at playing an overtly gay character in some future
setting. I also thought that playing an overtly gay character who was also
a glassblower would lead to all sorts of uncomfortable jokes, and I wanted the
character to be a real person, whose sexual orientation just happened to be
different from the majority.
vik
--
vik an aspiring HERO guru
Phil Hammar
>For those who have never played someone of a different orientation, give
>it a try. Then let your character fall in love. It would be quite
>same sex (MOTSS) attracted to each other.
>guest on melinda's account
I have done this in a RQ campaign I am in. The character is
bisexual in the finest of military traditions, myself being
heterosexual, and has a passion for his horse (which the party
constantly ribs him about; they just don't understand the bond between
a man and his horse, especially in the cavalry). His current boy
friend is a half elven carnival-player-turned-adventurer. The problem
that is starting to arise in my character's head is that of
permenance. The society frown on such relationships, so getting
married will be difficult, though he feels it is probably the right
thing to do. To furhter complicate the matter, there is a female
character in our party (a very icy woman) that both of our characters
have been trying to bed (individually and jointly), who has started to
show some emotion and is, unbeknownst to her, stealing my character's
heart. My life hasn't had such complications since college; it's a
good game.
Philip Hammar
Sys. Admin. for CIPG of KEPS, a wholly owned subsidiary of E. KODAK Co.
UUCP: ...!{harvard!ima,uunet!atexnet}!munsell!jackal Phone: (508)670-6650
Internet: jac...@keps.kodak.com
--
Philip Hammar
Sys. Admin. for CIPG of KEPS, a wholly owned subsidiary of E. KODAK Co.
UUCP: ...!{harvard!ima,uunet!atexnet}!munsell!jackal Phone: (508)670-6650
Internet: jac...@keps.kodak.com
Viktor Haag
>
> The same goes for those of differing race. Basically, either
>they are going to be the same (in which case, you might as well not
>have "race" in the campaign), or they will be different (in
>experiences, culture, etc.). In the latter case (assuming that the
>race in question is not a "made up for <RPG of choice> race"), I
>really don't see how anyone not of that race could do a decent job.
>I fear the result would be something like the plethora of
>"blacksploitation" movies written and directed by whites.
> It has been noted that writers "write about what they know."
>I think the same is true for role-players. We role-play things that
>we know -- either we imagine them, see them in movies, read about
>them in books/manga/comics, or something like that. The same can
>not really hold true for other races and sexual orientations. Maybe
>you can view others as equal (as I do), but you can't really know
>what it's like.
While there is a good deal in your post that I agree with, I fundamentally
disagree with your premise - that you have to have direct experience of
something to empathise with it. I think that this has some merit as a
hypothesis, but that it has rather alarming implications when bandied about
in a public forum with little regard for exact techniques of argumentation.
Please understand first of all, that I am not flaming *you*. As I said
before, your point of view has a good deal of merit. I agree to a point, in
that I think that beginning role players should stick to playing a
character that closely mirrors themselves, until they have acquired the
flexibility and the skill to try their hand at something different.
There are several dangers in your proposition however.
1) Empahty is impossible -- you assert that it would be impossible
to understand and therefore roleplay identities with different cultural
assumptions from yourself. I have no doubt that any person could roleplay
someone with different physical characteristics, with a little effort, and
this would to some extent cover a different sex or race. The real difficulty
comes in, as the poster points out, with understanding the implications of the
physical or social difference. We all understand what it is to be female, but
it is much more difficult to understand what it *means* to be female.
I reject your assertion that this understanding is impossible,
however, although it is certainly gaining acceptance as politically correct
in North America nowadays. Humans are by nature creatures of understanding
and come mostly readymade with a capacity to observe and assimilate the
unknown -- this flexibility is perhaps our greatest asset, as it allows us
to overcome parochial instincts, invent tools and advance practical thought,
and to construct myth. Acceptance of the full implications of your assertion
causes such alarming common notions as - believing that only an African
American can teach students about African culture, believing that only a
woman can teach students about Women's roles in society, believing that
it is alright to dispose of other cultures, or assimilate them whole,
because they are obviously inferior to our own.
The rejection of our capacity to empathise robs us primarily of
our objectivity, and encourages us to make falsly based ethnocentric
judgements willy nilly.
2) Diversity is impossible -- the second major danger of your
assertions would imply that since we are unable to fully empathise with the
'other/alien/different', we must be distinctly different. This is an
incorrect and dangerous assumption. While it may be true that physical
differences can never be fully understood or overcome, they are relatively
easy to ignore (there are of course exceptions to this as certain physical
processes have a discernable and definite effect on social behaviour --
pregnancy for example, or menstruation, or spontaneous erection -- and these
may be the most difficult things to empathise with as they are firmly based
on the physical equipment one has at one's disposal). The essential
differences that are available to role play are not physical hurdles to
overcome, but cultural hurdles. All cultures are different, but it has long
been documented that all human cultures have some cultural similarity.
Indeed, it is this very similarity which allows us to understand other
cultural practices and beliefs. We are able to understand alien culture
by equation with our own, and the mappings for human cultures are close
enough that a good approximation of an alien culture can be mimicked with
enough practice. A simple way of expressing this would be to say that
all of us have a little woman/amerindian/kalihari/english and so forth in
us that would enable us to understand and empathise with native cultural
practitioners. The roleplayer can, therefore, undertake to play a character
with different cultural assumptions from his/her own, and perform the
task satisfactorily with enough time, practice, and research/observation.
There are several other minor points which directly have an impact on
roleplaying, and not so much to do with the larger issue of ethnocentricity.
The first is the fact that most roleplaying environments are not culturally
unique. The trappings may be different but the cultures being portrayed are
the identical to those of the people participating. A good roleplaying
campaign has a society with solid cultural background that is different from
our own Western culture. Since we know that all cultures are essentially
different, and unique (even those who live in the next valley may have
to some extent a different culture from our own), it should become obvious
that a good roleplayer will always be roleplaying a different culture in
a fantasy setting, even though the physical paramaters of the character
may match that of the player. To this extent, a different sex or orientation
should be just another cultural element for the expert roleplayer to
assimilate and mimic. (note - there is a huge difference between sex and
gender. I have not really attempted to go into the differences here as it
would treble the size of my already large article. Simplistically put,
sex is physically formed, and gender is culturally formed, and it is the
gender that one mimics when one roleplays, and not usually the sex. One
can however get into situations where one may be forced to roleplay
certain implications of sex - the implications of menstruation in a fantasy
setting can be set aside, but it is a basic fact of life, and has a huge
impact on religion and mythology in culture, and it is basically a function of
sex and not gender.
The last point I wish to make here, is that the posters view of roleplaying
different cultural viewpoints is certainly understandable given the method
that most roleplayers use to mimic other cultures. Too many roleplayers
mimic other cultures by playing a stereotype, by 'being black' or
'acting gay', by assuming the stereotypical behaviour that a predominately
white male experience has handed down to us. This has the effect of
projecting a picture of a hairy linebacker mincing in a ballroom gown, and
little more. While I do not claim to have the answer to cross-cultural
roleplaying, I can say that a more successful method attempts to build
the character from the ground up. When playing a gay male character, it
can be more successful to do it this way *to begin with*. Play the
character as you would a straight male character to begin with, always
keeping in mind that the only essential difference (rightly so or not) is
that you now like sleeping with members of the same sex. Slowly through
play you may discover the implications of what it can mean to be gay/female/
black/whatever as you discover the differences in the way "soceity"
conforms or does not confrom to your expectations. Since a chain is only
as good as its weakest link, the successful portrayal of *any*
divergent culture in a role playing setting depends heavily on the
willingness and effort/research of both you and your gm, and to a certain
extent, the other players around you.
Lastly, I agree with the spirit of the poster's article, that roleplaying
a different cultural mindset is a very difficult and intensive thing, if
done properly. However, I don't believe that it is impossible, and I do
believe that it is very rewarding when accomplished.
gary alan whicker
>Ok, an earlier post of mine made me wonder about this,
>so here goes...
> --- Stuff Deleted
>I have only ever played an ascetic character with no
>sexual preference whatsoever (the rest of the male ones
>were love-starved romantics or else it wasn't relevant to
>the campaign and never developed). And all of my characters
>have been, surprise, white.
>
>Minority gamers (who are truly a minority among gamers, from
>my own experience)-- what do you think about this subject?
>
My main problem with playing such characters is my lack of
knowledge with other races / lifestyles. If I have no idea what such
a persons ideals
or motivations are, all I could manage to pull off would be a stereotypical
farce.
[][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][]
o "All dross of education and civilization slipped from me, o
o leaving only the primitive man, only the primordial soul, o
o red-taloned, ferocious." - Robert E. Howard o
o------------------------------------------------------------------o
o Gary Whicker | whi...@handel.cs.colostate.edu | AMIGA of course o
[][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][]
Dakin Burdick
>criminal than he is, but I've played rapists and thieves and assassins and
>alcoholics and con artists. Hell, I've even played a sexually deviant mass
>murderer.
I just thought I'd jump in on this discussion. So far, you guys have
only discussed the idea of evil PCs from the players' point of view.
As a DM, I don't allow evil PCs in my world, mainly because I designed
the thing and I don't need more evil in it. I enjoy DMing when the
good guys win or when they have fun interacting with the PCs. I don't
have fun when they rape the noble lady I spent 15 min. developing. I
especially frown on PCs murdering one another, and give the murdered
PC an excellent chance of coming back as a Spectre, Revenant, Ghost,
etc. On the other hand, I encourage con-artistry and theft.
Assassination is frowned upon, but people can still take assassins.
>Role-playing is a great didactic tool, but you don't learn much by trying s
>something which isn't new and which doesn't challenge the imagination. If you
>want to convince someone he doesn't want to be a bigot, make him PLAY a real
>bigot, not a victim of bigotry. Nothing gets the message across better than
>getting inside someone else's skin. That's what role-playing is all about.
How is a bigot playing a bigot an example of getting inside someone
else's skin?
Dakin Burdick
Viktor Haag
>
>Role-playing is an excellent means of exploring and understanding other ways of
>thinking/living. However, it is not always easy, and can mislead a person if
>he rest of the group doesn't understand (what if the group is made up of
>homophobes, who will torment the person trying to role-play a gay?).
In the case that you sketch out above, the person will learn a valuable
lesson about being gay and the way that some cultures can treat those who
are. Granted, that this cultural expression may be of 'the players' and
not of the 'game world', but I have a feeling that any gaming group that
is not open minded enough to handle a gay character in their midst is
probably only role playing in a transmogrified Poughkeepsie anyway.
paul-michael agapow
>
>In article <1991May20....@latcs2.lat.oz.au>, aga...@latcs2.lat.oz.au (paul-michael agapow) writes:
>> In article <6746...@moth.cs.duke.edu> j...@duke.cs.duke.edu (James "Cthulhu" Kittock) writes:
>>> There was a thread a good while back about role-playing characters of the
> opposite sex from one's own. Now I have a new question: has anyone ever
> played a character of a different sexual preference than their own or a
>
> of a two pairs of homosexual lovers. After the game, the organiser made
> much ado about how this was great step forward and that there had been
> not one instance of stereotypical roleplaying.
>
> As I recall, one pair was homosexual male; one was male and female.
My memory serves otherwise - but i'm not voicing for it's veracity. Lately,
its ben going out late at night, coming back in th wee hours and refusing to
tell me where it has been ...... :^)
>> Alas, i feel (from observation) that this "triumph" was misplaced.
> Most gamers tended to ignore the fact that their characters were lovers
> and treated them like friends. Close friends in some cases but just
> friends.
>
>Not the case with our group. There were two non-gratuitous love-scenes at
> appropriate moments, which were described fairly graphically [although
> not enacted :-)]. One occurred on the bonnet of a car, with the
Interesting. That's about the most "real" response i've heard of in that game.
BTW mark, what did you think of that scenario? i kinda liked the ending, but
all in all found the thing to be very very cliched.
Truth to tell, i think part of my irritation with the "triumph of mature
roleplaying" was the pomposity of it all. i too get tremendously irritated
with the wanky self-conscious aspects of roleplaying which looked for a
while a few years back as if they were going to take over the hobby, at
least on the convention side. You all know what i mean - the group that
thinks that roleplaying is shouting loudly and seeing who can overact the
most. Sheesh, i hate that. Too damn competitive for my liking.
p-m
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
paul-michael agapow (aga...@latcs1.oz.au); AI Lab, LaTrobe University
"Diane, I'm examining a small box of chocolate bunnies ...."
James Davis Nicoll
This is probably obvious to all, but the culture a gay PC is from
is going to heavily affect how the character reacts to being gay and how
the people around him react. The revelation that a victorian playwrite
was gay is probably going to cause a different reaction within the victorian
community than would be caused by the same revelation made concerning a
Macedonian leader within the Macedonian community (circa mumblty years BC).
The various human and non-human races in rpgs might very well have widely
varying attitudes on this and other subjects. Not every culture would
expect a gay warrior to be a fay interior decorator wielding a broadsword
(and those who do have such a stereotype might have to change it after they
meet their first gay swordsperson, although, come to think of it, when I'm
engaged in to-the-death combat, I just about never spare the time to wonder
about the orientation of the person I'm fighting).
Heh. In RQ, I'm not sure the phrase 'sexual orientation' means anything
in the context of RQ II dwarfs. POV of non-humans will be, well, non-human.
James Nicoll
Nick Janow
> In the case that you sketch out above [(what if the group is made up of
> homophobes, who will torment the person trying to role-play a gay?)], the
> person will learn a valuable lesson about being gay and the way that some
> cultures can treat those who are.
That's true in the ideal case, but my point was that the case may not be ideal.
Role-playing is a useful tool for teaching other viewpoints, but it must be
handled properly. It is just as easy to teach the wrong thing. In my example,
the person could be convinced that homosexuality is wrong, because "all these
other guys agree that it's wrong". Similarly, a player misrepresenting a
female could reinforce the misconceptions of himself and others in the group.
In the latter part of your message, you recognize the fact that not all groups
are suitable for teaching correct role-models:
> Granted, that this cultural expression may be of 'the players' and not of the
> 'game world', but I have a feeling that any gaming group that is not open
> minded enough to handle a gay character in their midst is probably only role
> playing in a transmogrified Poughkeepsie anyway.
Not all groups _are_ open-minded enough.
Jon Edwards
>my own experience)-- what do you think about this subject?
>
>
James, I don't think this is true (In my experience). I have gamed
in many groups around my area that have included many (50%) "minorities."
Just thought I'd add my $.02 worth.
NO flames please, I'm about to unsubsribe myself until finals are over.
--
Jon Edwards gt6...@prism.gatech.edu
Georgia Institute of Technology
(404) 676-0424
Paul S. Winalski
|>
|>Darin McGrew posts:
|>
|>> > There are many types of characters I don't want to play, including
|>> > thieves, rapists, assassins, alcoholics, and con artists. I don't >
|>> want to practice thinking in the ways these characters would think. >
|>> Sure, only roleplaying more wholesome characters is "limiting", but >
|>> that's the point; I avoid practicing behaviour and thought patterns I
|>> > wouldn't want to engage in in real life. But at the same time, this
|>> > allows me more character depth, because I don't end up with >
|>> characters that are completely foreign to me or whose values (or lack
|>> > thereof) I find offensive.
|>
|>This goes along very well with the discussion of how heterosexual players
|>should
|>be required to play homosexual characters to expand their horizons.
|>
|>I never thought I would see it happening, but the 'political correctness'
|>movement, 'multiculturalism' included seems to be creeping into the world of
|>role-playing, and that's a really frightening development.
I agree with these two posters.
The most important point is that fantasy role-playing games are GAMES. The
main purpose is to get together with a group of friends and HAVE FUN. If
a player wants to have her or his "horzons expanded" in this way, that's fine.
If a player does not have fun in the RPG when playing certain types of
characters, that is something that the rest of the group should respect.
I wonder how the PC tyrants would like it if the tables were turned--how
would they feel if they were required to play neo-nazi white supremacists
for the purpose of "expanding their horizons"?
--PSW
James E. Kittock Esq.
In article <IcCClqe00...@andrew.cmu.edu> mk...@andrew.cmu.edu
(michael j pastor iii, guest of Melinda J. Klump) writes:
[much discussion deleted, point being how does a heterosexual char
play a homosexual char; michael j pastor iii suggests research]
>Would you play a samaauri or a celtic priest without research either?
Unfortunately, most people do. In fact, many people that I game
with have no clue how to play a samurai ("What? My honor is smudged?
Well, so... I don't care. What do you mean I am supposed to kill
myself?" ;-) ) or anything else with a real-world background, and
I am willing to bet that this holds true everywhere to some degree.
Nevertheless, people are willing to *try* playing these characters
because they have heard great things about them, saw them in movies
and cartoons as kids, etc. etc. On the other hand, homosexuality
is still barely even (and most would say is not even) tolerated in
our society, much less accepted. So I think that the claim "I can't
play a homosexual character because I don't know what it is like
to be homosexual" is a big crock of doody. It is, in fact, just a
reflection of deeper prejudices resulting from being raised in our
culture.
Of course, people have to play what they feel comfortable with,
because gaming is an *amusement* and should be fun. It is just
worth pointing out that it is worth examining your own feelings and
asking "why am I reluctant to do this?"
--james
SHAWN HICKS
>In my second campaign, we were in a Medievil (sp? our webster server went
>down... :-( ) setting in Europe. Most of us were your typical French, German,
>English, etc... and sexual preference never came up.
>
>most people are on the fantasy world. Most of our characters are right handed
>unless we asked to be left handed. One player is left handed, because he wanted
>the character that way, and since it doesn't affect the game much, his
>character is left handed.
Actually, in a true Medievil campaign, left handedness is a distinct advantage
for a swordfighter storming a keep. Most medievil castles' stairways spiral
clockwise going up and counterclock going down. This was deliberate. Since most
people are right handed: those people defending from above would have an open
swing with their sword arm while those coming up from below would have the
stone spine of the stairway blocking every move. Left handedness would foil
this feature, allowing the defending swordsman less advantage. Plus, from
fencing experience, it is more difficult to fight an opponent who uses the
opposite hand. Most defenses are based on same handed combat. Left handers are
used to the difference while righ handers usually are not. Result: left handers
have an advantage against right handed folk.
For the purpose of game mechanics I would ignore this advantage... except when
fighting in a castle. Most American GM's have never seen a real Norman Castle.
I can say it's an experience. They are cold and icky. One castle I visited in
East Anglia, England, had toilets: a wooden bench with a hole that fed into
a chute that deposited the grime down the wall of the keep and onto the ground.
Ick. Castles are small, drafty, cold, slimy, horrible places. German castles
are a bit nicer...a bit.
___
\ \________________
| |_______________> InterNet: bali...@uns-helios.nevada.edu
/__/ //Ballistik// B0 c+ k s- e h+ r
Darin McGrew
>> > There are many types of characters I don't want to play, including
d...@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (David Nalle) writes:
>[lot's of stuff opposing "Politically Correct" roleplaying]
Some people prefer playing a Luke Skywalker rather than a Darth
Vader. Were I to play a Darth Vader, I would spend the entire
game hoping some Luke Skywalker would come along and either save
him or stop him. I'd rather play the Luke Skywalker, thank you
very much. The GM can provide the Darth Vaders of his fantasy
world.
>Come ON, people. That's not the way humanity is. The thing which makes
>role-playing work is that it reflects and magnifies the real world....
>The evils are fouler, the violence more intense, the bigotry more outrageous.
>It is an opportunity for us to play out our negative feelings from the real
>world in an arena where no one will be hurt....
It can also be an opportunity to oppose evil in a fantasy world
where evil is distilled down to its very essense. Or perhaps to
struggle with decisions between two conflicting apparently good
courses of action. Or perhaps any number of things besides a
cathartic exercise in following those passions which we can't
follow in real life for fear of the consequences. And yes,
perhaps an opportunity to do that which we know is right (or for
those so inclined, "Politically Correct"), but which our own
human weakness prevents us from doing in real life.
>Role-playing is a great didactic tool, but you don't learn much by trying s
>something which isn't new and which doesn't challenge the imagination.
Why can't good characters challenge one's imagination? Why must
they all be boring? I find giving a character depth without the
shortcut of obvious vices very challenging. Anyone can play an
interesting villian or anti-hero; how many can play an
interesting hero?
>If you want to convince someone he doesn't want to be a bigot, make him PLAY
>a real bigot, not a victim of bigotry. Nothing gets the message across better
>than getting inside someone else's skin.
Why are you so concerned about forcing players to play characters
that are (in your opinion) "good for them"?
Regardless, I've found that roleplaying the opressee much more
enlightening than roleplaying the opressor. Practicing vices is
far less instructional than practicing virtues, or practicing the
consequences of others directing our own vices against us.
>That's what role-playing is all about.
Not to me.
ryerson.schwark
>I wonder how the PC tyrants would like it if the tables were turned--how
>would they feel if they were required to play neo-nazi white supremacists
>for the purpose of "expanding their horizons"?
This whole thing is getting silly. I'm a gay GM who's getting ready to
run exactly that in a post-holocaust Champions world. I think expanding
your horizons is nice, and encourage people to do so, but I don't recall
anybody threatening to beat you to death with pink pumps if you didn't,
so give it a rest already, ya know, like, ok, or like, I'll have to make
fifi my delightfully queer 6,000th level pink half-poodle/half-fairie dragon
work you over, ok?
Ry Schwark
Owen Smith
straight like me):
Read soc.motss for a while, but beware that the useful/interesting posts
account for under 5% of the volume.
Tip number two:
As far as I can make out (from exercising tip number one) they just fancy
someone of the same sex the same way I fancy a women. I see her/talk to
her/both, and something inside me clicks and I fancy her. It's a fairly
mystical process to me anyway, so I reckon it works just the same for
homosexuals except that the people it goes "click" for just happen to
be of the same sex.
As for things I've played, I don't count Elves, Dwarves etc. as they have
been around too long and much has been written about playing them. I once
played a Bushi/Ninja stranded in a standard western campaign. The only
problem I had was explaining to the DM why my character was slowly drifting
alignment towards good, yet butchered a PC mage who forgot about a Charm
Person spell for three months. Easy - to gain honour in the west you have
to be seen to perform good (and heroic) deeds so bards sing your glory
in taverns. However, it is sensible to quietly kill someone who influenced
your every action for 3 months and prevented you doing several important
things. If he did it once, he will probably do it again and besides the guy
was a slime-ball that the party was better off without anyway.
I have played quite a few female characters (I'm male in case the mail headers
don't have my full name in) over the years. At first they were hard work,
but I got better at them. I like playing them partly because in most campaigns
they are the under-dog - every head turns in a medieval campaign when a
fully armoured female knight rides into town. Similarly a female character
I played in Space 1889 was quite fun - people don't expect an upper class
lady in full victorian dress to be a master with that old cavalry sabre
she's wearing ("it's sentimental - it belonged to my dear departed brother"
said brother having been herself posing as a man as a Captain in the Navy
for ten years).
My current two characters are both female. One is a lesbian in a Star Wars
campaign - she is a Brash Pilot who wants to become a Jedi to anyone that
knows the game system. The
intersting thing about this in Star Wars is that acceptance of homosexuals
varies greatly from planet to planet - although it is, of course, illegal
under imperial law. The way my GM runs things, it is reasonably accepted
in the Alliance ie. there are no regulations against it. Porblems arise
with individuals depending largely on which planet they come from. There are
3 female and 5 male players in the group. In 6 months of play we have had
three romances (not including my character's unsuccessful overtures)
and only the latest is with players who are also SOs (will someone tell me
what SO stands for?).
The other character is a hetero gray elf magic-user/thief under AD&D 1st
Edition plus Unearthed Arcana (personally I'd prefer 2nd Edition any day,
but I'm not the DM). The only romance so far has been between a PC female
dwarven feminist with a beard and the local dwarven NPC weaponsmith called
Arnie the Weapon with big bulging muscles. My character has entertained the
idea of chatting up some of the male members of the party, but the human
ranger is shy and retiring (not her type), and it's far more fun baiting
the bastard son of a Wood-Elf king with a tendency to say and do stupid
things. She is chatting up the 20th level NPC Paladin's Holy Avenger
though for a laugh - the sword is a much better conversationalist than his
owner and besides it pisses the paladin (whom we work for) off something
rotten yet there isn't really anything he can say or do about it. Things
have got even better now the bastard wood-elf has hired a henchwoman. She
is a wood elf druid who also happens to be his cousin twice removed. We
keep going off for those girly chats that blokes find so annoying, and she
is filling me in on all the dubious things her "empleyor" did as a child - she
is about 350 years old whereas the bastard and myself are 150ish so she
remembers much of what he did.
Expand your horizons, stretch yourself. I play female characters a lot
because they are harder to play hence when they are successful I get
more enjoyment out of them. (I measure success by how much the character
is still remembered and talked about years after they were last played.)
Owen.
Stephan Zielinski
whi...@handel.UUCP (gary alan whicker) writes:
> My main problem with playing such characters is my lack of
>knowledge with other races / lifestyles. If I have no idea what such
>a persons ideals
>or motivations are, all I could manage to pull off would be a stereotypical
>farce.
Excellent point. Here is the route I've taken to deal with that.
1) Take a cultural anthropology course. It'll get you used to the idea
of predicting another's behavior despite the fact you're of a different culture.
2) Read ethnographies. This is mostly useful if you're trying to grok
a preliterate culture because that's what most ethnographies are about. There
are exceptions, though.
3) Read folklore texts. Start with your culture. Then read others.
Easy as pie, right? Here are some concrete references.
"The Dobe !Kung," Richard B. Lee. Kalahari "Bushmen." Find out what
"Insulting the meat" is all about for once and for all. Learn to become
enraged at showings of "The Gods Must be Crazy" and feel hatred for South
African "resettlement" policies.
Folklore: everything Jan Harold Brunvand has every written and almost
everything Alan Dundes has written. (Skip the Xeroxlore collections.)
"Guests of the Sheik," Elizabeth Warnock Fernea. The wife of an
anthropologist in south Iraq, Fernea was pressed into service to help explain
how society is integrated in the face of purdah, ritual separation of men and
women. Easy read. Find out why that black cloak is a LIBERATING device.
Warning: will screw up your Desert Storm sympathies. (South Iraq != central
Iraq, friend...)
"More Man than You'll Ever Be," Joseph P. Goodwin. Describes how
gay culture USED to be; the fieldwork was done ~'81-'82 in Illinois, but
has some application to "modern" "mainstream" gay culture. (Whatever the
devil THAT is.) Good collection of dirty jokes, too.
"Sex and Temperment in Three Primitive Societies," Margret Mead.
Be warned that these three societies have been a wee bit exaggerated (for
political purposes,) but Mead's points make up for a few inaccuracies.
"The Irish Countryman," Conrad M. Arensberg. Okay, so it patronizes
the Irish a bit. But it presents a very interesting relationship of humanity
with the "Good People." Also explains why the Irish have a reputation for
drinking. Warning: describes culture circa 1935.
"Yanomamo: The Fierce People," Napoleon A. Chagnon. Yes, the Yanomamo
are the "stone age" tribes getting crowded out of the rainforest. What the
brain-dead media keeps forgetting to mention is the Yanomamo are candidates
for the position of The Most Violent People in the World. Beating out even the
Nacirema in per-capita intracultural killings, although less efficient than
the aforementioned North American survivals in exocultural aggression. This
is an excellent text, particularly the introduction, where Chagnon describes
how he thought about "primitive" cultures BEFORE he ever saw one, and the
somewhat violent reality shock that occurred when twelve hallucinating
warriors pointed arrows at him... And you STILL end up on their side by the
end of the book, so it's PC, too.
"Cultural and Social Anthropology," Robert F. Murphy. I haven't
cracked this book since I was a sophmore. Overview of the basic concepts of
academic cultural anthropology. The Glossary helps when you can't remember
what the hell "avunculocality" means. (But if you ever want to know what
"autochthonic" means, don't talk to me. Neither my professors not my roommate
the anthro grad student have ever given ME a good answer.)
"Hindus of the Himalayas," Gerald D. Berreman. When I was in school
I took Berreman's course because I wanted to hang out with this girl I knew.
Berreman is not charismatic, the text is heavy going, and she never did sleep
with me. But the culture shines through anyway. This course provided the
inspiration for one of my more exotic characters, ye dreaded dwarf exiled
Pahari Brahmin. If you can read this and pick out the salient points through
the noise, you're fairly well qualified to read any random ethnography and
design a character from the culture.
These are all readble not-too-technical texts, with the possible
exception of Berreman's book. Have fun.
-Stephan Zielinski
--
The most exquisite pain is self inflicted.
Rich Belcinski
>This goes along very well with the discussion of how heterosexual players d
>should
>be required to play homosexual characters to expand their horizons.
>
>I never thought I would see it happening, but the 'political correctness'
>movement, 'multiculturalism' included seems to be creeping into the world of
>role-playing, and that's a really frightening development.
Hm... I don't think I'd go so far as to cry-wolf over the "PC movement
creeping into our gaming." RPG groups tend to form in environments that
encourage similar political views. Each game has a defined set of political
parameters that shape the game world. Comparing two game worlds on the
basis of its bigotries is about as socially significant as comparing
a flag-pole to a artichoke. If a PC person puts down my world because
it has an undesirable feature, then that's fine. They do that to
the real world anyway. As you later say yourself, role-playing should
reflect the real world, right? Give them the following challenge:
"Use your next character to change my world... if its strong enough."
>No longer will their be sexist, violent, racist or elitist elements in your
>RPG worlds. Everything will be the same. You'll be spurned unless your world
>consists of a single, egalitarian culture where everyone dresses, looks and
>even talks the same. Everyone will be nice all the time and no one will ever
>play an evil character, or even come into conflict with the forces of evil.
>Adventures will consist of characters sitting around discussing how their
>lives can advance the needs of mankind or PCkind as a whole.
And if a player doesn't want to do that, he/she should find another set
of gamers. If that's the way people want to play, let them have their
game, Dave. Personally, I play characters that I *want* to play. If
those characters "buck the system," then so be it. We've all had exp-
eriences where our characters aren't accepted by the society at large.
Here's a chance for your character to step-up and change the world. PCs
usually have dreams that run along those lines, right? Think of it as
a challenge.
In my decade 'n a half of playing RPGs, I've found lots of games that I
didn't like playing-in for various reasons. Each game has its politics,
as does each player. If they act out their politics in a way that's con-
sistent with the game, I have no arguments with them. I would relish the
conflict as a roleplayer. If they couldn't/wouldn't handle me, I'd
simply leave.
>Come ON, people. That's not the way humanity is. The thing which makes
>role-playing work is that it reflects and magnifies the real world. It isn't
>an escape from reality, it is ultra-intensified reality, more exciting, more
>dangerous, more frightening than the real world. The evils are fouler, the
>violence more intense, the bigotry more outrageous. It is an opportunity for
>us to play out our negative feelings from the real world in an arena where
>no one will be hurt. Why try to rip the guts out of it?
You're ignoring another main point, Dave. Lots of us want to use RPGs
to imagine a world with humanity "as it could be," with a better moral
code than exists today ("better" has its meaning to each group). Yes,
RPGs "magnify" real world problems. That doesn't mean that a group can't
do-away with "problems" as they see them. The creator of that world has
that basic right. If he/she puts together an internally consistent world
that doesn't have those problems for "good reasons," and then lets me play
a different character that causes lots of arguments, then I'm happy.
I'm generally not interested in playing "humanity as it is." If *you*
are, thats fine. But a "politically correct" game can be fun too, to
lots of people.
>To deal with the specific comments Darin made: I'm no more a mad, slavering
>criminal than he is, but I've played rapists and thieves and assassins and
>alcoholics and con artists. Hell, I've even played a sexually deviant mass
>murderer. But the point is that a PLAYED these roles, I did not beome the
>roles. If he's going to repress all the twisted tendancies which may be in
>his
>mind and not even express them in the harmless world of role-playing, then
>what, exactly, is the point of role-playing at all? If it's a way to strive
>to be the BEST you can be, then why bother? Your character's just an
>incarnation of an improved you, and you'd be better off spending that time
>in the real world trying to make the real you nicer.
Personally, I just don't have fun playing "twisted" characters. I don't
know why... it just is. In many cases, my characters are, in fact, improved
"MEs." The reason I play the RPGs is that I *can't* go on epic quests,
personally. I also don't own a suit of armor and can't go jousting for
the hand of a fair maiden. Why *can't* I play an improved "ME," Dave?
Give me a break. I play RPGs so that I can be the "hero" in a sense
that I can't really be "in the real world."
By your definition, I am not being "the best I can be." C'mon Dave. Are
you really arguing that I'd make myself a better person by playing a
pedophilic murderer every tuesday in the interest of "expanding my mind?"
Maybe you play your games that way. Alright. I don't. I play to have
"fun." It would be a sad day when the best I could do to learn about
criminals and the justice system would be to play an RPG. If you want
to "study life," go read some great literature for pete's sake...
>Role-playing is a great didactic tool, but you don't learn much by trying s
>something which isn't new and which doesn't challenge the imagination. If you
>want to convince someone he doesn't want to be a bigot, make him PLAY a real
>bigot, not a victim of bigotry. Nothing gets the message across better than
>getting inside someone else's skin. That's what role-playing is all about.
I don't use RPGs to browbeat my players into accepting certain political
viewpoints, and I really object to using something that's supposedly
fun and relaxing to hurt people, or "forcibly expand them." If they learn
something that they might want to apply in the real world, so much the
better. However, I don't see any real reason why we as an RPG community
should turn what is essentially a game into a means for social discourse.
You know... you've spent the last several paragraphs of your missive really
blasting PC. But all that I've seen is your own version of what is
"politically correct" in playing RPGs.
----------------------------------------------------------------------+
Richard J. Belcinski | r...@phys.slac.stanford.edu |
Physicist | Christian | Black-belt | Computer-dweeb | Swashbuckler |
Any Opinion expressed above is not necessarily that of SLAC or US DOE |
----------------------------------------------------------------------+
James Davis Nicoll
There's a screamingly hilarious account concerning the attempt
by an anthropologist to tell the story of Hamlet to a group of !Kung
(I hope I got that ! in the right place). As the story went on, it
became apparent that:
Men are *expected* to marry their brother's widow in !Kung society.
They have no belief in ghosts in the sense of autonomous spirits
hanging around after death. To get their ghost-like objects,
someone has to use magic to make it, and it is in no way
an intelligent artifact.
Madness is something someone using magic does to you. You don't
just go mad, someone has to push you.
For some reason, few people in the Kalihari desert perish by
drowning, and they don't believe water can kill you.
If water kills you, magic is clearly involved.
If someone is hunting, and thionks he hears a rat (for example)
he is expected to yell out the name of the animal he thinks
he hears. If the rustling is a human, the rustler is
supposed to inform the hunter of his error. No sympathy
for Polonius among the !Kung, alas. Hamlet did what he was
supposed to.
There were other problems in translation caused by the rather large
differences in culture between an English anthroplogist and the !Kung. I
think the !Kung came to the conclusion that the person wielding magic
malignly was Ophelia's brother, whose name I just forgot. The !Kung
enjoyed the story, although they were continually 'correcting' the narrator,
trying to make sense out of her story.
James Nicoll
Mark Grundy
David Nalle writes:
> I never thought I would see it happening, but the 'political correctness'
movement, 'multiculturalism' included seems to be creeping into the world
of role-playing, and that's a really frightening development.
In the ensuing discussions, most people seem to be saying ``But it's
ok to play politically correct games'', or ``But it's ok to play
politically incorrect games''.
But all this discussion is silly unless there is someone on the net
who's prepared to say:
It's _not_ ok to play one sort of game or the other.
So far, I haven't seen such a posting. Does anyone feel that one
sort of game or the other should be suppressed? If so, please post, and
watch the fur fly! If not, then what is everyone yakking about?
Ryk E Spoor
> In the ensuing discussions, most people seem to be saying ``But it's
> ok to play politically correct games'', or ``But it's ok to play
> politically incorrect games''.
> But all this discussion is silly unless there is someone on the net
> who's prepared to say:
> It's _not_ ok to play one sort of game or the other.
> So far, I haven't seen such a posting. Does anyone feel that one
> sort of game or the other should be suppressed? If so, please post, and
> watch the fur fly! If not, then what is everyone yakking about?
Forget it, my man. On things like this, people like to argue
without detonating bombs of that sort. I personally have no interest in
suppressing any kind of game at all; if I don't like it, I don't play
it.
This approach is the same one I apply to real life. I've been
approached by "politically correct" groups from both the left and the
right, and I give them the same answer: Sorry, chum, wrong man. I
indulge in no prejudice myself, but I will cut no man or woman a
break just because their generic division (race, sex, preference,
what have you) has been handed some bad situations. My genetics
handed ME some bad breaks, and social problems handed me others;
but I do not expect nor do I want anything to "make up" for that.
If you want to play a heterosexual white male in the games, fine;
if you want to play a lesbian black half-drow, that's fine too.
But don't harass anyone for playing or not playing any other kind
of character. *I* like to play a wide variety; that is how *I* get
my enjoyment. But if YOU like just playing Paladins, then that is
FINE! It's a GAME.
The world is a game, too; don't take either the left wingers
or the right wingers seriously, or at least not before breakfast.
Kick them when they get in your way, but ignore them otherwise.
Sea Wasp
/^\
;;;
David Nalle
> How is a bigot playing a bigot an example of getting inside someone
> else's skin?
That wasn't what I suggested. It IS a valuable lesson when someone who may
have normal human tendancies towards a certain degree of bigotry and prejudice
plays a character who is an extreme example of where those attitudes can lead.
It is a way to show someone with only one foot down the wrong path where that
path might end.
> I don't allow evil PCs in my world, mainly because I designed the
> thing and I don't need more evil in it.
Without evil PCs I find it extremely hard to run evil in my world. It is
the natural tactic for an evil oponent to try to seduce and recruit a traitor
within the party if they want to really be successful as a force of evil
against a (generally) good group of oponents. If the PCs are all incorruptible
if they have no taint of evil then you're not really going to have much
tension or conflict. The battle between good and evil, rather than having
any subtlety or deceit, will come down to who has the bigger guns (figuratively
speaking).
The implication of what you are saying is that in your world the good guys
ALWAYS win and evil is merely there to provide a punching bag for them.
> I don't have fun when they rape the noble lady I spent 15 min.
> developing.
Well, there's where we differ. I don't think that the kinds of things which
go on in the movie Apocalypse Now are fun, yet the movie is great entertainment.
On the other hand the typical teen exploitation movie is sort of fun, but it
isn't much as entertainment. Not all role-playing has to be entirely fun and
lighthearted. There is a lot of pleasure to be gotten from a far darker
approach to setting and character interraction. It may not be a barrell of
laughs but struggling against real evil, or being destroyed by it can be a
very empowering experience in role-playing.
Dave
James E. Kittock Esq.
>
>Truth to tell, i think part of my irritation with the "triumph of mature
>roleplaying" was the pomposity of it all. i too get tremendously irritated
>with the wanky self-conscious aspects of roleplaying which looked for a
>while a few years back as if they were going to take over the hobby, at
>least on the convention side. You all know what i mean - the group that
>thinks that roleplaying is shouting loudly and seeing who can overact the
>most. Sheesh, i hate that. Too damn competitive for my liking.
I'm glad someone brought this up, since I've gotten tired of
the last thread I started and wanted to throw some new fuel in this
fire that is rec.games.frp! ;->
Early this past fall, I tried to get a new campaign going and
it was the biggest mess I have ever seen! The players ran the gamut,
from my almost silent roommate, to this obnoxious dweeb who insisted
upon jumping around my room wielding a poster tube as a rapier and
crying out his responses to the NPCs in a booming nasal voice. Then
there was the dippy female whose character was also a dippy female
and all the player did the whole session was talk about how beautiful
her character was and how all the guys she met should be falling in
love with her instantly. In any case, there was no coherence and it
was a pain to GM and I never called people for another session.
The point is this: there may be those who enjoy "acting" their
roles, and there may be those who enjoy doting on a character, but this
is not everyone's cup of tea, and I think it is unfortunate that
somehow (perhaps since the games have the label rpg) it has happened
that the more acting-oriented gamers have somehow been put in the
class of "best". I, as a DM, recreate NPC's minimally (unless they
are of great important). My players know that every farmer they
run into is going to have the same accent and relative level of
coherence in his/her speech, but that is not a problem. And if
they want to talk to me "normal", that is fine, too. I get about
as much pleasure playing against (as it were) clever and strategic
players as I do playing against aspiring Thespians. We have even
been known to decay into random silliness (gasp!) and enjoyed it.
In any case, there are things about RPG's to be enjoyed besides
just the RP part. There is action, strategy, investigation, accumulation
of power (yes, some of us do enjoy that!), and a zillion other things
that are partially or wholly independent of one's acting ability.
And what *I* enjoy most is a harmonious group of players, so
one prima donna can really screw things up, IMHO.
I am curious as to how many people who play RPG's really
do it simply for the role-playing...
--james
--
James Kittock--Class of 92--Computer Science, Duke University, Durham, NC 27706
Internet: j...@cs.duke.edu UUCP: mcnc!duke!jek
Claimer: My opinions are not generally shared by Duke University or any
part thereof. However, if they WERE, it would be a much better place.
James E. Kittock Esq.
> who's prepared to say:
>
> It's _not_ ok to play one sort of game or the other.
>
> So far, I haven't seen such a posting. Does anyone feel that one
> sort of game or the other should be suppressed?
Well, I think that any game in which it is taught that the
sun is the center of the solar system should be repressed,
because the earth CLEARLY is, and that would be spreading
heresy.
And we can't have that.
(insert gratuitous smileys)
paul-michael agapow
>(paul-michael agapow) writes:
(to recap : we started talking about the ability of gamers to roleplay
characters of a diffrent sexual orientation than their own, then i flamed
"wanky pretentious" gaming, MarkG accquiesed etc.)
Re gaming : Jocelyn and Joan have both brought up excellent points just
now. i was questioning whether your average gamer could effectively roleplay
a homosexual. As has just been pointed out to me, the question really is not
homosexuality but (ahem) adult concepts and emotions.
The majority of roleplayers are (still) young, in their teens and of the
shy, retiring intellectual type. (Hell, i still am ..... :^) Expecting them
to roleplay complex emotions and states they they personally may not have
come to grips with is absurd, and a point i should have thought of. Mea
culpa.
>> BTW mark, what did you think of that scenario? i kinda liked the ending, but
> all in all found the thing to be very very cliched.
>
> Yeah. Cyberpunk _is_ very cliched anyway. It's all adolescent
> imagery, adolescent nihilism, adolescent paranoia and undirected
> adolescent aggression. But the imagery is very potent because of those
> things, I think.
>
> When I finished Richard's game, I felt a bit disappointed because
> although the characters and scenes were strong, there really wasn't a
> plot. It was a bit like playing ``Liquid Sky: The Module''. Looking
> back now, I reckon that the lack of structure was good for the
> self-indulgent, anarchic flavour. I enjoyed the game when I played it,
> but I think that I like it a lot more in retrospect.
yeah, that assesment is about spot on.
>> Truth to tell, i think part of my irritation with the "triumph of mature
> roleplaying" was the pomposity of it all. i too get tremendously
>
> I'm not sure how this connects with the rest of your post, but I
> think it might have something to do with last year's Arcanacon
> prizegiving, which I didn't attend. On the subject of wanky
The connection is .... i objected to the wanky nature of proclaiming the
tournamment a triumph of mature roleplaying. However ....
> But I don't know that wanky self-conciousness has anything to do
> with hamming. Hams are part of any large social event -- especially
> when it involves competition and personal expression. There've been
> hams among the wargamers for yoinks, and it's no surprise that you see
> 'em in roleplaying too.
Most of my irritation at the over-acters stems from the burden they place
upon me as a GM both for them and in neighbouring games. i remember all too
clearly trying to set a mood scene at Conquest one year, while a team of
wankers three tables over screamed their lungs out, preventing any action
at any other table. Also i find GMing overactors a terrible burden. Their
poor roleplaying (overacting is as bad as no-acting) trying to communicate
information through the din, players throwing themselves in front of me
while i am trying to talk to someone else ... impolite, loud , crass.
> Arr, it's all relative: non-roleplayers see us
> all as hams, most non-roleplayers look inhibited to us. When you come
> down to it, it's only you and I who are normal, p-m, and I've a few
> doubts about yerself :-)
Sure, i'm normal. Got this certificate just here ......
p-m
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
paul-michael agapow (aga...@latcs1.oz.au); AI Lab, LaTrobe University
"Face the world with a child on a stick" - Michael Leunig
Dave Lewis
>
> The same goes for those of differing race. Basically, either
>they are going to be the same (in which case, you might as well not
>have "race" in the campaign), or they will be different (in
>experiences, culture, etc.).
I expect you were talking about race as in Black, White, Indian, ...
However, I have always seen a problem with fantasy races. The usual reason to
choose one race over another is that it is the most advantagous race. Like
elves in AD&D. I played the only human in a group of seven characters. All
the other players were elves. We played for two or three sessions before
they discovered that I was a human:
Other PC: "We'll shut off our lantern and sneak up on them in the dark using
our infravision."
Me: "Uhh. Guys. My character is human and can't see in the dark."
All Other PCs: "WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOUR CHARACTER IS HUMAN!"
I was aware that they were elves because I'm interested in such things, but
there was no way that I could tell this from the way they played their
characters. They certainly didn't know I was human, basically because in that
game there was nothing about humans that differentiated them from any other
race except mechanics. I became so disgusted with the PowerGaming aspects
of race selection that I removed all fantasey races from my games but,
I would love to hear from people who believe that thay can and do play elves
and such in a way that esentially non-human. Just because I've never seen it
doesn't mean that it doesn't happen!
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
David Lewis
Computers, Martial Arts, and RPGs are better than Sex, Drugs, and Rock n'Roll!
Well ... Maybe not better than Sex!
uucp: ...{ucbvax | gatech}!unmvax!sandia!dlewis
InterNet: unmvax.unm.edu!sandia!dlewis or sandia!dle...@unmvax.unm.edu
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
William Henry Timmins
I play people.
In very few of my games are there any truly evil or good beings. Demons
just have a twisted (to us) perception of reality, and want to 'save'
everyone from death. (They abhore killing... they simply 'convert'
beings into demons, through torture and pain)
Kleg, a near-immortal civilization assassin, is simply insane. He kills
often, but can sometimes be very helpful or kind. (more or less
chaotic-crazy, with a tendency towards violence)
Devils tend to be interested more in acquisition of power.
There are a few beings which get off on torture and maiming, but not
many. Also, there was a race, the Mantissians, which were cold, logical,
and ruthless. (Think of a preying Mantis with intelligence. Yow.)
Currently, my new game has no stats, no skill scores, no real mechanics.
Its just people with their own problems surviving life (things may get
strange, perhaps, perhaps not)
We have two vietnam vets, one suffering PTSD (post-traumatic stress
disorder), the other with some as-yet undecided problem with only one
arm, a gothic drummer (gothic punk, not from the past!), and an antique
dealer suffering from hysterical anesthesia. (a chronic pyscho-somatic
paralysis in one leg)
Fun!
-Me
[YES, I'm a psychology major. I love to mess with imaginary people's
minds. After I graduate, I get to mess with real people's minds...]
Andrew Pearlman
>game there was nothing about humans that differentiated them from any other
>race except mechanics. I became so disgusted with the PowerGaming aspects
>of race selection that I removed all fantasey races from my games but,
>I would love to hear from people who believe that thay can and do play elves
>and such in a way that esentially non-human. Just because I've never seen it
>doesn't mean that it doesn't happen!
Well, let's see...
There is Nalmir. In the world that he is in, Elves are immortal and impotent,
except with other races... Anyway, elves are essentially the nastiest beings
on the planet. They are the best swordsmen, the best mages, etc... However,
they are slowly dying off(routine accidents combined with ressurection failure)
PCs can't typically be elves in this world.
Anyway, my character is a result of elvish curiosity. They were wondering
if they could create an elf through magic. They succeeded beyond their
wildest dreams, getting an elf child. However, a problem quickly emerged...
How do 1000 year old beings+ raise a kid? The kid quickly started getting
really rebellious/slapped down, until finally, the kid blew up one of the
towers in the City of Ice with a spell that should have killed him. 3 elves
died and a whole bunch of experiments got ruined. The elves were upset about
the experiments getting ruined and kicked the kid out, hence the name Nalmir
(means outcast in Elvish, although if one of my assumptions about the world
is correct, it can be read as No More changed over time)
Essentially, Nalmir is a fantastically intelligent 8 year old. He has the
mind of a 20 year old, the maturity of an 11 year old, and the body of an 8
year old. He forms crushes at a moment's notice, acts silly most of the time,
then reveals an extremely sharp wit when necessary. Everyone in the world is
interested in teaching Nalmir, because Nalmir is the only elf kid around.
He is also the only elven spellsinger(his bugle blew up the tower with a
'Shout' spell), so he will probably go with that. He hates other elves,
elvish, as only a child can. He has a bunch of animals following him around,
such as Gummitch the cat(named after an ancient story he read), Griffin the
hawk familiar, and BEM(another ancient story) the squirrel. He constantly
pulls out mice from thin air to feed Gummitch. Most people who interact with
him, just shake their heads amusedly after a while.
Andy Pearlman
Malachy Morrow
but anyhow. My current campaign draws most of its PC stock from two nations
of negro humans. If players want to play non-black characters, they must go
for non-humans from nearby areas. I decided to base my campaign around black
people after playing for several years in Africa with people of various colour
and it seemed a complete shame to base the campaign on a civilisation with
no direct relation to the one I was living in.
Since I left Africa, I've kept the idea of using negro humans as a base
character stock because it has a great deal of novelty value as well as
forcing players to see roleplaying as an integral part of the game. These
days I play with no blacks, I'm afraid, but three-quarters of the party
are black.
Cheers,
Malachy Morrow'
********************************************************************************
The ideas and opinions enscribed above are drawn from my own sources. I'm not
telling you anything about _where_ I got them other than that I didn't get them
at work ... Mbm'
John Francis
[ . . . . .]
> 2) Read ethnographies. This is mostly useful if you're trying to grok
>a preliterate culture because that's what most ethnographies are about. There
>are exceptions, though.
> "Sex and Temperment in Three Primitive Societies," Margret Mead.
>Be warned that these three societies have been a wee bit exaggerated (for
>political purposes,) but Mead's points make up for a few inaccuracies.
I suppose you may find this practice acceptable if you are already
sufficiently well informed to be able to spot the "wee exaggerations".
Personally, however, I find it hard to find how reading this book can
provide insight into anything other than how Margaret Mead percieved
the primitive cultures to be - a perception that seems to be based more
on political point making than on actual observations. A fine example
of the Thor Heyerdahl school of anthropology and ethnology.
Stephan Zielinski
>ste...@lurnix.com (Stephan Zielinski) recommends:
>> "Sex and Temperment in Three Primitive Societies," Margret Mead.
>
>I suppose you may find this practice acceptable if you are already
>sufficiently well informed to be able to spot the "wee exaggerations".
>Personally, however, I find it hard to find how reading this book can
>provide insight into anything other than how Margaret Mead percieved
>the primitive cultures to be - a perception that seems to be based more
An excellent point, and one I will not dispute. Let me clarify.
I am convinced that the book in question should be treated as a work
of FICTION. ("Inspired by true events?") I don't believe that any of the
three societies described bear much resemblence to their real-world
counterparts. But they are three interesting cultures nonetheless... I
suggest you pretend the work is a sort of first-person novel; take everything
with a grain of salt. -Stephan Zielinski
Jo Jaquinta
>can however get into situations where one may be forced to roleplay
>certain implications of sex - the implications of menstruation in a fantasy
>setting can be set aside, but it is a basic fact of life, and has a huge
>impact on religion and mythology in culture, and it is basically a function of
>sex and not gender.
Well breaking into the SF genre this one incident occured.
Phoebe and Christoph came from a fairly fundamentalist (Greek
Orthadox) culture. They were kidnapped (with a few others from their world)
while on a date by a rather, well, "typical", Imperial Scout.
Anyway she kept putting them in the same room on the cramped scout
ship and the only one with a double bed. They were rather uncomfortable with
this. More so given that they had to drug when going into/out of jump. Well
after a week or so Phoebe began trying to wheedle "hygenic supplies" out
of Lorna (the Scout). She pushed this aside and insisted she take a nice,
modren, contraceptive then she wouldn't have to worry at all. Phoebe resented
the implication and denounced it (and her) as morally corrupt.
Well a few more days passed and she began to notice she *didn't*
have "a little problem". (Phoebe is extremely prudish and always speaks
in circumlocutions on the topic). One might say she felt she had "a big
problem". She was in an extremely bad mood and Christov couldn't understand
her sudden temper and coldness.
Given her fundamentalist upbringing her sex-education was sufficiently
lacking to feed her doubts. A few more frantic days later and STILL NO,
well you know, and she confided in the only other civilized female (from her
pov) and she had said "Oh, yea. Me neither." Worried frustration led on
to suspicion of Scoutly administration of drugs. Eventually they found an
entry in the library data explaining that Jumpspace disturbed hormonal
cycles.
Despite that she was relieved when they touched down on a planet
and things got back to normal.
So then, one woman's quest for hygenic supplies across the galaxy
should clearly show that not only is menstruation siginicant in the lives
of half the human (elven, dwarven, vargr?) population but also affords
ample scope for role-playing plot devices.
Go out and do it now. Watch your female players snigger as the
men-folk run for cover....
Jo Jaquinta
jay...@maths.tcd.ie
KEVIN C. TEFFT
>In article <ccBjKae00...@andrew.cmu.edu> mk...@andrew.cmu.edu (Melinda J. Klump) writes:
>>one last note:
>>if you find acts between MOTSS nauseating, that is gay-bashing. period.
>>Getting disgusted by someone/thing is a response based on societal
>>training, and ridiculous.
>
>And throwing up when that person on the tv screen's stomach gets ripped apart
>by (insert generic horror star) is violence bashing.
>Yeah, right....
Listen Chuckles... I really do not wish to get started on
this subject too much, but Michael, (Melinda's guest) is correct. YOU
should know this one by now. If you do not like something about a
person, as in race, sexual orientation, or whatever - keep it to
yourself. What you are doing by saying that it nauseates(sp?) you, is
basically condemning the person by saying that what they do is
disguesting.
What I found disguesting, is that in our shadowrun game, after
you found out I was playing a gay male character, you decided to make
up a cyber troll who had a querk of hating, and killing homosexuals on
sight. Yeah, what roleplaying this is... Allow a little freshness
into the game, allow real *eep* ROLEPLAYING! In the real world there
are people from many different backgrounds which you have to deal with
on a daily basis? Why not in the game also... ???
For the record, I am a gay male, and have played straight
female, male, and gay male characters... Not to mention the varied
races I have played...
Geesh...
Well enough bitching for today....
Kevin C. Tefft
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( (..) ) (..) ( () ) ( ) ) ( (..) )
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FF LL ( AA AA ) MMMM(_)MMMM EE
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FFFFFFFF LL AA AA MM MMM MM EEEEEEEE
FF LL AAAAAAAA MM MM EE
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FF LLLLLLLLL AA AA MM MM EEEEEEEEEEEEE
Scot Joseph Wilson
Why is anybody worried? Players can be what they wanna be , do what
they wanna do (within the law) as themselves and as characters. If players
are bigoted Bruce Ruxton clones, they good for them! Everything's just a
matter of PERSONAL taste...
-------
--
Scot Wilson, The Man with One T. ** u904...@cs.uow.edu.au ** _--_|\
"Tiny particles of brain become lodged in your skull, causing / \
total confusion. Fall down to the ground, and you may not act \_.--. /
for the rest of the turn." ( The University of Wollongong ) v
KEVIN C. TEFFT
> Or is there some magical distinction reserved for gays? I think
> the tone is very important, and from what I remember about the
> original post, no offense was intended.
What I think Micheal was trying to say in his post, (before
yours) is that if there is something you do not like, just do not do
it. You do not have to keep commenting. As in saying, "eww", "gross",
"disguesting", etc. Just keep it to yourself and it keeps tentions
between the gamers down. We do not after all want the tension of the
game brought into real life, do we? We could make so many enemies
that way...
KEVIN C. TEFFT
>James Kittack asks:
>
>> has anyone ever played a character of a different sexual preference
>> than their own or a human race other than basically caucasian (or
>> whatever is considered "standard" in their campaign world-- Asian
>> characters in an Oriental Adventures setting don't really count)?
>
>I imagine you'll get a lot of 'yes' responses to this. I've played 2 female
>characters over the years (maybe more, but only two who counted). Both were
>heterosexual and relatively normal, though Metaxa had been abused as a child.
So do I. I am sure many people have done this. One shadowrun
I had the fortune of watching, was very amusing. The shadowrunners
were on an astral quest for a spirits true name. The guardian of the
meta-planes of course gave out dirt on each player from their history.
One of the people had raped a nun when he was 15 and had repented for
it. This leads the way for some interesting role-playing when he
meets up with a female street character named nightshade who has a
hatred of sexist men due to the fact she was rapoed by a biker gang
when she was 14.
Now that she has found out about the guy in the party having
been a rapist, it should be interesting to see the sparks fly. NOTE:
none of the characters knew the quirks of the others, it just happened
this way...
Just call me an evil co-Gm in the shadowrun world... (and a
player)
Elf Sternberg
> Go out and do it now. Watch your female players snigger as the
> men-folk run for cover....
> Jo Jaquinta
Personally, as a male GM running The Morrow Project, I use a
laptop computer that keeps track of things like- the date, so everytime a
birthday, adjusted birthday, or holiday rolls by, I know it. It's got
dozens of characters (both PC's and NPC's) so I can announce "it's your
birthday!" Also, if PC choose to play a sexual encounter (verbally...
keep your minds out of the gutter... you're blocking my periscope,
anyway) with an NPC or any other situation, I can pass a note reminding
them that "You (or your partner) is in menstruation." Never had a
problem... and keeping fertility charts is IMPORTANT, especially
considering the one thing that is NOT in a regional is condoms- Gotta
rebuild that planet.
I've actually had one person leave the game in frustration
because "IT'S NOT SUPPOSED TO BE THAT REALISTIC." (Sigh).
> jay...@maths.tcd.ie
Elf !!!
--
The 23:00 News and Mail Service - +1 206 292 9048 - Seattle, WA USA
PEP, V.32, V.42
+++ A Waffle Iron, Model 1.64 +++
Steerpike Rex
>
>How could you play a female character if you have no concept of what it
>is like to be a woman, but won't do the same thing for race or
>orientation?
It is because I have played female characters that I know I
couldn't do a good job of playing a homosexual.
I have played, to my recollection, two female characters.
One started off male, and got "girdle of sex changed." Which I
assume made "her" a lesbian, since I never bothered to mention any
switch in sexual orientation. It never came up.
The other character was from back in my junior-high munchkin
days, when I played the evil bimbo slut from hell. She was hardly
the epitome of feminist ideals. Using psychoanalysis on the 7th
grade me of yesteryear -- I probably played her because the idea of
a woman being that willing to have sex turned me on in a pubescent
sort of way. I quit playing her after about a week. That's a stupid
way to roleplay (and a really immature attitude -- fortunately, I am
much moe mature now :) ).
Secondly, I know a lot more women, personally, than I do
minorities or homosexuals. And I don't really understand women,
either. That's why I tend to stick to "white males," or else
role-play a whole new race existing only in the campaign. You don't
have to know what it's like if it's fantasy.
>For those who have never played someone of a different orientation, give
>it a try. Then let your character fall in love. It would be quite
>interesting to find out what it is that you think makes members of the
>same sex (MOTSS) attracted to each other.
Hell, I'll tell you right now. I have no earthly idea what
would make two members of the same sex want to have sex with each
other. But hey, if they do, good for them. I still don't see what
good it would do for me to roleplay a homosexual character. I'd do a
lousy job of having my character "fall in love," as you suggest I
should. I do a bad enough job with role-played heterosexual
romances, and I'm a lot more familiar with those.
Maybe you think it would be interesting for me to roleplay a
homosexual. I really don't see the point. In the campaign I play in,
sexuality virtually never appears. Neither does race (which was,
recall, the other half of my article). My current character,
Steerpike, doesn't even have "race" indicated on his character
sheet. I assume he is white, because that's what I am, am that's
what most medieval Europeans were (and therefore most fantasy heros
of literature, and therefore most of the ones I imagine).
>one last note:
>
>if you find acts between MOTSS nauseating, that is gay-bashing. period.
>Getting disgusted by someone/thing is a response based on societal
>training, and ridiculous.
Tsk tsk. You say at the beginning of your article that you're not
calling me a homophobe, and then call me a gay-basher? I guess, in
your book, gay-bashers aren't homophobic. Get a clue.
I'ts a moot point anyway. How can my own personal
unwillingness to have sex with another man be construed as
gay-bashing? Listen, you asshole, I said that what I find disgusting
is the idea of ME having sex with another guy. ME. Not you and your
boyfriend, or anyone else. What other people do with their own sex
lives is their own damn buisness, and none of mine. I have no
problem with homosexuals (though, since I do not personnally know
any, to my knowledge, I have not had the opportunity to put my
presumed open-mindedness to the test).
Anyway, what I meant is that I (ME, not YOU) do not want to
have sex with other guys. Pardon me, dickhead, but I'm not going to
go out and fuck some guy just to prove I'm not a homophobe.
This all belongs in alt.sex.oversensitive.homosexuals,
anyway.
>
> It is an attraction to a certain gender that is the orientation: not
>the aversion of the act not of your orientation
Ahem.
(a) Heterosexual males are attracted to women.
(b) Homosexual males are attracted to men.
(c) Bisexual males are attracted to women and men.
I am a type "a," not a "b."
The fact that I am heterosexual does not make me
close-minded, or homophobic.
>preaching done :-)
I've only just started.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
The news is just another show with sex and violence.
-Jane's Addiction
------------------------------------------------------------------------
SoCalGas
>
>>Ok, an earlier post of mine made me wonder about this,
>>so here goes...
>
>>There was a thread a good while back about role-playing
>>characters of the opposite sex from one's own. Now I
>>have a new question: has anyone ever played a character
>>of a different sexual preference than their own or
>>a human race other than basically caucasian (or whatever
>>is considered "standard" in their campaign world--
>>Asian characters in an Oriental Adventures setting don't
>>really count)?
Being Politically Correct {tm}, I try as a DM to encourage my
players to break free from the Eurocentric stigma associated with rpg's.
My current campaign {AD&D} features these particular persuasions:
A Japanese {or Japanese analogous} archer,
A Native American barbarian {remember barbarians?},
A male, bisexual elf {played by my SO; of course, said elf is
quite the loner, so no one's really sure of his sexual
persuasion},
NPC's
An Egyptian kensai,
A Slavic fighter/MU
An African fighter/technologist
An Italian MU
and lots of others...
As a player, I've had Amerindian , Egyptian and Japanese Champion
characters, omnisexual AD&D characters, Hindu and Jewish Call of Cthulhu
characters, black Marvel role-playing game characters, and I've just
worked out my first Battlemech character, a Samoan who works for House Liao.
Oddly enough, I don't think I could play a femal character very well;
the one time I tried it, it came off as a bad parody...Certainly not my
intention.
Hey, this is role-playing! Anything goes!
BTW, good thread...
---FooDog
|~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~|
| "There wuz a BIG MISTAKE concerning their hero's ORIGIN. It wuzn't our |
| fault...BUT WE WUZ BLAMED!!!" |
| |
| ---The Goofy Sermon Jerk |
|~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~|
| "I have no stroke anymore. I have no school. I don't even have a |
| samurai's heart. I have only meifu-mado." |
| |
| ---Itto Ogami |
|~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~|
Brad Shapcott
> This approach is the same one I apply to real life. I've been
>approached by "politically correct" groups from both the left and the
>right, and I give them the same answer: Sorry, chum, wrong man. I
>indulge in no prejudice myself, but I will cut no man or woman a
>break just because their generic division (race, sex, preference,
>what have you) has been handed some bad situations. My genetics
>handed ME some bad breaks, and social problems handed me others;
>but I do not expect nor do I want anything to "make up" for that.
>If you want to play a heterosexual white male in the games, fine;
>if you want to play a lesbian black half-drow, that's fine too.
>But don't harass anyone for playing or not playing any other kind
>of character. *I* like to play a wide variety; that is how *I* get
>my enjoyment. But if YOU like just playing Paladins, then that is
>FINE! It's a GAME.
> The world is a game, too; don't take either the left wingers
>or the right wingers seriously, or at least not before breakfast.
>Kick them when they get in your way, but ignore them otherwise.
>
> Sea Wasp
Oh good, someone is going to be sensible about this before it degenerates into
a rant about whether their is something subliminally evil and prejudicial about
playing the top hat token instead of the old shoe in Monopoly, or buying
Boardwalk and filling it with hotels instead of developing low-income housing
on Baltic Ave.
I mean, the singular reality (that I perceive), is that when you DO get right
down to it, it's only a game, and the morals that will be applied are those
appropos to the game. It's getting as bad as television -- we know it's only
a fictional show, so what are all the self-proclaimed censors trying to protect
us from? Our own imaginations?
There is no PC way to play an RPG -- like real life no matter how you do it
some overly sensitive soul or magnum PC individual will take offence. So go
ahead and do it anyways.
What really suprises me is that in introducing this thread with the concept of
role-playing 'homosexuality' how quickly it became a political issue, and not
one of either role playing or sexuality (which were both closer to the mark
wrt to the original question). Or maybe it doesn't suprise me.
Anyways, when I GMed (and as I hope to GM in the future) I never gave it any
thought. Players were always free to play the character they wanted the way
they wanted, and I was free to do the same with the world they played in. No
one ever played cross-gender or alternate lifestyle, but only I imagine because
it never occurred to them (or me). The most inspirational character I can
remember was a blind NPC who joined the party (and hated the half-orc, because
he continually treated her like an incompetant six-year old). Other than that
we played the usual mangy collection of thieves, fighters and mages, as was
appropriate to the GAME. It never had much to do with the REAL WORLD, nor did
we ever want it to.
Now that its mentioned, next time I play I will probably introduce such
elements to round out the game (it really just never occured to me before --
growing up in small town Northern Ontario can do that to your mind). But if
I suggested to the players that they should play characters with alternate
lifestyles to their own in order to broaden their horizons, they would hope-
fully cuff me around til I came to my senses.
brad
Silver
dbon...@sdcc13.ucsd.edu (Steerpike Rex) writes:
> For one, I find the idea of homosexuality (as in, me performing homosexual
> acts) somewhat nauseating. Please don't flame me, I am not gay-bashing.
> What others' sexual preferences are is their business.
Mike Paster c/o mk...@andrew.cmu.edu writes:
> I'm not really accusing you of being a homophobe, but...
Well, do it or don't do it, and stop mucking around. I tend to think dbongard
isn't homophobic because of his relatively sober form of expression. I may be
wrong, but, then again, I don't care much.
> If you find acts between MOTSS nauseating, that is gay-bashing.
dbongard is entitled to dbongard's opinion. `Bashing' implies attack,
condescension, flames, etc. dbongard's posting wasn't like this at all.
Lighten up.
> Period.
You apparantly intend to imply that the preceding statement is unassailable;
this is not the case.
dbongard poses a good question, in summary, "How can you role play a character
if you don't know how to play some of its roles?". A few suggestions. Fake it
until you make it. Let others' reactions guide you. Hunt down other sources
of information. It might be easier if you play the emergence of the trait,
rather than just saying something absolute like "this character is homosexual".
I always found fleshing out characters to be most entertaining and rewarding.
Regards, [Ag]
Bill Johnston
TEFFT) says:
> What I found disguesting, is that in our shadowrun game, after
>you found out I was playing a gay male character, you decided to make
And what are you posting this for if you know him personally? Just tell it
to him and let r.g.frp get back to what it's supposed to be talking about. 'Who
hates homosexuals' is certainly not it.
Bill Johnston(wfj...@psuvm.psu.edu)
SHAWN HICKS
>(to recap : we started talking about the ability of gamers to roleplay
>characters of a diffrent sexual orientation than their own, then i flamed
>"wanky pretentious" gaming, MarkG accquiesed etc.)
>
>Re gaming : Jocelyn and Joan have both brought up excellent points just
>now. i was questioning whether your average gamer could effectively roleplay
>a homosexual. As has just been pointed out to me, the question really is not
>homosexuality but (ahem) adult concepts and emotions.
okok, Let's put this in another perspective. I'm Gay. I can effectively
roleplay a heterosexual character. Therefore => it is possible to play a
character of another sexual orientation. Any problems the player has are due
to prejudices getting in the way. Homosexuals have all the same feelings and
desires that heterosexuals do. They just have those feelings for the same
gender. If you keep that in mind, it makes it very easy to understand.
However, if you are playing for realism, and you are a white het male, I
doubt you could understand the prejudice and bigotry we are subjected to, and
what our reactions would be. I suggest roleplaying in a more perfect world
where this isn't an issue and motivations are more pure.
___
\ \________________
| |_______________> InterNet: bali...@uns-helios.nevada.edu
/__/ //Ballistik// B0 c+ k s- e h+ r
Khyron
Players of the robotech rpg in Australia please post here as
I am getting bored of fantasy stuff and robotech is
the best.
also players of TMNT etc post here too so as to get more variety
--
jb...@gara.une.oz.au | Justin Bell Uni of New England | 2 Gill St -Armidale | Moonbi NSW 2353 | AUSTRALIA
William Richard Russell
> 3: The symbolism of the Top Hat in Monopoly, and the clear reference
> to certain groups is so clear I refuse to explain it. I
> will say I would never buy a used Menudo from someone who
> played the TH.
>
> James Nicoll
>
> What *do* they do with old Menudos, anyway?
The old Menudos can be found at the local half-price record store, in the same
stack as _Saturday Night Fever_ and _Thriller_.
/-------------------------------------------------------\
| Rick Russell wru...@ricevm1.rice.edu |
| ^^ Those are zeroes, bud!! |
\-------------------------------------------------------/
Robert Crawford
This subject was brought up by my fiance and another player
(another female). The biggest question they had was how would female
adventurers keep, well, clean, during thir period. So, in an attempt
to help, here is a magical item for GURPS...
[give it whatever name you want. I won't.]
This is typically a small cloth pouch, filled with cotton.
The pouch is enchanted with two spells -- Purify Water and Destroy
Water (Dehydrate, whatever). They work in that order when invoked. It
takes two Fatigue due to the item's small size and limitations placed
on the spells. Some versions include a small power stone or the Power
enchantment. These are naturally more expensive.
Cost is whatever is appropriate for your campaign, but I give
each female character one for free.
--
Rob Crawford \"You can have peace. Or you
be...@buhub.bradley.edu \can have freedom. Don't ever
Dum vivimus, vivamus! \count on having both at once."
David Nalle
> It can also be an opportunity to oppose evil in a fantasy world where
> evil is distilled down to its very essense. Or perhaps to struggle
> with decisions between two conflicting apparently good courses of
> action. Or perhaps any number of things besides a cathartic exercise
> in following those passions which we can't follow in real life for
> fear of the consequences. And yes, perhaps an opportunity to do that
> which we know is right (or for those so inclined, "Politically
> Correct"), but which our own human weakness prevents us from doing in
> real life.
It seems to me that it would be a lot more useful to do what's right here in the
real world and save the RPG world for something really different and imaginativein some way. What's wrong with RPers who can't bring themselves to take a stand
on any issue in the real world and have to use the fantasy world as a place
to act out their fantasies of having some backbone? I guess the problem is
that I've figured out how to deal with the real world and am looking for more
unusual challenges in the fantasy world.
Perhaps the problem for the PC RPG contingent is that they're still trying
to work out their more basic real-world problems and aren't up to doing
anything more challenging.
> Why can't good characters challenge one's imagination? Why must they
> all be boring? I find giving a character depth without the shortcut
> of obvious vices very challenging. Anyone can play an interesting
> villian or anti-hero; how many can play an interesting hero?
That's coy of you. It's easy to play a good character. You just do what most
of us would do in the real world. That's hardly role-playing unless you're
some sort of sociopath in real life. Good RPGing is produced when there is
tension both from external forces and within the character. If a character
is just pure goodness, where is the internal tension? Moral ambiguity is
the best way to produce drama. I prefer RPG campaigns which are dramatic in
nature. Flawed characters have more depth to them. If you're going to play
a character who is basically good, giving him a few personality flaws or a
weakness or susceptibility puts his general goodness in perspective. Playing
a flawless saint can never be anything but boring, because total goodness will
totally consume the persona and leave nothing else behind. He'll no longer
be a character, he'll be a charicature. Have you read Pilgrim's Progress?
Compare the tension and characterization there with a good Shakespeare play.
Which would you rather play as a RPG?
> Why are you so concerned about forcing players to play characters
> that are (in your opinion) "good for them"?
I'm not forcing anything on anyone. What I'm suggesting is that some of
the people who have latched onto a style of play which they feel is politically
and morally correct to the exclusion of all other possibilities are wasting
the potential of role-playing and are cheating themselves of far more enjoyable
and edifying variety of role-playing experiences.
DAve
Mike Whitaker
>there that HAVE managed to role-play a romance between two characters (without
>the players in question being each others real-world SOs!) I would be very
>interested to hear about it. I've never seen it happen.
>
I don't think it's all that rare. I guess to some extent it depends on the
players, and the campaign. If you're playing in a long-running campaign with
lots of non-adventuring background, and the players are interacting with it,
then it's more likely to happen than if it it's a one-off. Equally, it requires
the kind of players who wants it to happen to his/her character. It requires a
certain degree of trust between the players as well, I guess.
[The AD&D campaign I play has been going for nearly 10 years, and has 100+
player characters run by 20+ people plus hordes and hordes of NPCs - most of
the players DM every now and then.]
Most recent examples? Well, my (female) ranger has now been married to another
(female) player's swashbuckler for about a year... They are in the process of
splitting up very messily as well!
My paladin has just married the same player's female ranger. This is worse -
it's a marriage of convenience, they're very good friends, she loves someone
else (not a problem with the local social structure) who loves her, and the
paladin is hopelessly in love with a mage (also played by me!) who hasn't the
least interest in anyone... Or at least didn't until recently when the
paladin's wife (the ranger) went on a solo heroquest, was forced to draw from a
deck of many things, and (inadvertently and unknowingly) wished for the mage to
return his love. Once the mage gets out of the clone vat she's in at present
(well, she did do the first part of the TSR "Vecna Lives" scenario), life will
get FUN!..... I just wish I didn't have to play BOTH characters!!
--
Mike Whitaker, Shape Data Ltd, | Voice: +44-223-316673
46, Regent St, Cambridge, | Internet: mi...@sdl.mdcbbs.com
CB2 1DB, ENGLAND. | UUCP: uunet!sdl.mdcbbs.com!mikew
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
"...if one could not learn from one's students, one had no business being a
teacher..." (from "Gossamer Axe", by Gael Baudino)
James Davis Nicoll
>In article <130...@unix.cis.pitt.edu> res...@unix.cis.pitt.edu (Ryk E Spoor) writes:
(It's just a game & lets be reasonable stuff deleted)
>Oh good, someone is going to be sensible about this before it degenerates into
>a rant about whether their is something subliminally evil and prejudicial about
>playing the top hat token instead of the old shoe in Monopoly, or buying
>Boardwalk and filling it with hotels instead of developing low-income housing
>on Baltic Ave.
1: If we don't argue, we'll use less bandwidth which we will then
lose to some socialist newsgroup like soc.singles. Remember
what happened to spacestation Fred.
2: I am shocked, nay, horrified that a good clean capitalist game
like Monopoly *has* a Baltic Avenue. Can't that get changed
to something more acceptable?
Darin McGrew
roleplaying campaigns. I'll try to avoid dwelling on that, and
focus on other issues...
In article <49...@ut-emx.uucp> d...@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (David Nalle) writes:
>It seems to me that it would be a lot more useful to do what's right
>here in the real world and save the RPG world for something really
>different and imaginativein some way.
Whoa there. Who says anyone's blowing off the real world and
somehow atoning for it by doing the right thing in a fantasy
world? And who says that one has to be evil to be imaginative or
different in a fantasy world?
>That's coy of you. It's easy to play a good character....If a character
>is just pure goodness, where is the internal tension?..
You're attacking a strawman. Take George in Steinbeck's "Of Mice
and Men" as an example. He is hardly an evil assassin, rapist,
or thief. He's a basically good, honest, hardworking guy with
dreams and goals. Yet there's plenty of good drama, plenty of
internal tension there.
>If you're going to play a character who is basically good, giving him a
>few personality flaws or a weakness or susceptibility puts his general
>goodness in perspective. Playing a flawless saint can never be
>anything but boring, because total goodness will totally consume the
>persona and leave nothing else behind.
Sigh. I probably overreacted by painting things in Skywalker vs.
Vader terms earlier (although even Luke Skywalker had flaws and
weaknesses). I don't try to play flawless saints (for one thing,
they'd all be more than 100 point characters in GURPS :-). But I
do avoid playing characters who's basic desires and motivations
are evil. There is a world of difference.
Of course, playing a perfect saint probably isn't as boring as
you think. Think how hard you'd have to work to stay alive. :-)
Darin McGrew "The Beginning will make all things new,
mcg...@Eng.Sun.COM New Life belongs to Him.
Affiliation stated for He hands us each new moment saying,
identification purposes only. 'My child, begin again....
You're free to start again.'"
Steerpike Rex
>>Would you play a samaauri or a celtic priest without research either?
>Unfortunately, most people do. In fact, many people that I game
>with have no clue how to play a samurai ("What? My honor is smudged?
>Well, so... I don't care. What do you mean I am supposed to kill
>myself?" ;-) ) or anything else with a real-world background, and
>I am willing to bet that this holds true everywhere to some degree.
I try not to. I have only ever played non-standard AD&D
character class once, when I played a ninja. Yes, I played a
stereotypical ninja. So sue me for ninja discrimination, already. I
wasn't even trying to play ninjas the way "they really were." (By
the way, does anybody even know?) As for the other classes -- druids
and clerics are the only ones with any vague historical background,
and it is made plain in the rules that they are not trying to copy
the historical figures.
We do, indeed, play these kinds of characters, in general,
as we have read about them or seen them on TV or a movie screen. Are
you saying I should do this for homosexuals and minorites? Have some
limp-wristed waist-swishing hairdresser for a PC? Base a black PC on
"Watermelon Man?" This is the kind of stereotyping I am trying to
avoid.
Stereotyping a samurai, ninja, druid, etc, is harmless. They
don't really exist anymore (not like they used to). Stereotyping a
homosexual or minority is insulting both to them and to my
intelligence, and I try to steer clear of it.
> So I think that the claim "I can't
>play a homosexual character because I don't know what it is like
>to be homosexual" is a big crock of doody. It is, in fact, just a
>reflection of deeper prejudices resulting from being raised in our
>culture.
I'd be insulted if I wasn't laughing at having my article
(the one parsons refers to, I believe) called "a big crock of
doody." Really, though, I am kind of annoyed that you accuse me of
not playing homosexual/minority player-characters because I am
predjudiced against them. I fart in your general direction.
Mark Grundy
In article <1991May23....@nevada.edu>, bali...@nevada.edu
(SHAWN HICKS) writes:
> I'm Gay. I can effectively roleplay a heterosexual character. Therefore
=> it is possible to play a character of another sexual orientation.
This is straying into exactly the discussion that is occurring in
rec.games.frp. The question that they're arguing is: can you play
anything other than your own prejudices? They're also madly arguing
whether you should or shouldn't try to... I think that this whole
question is silly.
In roleplaying, we are always ourselves. We might pretend to be
someone else, but even while we are doing so, we still use the same
body, the same understanding that we ourselves have. What we are doing
is _interpreting_ other viewpoints. We are not really experiencing
them, except in a vicarious, hypothetical fashion.
Interpreting other people can be very insightful. Often, we have
vast tracts of inchorent understanding about people, and we do not
always recognise that we have such fragments of insight, because we
rarely get cause to use them. Sometimes, putting ourselves in other
people's shoes can help make coherent, our own fragments of insight.
Also, by playing with other people, we get to exchanges views with them.
All those things can be useful, as we always possess far more potentials
than we can ever develop in our lifetime. Playing out other characters
sometimes makes us aware of these potentials.
Alternatively, if we don't have any insights about the situation (or
if we ignore the ones that we do have) and if the other players are in
the same situation, then nothing useful is likely to emerge. We just
play out our unsupported prejudices.
``Prejudice'' means to pre-judge. That in itself is not a bad thing
-- unless it also causes us to ignore new insights when they arise, in
favour of our old, simple biasses. As paul-michael mentions, teenage
gamers are notorious for their insensitive portrayals of love, sex,
violence and numerous other central adult concerns. They are playing
only from their own (real and vicarious) experiences, and these are
limited. But, while they play, they are also expressing and examining
these things, which is always a useful thing to do. Teenage games can
be pretty callous, but I don't think that they're really a cause for
worry.
The players to worry about are the thirty-year-olds who _still_
think that rape-slaughter-and-theft romps are entertaining... You have
to ask yourself what is it that they're missing from life which has kept
such adolescent self-indulgence so appealing through the years?
--
----- ---- ------
ma...@arp.anu.edu.au Mark Grundy
Owen Smith
(James E. Kittock Esq.) writes:
>I am curious as to how many people who play RPG's really
>do it simply for the role-playing...
I like to watch my characters grow. Sometimes I even manage to grow with
them. When you can say something to the other players when not in a game
session, and they instantly know you are speaking as your character not
yourself, then you have really made it. Mind you I get some strange looks
when people start calling me Janice.
Owen.
Thomas Omar Smith
nuff said
Tom the non hacker
Clay Luther
> Hell, I'll tell you right now. I have no earthly idea what
>would make two members of the same sex want to have sex with each
>other. But hey, if they do, good for them. I still don't see what
The rumor I heard was that it felt good. ;)
Just my -/2.
--
Clay Luther, Postmaster clu...@supernet.dallas.haus.com
Harris Adacom Corporation clu...@enigma.dallas.haus.com
Voice: 214/386-2356 MS 23, PO Box 809022, Dallas, Tx 75380-9022
Fax: 214/386-2159 Your mileage may vary. Void where prohibited.
Jonah H Cohen
Gads, I can't stand the term or the attitude of "Politically
Correct." If we're gonna talk about the how-to/reasons for playing characters
of different cultures, sexual orientation, etc. Fine. But no Politically
Correct stuff, please.
Why, because RPG's are, by nature, Politically INCORRECT!!!
A few examples:
PARANOIA: Clearly a tyranical, fascistic class system with the
color ratings, and a McCarthy-esque government witch-hunt for communists.
Secret societies being treasonous is a clear suppression of free speech.
The characters' last names being the region of town they come from blatantly
objectifies them, reducing them from people to the presumed traits of a
geographic region.
SHADOWRUN: This game fares better than most with the PC Police,
because at least Native Americans threw off the oppressive reign of
colonizing Europeans. Nonetheless, the capitalists who run society objectify
shadowrunners to the extreme - to the point where they are not considered
"real" people and have no legal rights! These runners exist solely for the
utility of corporate mini-dictators. The advent of cyberware is a further
attempt to reduce the player from person to object.
AD&D: The alignment system imposes a value system on the characters,
refusing to respect the diifering cultural standards of societies such as
duergar dwarves, drau elves etc. The use of divination spells and telepathy
(the psionic power) is an invasion of privacy and the mental equivalent of
rape. Clerics and paladins are merely the foot soldiers for colonial
powers (gods) who are attempting to impose their standards on weaker native
societies (mortals). And of course, the slaughter of rare animals (objctified
with the label "monster") is a moral and ecological disgrace.
;>
I'm sure anyone who's ever had a class with a politically correct
professor understands what I mean.
Jonah Cohen aka Schneider :>
ses...@happy.colorado.edu
>
> This subject was brought up by my fiance and another player
> (another female). The biggest question they had was how would female
> adventurers keep, well, clean, during thir period.
For that matter, what did any woman do about this during the Middle Ages?
For female warriors, it could be assumed that the intense physical training
makes them amenorrheic (no periods) just like some female athletes.
WARLOC
> In article <1991May24....@bradley.bradley.edu>, be...@buhub.bradley.edu (Robert Crawford) writes:
>>
>> This subject was brought up by my fiance and another player
>> (another female). The biggest question they had was how would female
>> adventurers keep, well, clean, during thir period.
>
> For that matter, what did any woman do about this during the Middle Ages?
>
Elves - Incredible Life Spans, Extremely low Birth Rate, Maybe they have
Control of their's.
Dwarves - How many Female Dwarven Characters are there in the World...
Maybe a 100. They probably can't for physical reasons, that's
why they became adventurers.
Gnomes - Basically a Combination of Elves and Dwarves.
Halflings, Humans, and any 1/2 races, sorry it was a woman who ate that apple.
As far as what Women did in the middle ages, where do you think the term...
ON THE RAG comes from?
--
Warloc, the pride and joy of many a BBS around.
That and a Royal Pain in the Arse!!!