Negative Traits, Racism & Diversity

[Cognisant]

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The inconvenient truth is people are not born equal, a defective pituitary gland can result in dwarfism or gigantism, these are not traits that come with a balance of pros and cons, there's no silver lining to being born with schizophrenia or downs syndrome, no compensation for breaking your spine and becoming a paraplegic. Furthermore races do exist, the entire point of the word "race" denotes general differences between two groups of people that are not so significant as to make them a different species, if you get a room full of people and sort them by hair color you have effectively sorted them by race. These racial traits are not just cosmetic, as a person of English/Irish descent I have to be mindful of the fact that I'm at a higher risk of skin cancer and were I red haired and pale that risk would increase further.

Do white people get compensated for their lack of radiation resistance? No, well I suppose it reduced the amount of calories my body needed growing up but I'm kinda fat so that didn't really work in my favor, maybe if I didn't burn so easily I'd have been outside more and be generally more athletic as a result.

Point is equality may be our goal but it is not inherent, people are different, some people are better/worse off than others and that includes mental traits like intelligence, sexual orientation and moral disposition, now we can get into the weeds of nature vs nurture but it doesn't matter, people are different, that's a fact. Now we shouldn't discriminate against people based on their differences but there is a practical element as well, and I think what makes the distinction between differentiation and discrimination is that element of practicality.

Setting a game/story in a world where all orcs/cultists are evil could be practical, or it might not be, it depends upon the nature of the game/story, I think a TTRPG benefits from a mix of both, for example orcs as a race/culture/nation are warmongering barbaric supremacists but there's still enough nuance to the setting for individual orcs to defy convention, indeed being counter-culture can be a large part of the appeal of playing an orc.

Now you might say it's unfair that orcs are burdened by cultural expectations, that they're discriminated against by the setting and therefore the game designer, dungeon master or storyteller, and I absolutely agree, but I disagree that it's a bad thing in the context of fiction. Again people are different and those differences are not limited to the sanitary and the politically correct, sometimes people are inherently better off, sometimes inherently worse off and that is basically the definition of diversity, that people are different and not just superficially different but actually fundamentally and sometimes unfortunately different.

That's the inconvenient truth about diversity, it's not fair, there is no inherent equality, rather equality as an ideal is treating people as equals despite their inherent inequalities, the people of civilized races treating their orc friend as a person rather than a beast or a monster is equality, the big strong orc not belittling the kobold for his size is equality, the long lived and inherently gifted elf not being an insufferable ass is equality.

Playing a party of flawed characters, a brutish orc, a snobbish elf, an imperialistic human, a conniving kobold, etc, that's fun because it makes a great story, these are characters with room for growth and who will grow as characters through their interaction with each other and that's the beauty of diversity, that we are all enriched by each other's differences.

 

[Hadoblado]

I disagree with the first video because I don't consider people to have real agency over their beliefs, and I don't consider violence against classes of belief to be okay. I could not wake up tomorrow and choose to believe in God or decide that I want to start a genocide. I am the product of nature and nurture - neither of which did I get to choose.

I think there is an argument when signifiers have predictive value AND you are forced into a choice of violence. For instance, if I was a jew trying to survive the holocaust, I would be prepared to kill someone in a Nazi uniform without asking for their story.

But I think there is pretty much the same issue with ideology as there is with biological essentialism.

The second video - Yeah I basically agree with this.

The third video - Yep. Negative "racials" are good actually. There is just insufficient aesthetic distance between real-life political issues and in-game mechanical ones.

Really, this stuff is brain rot. Progressives should not be arguing that differences don't exist (unless they really don't). For instance, the subset of feminists that believe women are equally as physically strong as men need to read a book. However, pushback on the empirical backing of the bell curve discussion for racial IQ is beyond warranted. Neither of these things has anything to do with orcs and wizards.

 

[EndogenousRebel]

The kicker is that there is no winning without some sort of exposition. Any subtly tender moment between two characters with humanoid features can be looked at through this political reflection. For these people it's not about reformation, it's about making sure no one has this in their toolkit so that X don't get offended. Because they're so cool with X.

I'm sure in their eyes its a toy that no one can have because people are immature.

The Fallout series has always had this depth and has executed it well. That's my benchmark. If you have a problem with Super mutants or Ghouls, you can't be helped. Smooth-skinned smooth-brained. I can see the counter argument, and it's not even worth mentioning.

The oldest Zoomers I think grew up with Shrek, so it's probably going to be a shit-show after this since they're barely joining the professional workforce and are getting more economic power.

Instant dismissal/approval of someone is grounds to assume someone has intense prejudice against them:
Like a lunch lady denying you food because you "already had some" even though it's your first serving. In one sentence I've effectively setup an archetypal situation. It's so easy for me to call that lunch lady a fucking hateful cunt, regardless of race. Many people would want me to. So easy to make the turn when it's "justice" on the line.

If you want to be generous, you could just consider these people fashion divas who are saying these types of enemies are tacky. If you ask me, I indeed am waiting for an evil character to emerge that is given so many chances to change, but just wants to be evil, for seemingly no reason. Idk, maybe he believes no analysis is needed, he knew the day he was born it all had to burn with one uncritical look.

 

[Cognisant]

I've come to the conclusion that none of this actually real, I seriously doubt there's a single black person in the entire world who is actually offended by how orcs are depicted in games/books/movies/etc. The very notion that orcs are allegorical blacks is itself profoundly racist, even the Uruk-hai in LotR despite the similarity of skin color (some of them) I can't see them as Africans or Aboriginals, they're very clearly their own thing and that thing is not human.

So if black people aren't offended, who is?
Nobody!

These are people who look for reasons to be offended for the sake of social media point scoring and companies need to learn that they are just trolls (internet trolls).

 

[sushi]

i am going off topic but if you are discussing inequality the world is unfair.

If you have a large inhertiance, your starting point/line is already better than a middle class person or a slum person. Also what country or location you are born in counts.

its like having a race car when other people are driving toyota and volksvegen. whehther you use it and trasnlate it strategically to gain more benefits in the future is another matter.

also what you are talking about is ability and traits you cant equalize ability and traits.

 

[Rook]

I have strong dislike for politics in general. Contemporary politics policing fictional universes? You can guess my take on that. This shite is next level, Mcarthyism taken to its dystopian end point. Back then putting police on folk like Phillip K. Dick and banning 'problematic' works was the norm.

Now it's another ball game: if they don't join us, change what they consume. Sorta like how DnD didn't call demons demons for a while to appease the christians, but on a far greater scale.

I like the subtler cultural approach in stories, where not everyone of a species have the same emotional/philosphical traits, where there is great variation(as there are among human genetic groupings) tho I understand that this makes it harder for an author, and some species tend to be more homogenous in thought than others. Yet there are base traits, and if you create a species such as orcs who are biologically prone to greater aggresion, then despite variation most of em will still be more agressive than your baseline human. If you create a cannibal species, they are cannibals etc. etc.

I don't buy into the whole evil/good dichtomy, and organisms for the most part follow their nature. If there is a species who lay their eggs in humans and use flayed human skin to build huts, they are what they are. If humans rise up in mass to brutally slay these creatures, young and old, or if humans instead start cowering in caves or flee to another continent, they are also what they are. Or different groups of humans can each do one of the above respectively, but the egg layers will still lay eggs--it is how they continue to exist.

For a company to change their IP for the sake of vapid trends in contemporary thought instead of changing it to make it more entertaining, fun, artistic and fleshed-out is simple creative bankruptcy. To ban slavery from fictional universes is like altering the works of Hieronymous Bosch for being too lewd---utterly pointless and ultimately a form of societal control over the arts, over the freest bastion of our species, the imagination.

 

[EndogenousRebel]

It's not ALL vacuous. At it's core it's trying to address the vulnerability affected individuals face. Except instead of acknowledging that vulnerability to apply an appropriate remedy, they basically just put a shinning light on it and say "see that!!!!! DON"T DO IT!!!!!!" to all other parties.

I can use voice chat and no one bothers me. I have firends who are easily identified as a minority and these demeaning slurs full of putrid shit is thrown at them. It does weigh on someone if you say they sound like a "ogre" or call them "antique farming equipment". And their culture erasure being something they're very aware of. Having only so many cultural expectations you can mold yourself against them.

However, these broad sweeping attitudes don't fucking help anyone. Now , you're a fucking idiot if you aren't offended by what everyone else is offended at. It's fucking bizarre. Almost as if they're upset that people aren't as weak as others. That's what all this shit broadcasts, weakness. Oh well.

 

[Rook]

However, these broad sweeping attitudes don't fucking help anyone. Now , you're a fucking idiot if you aren't offended by what everyone else is offended at. It's fucking bizarre. Almost as if they're upset that people aren't as weak as others. That's what all this shit broadcasts, weakness. Oh well.

It's the old 'if I fall off this cliff imma drag you down with me' coupled with 'my tastes and views are sublime and therefore universal.'

The former attitude was usually reserved for your direst of enemies in ancient times, be it a leopard or the tribe down the valley come to burn your home and impale your family on stakes. These days it seems any old stranger will do---the wonders of instant global communication!

The latter attitude is pure megalomania and akin to a tick thinking it controls the elephant. Little does it realize that all ticks, no matter how bloated on lifeblood they may be, are fated to die while their host(the universe) moves ponderously on, little aware that the bloodsucker ever existed.

I'm getting puritanical vibes, and I'm starting to think most humans can't live without one or another form of religion, even if it be a godless one, where they have to feel validated and see it as just to judge others as lesser or wrong for 'following heretical doctrine.'