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UntrueCrystal · **08-02-2015, 04:18 PM**

Some people seem to be fairly desperate to make the world they RP in as grim and dark as possible. Sometimes a fantasy world is just that. There may be racist remarks here or there, but you don't need to take it as far as some people and treat it like the USA in the 1920's or something like Warhammer.

Virella · **08-02-2015, 04:24 PM**

https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comments/...ing_green/

"We...we had grown rather fond of the tonberries while living amongst them. They have good hearts, no matter how odd their appearance. None of that should matter anyway. This fellow is Hyuran and I am Miqo'te; are we lesser a couple for our difference? I should think not!"
"Is that not the greatest tragedy you have ever heard? To be so spurned and locked away in some horrid gaolâ”€and by one's own people, no less!"
"My dearest and I know their pain all too well. We both had to leave our birthplace. Why, you ask? Simply because we were different. No, we will not sit idly by and let the tonberries be subjected to such terrible treatment!"

Okay, we will just ignore how interracial couples get locked into goals, forced to leave their birthplace, because, you know, that is not severe at all. Nah, we just play pretend that Eorzea is just fine and dandy. Because living in ignorance is a lot more easier!

PS Ishard not being racist? I think the Mongrel wants a word with you all.

/flops out of thread again.

UntrueCrystal · **08-02-2015, 04:27 PM**

(08-02-2015, 04:24 PM)Virella Douront Wrote: https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comments/...ing_green/

"We...we had grown rather fond of the tonberries while living amongst them. They have good hearts, no matter how odd their appearance. None of that should matter anyway. This fellow is Hyuran and I am Miqo'te; are we lesser a couple for our difference? I should think not!"
"Is that not the greatest tragedy you have ever heard? To be so spurned and locked away in some horrid gaolâ”€and by one's own people, no less!"
"My dearest and I know their pain all too well. We both had to leave our birthplace. Why, you ask? Simply because we were different. No, we will not sit idly by and let the tonberries be subjected to such terrible treatment!"

Okay, we will just ignore how interracial couples get locked into goals, forced to leave their birthplace, because, you know, that is not severe at all. Nah, we just play pretend that Eorzea is just fine and dandy. Because living in ignorance is a lot more easier!

PS Ishard not being racist? I think the Mongrel wants a word with you all.

/flops out of thread again.

I don't think anyone is suggesting that Eorzea is nothing but sunshine and lollipops. It's when people RP it as nothing but a racist, dark, horrible place based on what a tiny fraction of the NPCs and lore say. If the tension between races was as prevalent as a lot of you guys seem to treat it, we'd be having race riots on a daily basis and mixed race relationships would be punishable by death instead of.. you know, encouraged and extremely common like they actually are.

Kellach Woods · **08-02-2015, 04:42 PM**

(08-02-2015, 04:27 PM)UntrueCrystal Wrote: I don't think anyone is suggesting that Eorzea is nothing but sunshine and lollipops. It's when people RP it as nothing but a racist, dark, horrible place based on what a tiny fraction of the NPCs and lore say. If the tension between races was as prevalent as a lot of you guys seem to treat it, we'd be having race riots on a daily basis and mixed race relationships would be punishable by death instead of.. you know, encouraged and extremely common like they actually are.

they're not encouraged - but people aren't gonna kill most races on sight. It's really the Au Ra because they resemble dragons (Ishgard) / demons (everywhere else) that get that treatment, and even then it's mostly seen in the DRK/WHM questlines.

The Duskwights would have been genocided out of existence if what you said, and all the Ala Mhigo refugees would have been put to the sword the moment they stepped into the Twelveswood and Ul'dah.

C'kayah Polaali · **08-02-2015, 04:44 PM**

(08-02-2015, 02:30 AM)LiadansWhisper Wrote: Once upon a time, I played in a Forgotten Realms setting in Neverwinter Nights. Â Now, originally I'd planned on playing a slightly-damaged, kind and open-minded Elven character. Â But as I started playing, I noticed the strangest thing. Â We were in Cormyr, and there, in the middle of Arabel, were some Drow. Â Openly. Â Advertising their presence. Â But don't worry, they assured us, they weren't the bad Drow. Â They were good Drow. Â And 90% of the population played right along, complete with hugging of the Drow, petting of the Drow, oh, the Drow are so awesome, etc.

And I thought that was really weird, to be frank. Â Because in the setting, Drow are the people who murder your family while you're sleeping and hang their skinned corpses from the ceiling to greet you when you wake up. Â They're the stuff of absolute nightmares to most people, to the point that many Elves refuse to even believe their good deity - Elistraee - exists at all. Â Because the Drow are so evil, how could there possibly be good ones?

I briefly played Neverwinter, and ran into this, as well. A friend of mine and I played a pair of traditional Drow. She played a female who had been sent up to the surface as a spy, and I played a male who was sent up to be her minion. We literally ran into 0 traditional Drow RPers. They all played good Drow, to the extent that they would take me aside and try to tell me that I didn't have to live subserviently to my friend's character, that I could throw that all aside and come be free.

We enjoyed the hell out of this, because our Drow were evil. Sure my drow was subservient to hers. That's the way it's supposed to be, after all. But he sure as hell wasn't about to treat those turncoat good Drow as anything other than the filth they were.

Cato · **08-02-2015, 04:48 PM**

(08-02-2015, 04:18 PM)UntrueCrystal Wrote: Some people seem to be fairly desperate to make the world they RP in as grim and dark as possible. Sometimes a fantasy world is just that. There may be racist remarks here or there, but you don't need to take it as far as some people and treat it like the USA in the 1920's or something like Warhammer.

I remember people bringing up this point back in WoW as well. Yet very few people actually do that...and Hydaelyn is established - repeatedly - as being a pretty grim and dark place to live. I doubt I need to go into the how and why (partly to avoid spoilers and mostly because anybody who owns the game can see for themselves fairly easily).

Who are these 'some people', though? Can we have examples? There's no need to name any particular individuals directly, of course, though I'd love to be able to wrap my head around all this!

Kellach Woods · **08-02-2015, 05:00 PM**

you seriphyn etc.

Cato · **08-02-2015, 05:06 PM**

(08-02-2015, 05:00 PM)Kellach Woods Wrote: you seriphyn etc.

Could you elaborate? I can't speak for the OP but the reason I'm so passionate about seeing more of the established darker themes in-game is because they're directly tied to my character's purpose - both in terms of his controversial heritage and the fact that he's a diplomat.

Racist characters are interesting - especially if they have a good reason to be the way that they are. A soldier who fought against the Garlean invaders and lost his comrades during the Battle of Carteanau is very likely to distrust anyone and anything related to the Garlean Empire.

So when that soldier meets a Garlean who happens to be reasonable and morally pure...there's a good deal of room for interesting conflict in my opinion.

It's also pretty hard to portray a diplomat effectively if everybody's characters get along with no issue.

I'd like to think I'm being pretty reasonable in suggesting that it'd be pretty cool if there was more racism in-game - it's supported by the lore, provides intriguing conflict and it's by no means 'forced' when the setting often portrays such things as existing.

If it were a push for, let's say...more discrimination based on one's sexuality than I could understand the backlash, criticism and aversion. After all, Eorzeans are shown to be very sexually liberated and I'm 99% certain that we've got developer statements backing up the fact that sexuality isn't typically a point of discrimination throughout Eorzea.

V'aleera · **08-02-2015, 06:01 PM**

(08-02-2015, 04:24 PM)Virella Douront Wrote: Okay, we will just ignore how interracial couples get locked into goals

I'm actually fairly certain this specific bit was a reference to the tonberries getting locked away, not the interracial couple.

Edda · **08-02-2015, 06:03 PM**

(08-02-2015, 05:06 PM)Graeham Wrote:
(08-02-2015, 05:00 PM)Kellach Woods Wrote: you seriphyn etc.
Racist characters are interesting - especially if they have a good reason to be the way that they are. A soldier who fought against the Garlean invaders and lost his comrades during the Battle of Carteanau is very likely to distrust anyone and anything related to the Garlean Empire.

So when that soldier meets a Garlean who happens to be reasonable and morally pure...there's a good deal of room for interesting conflict in my opinion.

Pretty much this. Obviously, we should not take things too far and respect the OOC wishes of others (communication is key here), but there is definitely value in RPing themes that are not necessarily pleasant. It's not about making things as grimdark and heavy-handed as possible - it's about creating conflict, which is hella fun to RP and really great for character interactions and development. Racial, national, and social tensions are a great way to introduce a good, healthy dose of conflict into your RP whilst fitting in nicely with the setting of the game.

Virella · **08-02-2015, 06:09 PM**

(08-02-2015, 06:01 PM)Intaki Wrote:
(08-02-2015, 04:24 PM)Virella Douront Wrote: Okay, we will just ignore how interracial couples get locked into goals
I'm actually fairly certain this specific bit was a reference to the tonberries getting locked away, not the interracial couple.

Hmm true enough, yet being forced out of your birthplaces because you loved another race is still very, very dire.

Naunet · **08-02-2015, 06:16 PM**

(08-02-2015, 02:34 PM)Flickering Ember Wrote: 3. "Eorzea is a terrible place to live." There are implications in this thread that Eorzea is dangerous and harsh. I don't see how FFXIV is even the tiniest bit of a gritty fantasy though. (See: Berserk and Attack on Titan for comparisons) City states, and the world as a whole for that matter, are clean and pretty. We see mixed races regularly not only getting along, but befriending each other, in the majority of quests available to us in FFXIV. Suffering is implied, rather than shown. (If Eorzea is so dangerous, why don't we see more people dying during quests?)

The whole game is "clean and pretty", but I think that's more of a visual aesthetic than any kind of sign that Eorzea is light and fluffy. All it takes is reading quest text, listening to NPC dialogue, and reading the other bits and pieces of lore to figure out that there's a lot of very not "clean and pretty" all over the world. Refugees starving outside Ul'dah's walls, vagrants in the streets, dangerous, often carnivorous beasts around every corner, a pretty well-entrenched slave trade (that likely involves both slave labor and sex-trafficking), constant upheaval on many more rural towns by beast tribes, pirates that think nothing of slitting your throat and that the local government can't seem to keep in line, pretty sharp class divides in society, a forest where if you take a wrong step you risk death...

It's definitely not a nice place.

Marisa · **08-02-2015, 07:04 PM**

(08-02-2015, 04:18 PM)UntrueCrystal Wrote: Â but you don't need to take it as far as some people and treat it like the USA in the 1920's or something like Warhammer.

False. Everything should always be Warhammer, all the time. Anything that's not Warhammer is bad.

***Nero*** · **08-02-2015, 07:26 PM**

(08-02-2015, 05:06 PM)Graeham Wrote:
(08-02-2015, 05:00 PM)Kellach Woods Wrote: you seriphyn etc.

Racist characters are interesting - especially if they have a good reason to be the way that they are. A soldier who fought against the Garlean invaders and lost his comrades during the Battle of Carteanau is very likely to distrust anyone and anything related to the Garlean Empire.

So when that soldier meets a Garlean who happens to be reasonable and morally pure...there's a good deal of room for interesting conflict in my opinion.

But it's not just about creating conflict; it's about making conflict that is compelling and believable. The thing with racism and prejudice in Eorzea is that as far as the general population goes, creating a character who is racist for reasons that aren't superficial is rather difficult because the setting emphasizes a mingling of cultures and a certain open-mindedness that comes from being constantly exposed to different races and customs.

An Ishgardian might be racist to Au Ra. A Gridanian might be racist to Keepers and Duskwight. Eorzeans in general will be heavily prejudiced against Garleans. Eorzeans might also discriminate against Ala Mhigans, particularly Gridanians and Ul'dahns. Ala Mhigans might be particularly distasteful of Ul'dah.

When you get outside of the realm of ethnic and social conflicts--of which Eorzea does not have very many with the notable exceptions above--a character's reasons for being a racist very quickly boils down into an amalgam of Freudian excuses and anecdotes, which are often as easy to dismiss in RP as they are in real life.

I'm not against racism and conflict in RP. I am very much against those things being arbitrary, poorly defined, or difficult to justify.

Cato · **08-02-2015, 07:37 PM**

(08-02-2015, 07:26 PM)Nero Wrote:
(08-02-2015, 05:06 PM)Graeham Wrote:
(08-02-2015, 05:00 PM)Kellach Woods Wrote: you seriphyn etc.

Racist characters are interesting - especially if they have a good reason to be the way that they are. A soldier who fought against the Garlean invaders and lost his comrades during the Battle of Carteanau is very likely to distrust anyone and anything related to the Garlean Empire.

So when that soldier meets a Garlean who happens to be reasonable and morally pure...there's a good deal of room for interesting conflict in my opinion.

But it's not just about creating conflict; its about making conflict that is compelling and believable. The thing with racism and prejudice in Eorzea is that as far as the general population goes, creating a character who is racist for reasons that aren't arbitrary is rather difficult because the setting emphasizes a mingling of cultures and a certain open-mindedness that comes from being constantly exposed to different races and customs.

An Ishgardian might be racist to Au Ra. A Gridanian might be racist to Keepers and Duskwight. Eorzeans in general will be heavily prejudiced against Garleans. Eorzeans might also discriminate against Ala Mhigans, particularly Gridanians and Ul'dahns. Ala Mhigans might be particularly distasteful of Ul'dah.

When you get outside of the realm of ethnic and social conflicts--of which Eorzea does not have very many with the notable exceptions above--a character's reasons for being a racist very quickly boils down into an amalgam of Freudian excuses and anecdotes, which are often as easy to dismiss in RP as they are in real life.

I'm not against racism and conflict in RP. I am very much against those things being arbitrary, poorly defined, or difficult to justify.

Experiences differ, I suppose. I can't say I've seen many role-players who have handled racism poorly or made it the primary driving point of their character. Nor is anybody suggesting that every other character should be racist or that there needs to be more of it.

It's merely a matter of people suggesting that since the setting actively portrays and supports such themes then it'd be pretty great if there was more of it to be found within role-play.

Otherwise there's a real risk of stagnation.

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