I have to be honest, I didn't read the whole thread because it's 14 pages and I'm busy. I read a handful of posts. I'm the the "follow the lore" camp myself, and challenge people to rise to the responsibility of playing their chosen part. Be it a chirurgeon or a Miqo'te. I myself play a Roegadyn currently (and had played an Elezen for a long time in 1.0) and constantly struggle with finding a balance between RP'ing a stereotype vs a Roegadyn mindset.
There is a huge point that maybe someone has mentioned in the pages I skipped to get here. That is that FFXIV "races" aren't really races, they are different species. I always say that a good rule of RP is to RP what you know or at least have some connection to / understanding of. That makes for immersive and realistic RP, regardless if it's solely based on lore or has some personal flare added to it. Ideally it'd be lore based, but whatever.
The problem with playing a non-Hyur is not simply the act of making sure to wiggle the ear, play with the tail. It's that you as a human being need to put yourself into the mindset of an entirely different species. Every. Time. You RP. That to me is the greatest challenge to authentic racial RP. It is entirely too easy to 'humanize' the other species of XIV, heck one can argue they are all sort of versions of Hyur. But the challenge is to try to think like a Miqo'te or a Roegadyn. Would they even perceive the world the way humans would? Would their thought patterns be similar or more varied, and if they're varied how so?
There is a quote that is apropos of this discussion; ""If a lion could speak, we couldn't understand him" - Wittgenstein. Meaning if a different species had the capability to communicate with us, we may not understand them due to their completely different reference points and way of thought.
We know that the various species of Eorzea can communicate, but perhaps there are not only physical differences but psychological ones Roleplayers are not exploiting? Just as an example, say you have an ailing citizen, doesn't look like they would make it. Perhaps a Lalafell, who have close familial bonds, is more likely to have the opinion that this person should be taken care of by everyone (their world view may be based on this concept). Being left alone is evil, communal support is good. That may be their moral compass, in this situation. Given the same predicament a Miqo'te may think the good choice morally is to destroy the ill person, because their mindset may be based on who can or cannot contribute to a tribe. For the Miqo'te the evil option is to keep them alive, and the good to destroy them swiftly. Their psychology would potentially explain that kind of moral compass.
Now that was just one example, and maybe it was a bad one at that - I am not sure if all the lore I tried to talk about there is correct, but I hope you see what I am trying to elaborate. Racial RP can be far more complex, if one truly wants to make it a challenge and step outside of playing a human with a different costume on. But I do understand how hard that road is, and by selecting a race other than Hyur we're always kind of shooting ourselves in the foot because there is a limit to how true to a different species we can role play.
There is a huge point that maybe someone has mentioned in the pages I skipped to get here. That is that FFXIV "races" aren't really races, they are different species. I always say that a good rule of RP is to RP what you know or at least have some connection to / understanding of. That makes for immersive and realistic RP, regardless if it's solely based on lore or has some personal flare added to it. Ideally it'd be lore based, but whatever.
The problem with playing a non-Hyur is not simply the act of making sure to wiggle the ear, play with the tail. It's that you as a human being need to put yourself into the mindset of an entirely different species. Every. Time. You RP. That to me is the greatest challenge to authentic racial RP. It is entirely too easy to 'humanize' the other species of XIV, heck one can argue they are all sort of versions of Hyur. But the challenge is to try to think like a Miqo'te or a Roegadyn. Would they even perceive the world the way humans would? Would their thought patterns be similar or more varied, and if they're varied how so?
There is a quote that is apropos of this discussion; ""If a lion could speak, we couldn't understand him" - Wittgenstein. Meaning if a different species had the capability to communicate with us, we may not understand them due to their completely different reference points and way of thought.
We know that the various species of Eorzea can communicate, but perhaps there are not only physical differences but psychological ones Roleplayers are not exploiting? Just as an example, say you have an ailing citizen, doesn't look like they would make it. Perhaps a Lalafell, who have close familial bonds, is more likely to have the opinion that this person should be taken care of by everyone (their world view may be based on this concept). Being left alone is evil, communal support is good. That may be their moral compass, in this situation. Given the same predicament a Miqo'te may think the good choice morally is to destroy the ill person, because their mindset may be based on who can or cannot contribute to a tribe. For the Miqo'te the evil option is to keep them alive, and the good to destroy them swiftly. Their psychology would potentially explain that kind of moral compass.
Now that was just one example, and maybe it was a bad one at that - I am not sure if all the lore I tried to talk about there is correct, but I hope you see what I am trying to elaborate. Racial RP can be far more complex, if one truly wants to make it a challenge and step outside of playing a human with a different costume on. But I do understand how hard that road is, and by selecting a race other than Hyur we're always kind of shooting ourselves in the foot because there is a limit to how true to a different species we can role play.
I’m the bullies you hate, that you became.
