(08-02-2015, 07:46 PM)Foxberry Wrote:(08-02-2015, 07:37 PM)Graeham Wrote: 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.
Unfortunately I have seen this, a little in XIV; but extremely so in a different game that I played for a few years. The biggest problem I have with rping racism, is that I have seen it go very over the top. People -have- used it as an excuse to play the "My character is racist not me tee-hee so I'll use the character as a weapon to attack you and pretend that I'm not responsible." Keep in mind; this is completely different than having a racist character. This is not ic-blurring on the part of the person who gets targeted. It gets very old.
We as rpers -have- control over our characters. Using them as a weapon to attack other players, which I have personally seen; is screwed up. And it does happen. I've dealt with it, I've seen other people purposefully targeted. There are people who do this and it sucks. This is not to say that you do it Graeham, I've seen enough of your posts to know that for you- you use it as a plot device.
Regrettably there are those who use it to incite drama and overall be a jackass hiding behind a character.
Fair point. I don't doubt that it happens - I've seen something similar play out myself in the past but in that case it was more a matter of people using their character's IC influence within the community to deliberately screw over the characters of people they didn't like OOC.
On my end Graeham isn't really racist, largely because he's experienced discrimination first hand based on his heritage and he's striving to unite Eorzea (and potentially the lands beyond) which would only work if he could stomach the differences between the various races and cultures.
So I'm mostly debating from the perspective of someone who really wants more foils/obstacles to overcome IC. I'm pretty fond of 'grit' in my role-play. Not in excess, though, and certainly not at the cost of losing out on the more lighthearted stuff.