(01-28-2015, 12:38 PM)Alothia Wrote: I think that having cookie cutter roles for different races leads to a dull and dry sort of Eorzea.
We want people who differ. We want people who go against the "norm" of their culture, because that causes conflict, and really, what are we as RPers if not drama mongers (just drama of our own making).
Again, it's like saying that the sky, because it's the sky, is always blue.
It's not. There are so many hues of orange, yellow, purple, gray, black....to ignore them, is to ignore the beauty of the sky as a whole.
The problem isn't going against the "norm" of the culture.
It's that developers of most fantasy settings make laughable excuses of cultures that define a whole species.
I mean, christ, we're still learning about various human cultures ! The western world is still actively seeking out and discovering new facets of people that we hadn't previously documented or known about!
And yet the majority of non-human fantasy species are nothing more than an insert of poorly adapted human trait that defines the 'theme' of various fantasy species, and dictates how most of a species is supposed to act in a cultural sense?
Uh huh. Yup. Excuse me while I ignore it in favor of adapting a richer background with less stereotype and ignorance. [note: not saying people who choose to go with it and enrich it are in any way less -- kudos to them. What I'm saying is penalizing those who choose to go a different route is really rather silly in a big way -- especially because there is absolutely no indication of species defining behaviors beyond a few cosmetic things. Every. Single. Intelligent. Species. in this game acts like humans in a major way with a few minor props tossed in.]
/extraranty
