(08-02-2015, 02:07 AM)Shoshopu Wrote: He's literally not saying it doesn't exist, though. He's just explaining his perspective and experiences as they relate to this sort of RP. He even said "from my point of view". That's not arguing. He's just saying they're lightly touched upon, relatively, compared to other themes- and I'm sure it seems especially so relative to his own life. (And argue about the IC/OOC separation stuff all you want, but there's a real human behind every RP character and their lives do effect their RP, even if the degree of it varies from person to person.) If you'd never played lancer you wouldn't be exposed to that plotline, for example. There's lots of ways you could miss it, the game honestly does gloss over it most of the time. It's mentioned, it exists, but it's not in your face or directed towards you most of the time.
Well, it did actually come across to me as him saying that the racism doesn't exist because he doesn't want to deal with it. Â He doesn't see it, so it's not there.
I understand that there's a real human being behind every player, but a setting is a setting. Â If a setting is upsetting enough for you that you feel the need to just ignore a rather important part of it (and, sorry, but in my opinion, the fact that we have these races living together that refuse to intermarry or interbreed on a regular basis, in which subraces often hate and revile each other is kind of a Big Deal ™), then maybe you shouldn't play in that setting?
I'll give you an example. Â 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?
So, well, I'm a damn stickler for Lore. Â So my slightly-damaged, mostly open-minded Sun Elf morphed into a revenge-seeking former slave-turned-Arcane Archer who followed Shevarash and regularly delivered dozens of ears to his altar as her offering. Â And she never missed an opportunity to remind people that Drow were evil, Drow would lie to you, make friends with you, and murder you the moment they had the opportunity. Â Because Drow are evil. Â They are evil and you shouldn't be hugging them in the middle of the damn town square.
She was racist as fuck. Â Because that was the setting. Â That's what the setting said was the default reaction, but everyone was so worried about hurting people's feelings OOC that they didn't want to play that reaction out. Â "I don't want to upset this person OOC, so I'm going to ignore the setting and hug the Drow." Â And that wasn't fair to the other players, and it, quite frankly, wasn't fair to the Drow players, because they didn't get an authentic experience. Â So I made the character I originally envisoned as a sweet, kind character into a bit of a monster (she slid so fast from Neutral Good to Chaotic Neutral it wasn't even funny) because no one else was willing to uphold the setting. Â Someone had to do it. Â Might as well be me (especially given that Sun Elves were known to be extremely racist anyway).
But, see, lots of people can't separate OOC from IC. Â And even though I had 0 problems with any of the Drow players OOC, and was, in fact, good friends with several of them, I got the most amazing OOC hate for my character being such a hardliner. Â People would get so angry at me because of things my character said and did. Â People knew the setting stated that Drow were basically persona non grata (cuz who invites a serial killer to lunch, srsly?), but they didn't want to play it out because god forbid we hurt someone's feelings OOC by what we do IC.
Seriously - do you want to play the setting? Â Because either you do, or you don't. Â If you do, you need to accept that the society in this setting is flawed. Â Deeply, profoundly flawed. Â There is inequality. Â There is religious fanaticism. Â And there is deeply ingrained racism floating just beneath the surface that pops into plain view here and there (check the Lancer quests if you want to see a great example, or the poor Duskwight NPC outside the building). Â There is sexism, and what amounts to all but coming out and saying, "Hey, by the way, we have sex slaves." Â It isn't for the faint of heart, but it's there. Â Either you want to play in the setting, or you don't. Â I mean, ultimately it's fine if you really don't want to play anything but a super nice character who isn't mean or racist or sexist. Â That's fine. Â But I sincerely hope people will stop having a problem with the people who try to adhere a bit closer to the setting at the cost of their characters engaging in behavior that the players probably find repugnant.
Quote:edit: Sorry to come off like the tone police, I just feel like this thread (not you specifically) is coming off as overly argumentative, bordering on being a little hostile, on this particularly sensitive subject.
It's a discussion. Â I haven't seen anyone get mean or nasty. Â Disagreement != argument. Â It means we're discussing and debating back and forth. Â Not really sure what you're getting at, tbh.
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