@Auspice said in Sensitive cultural/political/religious aspects of game themes.:
Give people the opportunity, but make sure they understand that they may face IC backlash for it. I've done that on games and had an -awesome- time of it.
I generally agree with you, but this can be a problem, because so few players actually provide that IC backlash. It's almost always left up to NPCs, usually run by the players taking the opportunity themselves (and often not played very harshly, very few people really like to torment their characters--yes, I know that some do, and yes, it's fun to do so). I really wish that more people would help with that sort of IC repercussions.
@faraday said in Sensitive cultural/political/religious aspects of game themes.:
Saying that the PCs are the exception to the rule only goes so far. Unless you've got people really exercising the "mainstream" NPC viewpoint, the exception becomes all you see and therefore becomes people's mental rule no matter what you say. So you get this weirdly-jarring discontinuity when the person claiming to be oppressed by totally valid IC prejudices ends up looking like a looney since it never happens on-camera. (or if it does, the poor NPC is quickly smacked down by all the modern-sensibility PCs.)
This is another one of those issues where you really need players willing to play the "average" -- characters who represent the general NPC viewpoint. I've actually had great success playing these characters because people really want to get themselves grounded in the universe by interacting with characters who actually represent the universe, rather than the outliers.