@misadventure I highly recommend 'The Chronicles of Prydain, by Lloyd Alexander. Wonderful series that taps into Welsh mythology. About the same length as the Chronicles of Narnia, book-wise.
The first two books were (poorly) spliced together for Disney's 'The Black Cauldron' animated film.
@arkandel I do indeed alter systems with problematic mechanics. Example: AD&D 1 & 2e with female characters having a cap on Exceptional Strength (the old 18/100 scale). This actually leaves the strongest possible female character with a To Hit in melee mod 2 points lower than the strongest possible male character; a 10% lesser chance to hit.
I also disallow negative penalties to Mental stats like Intelligence and Wisdom due to race, although I still keep racial bonuses to such.
With older, published modules, I try to balance out bandits and raiders so they're not all of a single 'bad' race like Orcs or Goblins or Gnolls. I try to present antagonist as not inherently bad due to race, but because of active choices the antagonist has made.
So yeah, I do try to GM according to my professed beliefs. And my players respect and appreciate those efforts
@arkandel Yes, but the Hobbits and The Shire were supposed to be idyllic presentations of the 'green and pleasant' England of of Tolkien's youth. Which is why the Scouring of the Shire is actually an important part of the story because it presents Tolkien's views on industrialization vs. agrarian life.
Like I said, Tolkien himself wrote that he intended the Orcs to represent ethnic groups like the Huns and the Mongols; brutal, savage, pillaging raiders. And I'm sure that this wasn't considered a racist viewpoint in post-WW 1 England. The 'fiendish Oriental Mastermind' trope of Fu Manchu wasn't considered to be racist back in those days, either. Neither were some of the views on races expressed by Conan, John Carter or Doc Savage in those series. It doesn't change the fact that all those presentations were based on institutionalized racism.
Was Tolkien (or Rohmer, Howard, Burroughs, or Dent) deliberately racist? Giving them the benefit of the doubt, no.
Did they spread institutionalized racist stereotypes, even unintentionally? Yes.
@derp said in Races in fantasy settings:
@runescryer said in Races in fantasy settings:
Now, The two Haradrim groups were where the 'forgotten' Istari went to, but it's unclear whether those two Istari corrupted the Human groups or whether the Human groups corrupted the two Istari.
Do we know that the Istari were corrupted at all? I don't remember reading anything about them. You'd think that if they were corrupted or doing the corrupting, they would have fought in the War, but I don't remember them being there.
Tolkien made notes about them, Alatar & Pallando, but didn't publish any stories about them. They show up in timelines and in Notes of Middle Earth stuff.
What Tolkien did say about the Istari in his writings was that Gandalf/Olorin was the only uncorrupted Istari; Sauruman was corrupted by arrogance and ambition, while Radaghast was 'corrupted' by being too concerned with nature over the guiding actions of Men, which was the whole purpose of the Istari to begin with.
Another observation in regards to Tolkien and Biological Determinism...
Sauron's human armies. The Near and Far Haradrim. Sub-Saharan African and 'Oriental' humans, respectively. Sure, you had instances of some individuals (Grima) and sub-cultures (Black Numenoreans/Corsairs) who turned to evil or were corrupted, but not entire ethnic groups painted as 'evil' in the same way. They weren't 'inherently' Evil in the way the Haradrim were.
Now, The two Haradrim groups were where the 'forgotten' Istari went to, but it's unclear whether those two Istari corrupted the Human groups or whether the Human groups corrupted the two Istari.
@derp Again, six of one/half dozen of the other. Either way, I think we both agree that whichever way it goes, there needs to be a Pinned announcement about the Board's purpose and how to Opt-Out/Opt-In.
@faraday Counter-Point: Most users aren't as code-savy and don't bother to learn extra functions unless it's pointed out to them that they exist.
@derp True. But do Users automatically know how to Opt-Out, either? I've been on this Board for years now, and this is the first time I've heard or seen anything about how to mute/ignore/opt-out of a category.
Ultimately, it's a sort of 'six of one/half-dozen of another' sort of thing. I sort of view 'opt-out' like I view shovelware on my phone and computer: 'I didn't ask for this, don't want it, how do I get rid of it?' It puts the onus on everyone to not see things rather than to affirm that they do want to see things.
@derp It's not exactly a 'secret' part of the board. Keep it as a pinned Announcement: 'We have some sections of this Board that are Opt-In. Here are those sections and their focus; here is how to opt-in to them...'
@derp Another suggestion from me...
Make the Politics sub-board opt-in as well.
I agree that it shouldn't go away, but for some of us, we need a refuge from Real Life. I don't want to silence anyone speaking out about the very real suffering and injustices happening, but I'm already engaged in other aspects of social media and RL in trying to combat things. I would like to have one corner of my life that doesn't act as an echo chamber of things I'm already aware of and doing my best to fight. I don't activate Politics channels in any game I play on for this reason; not because I want to pretend the bad things aren't happening or stick my head in the sand and ignore them, but to avoid sheer message fatigue.
Okay.
I've been roleplaying in one form or another since 1980. I've seen the lows and the highs of the hobby, and I think things are getting better. D&D/AD&D has several built-in flaws from the start. The 'biological determinism' of the Alignment system when applied to whole cultures/species being one of them. The inherent need for there to be 'bad guys' to hack and slash being another.
And the problem goes back even further; Tolkien himself based the portrayal of Orcs on the 'Mongol hordes', as he put it in a letter. There's lots of baggage that is endemic to the fantasy genre. And there's ways of correcting those problems without making the issue worse.
Example: The Elder Scrolls. Orcs in Tamriel are no better or worse than any other race. The High Elven government is problematic in it's persecution of Humans after the Empire was weakened, but individual High Elves can be noble and kind.
Other issues in fantasy are with 'savage' or nomadic cultures, being portrayed as the 'marauding Indian horde' or 'gypsies', respectively. Ugly equals Evil.. 'Dark' features such as skin are 'Evil'. And some of this can be traced back to poor interpretations of the British/Celtic folklore. There are some Fae creatures of the Unseelie Court whose appearance mimics the corruption inside of them. But at the same time, the Irish language doesn't apply the word 'Black' ('dubh') to people of African ancestry (the Irish use 'blue' ('gorm'), instead), because dubh has specific meanings that allude to Evil.
For myself, I try to show that no single group is fully 'Evil' when I run TTRPGs. Marauding bands are made of of humans as well as Orcs and Gnolls. There can be nobility in members of any culture; not just the well-known example of Drizzt, but even in the Illithid (the Spellljammer novels had a Mind Flayer named Estriss who was more on the Neutral side; he aided the series protagonist and would generally perform Good actions, but he still had to eat...Estriss did limit his diet to kobolds and other evil humanoids, but that's another issue entirely.
Yeah, there's lots of baggage with fantasy races. But, I think things are slowly getting better.
@ganymede While I agree that having a venting place can have positive benefits, it's more likely to blow up a community. gestures around wildly I think that there are plenty of spaces now where MUers can go to 'shittalk'. MUS doesn't have to be that space. It's not like Discord hasn't made 'a board of our own' an extremely viable concept.
This isn't WORA; and speaking as someone from those days, that's a damn good thing. I'd rather not see this board headed down that path. Like I said, we can all provide the needed functions here (evaluations, warnings, etc) without bashing. I just see the Hog Pit as a relic that's outlived it's usefulness to the community.
If it absolutely must be brought back, opt-in is the best way forward, I agree with that. Possibly even limiting it further so that there's a way for those that don't opt in to be able to only view and respond to HP threads where they are mentioned so that they can defend themselves, or confirm/deny events they were witness to?
For years now, I've asked admins on games I've been on if they would allow their games to be advertised here on MSB. Some have, but more likely, they refuse because of the lingering legacy of WORA; even without the recent drama, MSB has a reputation of being WORA 2.0. Some of this can be attributed to the usual shiattalking by the usual suspects whose behaviors have been exposed here; but, IMO, I think the presence of the Hog Pit adds some truth to those claims.
Anyways, back to Lurk Mode...
Another vote for sealing the HogPit in concrete and dropping it to the bottom of the Marianas Trench. We can perform all the critiques, evaluations, and warnings without it.
@greenflashlight Backstorry on Marc/Stephen comes in Episode 5.
CW: trigger for child abuse.
Just letting folks planning on watching it all a heads up.
@arkandel Yeah, the final 2 episodes are a serious roller-coaster. Just grab on and enjoy.
No spoilers for the Moon Knight finale. Just...
WOW.
A good WOW
And there's a mid-credits scene you CANNOT miss. Just keep watching. You'll thank me later.
@jennkryst said in MUs That We Would Love To Make (But Won't):
So WotC has lied about this too many times before for me to be 100% on-board. BUT.
It's for real. Pre-order now for an August release.
@tnp said in ANNOUNCEMENT: We are moving.:
@tinuviel said in ANNOUNCEMENT: We are moving.:
@silverfox Why would we have a party for moving the dumpster to a different alleyway? We're still IN the dumpster. And it's on fire. And covered in bees.
Without a dumpster fire, how can we cook and eat our marshmallows?
Wait? You've got marshmallows?
All I've got to cook on the dumpster fire here are scraps of banned trolls...
A thought...
Rather than leaning all-in on PRP, how about this:
When players go through CharGen, they get 'bonuses' from submitting Subplots for the game. Not necessarily subplots that involve their character, but for the game in general. These are then used by the GM's of yhe game to create stories and events to run.
Gives the players some stake in the game, but without yhe pressure if running that might make them uncomfortable.