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"I had no idea your character was black. He should act more black!"
Heh, I was wondering if this would come up.
Would it be fine if, at the table, in a modern game, halfway through the campaign, it suddenly came out that one of the players was black. Everyone at the table (barring the player of course) had no idea. The character was played in such a way that the issue of his background never came up. Not once. Not one single time.
And that's good roleplaying?
I know I'm taking flak for badwrongfun and all that. Fine. Y'know what? I don't care. If a player cannot take 5 minutes to establish a core element of their character - and yes, I do consider the fact that my character is a different SPECIES than another character to be an important fact - that's bad roleplaying.
Heck, if I did it as a writer, I'd get hammered. If my fantasy novel was two hundred pages in before I established that Legolas wasn't human, I'd be a very poor writer. "What do your elven eyes see?" is all it takes. Ok, it's a crappy line, but, you get the point. If my Twilek Jedi goes three sessions before the fact that he's blue and has "brain tails" comes out, I'm going to say I failed.
You can nitpick my examples all you like. That's fine. Get your own examples. My point was, establishing a character's race is a very simple thing. It takes all of 5 minutes to do. Again, and I'll keep repeating myself so long as people keep taking it the wrong way, I'm NOT saying that you have to make your race the most important aspect of your character.
By no means does your race have to be the most important aspect of your character. However, it IS an aspect of your character and should be brought into play at some point. At least brought in enough that the other players at the table aren't surprised ten or fifteen hours into play that you aren't what they thought you were.
I'm not picking on this particular example, really. It's just one of a bajillion I've seen over the years, almost exclusively with elves and half-elves. For some reason, people are capable of establishing the race of their character with almost any other race. With elves? It's "I'm a human that sees in the dark".
__________________ Currently running: Sufficiently Advanced over Maptool. Soon to change. If you'd like to join in a short 3-8 session campaign for various systems, drop by our forums.
I double-dog-dare you to make your game sound super cool without comparing it to other editions. - paraphrased from Umbran.
Would it be fine if, at the table, in a modern game, halfway through the campaign, it suddenly came out that one of the players was black. Everyone at the table (barring the player of course) had no idea. The character was played in such a way that the issue of his background never came up. Not once. Not one single time.
And that's good roleplaying?
It's certainly not bad roleplaying.
Details of a character's physical appearance should be mentioned when they're first introduced, but it's easy for other players to miss things at that point, and afterwards, those details may not come up again for a long time.
Some players like to have their character fundamentally shaped by their racial background. Others (or even the same player with a different character) prefer to have other things define their character, with race only the most minor factor. Both approaches are right.
They really need a stereotype that justifies adverturing.
I disagree, unless you want to argue that the race, as a whole, is adventuring. In most worlds, adventurers are not a sizable fraction of the population. Adventurers are exceptions to the general behavior of the race, not examples of the general behavior.
So, the individual character needs to have a reason to adventure - the race as a whole can do what it darn well pleases.
I don't think you can say without knowing more information - like, has the character's race been relevant?
I disagree. I think I can pretty easily say that.
How can a character's race not be relevant?
Really. How can it not have ever come up? Isn't a character's species about as relevant as its gender and, at the very least, general appearance?
Again, if I was writing a novel and, three or four chapters in, suddenly sprang on the reader, "Oh hey, by the way, so and so isn't really human, he can see in the dark. He's a half elf." that would be piss poor writing. Unless there was a specific reason why it wasn't mentioned, this should, at the very least, get a smidgeon of screen time. At least enough to establish a picture of the character.
Essentially, by not establishing the character's species, the player has made little to no effort to portray his character as it actually exists in the game. The other players have no idea what you actually are. Their mental image of the character is wrong, not through any fault of their own, but because they were not provided with some pretty relevant information.
There is a great deal of space between Chris Rock style rants on how the Man is Keeping Him Down and Fytor Goodwithswords. You don't need to carry a sandwich board proclaiming the character's species every single time you turn around. However, a bit of effort, at least once in a while, just to provide the other players with enough information to have an accurate mental picture of your character is hardly, IMO, too much to ask.
__________________ Currently running: Sufficiently Advanced over Maptool. Soon to change. If you'd like to join in a short 3-8 session campaign for various systems, drop by our forums.
I double-dog-dare you to make your game sound super cool without comparing it to other editions. - paraphrased from Umbran.
Would it be fine if, at the table, in a modern game, halfway through the campaign, it suddenly came out that one of the players was black. Everyone at the table (barring the player of course) had no idea. The character was played in such a way that the issue of his background never came up. Not once. Not one single time.
And that's good roleplaying?
If you're playing a modern game (early 21st Century), I'd say the role-playing has been excellent and should be praised.
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First and foremost, munchkinism arose as a contemporary of the OD&D game. Nothing in the rules of that or any other version of the game was needed to make it flourish.
There is no relationship between 3E and original D&D, or OAD&D for that matter. Different games, style, and spirit.
[E]xperience has taught me that everyone has their own gaming preferences, and it is not a matter of "good" or "bad" in all, save in light of one's own preferences.
There is a great deal of space between Chris Rock style rants on how the Man is Keeping Him Down and Fytor Goodwithswords. You don't need to carry a sandwich board proclaiming the character's species every single time you turn around. However, a bit of effort, at least once in a while, just to provide the other players with enough information to have an accurate mental picture of your character is hardly, IMO, too much to ask.
You know, speaking of Chris Rock....ok, time to paraphrase Eladrin are basically the snooty high elves and elves are what prior editions termed wood elves. Well, how do the 2 elf races look at each other? Do Eladrin see themselves as the law-abiding, civilized types and the Elves are uncouth and untrustworthy? Borrowing from Chris Rock (and made appropriate to the conversation): "An Eladrin didn't steal your TV, an ELF stole your TV!"
I'll take a real but somewhat extreme example first to demonstrate the point: You are playing Paranoia - the character's skin color means absolutely nothing. There are no cultural biases in the game setting based upon skin color. It is irrelevant to the game.
Or maybe you're playing Tales From the Floating Vagabond - a game which centers around a bar that has a doorway to all possible universes, so that the bar is populated with such a variety that you cannot swing a dead cat without hitting a species you've never seen before. In such a game, it is not unreasonable for the GM and players to consider that the population of that bar really doesn't care about what species you are.
In some other games, certain forms of "race" matter, while others do not. For example: Shadowrun. It matters if you are a human, an orc, or an elf. But, with only a couple exceptions, skin color means nothing - once you're a troll, being Asian, Caucasian, or African descent is not relevant.
In general, a character's race will be irrelevant if it does not significantly impact their choice of actions, or how others react to them. Whether or not it is relevant cannot be judged in general - it is specific to the socio-politics of the individual campaign.
Don't a lot of half-elves effectively try to blend in with another race?
I'm surprised that it wouldn't come up before that, with the half-elf 1/encounter power, but as a half-elf I don't see much reason to push his race to the forefront.
As an aside on the "You are a ___? Really?" thing, I have a character with a picture and everything that the GM keeps forgetting the gender of... I blame Serenity.
You know, speaking of Chris Rock....ok, time to paraphrase Eladrin are basically the snooty high elves and elves are what prior editions termed wood elves. Well, how do the 2 elf races look at each other? Do Eladrin see themselves as the law-abiding, civilized types and the Elves are uncouth and untrustworthy? Borrowing from Chris Rock (and made appropriate to the conversation): "An Eladrin didn't steal your TV, an ELF stole your TV!"
In those same podcasts someone calls Wheaton's character an elf and he says (I paraphrase) "I'm an eladrin. Elves are our hill-billy cousins."
PS
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Last edited by Storminator; 18th September 2009 at 07:17 PM..
. . . Eladrin are basically the snooty high elves and elves are what prior editions termed wood elves. Well, how do the 2 elf races look at each other? Do Eladrin see themselves as the law-abiding, civilized types and the Elves are uncouth and untrustworthy?
According to the 4E PHB, "the two races hold each other in high regard" (page 39). This suggests to me that Eladrin would think of Elves as being simple and mundane yet still trustworthy, while Elves would think of Eladrin as being complicated and exotic yet still trustworthy.
If anything, I would think that Eladrin are more Chaotic than Elves, not more Law-abiding; but this may be due to impressions that I got from earlier editions (with all of the Seldarine being either Chaotic Good or Chaotic Neutral).
(Of course, all players are free to play Elf and Eladrin characters however they wish.)
I was just kind of throwing something out there Tux, I have no real attachment to how they are setup. They likely are more chaotic, this happens when you are the decadent higher class who believes laws are made for those who can't govern themselves. At least, that could be one way of looking out of an Eladrin's eyes.
That is really funny tho Storm. City elf, country elf.
Really. How can it not have ever come up? Isn't a character's species about as relevant as its gender and, at the very least, general appearance?
The problem here is that, by the standard definition of species, elves, half-elves and humans are all the same species.
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We’ll all come inside and eat your brains
The problem here is that, by the standard definition of species, elves, half-elves and humans are all the same species.
One of the reasons I dislike half-races. Especially when you get headaches such as orcs and humans being able to mate, elves and humans can mate, but elves and orcs can't.
I know, "it's magic." But the entire purpose of magics existence is to do the impossible.
__________________ If "A" is broken, that isn't a valid reason for "B" to be so, even if they vary in degree.
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"Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen."-Albert Einstein
The problem here is that, by the standard definition of species, elves, half-elves and humans are all the same species.
Species is a scientific designation to classify living organisms, and like everything in science, isn't as ironclad as some like to think it is. Race is a social construct to help people classify "others" and therefore making it easier to deal with them (i.e. stereotypes).
None of that really matters when it comes to D&D races, which are fictional and don't quite match either concept . . . actually kind of fall inbetween. D&D looks at races from a fictional and mythic point of view, and it works fine for the game and the fiction it is based on (and the fiction based on it!).
However, it is beyond silly to criticize someone for not playing an elf "correctly". Or even to criticize someone for not roleplaying a black person "correctly". I have black friends who live up to the stereotypes in some ways . . . and I have black friends who, if you closed your eyes, you would never know their "race". But, maybe, they aren't doing a very good job of being "black". I hope they never roll up an elf or half-elf in one of my games! (heavy sarcasm)
__________________ Brian Zuber
Proud Member of ENWorld since 2000 (under several lost screen names). Gaming since the mid-80s!
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Especially when you get headaches such as orcs and humans being able to mate, elves and humans can mate, but elves and orcs can't.
Penguins.
As you go around the shore of the continent of Antarctica, there's a series of colonies of one type of penguin. Colony A can breed with Colony B. Colony B can breed with colony C, and so on around the continent. But by the time you've come full circle, you find that Colony Z cannot successfully breed with colony A!
If you wiped out several colonies in the middle (say, K through Q), you'd say there were two closely related species. But in this case, there is a continuous chain of successful breeding - though the two populations at the ends cannot interbreed, it is not possible to draw a clear line between them as species.
Which is to say, genetics is not, in general, transitive. And if the natural world can and does provide us with a matching analogy, we should not complain about it overmuch in our fantasy fiction.
Needless to say, I find the idea that people would defend this sort of play to be very strange. I play RPG's to play a role. Part of that includes whatever race my character is, whether it's a real world race/ethnicity/whatever, or a fictional one. Now, it doesn't have to be the front and center part, but, it is a part of that role. In my mind, I would consider it rather insulting if another player turned to me and said, "You're a what? Since when?" I would consider that a pretty big fail on my part.
Hey, whatever floats your boat. It doesn't float mine.
__________________ Currently running: Sufficiently Advanced over Maptool. Soon to change. If you'd like to join in a short 3-8 session campaign for various systems, drop by our forums.
I double-dog-dare you to make your game sound super cool without comparing it to other editions. - paraphrased from Umbran.
Last edited by Hussar; 21st September 2009 at 04:02 PM..
Eladrin are basically the snooty high elves and elves are what prior editions termed wood elves. Well, how do the 2 elf races look at each other? Do Eladrin see themselves as the law-abiding, civilized types and the Elves are uncouth and untrustworthy? Borrowing from Chris Rock (and made appropriate to the conversation): "An Eladrin didn't steal your TV, an ELF stole your TV!"
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