Blacks in Gaming (Hyperlink)

ShinHakkaider · Feb 23, 2012

S'mon said:
On the one hand, I think REH was pretty racist.
On the other hand,

is not nice.

You know having pretty much consistently run into white male gamers on many different boards (HERO GAMES boards, RPG.net and on occaision HERE) who have a very narrow and decidedly not positive view of black and brown people in relation to RPG's I'm gonna stand by what I said.

You may see it as not being nice but over 10 years of various message board interactions with the occasional discussion on race? Well you get to see how a lot of people without the filter of having to talk to someone face to face view various races.

S'mon · Feb 23, 2012

ShinHakkaider said:
You know having pretty much consistently run into white male gamers on many different boards (HERO GAMES boards, RPG.net and on occaision HERE) who have a very narrow and decidedly not positive view of black and brown people in relation to RPG's I'm gonna stand by what I said.

You may see it as not being nice but over 10 years of various message board interactions with the occasional discussion on race? Well you get to see how a lot of people without the filter of having to talk to someone face to face view various races.

Try reversing the polarity on your statement and consider how it comes across.

ShinHakkaider · Feb 23, 2012

S'mon said:
Try reversing the polarity on your statement and consider how it comes across.

So without addressing the not so subtle "people who whine about racism are whiners" tone of some of the responses here in this thread or the many times that I've run into posters who for whatever reasons really dont like black or brown people in general, I should what completely disavow my statement based on what exactly? Trying to achieve moral high ground?

I know what I said. If you or any of the people here were standing in front of me I'd say it to your faces. The fact that the hobby is pretty much overwhelmingly White and Male? is that somehow in debate? The fact that a fair amount of these white males on these message boards when it comes down to depicting diversity in almost ANYTHING whether it be comics or RPG's come down firmly on the side of homogenization? and I need to watch what I say?

Like I said compared to 10 years ago it's gotten better but still...

Tonguez · Feb 23, 2012

pemerton said:
I've generally not been a fan of "all _______ are evil" outlook because I think it is an expression, in the fantasy medium, of a type of xenophobic/racist outlook that is also found in White Australia cartoons from the turn of the last century, in anti-Hun posters from World War One, in a certain sort of movie involving colonial warfare, etc.

I was watching Once Upon a Time at a friends last night, an episode featuring trolls wherein said friend commented "why are tv trolls always depicted with dreadlocks and dark skin? and of course they're violent criminals - [sarcasm] because well all violent criminals have dark skin and dreads[/sarcasm]?"

and your mention of Australia recalls an episode of Blinky Bill I once watched back in the 1990's (my nephew was once a fan). Even though Blinky Bill was set in Australia and is about Australian native marsupials the episode when they went back in their history had them transported to a castle in medieval europe.

I don't think either depiction was deliberately racist but rather sugest that ab institutionalised bias towards "all _______ are evil" and White Australia still exists in the subconcious of the artists. REH certainly had those issues but then the institution was much more overt at his time, now they are more subtle but still extant.

putting out the 10% (or 50%) challenge at least gets those artist to consider the issues

Grumpy RPG Reviews · Feb 23, 2012

Again, the specific challenge is about the art in the 5E/D&D Next books, not about what is going on in other games, not about if it does/was/should represent Europe and other issues.

I am an American and the video is a remake of a strictly podcast version of the same thing composed a year ago. In America February is African American History Month and blacks do constitute 12% of the population. I am not presuming to speak for other nations.

There is a difference between a goal and an objective. Goals are vague, objectives are specific. A laudable goal is "making the next version of the game more inclusive" but without any specifics such a things in difficult to measure. An objective is to "make 10% of the humans depicted in art black" and thus measurable, and thus attainable. Further setting it at 10% is modest, reasonable and easily calculated. All of which makes it easier to reach.

What I am doing here is very calculated.

Set · Feb 23, 2012

the Jester said:
...or, you know, maybe skin color has nothing to do with climate in your game. There's no reason it should have to.

[tangent]Elven pigmentation since 1st edition has been backwards of human pigmentations.

The grey elves that live on high mountain tops under the harsh sun are bone white in skin and have light colored hair and eyes.

The 'high' elves that live among men, more or less, are the same coloration as men.

The wood or wild elves or grugach are described as darker, or 'nut-brown.'

The dark elves who live underground and never see the light of the sun are dark, dark, dark.

The aquatic elves, who live in the blue-green waters are blue or green.

Humans would get dark in the sun or pale in the underdark, but D&D elves bleach in sunlight and darken in shadow, it seems.

If there were elves living on the elemental plane of fire, I'd expect them to be red-skinned, to match their surroundings.[/tangent]

.

At the end of the day, I don't care whether or not it makes sense to have black, brown, yellow, red, etc. humans in the setting. If putting one on a cover helps to expand the market (and the number of people I can sit down and game with), then, do it. A larger customer-base is good for the business, and more players is good for all of us. Nobody needs to bend over backwards to make me feel included with pictures of more white dudes, 'cause I've never felt excluded.

As for the presence of non-whites in a fantasy setting, I liked Kingdoms of Kalamar, for making their Svimovish or whatever a peer-equal culture and kingdom, with it's own advanced crafts, bustling metropoli and magical academies and whatnot, and not the primitive jungle savages tucked out of the way that other settings have tended to reduce their black presence to.

Lwaxy · Feb 23, 2012

ShinHakkaider said:
Youre telling me that it's more feasible for a white artist to draw a dragon, a hobgoblin or a GELATINOUS CUBE than it would be for them to draw another human being of a different race?

Yes, simply because art follows the same egocentric rule. Unless there is a special interest (like in Asian culture/Japanese comics, which seems to be the recent fashion).

There are enough fantasy artists of non-white origin out there. Not everyone who is into fantasy needs to play RPGs you know.

And yeah, art or not, D&D has always been inclusive for me. If anything, the female players have a lot more to complain about in regards of how those almost porn-style artworks affected the game or at least the perception of the game.

There was/is sexism in fantasy art. There is no racism in fantasy art, best you can go on about is the ignorance of the existence of diversity.

As this is getting a bit too... well, not quite political but almost so... I'm going to focus on other topics now. :erm:

gamerprinter · Feb 23, 2012

Set said:
[tangent]Elven pigmentation since 1st edition has been backwards of human pigmentations.

The grey elves that live on high mountain tops under the harsh sun are bone white in skin and have light colored hair and eyes.

Well, not to be contradictory, but some geneticists believe that 'white people' became white, as a result of spending several thousand years in the upper reaches of the Causasus Mountains, perhaps due to the lack of water in a very dry period of our prehistoric past. Spending time in upper altitude regions with brutal sun (despite the cold temperatures) led to the lightening of skin pigmentations, blond hair and blue eyes.

So grey elves having bone white skin and light colored hair and eyes are similar to the above theory, that white man became white by spending time on high mountain tops under harsh sun as well. Thus, this isn't backwards, but right on target.

Piratecat · Feb 23, 2012

ShinHakkaider said:
Re: Howard as a racist.

It's one thing to not have ANY black characters in your book (tolkien) and another thing completely to include them and then go out of your way to portray them as less than and devalued as sentient beings. In Howard's stories you get a lot of the latter.

It's real easy not to see the racism in something when it doesn't effect you or the group that you belong to. It's even easier these days especially to say that people are being oversensitive or whining about racism. Being that this hobby is made up primarily of White Males I'm not at all surprised at some of the responses to this. On the other hand I think the types of responses have improved from 10 years ago. So there's that.

Bring real world race/politics into it, folks, and the thread goes klunk.

Closed.

Plane Sailing · Feb 23, 2012

RobertSullivan said:
Hrmm. I am deferring to your judgement but I put it in the 5E forum because of the specific challenge issued about the art in the 5E books.

95% of the post wasn't about art in 5e books, hence the move. I'm considering merging it with the thematically very similar thread Danny noticed in Media Lounge too. Best to start one thread about a particular topic in a single place.

Cheers