On Indigenous Peoples Day Coyote & Crow pdf will be pay what you want

[Emberashh]

We don't have to trade insults. We disagree and that is fine. I have a whole lifetime already of growing up, and being instilled with a variety of principles and values from a wide range of sources. I feel comfortable taking the position that I do here. But if you disagree, that is fine. We don't have to agree on these things

I subscribe to the John Brown method of resolving these sorts of issues.

I'll leave it at that.

I might be getting my terms mixed up, but cosplay is short for constume play, right? Other than those involved in live action role playing, I don't think I've ever seen someone cosplay during a table top roleplaying game. i.e. I've never had a Call of Cthulhu player show up to the game wearing a suit, suspenders, and with their hair slicked down with Dapper Dan pomade or wearing a flapper style dress. Though that honestly might be pretty cool. In a role playing game, players are epected to take on the role of the characte they're playing. I ran a Call of Chulhu game set in the 1930s, and one of my white players had a black character. Was he cosplaying? No. None of this is about cosplaying.

Its hyperbolic and meant to be more abrasive than Connor's attempt is in the book. It isn't literal.

As said though, the book provides fictional cultures for you to explore. That it encourages indigenous folk to, more or less, play as themselves is meant to be inclusive and empowering in the context of an alternative history game where indigenous America was allowed to flourish uninterrupted.

To be a white person, which I can only assume accounts for more or less every person who has the audacity to get mad at that inclusion, actually get this mad and start throwing around "discrimination" and "racism" all willy nilly because they, as white people, are being asked to not go pretend to be Cherokee or Lakota Sioux when they aren't, is peak stupid. I'm not going to even sugarcoat that.

This wouldn't be the first time bad actors jumped at the opportunity to cry wolf about whites being oppressed. Nor will it be the last.

 

[Umbran]

Things they don't want the whole audience to have available shouldn't be in it.

They aren't in the book.

The authors don't "make them available". There is no description of any of these things in the book. There are no rules in the book for them.

They tell folks of indigenous ancestry that they can bring their own culture, in their own way - if you want them, you must homebrew them.

It is about how to play thoughtfully and with some empathy, not about options in the game.

 

[Umbran]

I've never cosplayed anything at an RPG table.

In this situation, "cosplay" is not to be taken literally - it isn't about the player being in a literal physical costume.

 

[Bedrockgames]

In this situation, "cosplay" is not to be taken literally - it isn't about the player being in a literal physical costume.

I understood that. I was just responding to the above poster that I have never seen much actual cos play at an RPG table

 

[Gradine]

I get that marginalized people can't say "Hey, please don't engage with our culture thoughtlessly or in ways that reinforce negative stereotypes against us" without it being controversial... but it shouldn't be controversial.

 

[Bedrockgames]

I get that marginalized people can't say "Hey, please don't engage with our culture thoughtlessly or in ways that reinforce negative stereotypes against us" without it being controversial... but it shouldn't be controversial.

This kind of framing I think is part of the problem in these conversations. I think there is just a deeper disagreement over issues like whether cultural appropriation is a concern or where the lines ought to be. To frame reactions to that as people making controversy out of a simple request for cultural respect, I think misses the nuances of the conversation that has been happening around this

 

[Gradine]

This kind of framing I think is part of the problem in these conversations. I think there is just a deeper disagreement over issues like whether cultural appropriation is a concern or where the lines ought to be.

Disagreement over the lines ought to be? Sure, absolutely. Tons of nuance there. This game (and its author) are actually framed somewhat more liberally (I mean this literally and not politically) on this issue; he has gone on record multiple times saying he wants white people to play this game; I know many native folks who would raise an eyebrow over that kind of idea.

That said, the broader issue of cultural appropriation simply is remarkably less complex. If marginalized peoples, survivors of centuries of cultural and literal genocide, are asking others not to do it, the prudent thing to do would seem to be to... you know... listen to them.

To frame reactions to that as people making controversy out of a simple request for cultural respect,

This is, objectively, what is happening right now in this thread, with regard to this product.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Disagreement over the lines ought to be? Sure, absolutely. Tons of nuance there. This game (and its author) are actually framed somewhat more liberally (I mean this literally and not politically) on this issue; he has gone on record multiple times saying he wants white people to play this game; I know many native folks who would raise an eyebrow over that kind of idea.

That said, the broader issue of cultural appropriation simply is remarkably less complex. If marginalized peoples, survivors of centuries of cultural and literal genocide, are asking others not to do it, the prudent thing to do would seem to be to... you know... listen to them.

It really isn't because there isn't a united voice on this front among the people in question. There is always going to be internal disagreement over these matters and there is always going to be disagreement in the broader culture. You can say you think the conversation is settled. I think a lot more harm is done by adopting a taboo around cultural appropriation (and I think you see that in how people are behaving).

Also I am not saying he doesn't want white people to play the game. I haven't been following his statements though as this is not a game I am particularly familiar with. My comment was about how treating readers differently and saying one group can do X the other can't, is in my opinion not beneficial because it reducing people to very superficial aspects of who they are, and it is discouraging people from freely imagining things.

This is, objectively, what is happening right now in this thread, with regard to this product.

it isn't. People are disagreeing. And they aren't disagreeing simply because someone requested cultural politeness or respect. They are disagreeing because there are fundamental assumptions about the exchange of culture and about identity in the text that people find somewhat alarming (you might agree with it and fair enough, but for a lot of people this reflects a racist way of viewing the world)

 

[Autumnal]

I found the game’s request for boundaries on character backgrounds entirely reasonable and, as a middle-aged white person, will be happy to comply if I play it.

Note that the game doesn’t suggest using any specific First Nations tribal background the player doesn’t belong to, either. Being Tlingit is not taken to make you informed about life as a Cherokee, and so on.

The idea that this is about something superficial is outright boggling. I lack words to describe how any non-majority ethnic identity suffuses every aspect of life, and more so given the horrendous and complex histories of the tribes. I know enough to know what I don’t know.

Fortunately, the game’s default setting includes identities that are rich and interesting - it looks really appealing to play - that don’t mess with other people’s stuff.

 

[Bedrockgames]

The idea that this is about something superficial is outright boggling. I lack words to describe how any non-majority ethnic identity suffuses every aspect of life, and more so given the horrendous and complex histories of the tribes. I know enough to know what I don’t know.

You know very little about a person from their ethnic identity. It can be very important, it can be meaningful. It doesn't have to suffuse their whole being (they may have other aspects of themselves that are far more important to them than who their ancestors are or what culture their household was). Saying it is superficial for us to lead with or prioritize that, isn't the same as ignoring historical atrocities. You can understand that we shouldn't be basing our judgements on people by their ethnicity, race, religious, etc and that we shoudn't be treating people differently based on those things, while understanding that a person can find meaning in their cultural background, and that history is filled with unfair and cruel treatment of various peoples.