Racism in your game?

[Derren]

Having just finished Bioshock Infinite I wonder how people handle racism in their games.
As BI showed, racism is a rather touchy and ugly subject but can help immersion quite a lot. Granted, it was a pseudo historical setting, so the racism displayed was a product of its age, but this also applies to fantasy settings.

So how do you handle racism in you games? Does it even exist? At which degree? And how does it influence the PCs?

 

[Morrus]

I understand that many social ills of today existed back in medieval times. And I recognise that these can be dealt with in a mature and moral fashion in the context of a game, movie, or literature. However, I don't personally care for such things in my gaming. I'm trying to escape the real world when I game, not be reminded of just how awful it can be. And I'm not trying to simulate medieval history, I'm creating a fantasy world.

To me, evil orcs and dragons are a very different type of evil to racists, homophobes, misogynists and the like. Mainly because people I know today struggle with the latter in their everyday lives, and not with the former.

I guess a villain can display those qualities occasionally, but I wouldn't want to see it depicted in everyday life. I'm happy with my "anyone can be anything and nobody will blink an eye" version of the world.

 

[Nagol]

Institutional racism is something I touch on rarely and usually through other creatures like orcs, goblinoids, etc. Most of the barbarian and civilized lands tend to be very egalitarian for all "civilized" races.

There are a few proud nails -- a small human kingdom surrounded by swamps infested by trolls and the like that believes all demi-humans are demons in material form (different PCs in different campaigns have heard of it but none have ever ventured there); a free city that is a strict matriarchal social structure, etc. The areas tend to be small and avoidable at the PCs whim.

It ends up as a way to add colour to an area and provide spotlight to characters for different reasons and evoke different reactions.

 

[Storminator]

My players play hobgoblins, goblins, and bugbears (and now a kobold). They are a racist bunch. They hate all those humans and poncy elves. Of course they're also cannibals, so maybe they're atypical . . .

PS

 

[Nytmare]

The way that I tend to run campaigns in my preferred setting (Scarred Lands) relies very heavily on the fact that a character's race, religion, accent, social standing, and gender, will definitively affect how they're going to be treated depending on where they are and who they're talking to.

It's a world recovering from one war, while the threat of several others slowly brew, and where every group, nation and city state has a short list of allies, and a long list of enemies.

I tend to define things in very stark blacks and whites, and then run the game all around the gray areas.

 

[billd91]

When done well, I find it generally enhances my immersion which, in turn, improves my own escapism.

 

[Sword of Spirit]

I like to include a bit of historical verismilitude in the form of racism, sexism, religious intolerance--whatever fits in the setting. A modern egalitarianism is too much for my sense of immersion to handle. So humans may distrust and have prejudices against non-humans. Dwarves and elves don't care for each other. You are judged by your religion. And in most lands, women aren't in the military. Of course PCs, and adventures in general, break the rules all of the time.

 

[haakon1]

IMC, the main player character races -- human, elf, half-elf, dwarf, gnome, and halfling -- are generally treated as equals. A dwarf may get along better with a dwarf, and there are isolationist elves, but in the main "civilized" areas, race of that sort doesn't matter.

Half-orcs are a different matter -- there is a degree of racism against them. Some are treated as "regular people", but most have at least a little suspicion of them, and they are indeed a lot more likely to be poor or criminals in my campaigns.

Monster races -- actual orcs, kobolds, goblins, giants, etc. -- aren't so much subject to racism as they are just viewed as an outright threat. The PC's allied with Meepo and snuck him back into Oakhurst, and nearly got in a barfight with a hotheaded local when he found what they had in the barn out back of the inn!

Lizard men are a special case among the monsters -- they are feared much more than half-orcs, but not necessarily seen as nothing but a threat. Sometimes they get along with humans and be somewhat accepted, but always as an exotic alien presence.

Finally, I also have races among my humans, as I'm running my version of Greyhawk. Since my campaign is set in Bissel during a war with Ket, there's often some suspicion of the Baklunish. Suel v. Oeridian v. Flannae is sometimes noticed, but there's rarely racism between them.

I also have Cauldron in my setting, and my Cauldron is a colonial slave society. Here's my write-up on the races and slavery in Cauldron, for my version of it:

The founders of Cauldron and the majority of its population came from the north, across Jeklea Bay, from the noble Kingdom of Keoland or the Hold of Sea Princes, a nation of pirates who broke off from Keoland ~CY 450.

The largest race in Cauldron are Suel (think: Northern European), who originally were refugees from the ancient (1000 years ago) magical Twin Cataclysms that ended a great war, and who form the bulk of the population in both Keoland and the Hold. Many other Cauldron folk came from the eastern reaches of the Azure Sea -- mostly Oeridians (think: Southern Europeans) from the city-states of the Wild Coast (including the City of Greyhawk) or the now collapsed Great Kingdom and its successor states. A few Touv traders (think: Africans) from the tropical island continent of Hepmonaland also settled in Cauldron long ago.

When profitable diamond, obsidian, and iron ore mines were developed in the region, gnomes and dwarves from the Sheldomar Valley (Keoland and environs) flocked to Cauldron, and halflings came with them. The city has about 7500 adults, making a medium-sized city by medieval standards.

The slaves who work the plantations that provide "The Shackled City's" wealth were captured generations ago in the Amedio Jungle -- they are Amedi (Suel tribesmen who degenerated to a Stone Age culture after fleeing the fall of the Suel Imperium) and Olman (think: Aztec) tribesmen, whose jungle city-states mostly crumbled long ago. The lowland plantations around Sasserine in the river valley in between grow sugarcane (which is processed into rum), bananas, and rice (for local consumption). The highland plantations around Cauldron grow coffee, cacao (for chocolate), and durian fruit.

The climate around Cauldron is humid and tropical. The jungles and lowlands are plagued by malaria, dysentery, and wild animals including great cats and even dinosaurs.

The city-dwellers, on their mountain top, escape the oppressive heat of the jungles, and their water, from the caldera's lake, is magically kept free of disease. Slaves are not allowed in the city proper.

The major religions in Cauldron are Kord (Suloise god of strength), St. Cuthbert (Oeridian god of common sense and righteousness), Wee Jas (Suloise goddess of magic and death, former patroness of the Suel Imperium), and Pelor (Oeridian god of the sun and healing). Worshippers of Fharlanghn (Oeridian god of travel and open road) are common among the small elvish population, but have been denied permission to build a temple, due to their strident opposition to slavery, which the churches of St. Cuthbert and Pelor also sometimes quietly oppose.

 

[Razjah]

I try to keep out the racism for the same reasons Morrus described. I want the game to be fun, having a player or two be attacked verbally or worse by NPCs frequently is not very fun. If the players wants to run something like this, I generally have NPCs be unwilling to help the one PC or simply do something like 10-20% increase and +2 to social DCs. When the PC invariably helps do something awesome, the NPCs begin to recognize that character as being alright. If anyone has seen the film Remember the Titans I try emulate the scene where the police officer stops Julius to congratulate him on a well played game, prior to that he was getting crap from people simply because of his skin color.

 

[haakon1]

Racism doesn't have to be aimed at the PC's to be an interesting thematic or setting element.

Racism in the society that's not against the PC's is more interesting I think . . . the slavery in my Cauldron setting isn't meant to be something the PC's are victims or direct beneficiaries of. (And it's not entirely about race either -- there are Suel slaves and Suel slave masters.)

It's there because it made sense to me in the setting -- lots of mention of plantations and to my mind caginess about explaining the society and economy, so I filled in the unpleasantries that were left unsaid -- and because it's a moral challenge to the players.

What's the right way to deal with a society that's fundamentally "wrong", but better than the threats of mass wanton murder from monster kind?

It's a little different from my usual good society (the Shire) versus the bad Other threat.

And it's also quite different from the stereotypical D&D campaign world you hear complaints about, wherever is a jerk to the PC's for no reason, so the setting itself is just to be torn apart.

With my Cauldron, I'm thinking more like apartheid South Africa or the original Trek episode "The Cloud Minders" -- the people in the cool, pleasant city have a "good" life and aren't really evil to each other . . . it's just that most of them don't notice/don't care that their society is built on brutal repression of another group. To me, that's an interesting theme . . . if others don't like it, OK, get a different DM who's not a poli sci/history major and just wants to kill 'em some orcs and take 'em some pie.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cloud_Minders