D&D General Drow in early D&D

[Zardnaar]

Fun stuff. I played as Humans, with an idealized view like the Federatio’s view of itself - Xenophile and Mildly Pacificist. But I did have the authoritarian feature of being able to relocate creatures to different colonies, rather than letting each creature choose. After all, it took forever to terraform a suitable planet for my dinosaur people refugee citizens - all their home planets were conquered by a Big Bad - so I had my furry ally immigrant citizens live there until it was ready to be Jurassic Park.

Yeah forced relocation can do it just upsets a faction. Not hard to keep them happy though.

My multiplayer build is Fan Xenophile materialist megacorp single player militaristic/spiritualist/authortarian slave empire (basically Rome in space). .

 

[pming]

you appear to use perfect in such a way as to render language a meaningless and worthless implement and I lack the time to develop telepathy to compensate for it.

Uh...you're welcome? Y'know...for the Telepathy thing.

^_^

Paul L. Ming

 

[Alzrius]

So, an RPG that is based on the writings of a super-racist?

Unpopular opinion here: Lovecraft wasn't "super" racist, in terms of being a product of his time. While he absolutely held odious and bigoted views about African-Americans, the "super-racists" of his day were putting on white sheets and committing acts of murder and domestic terrorism, not writing offensive poems and stories filled with xenophobia. Putting him in the same moral category comparatively downplays the atrocities committed against the African-American community, rather than raising his writings up to the same level of egregiousness.

To put it another way, Lovecraft wasn't a "super-racist," he was your garden variety racist.

 

[Faolyn]

Not your point, but I’d say vampires have potential as PC’s. I only played with an undead PC in a tourney at Paizocon, and it turned out to be no fun for the player - our cleric was positive energy and the undead guy got hit hard first thing - but it seemed possible.

And of course, there’s Angel and Twilight … I’m sure Vampire PC’s are possible.

True--because they used to be human(oid) and therefore have that as a base. The other examples are too alien.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Unpopular opinion here: Lovecraft wasn't "super" racist, in terms of being a product of his time. While he absolutely held odious and bigoted views about African-Americans, the "super-racists" of his day were putting on white sheets and committing acts of murder and domestic terrorism, not writing offensive poems and stories filled with xenophobia. Putting him in the same moral category comparatively downplays the atrocities committed against the African-American community, rather than raising his writings up to the same level of egregiousness.

To put it another way, Lovecraft wasn't a "super-racist," he was your garden variety racist.

This is getting into philosophical areas here, but I think that it's not just violent actions that determine how racist someone is. The person who writes an incendiary work that incites racism in others is taking racist action as well.

And even other people of his day thought Lovecraft was a giant racist. He's a problematic favorite, at best.

 

[Alzrius]

This is getting into philosophical areas here, but I think that it's not just violent actions that determine how racist someone is. The person who writes an incendiary work that incites racism in others is taking racist action as well.

Leaving aside the question of how much stories like "The Shadow Over Innsmouth" incite racism in others, I don't think that level of racist action can be declared "super-racist" when held up against large-scale campaigns of murder and domestic terrorism. Lovecraft's views were quite clearly wrong and repugnant, but he's not the person to hold up as some sort of icon about just how bad racism was in early 20th-century America, and doing so does a disservice to understanding the scope and scale of the injustices that were perpetrated.

And even other people of his day thought Lovecraft was a giant racist. He's a problematic favorite, at best.

As a general rule, it's best to be specific when you say "other people support my point," since otherwise you're liable to get called on for citations. Who, specifically, was saying Lovecraft was comparable to, or worse than, the racially-motivated mass murderers?

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Who, specifically, was saying Lovecraft was comparable to, or worse than, the racially-motivated mass murderers?

I don't think anyone was making those comparisons at that point, since he died before World War II and, at that time, white American society largely pretended that racial violence didn't matter.

You may have seen copies of the newspapers covering the Tulsa Massacre, which had its 100th anniversary this week, which focused on the fact that two white people died in the headline and failed to mention the 300 black people killed.

But there are letters from his contemporaries and friends who repeatedly told Lovecraft that maybe he could dial his crap back. They were also men of their time and not exactly enlightened by today's standards.

 

[Alzrius]

But there are letters from his contemporaries and friends who repeatedly told him that maybe he could dial his crap back. They were also men of their time and not exactly enlightened by today's standards.

That there were white Americans who weren't racist during the early 20th century, some of whom knew Lovecraft, is no secret. But neither does that elevate Lovecraft's own racism to point where it warrants mentioning in the same context as the Tulsa massacre.

Doing so is, in itself, a form of white supremacy, since it subtly diminishes the horrors that were inflicted on people of African-American heritage. Putting Lovecraft and the Tulsa massacre side by side doesn't heighten the former, but minimizes the latter. The two are not comparable, and holding up Lovecraft's altogether mild example as some sort of icon of just how bad things were lessens the impact of those monstrous acts.

 

[Urriak Uruk]

Doing so is, in itself, a form of white supremacy, since it subtly diminishes the horrors that were inflicted on people of African-American heritage. Putting Lovecraft and the Tulsa massacre side by side doesn't heighten the former, but minimizes the latter. The two are not comparable, and holding up Lovecraft's altogether mild example as some sort of icon of just how bad things were lessens the impact of those monstrous acts.

I'm sorry, are you accusing someone who is calling out Lovecraft's prejudices as a form of white supremacy? This is looking ridiculous.

 

[Alzrius]

I'm sorry, are you accusing someone who is calling out Lovecraft's prejudices as a form of white supremacy? This is looking ridiculous.

Are you suggesting that citing Lovecraft's prejudice as being comparable to the Tulsa massacre is an appropriate comparison to make? Because it takes an incredible amount of privilege to defend that idea.