D&D 5E On Representation and Roleplaying

[jmartkdr2]

But the issues involved with Redmayne taking a role as a transgendered person are not the same as someone at a table roleplaying, say, a gender-fluid elf.** Obviously, that could be roleplayed in a disrespectful or hurtful manner, but the mere fact of doing so, or exploring this- well, that is the very essence of roleplaying and assuming alter egos.

The biggest difference, IMO, is that roleplaying for fun can just as easily be an attempt to learn about the type of character you're playing - if I'm playing a gender-fluid elf, I need to think about what it means to be a genderfluid person and how that would affect how such a person thinks and feels. It becomes an exercise in empathy.

Technically, this is true of any actor - their craft starts with empathy - but in the case of acting for an audience, there's a scarcity issue. Whether I choose to play an elf has no impact on anyone else's ability to play an elf or anything else allowed by the game. But Eddie playing, say, Newt, means that no one else gets to play Newt in the official Hollywood movie about Newt. Someone else was denied the opportunity. In that particular case there's no category-of-person denial, which is why his role in the Danish Girl is much more complicated.

***I mean, other than playing an elf. C'mon! That's the real issue.

Sometimes it's important to take time to understand how people become terrible.

 

[Mind of tempest]

well, at least it seems most people are not that good at acting so I should not struggle as much as I thought, how does representation work anyway as I never got the concept?

 

[payn]

"... but that doesn't mean that there are no similar issues. If you've played long enough, you've undoubtedly come across a truly questionable roleplaying choice. Maybe it was questionable in terms of morality (the edgelord evil character). Maybe it was questionable in terms of accents (the Triton named Wu Tang Clam). Maybe it was questionable in terms of a characterization that was more of a stereotype (say, a Samurai that was leaning too heavily into stereotypes about Asian culture, as opposed to genre conventions)."

put me down as one of the older players and questions for the younger players. In 1986 TSR came out with oriental adventures and Milton Bradley came out with a game called Shogun in 1986. Looking back in history are these considered to be cultural appropriation (like the actor should i be ashamed for playing)

Again, I think there is a public and private face to the concept of cultural appropriation. If your game is public and meant for mass consumption, you should put as much thought into it as possible. For your private game, you can do as you wish, but Id still be mindful of falling into stereotypes and bad generalizations. Though, if you are ignorant of them, you will make mistakes, but its your own private game. It grows as you do, but dont be afraid to explore role play opportunities.

Not sure why the evil character is coming into bad play. Is Ra Salvatores Artemis character type no longer acceptable at roleplaying. If someone at my table says listen im not loving that your a hired killer (5th edition) should i have to change my ways?

Im not familiar with any of this. What is it about Artemis and evil characters that is not conscientious?

Totally agree with the racist/phobic arguments. Theres no place for it ever

This is all folks want people to consider in these discussions. You can role play in ways that dont feed directly into those behaviors.

 

[Retreater]

I don't think RPGs have real value in experiencing something similar to a real-world experience. They're fun, distracting.
As the GM, I can't give a contemporary Midwestern white male player the experience of being an African American man in the 1920s American South, for example. To do so and think it I can convey that to any valid extent is hubris.
If a player wants to explore different thoughts or experiences, they ought to read a book or watch a film by appropriate creators. Unless the GM has specific experience with a culture (like, I could run a game about growing up in the suburbs in the 1980s), it's best to stick with elves and dragons.

 

[el-remmen]

put me down as one of the older players and questions for the younger players. In 1986 TSR came out with oriental adventures and Milton Bradley came out with a game called Shogun in 1986. Looking back in history are these considered to be cultural appropriation (like the actor should i be ashamed for playing)

I am not a younger player (I turned 50 this year), but I want to tell you a story about buying Oriental Adventures "back in the day." I purchased it at the Compleat Strategist in Midtown Manhattan when it had recently come out. I was 15 years old. I took the subway back towards Brooklyn and was happily reading the book as we went southward. However, the train I was on passed through a couple of stops in NY's China Town, where the car filled up with Asian folks. Suddenly, I felt very self-conscious of what I was reading, of the art on the front, the title, the images inside. I may not have had the language to describe what I was feeling or why I felt like I was doing something wrong - but I still knew something was off about this book and that actual Asian people might object to how their very diverse cultures were mashed together and represented. I put the book back in backpack. But part of me thinks that if I had not had that stark experience of reading about this version of "Asia" while literally surrounded by people from or descended from folks who were from there, I may never have had that gut feeling.

I tell this story not because I am "ashamed" of having bought and used that book (and I still own that very copy), but because many of the concerns that seem "new" or "recent" to some segments of the population are not new at all. In some cases, people knew about them, felt some kind of way about them all along, in other cases, folks felt some kind of unnamable discomfort as they sensed the contradictions in how the dominant culture makes use of, consumes, and marginalizes other cultures. As a person of color, I was sensitive to these things even as I also participated in them.

I still think that book has problems in how it presents its material and how it frames "the Orient" and refers to people as "Oriental" - but there is nothing wrong with playing in a fantasy world inspired by various Asian legends, history, folklore, and customs. To my mind, you can still use that book if you want (I might), but remaining cognizant of those problems and not assuming (as many did - as even I did, despite my discomfort) that this is somehow - by lieu of the writers' research and erudition - an authentic and proper way to find out about "Asian Culture" rather than a very western reduction of it to game material.

The wild thing about Oriental Adventures to me, is that as a handbook of "another world" it actually emulates the works of "Orientalists," that is, Euro-American "experts" on the Middle East and Asia (of the 18th through 20th century) who studied and posited a very problematic "timeless essence" of the East that always frames it as Other and inferior to the West (while simultaneously posing a danger to the West's superior cultures). Those scholarly works, like Oriental Adventures, were essentially saying "This is what you need to understand Asia across time," while the core D&D books of the time (and definitely not now) were not expected to provide any actual insight into European history (except maybe when used as an excuse to not include non-European cultures in the game). The late great scholar Edward Said published the seminal work on criticizing "Orientalism" - if anyone is interested, though I know academic writing is not for everyone.

 

[J-H]

I don't think RPGs have real value in experiencing something similar to a real-world experience. They're fun, distracting.
As the GM, I can't give a contemporary Midwestern white male player the experience of being an African American man in the 1920s American South, for example. To do so and think it I can convey that to any valid extent is hubris.
If a player wants to explore different thoughts or experiences, they ought to read a book or watch a film by appropriate creators. Unless the GM has specific experience with a culture (like, I could run a game about growing up in the suburbs in the 1980s), it's best to stick with elves and dragons.

Does that mean you think it's also a bad idea to run a Greek/Egypt/India-inspired setting, or anything else that's not based either on your personal experience, or draws from no real-world inspirations?

 

[BrokenTwin]

I agree with the general sentiment expressed that there's a fundemental difference between portraying a role for fun (as part of an RPG) and portraying a role for profit (as an actor in a movie or show).

Within that first subset, there's a major difference between attempting to explore an identity that you don't personally experience and playing a deliberate stereotype of that identity. But the waters get muddled when you account for the fact that a lot of people have no concept of identities outside their own as anything other than the stereotype, so an attempt at honest exploration can still appear as a thoughtless portrayal by someone with actual experience within that identity. And if there's nobody with that experience at your table, then you run the risk never exploring outside of that potentially harmful stereotype.

And that risk is significantly more challenging to navigate as a GM, since they are both portraying significantly more characters than any given player over the course of a game, and frequently do not have the narrative space to portray characters as anything OTHER than a quick stereotype for ease of play. If you as a GM want to encorporate more minority identities in your game, than typically the only way you can do so is by calling attention to those traits, as otherwise the players will usually default to the assumption of straight white male. But calling attention to those differences can be seen as othering and tokenism, which is also bad. And instead of having the time and focus to do a thoughtful portrayal of a different identity, you may have half a dozen lines of dialog and description, frequently made up on the spot.

All in all, I think as far as it applies to people at tables, what matters is intent. Good faith explorations of identities outside our own should always be encouraged, as long as they don't violate the social contract of the game. So long as people are willing to both accept constructive criticism AND give people the grace to make mistakes, then everything should work out.

 

[Retreater]

Does that mean you think it's also a bad idea to run a Greek/Egypt/India-inspired setting, or anything else that's not based either on your personal experience, or draws from no real-world inspirations?

It would be hubris for me to think it would give the player an experience akin to living in those times and places, better understanding the people of those times. What would be a bad idea would be to use more contemporary settings and people as fodder for an RPG under the guise of experiencing their cultures.

 

[Umbran]

...how does representation work anyway as I never got the concept?

Representation primarily works by making people who are not part of the dominant power structure visible. It reminds those of us in majorities that these other people exist, and should not be ignored. When done properly, it invites people into spaces they would otherwise feel excluded from, and unwelcome in.

 

[Mind of tempest]

Representation primarily works by making people who are not part of the dominant power structure visible. It reminds those of us in majorities that these other people exist, and should not be ignored. When done properly, it invites people into spaces they would otherwise feel excluded from, and unwelcome in.

yes, but how does it make them feel represented what is that like?