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General Tabletop Discussion
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Alien Character Mindsets: Elves should be pretty conservative about almost everything.
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<blockquote data-quote="overgeeked" data-source="post: 8683814" data-attributes="member: 86653"><p>Sort of. But that's not really how it works. Things don't always progress, sometimes they regress. Change is constant. But change isn't always positive. For example, Weimar Germany was an incredibly progressive place...then the Nazis took over. The anarchists of the Spanish Civil War were quite progressive for their time...then the fascists took over. Looking at American history, you had free love etc in the 1960s...followed by Reagan in the 1980s.</p><p></p><p>To assume that <em>all</em> elves or <em>all</em> dwarfs should be X or Y is to assume their cultures are monolithic. Which is the central problem for a lot of these conversations. It's like the Star Wars shorthand of ecology and biome. This entire planet is pure desert. This entire planet is pure ocean. This entire planet is pure volcano. It's an absurd shorthand that can make for some dramatic settings, but it's nonetheless absurd. To assume that <em>all</em> elves or <em>all</em> dwarfs should be X or Y is to perform that same kind of absurd reductionism to an entire culture.</p><p></p><p>That's typically not how cultures work. Small, isolated groups can have monolithic cultures...say a tribe. But unless that tribe avoids contact with other tribes it's going to be affected by that contact and their culture will change, even if slowly. And that doesn't even account for rebellious youth. It's a nearly universal human trait, no reason to assume other races don't have something similar. Incredibly old hippie parents have staunchly conservative kids...and as they all age, the parents become more conservative while the kid relaxes and becomes less conservative over time. Or not. People are too complicated and messy to fit into simplistic boxes like that. So why assume fantasy races are? Makes for rather boring fantasy races, I think.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="overgeeked, post: 8683814, member: 86653"] Sort of. But that's not really how it works. Things don't always progress, sometimes they regress. Change is constant. But change isn't always positive. For example, Weimar Germany was an incredibly progressive place...then the Nazis took over. The anarchists of the Spanish Civil War were quite progressive for their time...then the fascists took over. Looking at American history, you had free love etc in the 1960s...followed by Reagan in the 1980s. To assume that [I]all[/I] elves or [I]all[/I] dwarfs should be X or Y is to assume their cultures are monolithic. Which is the central problem for a lot of these conversations. It's like the Star Wars shorthand of ecology and biome. This entire planet is pure desert. This entire planet is pure ocean. This entire planet is pure volcano. It's an absurd shorthand that can make for some dramatic settings, but it's nonetheless absurd. To assume that [I]all[/I] elves or [I]all[/I] dwarfs should be X or Y is to perform that same kind of absurd reductionism to an entire culture. That's typically not how cultures work. Small, isolated groups can have monolithic cultures...say a tribe. But unless that tribe avoids contact with other tribes it's going to be affected by that contact and their culture will change, even if slowly. And that doesn't even account for rebellious youth. It's a nearly universal human trait, no reason to assume other races don't have something similar. Incredibly old hippie parents have staunchly conservative kids...and as they all age, the parents become more conservative while the kid relaxes and becomes less conservative over time. Or not. People are too complicated and messy to fit into simplistic boxes like that. So why assume fantasy races are? Makes for rather boring fantasy races, I think. [/QUOTE]
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