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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lyxen" data-source="post: 8528996" data-attributes="member: 7032025">So, are you prentending that, in your fantasy world, all people know everything about all other groups, and are not using broad generalisations ? That, in your campaign world description, you are not using simplistic generalisations ? So please show me descriptions of people in your fantasy world, I'll judge on proofs, not on theory.Moreover, here are other definitions that I have found:<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Wikipedia: "Social psychology defines a stereotype as a generalized belief about a particular category of people.[2] It is an expectation that people might have about every person of a particular group.[citation needed] The type of expectation can vary; it can be, for example, an expectation about the group's personality, preferences, appearance or ability. Stereotypes are sometimes overgeneralized, inaccurate, and resistant to new information, but can sometimes be accurate."</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Merriam-Webster: "something conforming to a fixed or general pattern - especially : a standardized mental picture that is held in common by members of a group and that represents an oversimplified opinion, prejudiced attitude, or uncritical judgment"</li> </ul>So, if I describe that a culture is often wearing long horizontally striped robes of pastel colors, it's a stereotype based on apparence. It might often be false, but at least, it's a pattern and some individuals wear it. Please tell me what harm is being done here. And also, how you go about describing cultures in your fantasy world, since this is a discussion about TTRPGs. I would be very curious to see how you do this without broad strokes like the above. ALL the fantasy settings of D&D do it. I can't even give you a list, but here are a few, I don't have to go far in almost every single official publication to find the use of stereotypes:<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Waterdeep - Dragon Heist: Waterdavians generally hold adventurers in high regard.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Icewind Dale : The people of Ten Town wear layers of woolen clothing often topped of with fur coats. Residents in a three-snowflake town are friendly and helpful, by and large. Conversely, a one-snowflake town is full of unhelpful, unfriendly folk.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Curse of Stradh: Barovians are deeply invested in their homes and traditions. They are wary of strange people and customs.</li> </ul>All of these are clearly, obviously stererotypes. And they are incredibly useful in running the adventures. And none of them are offensive. They are just stereotypes, extremely useful tools to describe people, populations and cultures in the context of a TTRPG.But once more, I would be very interested in seeing how you describe cultures in your fantasy world without using stereotypes. Please show us.Actually, this is a lie:<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Oxford: "a fixed idea or image that many people have of a particular type of person or thing, but which is often not true in reality"</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Cambridge: "a set <a href="https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/idea" target="_blank">idea</a> that <a href="https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/people" target="_blank">people</a> have about what someone or something is like, <a href="https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/especially" target="_blank">especially</a> an <a href="https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/idea" target="_blank">idea</a> that is <a href="https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/wrong" target="_blank">wrong</a>"</li> </ul>So, there is no "harmful" there, and I recognise another of these words which are bandied around in other thread about the impact of offensive writing. Second, about the "wrong" thing, well, you are clearly using that word wrongly, the common trend in all these definition is not that it does not mean "bad", but that it means "incorrect", as if the stereotype incorrectly describes even the majority of the population. Which is fine, in the TTRPG examples above, there are certainly helpful and friendly folks in one-snowflake towns. But maybe most are not, or maybe it's just the image that the town has. In any case, it is USEFUL, it adds to verisimilitude, you can use them or subvert them at will, and I don't believe that you can describe a fantasy culture without them.Hmmm, that dictionary is well known for recording the use of words at least 50 years in the past. However, using common French dictionaries say:<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Larousse: "Caractérisation symbolique et schématique d'un groupe qui s'appuie sur des attentes et des jugements de routine." = "Symbolic and schematic characterization of a group based on routine expectations and judgments."</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Robert: "Opinion toute faite réduisant les particularités. ➙ cliché." = "Ready-made opinion reducing particularities. ➙ cliche."</li> </ul>So, obviously, my mastery of english is way above your mastery of French, including what French dictionaries are actually used in everyday life... <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f61b.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":p" title="Stick out tongue    :p"  data-smilie="7"data-shortname=":p" />AnSo yeah, you have no idea what you are talking about. So, instead of using a word (which one, generalisation, which does not mean anything) wrongly, why don't you use the proper word as intended instead of perpetuating false and biased ideas about it ?And once more, because this is a D&D forum, ESPECIALLY in the case of describing the cultures of a fantasy world, it is an extremely useful tool.</blockquote>

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