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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mallus" data-source="post: 507716" data-attributes="member: 3887">Re: Re: Re: Does DnD encourage racist thinking?That was always my biggest problem with races and alignment. The creation of framework that justifies the asigning of moral charactersitics based on race/species. Too many people believe racist thinking in RL coresponds to the objective facts... Its just a matter of personal taste, I guess.While it bothers me in fiction/film, it really sticks in my craw when it comes to gaming. Perhaps because in a game millieu I  an active rather than passive participant...For me, the defining characteristic of racism, even beyond the issue of percieived superiority/inferiority, is the imputing of moral characterisitics based on race. And 1st edtion AD&D did this in spades. But I think the problems pretty much gone away.I don't think dwarves that can mine and elves that can sing really constitute dangerous racial stereotyping. I have a problem considering all stereotyping as equally noxious. In fact, I'm a firm believer in many flavors of benign stereotyping: I look pretty darn Asian {and my actual heritage is hyper-mixed}. I've faced this first hand. I can't honestly say I've been irreparably harmed by being mistaken for hard-working, conservative, and good at math {when I was never more than fair}. My experiences in no way parallel those of my African-American friends...Then there's the issue of mechanics: the use of stereotype in fantasy and SF is just a matter of laziness. It often has to do with overcoming the audiences disbelief, giving them a clear locus of sympathy, or comprension. Not overwhelming them, at first, with the alien. I call this the Larry Niven school of SF {where every alien race had one defining trait: violent, cowardly, immobile}.Teaching the audience about your unreal world is of paramaount importance. Give them something easy, something they can 'know' --like all Klingons are warlike. DS9 is great example; how they began with stereotypes and worked outward from there. Lastly, pretensious stuff. I'm not sure you can get around the essential reductiveness of 'knowing' {ah, slapdash epistomology}. Any system of knowledge is at the core, a set of rules saying how one thing is different from another. And the association of a limited set of symbols with a functionality infinite set of everything else. So unless you go around in a full-on Zen stupor, saying only that "things just are", you're effectively indulging in strereotyping. Bummer, huh?</blockquote>

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