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<blockquote data-quote="the Jester" data-source="post: 8770730" data-attributes="member: 1210"><p>So my first answer was going to be "Depends on the group", but given this clarification, I would run it with all the warts included. I know that's not for everyone, and if I had someone who was put off by that, I would be open to discussing it, but that's my preferred style, and it seems to be okay with all the people I play D&D with, based on my knowledge of them as people as well as experiences we've had with e.g. Deadlands and the like, in pseudohistorical settings. </p><p></p><p>Even in my own homebrewed D&D world, there is lots of racism, from the classic "elves and dwarves tend to not like each other" to the perhaps more sketchy "a lot of the prejudices against gnomes are modeled on anti-Semitic tropes from the real world" approach I adopted waaaaay back before I even recognized it as problematic that has continued by virtue of it being established canon. There are also analogs to colonial powers, including ones where the prejudices are within one race and based on culture or ethnicity, e.g. the (human) Forinthian Empire exploited, colonized, and horribly abused many many MANY other human ethnicities. </p><p></p><p>I have slavery, I have religious conflicts, I have complicated things where the orcs of one particular continent struggled to get accepted as a "civilized" race for decades or even centuries. There are cultures that are terribly sexist, both with males on top and with females on top.</p><p></p><p>But here's the thing. Those prejudices aren't built in to the people, they are cultural norms. The pcs from those cultures are assumed to understand those prejudices but not necessarily to share them. And things like bigotry, religious division, colonization, etc, are things that I depict as <em>true to the world but BAD. </em>When I roleplay a murderer, there's no question that he's the bad guy (assuming the pcs know he's a murderer- exceptions may apply if they don't know The Truth yet). When I roleplay a bigot, it's clear that the bigotry is not at all a positive trait. Even when I RP bigotry against traditional enemy races, such as orcs or gnolls or goblins, I try to make it very clear that this isn't something for heroic pcs to emulate; it's something that they can try to overcome or change, that they have the opportunity to lead people away from. Slavers are not the good guys. Religious persecution isn't what the good guys do, even if the church they follow does; the good guys are reformers.</p><p></p><p>Although I totally get why a lot of folks don't want any prejudice or slavery or whatnot in their game, I like to give my players a reason to consider the bad guys bad guys other than just "they're the antagonist of this adventure". Things like prejudice, persecution, exploitation, slaving, murder, kidnapping children, etc, etc, ad nauseam- that's all stuff that I consider to be Wrong, and I strive to depict it as Wrong in game. The bad guys do bad things; those who do bad things are bad guys. And some of those bad guys can be reformed or turned around or shown the light, but some are irredeemable bad guys who are there to be straight up defeated by Our Heroes.</p><p></p><p>I think evil, wrong, bad things serve a purpose in the game. If I had a player who was made uncomfortable by such things, I'd have to have a talk with them and see where to go with it. Might be that I'd stay away from certain topics. Might be that there could be some "light touch" on certain topics adopted. And it might be that I'd recommend they drop my game. It just depends on what it is- I certainly would not want a player in my game who was squeamish about my descriptions in combat, or who couldn't handle spider-like monsters, or who was legitimately disturbed by any mention of religion. Those are things that I don't think I would have fun eliminating from my game, or honestly even could eliminate without a massive amount of mental work and constantly second-guessing myself. But I am fortunate not to have anyone in my groups that can't hang with our playstyle.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="the Jester, post: 8770730, member: 1210"] So my first answer was going to be "Depends on the group", but given this clarification, I would run it with all the warts included. I know that's not for everyone, and if I had someone who was put off by that, I would be open to discussing it, but that's my preferred style, and it seems to be okay with all the people I play D&D with, based on my knowledge of them as people as well as experiences we've had with e.g. Deadlands and the like, in pseudohistorical settings. Even in my own homebrewed D&D world, there is lots of racism, from the classic "elves and dwarves tend to not like each other" to the perhaps more sketchy "a lot of the prejudices against gnomes are modeled on anti-Semitic tropes from the real world" approach I adopted waaaaay back before I even recognized it as problematic that has continued by virtue of it being established canon. There are also analogs to colonial powers, including ones where the prejudices are within one race and based on culture or ethnicity, e.g. the (human) Forinthian Empire exploited, colonized, and horribly abused many many MANY other human ethnicities. I have slavery, I have religious conflicts, I have complicated things where the orcs of one particular continent struggled to get accepted as a "civilized" race for decades or even centuries. There are cultures that are terribly sexist, both with males on top and with females on top. But here's the thing. Those prejudices aren't built in to the people, they are cultural norms. The pcs from those cultures are assumed to understand those prejudices but not necessarily to share them. And things like bigotry, religious division, colonization, etc, are things that I depict as [I]true to the world but BAD. [/I]When I roleplay a murderer, there's no question that he's the bad guy (assuming the pcs know he's a murderer- exceptions may apply if they don't know The Truth yet). When I roleplay a bigot, it's clear that the bigotry is not at all a positive trait. Even when I RP bigotry against traditional enemy races, such as orcs or gnolls or goblins, I try to make it very clear that this isn't something for heroic pcs to emulate; it's something that they can try to overcome or change, that they have the opportunity to lead people away from. Slavers are not the good guys. Religious persecution isn't what the good guys do, even if the church they follow does; the good guys are reformers. Although I totally get why a lot of folks don't want any prejudice or slavery or whatnot in their game, I like to give my players a reason to consider the bad guys bad guys other than just "they're the antagonist of this adventure". Things like prejudice, persecution, exploitation, slaving, murder, kidnapping children, etc, etc, ad nauseam- that's all stuff that I consider to be Wrong, and I strive to depict it as Wrong in game. The bad guys do bad things; those who do bad things are bad guys. And some of those bad guys can be reformed or turned around or shown the light, but some are irredeemable bad guys who are there to be straight up defeated by Our Heroes. I think evil, wrong, bad things serve a purpose in the game. If I had a player who was made uncomfortable by such things, I'd have to have a talk with them and see where to go with it. Might be that I'd stay away from certain topics. Might be that there could be some "light touch" on certain topics adopted. And it might be that I'd recommend they drop my game. It just depends on what it is- I certainly would not want a player in my game who was squeamish about my descriptions in combat, or who couldn't handle spider-like monsters, or who was legitimately disturbed by any mention of religion. Those are things that I don't think I would have fun eliminating from my game, or honestly even could eliminate without a massive amount of mental work and constantly second-guessing myself. But I am fortunate not to have anyone in my groups that can't hang with our playstyle. [/QUOTE]
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