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Message: <blockquote data-quote="EzekielRaiden" data-source="post: 6524344" data-attributes="member: 6790260">To all of the above:Recognition of different values, traditions, etc. is not racist, no. But I don't think your strident responses are quite correct, either. That is, it is entirely possible to "recognize" so-called "differences" that are actually just vicious stereotypes if one is incautious about them. For example, the Volus (from BioWare's Mass Effect series) have been criticized as a racist stereotype. Is everything about them awful? Not hardly. Stuff like how they call Humans "Earth-clan," and presumably other races by "[Homeworld]-clan," is a small but interesting twist of wording. But other stuff...not so great.For a different (and better, though not a lot better) example, consider the Harry Potter universe's goblins. We get brief windows into the differences of their culture versus human culture. They really aren't vastly different from humans--and, in fact, all the specific stuff I can name that makes them different really could be just a difference in cultural values. Specifically, Bill Weasley tells Harry that goblins have a different philosophy about ownership: something made by someone always belongs to the person who made it, or their designated heirs, forever. If someone else asks a goblin to make something for them, and pays for it, that person has paid to use the item for a particular length of time...but not indefinitely. They expect the item to be returned on the death of the purchaser, because it always still belonged to the creator, who merely allowed its use by the purchaser. Thus, to a goblin, a human passing down a goblin-made artifact to their heirs is theft, and they will act to correct this theft. Obviously, to the human, the goblin taking back an item "fairly paid for" is theft. A cultural difference between two species.But this kind of disagreement over the nature of ownership, or other fundamental concepts, is not one that has to be based on race--which is more or less my point from above. That is, while physiology should be considered (e.g. a race without eyes probably doesn't have color- or sight-based metaphors), the vast majority of actually interesting cultural differences...are completely possible without having a "totally alien mindset," or whatever the phrasing was--and there's nothing saying other species actually do need to be radically different from humans anyway (because, again, logic is the same, the basal needs are typically the same e.g. food/water/shelter, some kind of seeking companionship, etc.) I honestly don't see how roleplaying a non-human species is any different than "getting into character" with a human from a fictional culture. You're considering almost all the same things (differences of aesthetics, language, and values), and the only ones that couldn't be mirrored by real or hypothetical human culture are, almost always, physiological ones like having a tail (which is why I mentioned that).These things also don't need to be dramatic. Really, they can and should be subtle but consistent, unless and until the underlying cultural/philosophical differences get dragged out into the open, like with the goblin ownership thing above. A light dusting of consistent but nonstandard (for English) phrases coupled with some forethought about specific cultural mores (and a willingness to embrace opportunities to find new ones)--that's all you need. And people should be doing that for all characters, regardless of race or cultural background. So...I don't see why non-humans are being held to some higher standard.Also, I'd like to remind you that I wasn't saying they should be indistinguishable (though I know you weren't replying to me there). What I was responding to seemed to indicate a requirement that they be dramatically distinguishable, e.g. there would never be a doubt that you were talking to a human, even if you filtered out any telltale signs like voice sounds, whereas humans would be sufficiently similar that you wouldn't be able to tell quickly if at all. And that seems like a bizarre standard to me--anyone who comes from a different background should have a few ways in which they're a little different, but also a lot of ways in which they're similar purely because being a bipedal (or quadrupedal), C/O/N/H[SUB]2[/SUB]O-based, mortal, bilaterally symmetrical sentient creature means you're going to have a lot of fundamental things in common (and this covers a vast swathe of races, even many that never get written up at all for any given game!)</blockquote>

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