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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6527755" data-attributes="member: 42582">I don't think concepts derived from biological science are very helpful for thinking through what are (or, at least, have their origins in) literary tropes.We can be more precise than that: they're English!I'm more and more inclining towards the view that in a LotR-inspired roleplaying game hobbits should not be included: in Tolkien's novels, they work as characters on which the narration can focus, to mediate the strangeness and wonder of Middle Earth to the reader. But in an RPG that role is redundant (as [MENTION=10021]kamikaze[/MENTION]Midget posted a way upthread); players should be immersing themselves in the wonder of Middle Earth, and the hobbits are a window onto that rather than an aspent of it.******************************I'm not really seeing how this is distinctively non-human. It seems pretty close to what I understand to be aspects of culture in the PNG highlands: extremely limited geographic mobility making for ritualised and ingrained conflict resolution methods.Unless you're living in a place full of hard-drinking Scots.In other words, I think that particular stereotype for dwarves works betters in the context of some cultural backgrounds than others. Like your "confict resolution" example, it doesn't strike me as particularly non-human. Maybe the player is non-Euoropean, and so wants to imagine his/her PC as non-European also? Maybe the player wants to drop in the occasional lament about the devastation of the rainforests of his/her homeland?I mean, I could flip this around: why is Europe the norm? What are the players expected to do to make their European PCs stand out as distinctively European?I want to link this to your comment about the Amazonian character in the SF game.What do the players of humans, in a typical D&D game, do to show that their humans aren't (say) inhabitants of 21st century industrial North America or Europe, but rather whatever we are actually supposed to be imagining that they are? In my experience, the usual answer is "Not that much." We have tropes of dress and technology (typically pre-modern, and most often Western or Central European). We have the odd bout of "Ye Olde Englishe". And we have some very superficial tweaks to typical political and moral outlooks (eg not worrying about the merits of democracy over monarchy; a more casual attitude towards killing and violence in general).Why should the players of non-European human PCs, or of non-human PCs, be held to a higher standard? The elf wears green, the dwarf brown. The elf uses a bow, the dwarf an axe. The elf drinks wine, the dwarf beer. The player of the dwarf mocks the elf for being sissy (in and out of character), and the player of the elf similarly mocks the dwarf for being uncouth.I don't really see why this sort of stuff isn't enough.I guess it depends on what you mean by "portrayal" or "referencing background".If the PC evinces hatred of giants and is using an axe or throwing a hammer, is s/he a dwarf or a viking? At a certain point, the onus is on the other players to take an interest. How do the other players work out that my character is a man or a woman? Black, white, or some other race (in the modern sense)? I don't think the burden on the player of the non-human PC should be higher than that on any other player.In my current 4e game, we have an elf, a dwarf, a drow, a tiefling and a deva who was formerly a human (prior to a resurrection experience at 15th level). The dwarf is an axe-and-hammer wielding fighter/cleric of Moradin. The tiefling is a dour and cynical paladin of the Raven Queen. The elf is a ranger-cleric, and the party scout/tracker, and also worships the Raven Queen. The drow is a chaos sorcerer who worships Corellon and strives to overthrow Lolth and thereby undo the sundering of the elves. The deva is an invoker/wizard who wields the Sceptre of Law and is trying to ensure that the gods will eventually triumph over the primordials.In any given session, would an observer work out the various races of these PCs? Probably not - the drow often refers to the elf as "elf brother" (especially when wanting healing), and the player of the tiefling tends to make fun of the dwarf's stature (both in and out of character), but these may not come up every session. And the tiefling's status as a tiefling has been central to play only occasionally.But then, what race and culture was the human who turned into a deva? His name was Malstaph Empel, and his home city was called Entekash. I always envisaged him as being West or Central Asian, but I don't know for sure that that is what the player had in mind. I don't see that that is a huge problem - he was an interesting character (and remains one in deva form) even if his racial and cultural origin was never firmly established in the course of play.I agree with this.I would add that creating realistic fictional cultures is hugely challenging. Even thinking clearly about one's own culture, or similar contemporary cultures, is pretty hard, let alone portraying them in a roleplaying game. Most RPG sourcebooks don't try and create serious fictional cultures. Nor does most of the literary source material.</blockquote>

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