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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Redthistle" data-source="post: 7099688" data-attributes="member: 6778305">Aren't all RPGs imitations, grotesque or otherwise? From birth, we learn through imitation. Our limited, very human brains can only contain an amount of information that is just a minuscule piece of the total data set of a species that speaks over 7,000 different languages, worships a lot of different religions, and includes I don't know how many different ethnicities and cultures.By default due to the intrinsic limitations of the human brain, we simplify, and thereby stereotype, any and every culture that we are aware of but not ourselves immersed in.Likewise, we often describe an acquaintance with a toss-off phrase such as "Oh, she's nice!" or "What a jerk!". But ask us to to describe someone we know and love well, and it can be far more difficult, because of the complexities of that deeper relationship.I have read that among all the currently existing languages there are around 840 phonemes: 500+ consonants, 200+ vowels, and 20 diphthongs. A newborn infant without a hearing impairment can hear all of them, but by the age of 6 months, that baby's brain has learned to exclude and ignore any phonemes that are not being heard frequently.A recent meme I've heard of laments about "cultural appropriation", wherein some aspect(s) of a particular culture is(are) adopted and adapted by some other group in a way that suits the latter group's needs and/or desires, whether those goals are "good, evil, or neutral", to put it in DnD terms. It's bad news for those who don't like it (and every one of us may sooner or later find ourselves on the bad news side of it): imitation and adaptation are at the base of our human instincts for learning and survival. Way back when in my college days, a book about teen pregnancies I referenced for an essay (I apologize to the author; I do not recall her name or the title of the book) included in its concluding statements the observation that no one has a magic wand that can solve the world's problems; the best thing any of us can do is to help one person in need at a time.I've used that as a guiding rule ever since: hurtful biases can best be reduced, when possible, two people at a time, each actively listening to the other in order to understand each other as individuals.In the meantime, those of us who play RPGs are likely to keep using bits of flavor from different sources, cultures, etc., to make our PCs and NPCs memorable and distinct. P.S. I've got a new ear-worm: Jimi Hendrix is singing "Foxy Landie" in my head.</blockquote>

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