On Indigenous Peoples Day Coyote & Crow pdf will be pay what you want

[Velderan]

So how much of the book is rules vs. lore? I assume a pretty good amount of the 480 pages is lore since they're providing fictional tribes and such to make your character from.

 

[mamba]

And if it were an issue where those fictional tribes were actually being disrespectful to real ones, then more likely this discussion becomes more directly about that problem, rather than a distractione conjured out of thin air.

agreed, you could make racist caricature tribes, I am just not expecting Native Americans to do so. That the fictional tribes are not that was implied

 

[Bedrockgames]

double post

 

[Bedrockgames]

I’d say there either is a 98% chance, or you play it so superficially that I am not sure why you even bother instead of going with the options the game offers you

I am a lot more optimistic. But I also think this sort of thing can take time as people learn more about the culture and about history

feel free to imagine it, but refrain from trying to act it out

You don’t get to tell people what they can and can’t do at a game table

probably not as much as you assume there is

We are just going to have to disagree because I think these are leagues apart

plumber is not an ethnicity, unless that is your Italian stereotype

Yes, I know. My point was simply that you can imagine things you aren’t and don’t have experience with. It’s okay to imagine such things and even play them at the table. It may even be a good thing

no, they still play together, the opposite of segregation

Again, segregation of imagination and sometimes of culture (i.e. you can’t play the blues because of your race, you can’t wear braids because of your race, you can’t play x in a game because of your race)

 

[Umbran]

But it specially is addressing different groups of people and telling them how to behave ...

Do you recognize a difference between "telling you how to behave" and "asking you to behave"? Do you recognize the difference between an imperative statement, and a request? Do you recognize the valence and meaning of the words "we ask" and "please"?

You have set up a strawman version of what the book presents. We should, collectively, refuse to engage with that strawman.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Do you recognize a difference between "telling you how to behave" and "asking you to behave"? Do you recognize the difference between an imperative statement, and a request? Do you recognize the valence and meaning of the words "we ask" and "please"?

You have set up a strawman version of what the book presents. We should, collectively, refuse to engage with that strawman.

Yes I do, and like I said, I do believe this person thinks they are doing good and promoting better ideas about how to handle culture in RPGs, but that doesn't make it less of a problem just because it is framed as a request. This isn't a straw man. The issue is asking people because of who they are, and because of things about their identity they have no control over, they not 'incorporate any of [their] knowledge or ideas of real world Native Americans into the game'. You can frame anything like that as a polite request. Imagine a header directed to 'Non-Christian Players', to Jewish players, or to non-White players making such a request. I get it is well intentioned. I get the concern is wanting the culture to be respected. My point is I don't think this is a good way to go about it, and I think that this has become so normalized in the gaming community that people don't see this as discriminatory or racist is itself a problem.

 

[BookTenTiger]

Yes I do, and like I said, I do believe this person thinks they are doing good and promoting better ideas about how to handle culture in RPGs, but that doesn't make it less of a problem just because it is framed as a request. This isn't a straw man. The issue is asking people because of who they are, and because of things about their identity they have no control over, they not 'incorporate any of [their] knowledge or ideas of real world Native Americans into the game'. You can frame anything like that as a polite request. Imagine a header directed to 'Non-Christian Players', to Jewish players, or to non-White players making such a request. I get it is well intentioned. I get the concern is wanting the culture to be respected. My point is I don't think this is a good way to go about it, and I think that this has become so normalized in the gaming community that people don't see this as discriminatory or racist is itself a problem.

View attachment 305215

I think the problem with your argument is that you are ignoring the real world in which this work is being published. Please remember that in the United States 90% of Native Americans died during European colonization. I'm going to try to say this next part with as little politics as possible: policies by the US government have tended to be oppressive and destructive towards Native Americans.

The world of Coyote and Crow is not the one we are living in. If this was d20 Modern, it might be appropriate to play a character who identifies with a current indigenous tribe. You'd still want to be careful to avoid stereotypes and you'd want to check you bias, and honestly any published modern setting would do good to state that.

But the cultures of Coyote and Crow don't exist in our world. They haven't faced the cultural impact of hundreds of years of genocide and oppression. To play as a person using what you know about modern day or historic indigenous peoples, instead of the cultures in the book, is inappropriate to the setting.

Is it the fact that this message is specifically targeting non-Native American Players that's making you feel uncomfortable? If so I would challenge you to to sit with that discomfort for a bit. Are you being threatened or harmed? Is your culture or cultural identity being threatened? When I am in these situations, I often realize my discomfort comes from the fact that I'm being asked to see through the perspective of people who have, historically, been harmed by people I identify with. That's an emotionally challenging thing to do, and I think it's okay to feel discomfort in that situation.

But it's not discriminatory or racist to be put in that situation.

 

[Bedrockgames]

But the cultures of Coyote and Crow don't exist in our world. They haven't faced the cultural impact of hundreds of years of genocide and oppression. To play as a person using what you know about modern day or historic indigenous peoples, instead of the cultures in the book, is inappropriate to the setting.

That doesn't require treating readers differently based on their race in that case. Nor does it require telling one group they can't play a particular thing. All that requires is an explanation of the setting in the introduction

 

[Bedrockgames]

But it's not discriminatory or racist to be put in that situation.

The way it is framed is definitely racist. And much of it reads like a struggle session to boot

 

[Bedrockgames]

.

Is it the fact that this message is specifically targeting non-Native American Players that's making you feel uncomfortable? If so I would challenge you to to sit with that discomfort for a bit. Are you being threatened or harmed? Is your culture or cultural identity being threatened? When I am in these situations, I often realize my discomfort comes from the fact that I'm being asked to see through the perspective of people who have, historically, been harmed by people I identify with. That's an emotionally challenging thing to do, and I think it's okay to feel discomfort in that situation.

I am sorry but this mindset is one I disagree with strongly. Like I said I have no issue discussing historical atrocities, or issues surrounding current conditions in society. I think you would find we probably agree politically on many things. But again, this is a struggle session mindset. This is not how you create positive change. There has been a fetishization of this process of forcing people to sit in 'discomfort' which frankly amounts to little more than using historical wrongs and inequities in society to justify malicious behavior, racism, bullying and cruelty towards different people (and who it is socially acceptable to do that to, seems to shift on a regular basis).

The issue is the way the book is treating people so differently based on their backgrounds, assuming so much about them based on that, and asking people not to play things on that basis. There is also the introduction linked to on the website, which frankly is worse in many many ways.

I have no problem with the game existing. And if people like it, I won't judge them. But I do think the idea here that is being advanced is one people ought to push back against because it is a dangerously bad idea