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<blockquote data-quote="Oofta" data-source="post: 8473305" data-attributes="member: 6801845">There are absolutely experiences I would not attempt to portray because of my understanding.&nbsp; It's more that saying that because I'm caucasian it would be okay for me to be inspired by The Witcher and include a lot of Slovakian lore because Slovenians are now considered caucasian.&nbsp; It's problematic to me if only a person of African American descent can author a book about not-Africa because that's lumping together many, many different cultures based solely on physical appearance.&nbsp; But I think this whole topic is full of landmines.&nbsp; For example in my first 3.x campaign I had an NPC &quot;Big Mamma&quot;*.&nbsp; A transvestite half-orc with a Cajun accent her biggest wish was to get a belt that changed her gender physically (which the PCs eventually acquired).&nbsp; I never made fun of the PC, I played her completely straight.&nbsp; But if streaming games live had been a thing back then and I had that NPC?&nbsp; No matter how I portrayed her I think I would have been buried in hate mail.I don't think that it's a good thing that I would hesitate having that NPC now no matter how I presented them.&nbsp; I'm so afraid to step on toes that it limits what I can present.&nbsp; Do I need to be careful to not make fun of people?&nbsp; Sure.&nbsp; But there are only so many tropes, ideas and accents that I can mine for inspiration.*The name came from the fact that she ran a restaurant and helped a lot of people, especially poor people and orphans while also being well over 6 feet tall.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Oofta, post: 8473305, member: 6801845"] There are absolutely experiences I would not attempt to portray because of my understanding. It's more that saying that because I'm caucasian it would be okay for me to be inspired by The Witcher and include a lot of Slovakian lore because Slovenians are now considered caucasian. It's problematic to me if only a person of African American descent can author a book about not-Africa because that's lumping together many, many different cultures based solely on physical appearance. But I think this whole topic is full of landmines. For example in my first 3.x campaign I had an NPC "Big Mamma"*. A transvestite half-orc with a Cajun accent her biggest wish was to get a belt that changed her gender physically (which the PCs eventually acquired). I never made fun of the PC, I played her completely straight. But if streaming games live had been a thing back then and I had that NPC? No matter how I portrayed her I think I would have been buried in hate mail. I don't think that it's a good thing that I would hesitate having that NPC now no matter how I presented them. I'm so afraid to step on toes that it limits what I can present. Do I need to be careful to not make fun of people? Sure. But there are only so many tropes, ideas and accents that I can mine for inspiration. *[I]The name came from the fact that she ran a restaurant and helped a lot of people, especially poor people and orphans while also being well over 6 feet tall.[/I] [/QUOTE]

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