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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Starfox" data-source="post: 6208243" data-attributes="member: 2303">Your take here is interesting, and connects to a discussion I've been having RL lately; fantasy as science-fiction versus fantasy as fairytales. Fantasy as science fiction tries to draw the logical conclusions of phenomena in the fantasy world. I feel this is very much the camp you are in here. Species are depicted as radically different, and their culture is seen as the result of their natures. Other things typical of this sub-genre is that the consequences of magic are carried to it's logical conclusion. If there are flying ships, there is commerce and ports inland. If hippogriffs are good mounts, there will be military units as well as scouts and perhaps even police riding them. Magical development is similar to technological development, and has similar effects on society. This is Eberon, with it's lightning rail.I find my SF-like settings work best with non-humans around and reasonably different. The non-humans you'll make peaceful contact with are those with human-like psyche - those too alien to coexist either live quite isolated or are just remnants of populations that survived mutually genocidal clashes with metahumanity. Fantasy as fairytales are different in that results are much more spotty and conclusions much less clear. Reality is governed more by story logic than by social science. The fact that the poor farmboy could find and afford a pair of flying shoes at the market does not imply that flying shoes are common everyday items. In fact, the king is amazed at these flying shoes. In such a setting, other races  (rather than species) are usually humans in funny masks. Really more of an excuse to avoid naming human stereotypes, rather than saying "jew" or "black", we say "gnome" or "dwarf" (no relationship to rl racial stereotypes implied). Or they are just included for novelty value.While I am mostly in the Fantasy as SF camp, I appreciate the Fantasy as Fairytales tropes too. Going too far in either direction makes me feel I lost something. As an example, a PC in a Pathfinder Skull & Shackles game recently got interested in buying a flying mount. What flying mounts are available in this pirate city? If they are available, does that mean the city has an areal patrol scouting for ships? Does every city have this? Ought other pirates also own flying mounts? The answers to these questions can fundamentally change the setting from something quasi-historical to something like the Flintstones, depending on how you integrate it all.In my fairytale settings, most people are humans, which allows the few non-humans to be exceptional even when they really are much the same inside. A race can be exemplified by a single member, whose origin is either left mysterious or just ignored. In my fairytale settings, it is often possible to change race depending on your interests and what magic you employ. Sometimes, being "the fairy of the grove" is actually a magical job; by making a connection with the magic of the grove, your body changes to accommodate that magic. You become an fairy, even if you were born human. I realize that what I describe as my fairytale settings are actually rather SF-inspired still, as I bother to make sense of a lot of things that a true fairytale could just explain by "a wizard did it" or jist not bother to explain it at all.Well, I admit the "we" is ambiguous here. I suppose "we" is anyone who agrees with the statement. "We" here is also cheap rhetoric, implying that this is the common view, what the reader "ought" to think, tough this is never proven or even argued. Many are aware of the evils perpetuated in colonialism, but the opium war seems to be one of the less known facets. Colonialism in Africa is much more well-known but in my eyes it was more benign, as it is what ended slavery there. At about this point I feel the discussion is moving into politics, so I'll stop here.Either way, this is just a tangent to my subject, which was that evil is very much in the eye of the beholder. What from the inside looks sophisticated and good can form the outside seem random and evil. Funny, the "we" I used actually illustrates that inside/outside view. Those who share my views on what is good/evil here become "we", the rest are "them". An illustration of the issue I was trying to point out, even if an unintended one.</blockquote>

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