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<blockquote data-quote="mlund" data-source="post: 4362536" data-attributes="member: 50304">Marketing wants a &quot;Big lug with a big sword&quot; on the front cover. This is perfectly legitimate if you think you need to reach back to Conan and Elric or go to the FFVII well for as close as you can get to a Buster Sword in the PHB.So who do you hand the &quot;Big lug with a big sword,&quot; job to, exactly? If you give it to anybody other than the white guy you get accused of racist overtones by depicting &quot;persons of color&quot; as unintelligent / savage / defined by physicality.Same thing goes for making a certain character &quot;Kenny,&quot; by the way. If you put a female character or a &quot;person of color&quot; through all the abuse and mutilation heaped upon Regdar you risk being accused of racial intimidation or misogyny.If you need a character to be extensively abusive, abused, depraved, or depicted as a &quot;lug&quot; of some sort without much in the way of special enlightenment your go-to-guy is always the random white dude - that's how people play it safe. No one who counts is allowed to be offended so you catch less flack that way.Fantasy settings are generally well equipped to avoid this trope, though. They've got so many trans-racial options (non-human species) that you really don't need to go there. In 4th Edition they can easily make a Dragonborn be the Conan stand-in or have random Eladrin and Tiefling deaths and not have to worry about racial overtones.- Marty Lund</blockquote>

[QUOTE="mlund, post: 4362536, member: 50304"] Marketing wants a "Big lug with a big sword" on the front cover. This is perfectly legitimate if you think you need to reach back to Conan and Elric or go to the FFVII well for as close as you can get to a Buster Sword in the PHB. So who do you hand the "Big lug with a big sword," job to, exactly? If you give it to anybody other than the white guy you get accused of racist overtones by depicting "persons of color" as unintelligent / savage / defined by physicality. Same thing goes for making a certain character "Kenny," by the way. If you put a female character or a "person of color" through all the abuse and mutilation heaped upon Regdar you risk being accused of racial intimidation or misogyny. If you need a character to be extensively abusive, abused, depraved, or depicted as a "lug" of some sort without much in the way of special enlightenment your go-to-guy is always the random white dude - that's how people play it safe. No one who counts is allowed to be offended so you catch less flack that way. Fantasy settings are generally well equipped to avoid this trope, though. They've got so many trans-racial options (non-human species) that you really don't need to go there. In 4th Edition they can easily make a Dragonborn be the Conan stand-in or have random Eladrin and Tiefling deaths and not have to worry about racial overtones. - Marty Lund [/QUOTE]

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