The Line Between Real Earth & D20 Earth

[Dogbrain]

It all depends upon how much your players need to be coddled and have everything bowdlerized, sanitized, and sugar-coated, of course.

 

[s/LaSH]

Something to bear in mind is the fact that the attitudes weren't as, um, clear cut (the other metaphor I was thinking of really doesn't suit) as you might expect - simply because prejudice was institutionalised doesn't mean everyone subscribed to it. Sure, probably most people did, especially upper-class types. But overt racial hostility was, to my mind, very rare. You could even be great friends with people of colour, if my reading of The Spirit archives is accurate - even if black people are little more than offensive caricatures in these ancient comics, they're fighting for the side of good (well, one is, and I don't recall any black villains from my reading), thus being better people than the gangsters the Spirit is perpetually foiling.

So it shouldn't be too hard to edit out the racial tensions altogether, especially if a gang of PCs tends to do PC-y things like drive their own cars, don't spend long hours roleplaying breakfast at a restaurant, etc etc. And when tensions do crop up, the best people to wield them are, as you've said, villainous Nazis.

That's if you want to do without them (and I'm pretty sure I would - makes me feel queasy). If you do want to keep the sordid details of history, my statement stands.

 

[Hand of Evil]

We play a fantasy game, in a way it is a play with characters in roles but for me I do not allow hurtful or malicious for those at the table are not actors, they are your friends. While we talk roleplaying, the game is about fun we do have to be responsible.

 

[Ibram]

Although I wouldnt make it a major part of the game I would bring it up from time to time. Perhapse by having an important NPC refuse to deal with "one o' those darkies" or some such.

 

[mmadsen]

So my question is this, in settings that are based on the real world prior to the ERA, do you uphold all the racial standards and issues as per the real world or is your imaginary world a little better place than ours.

The Equal Rights Amendment is aimed at equality between the sexes: Equality of Rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any state on account of sex.

The Equal Rights Amendment was never ratified by the requisite 38 states.

 

[Goobermunch]

The Equal Rights Amendment is aimed at equality between the sexes: Equality of Rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any state on account of sex.

The Equal Rights Amendment was never ratified by the requisite 38 states.

Yeah, but I think he's talking about the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment.

All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside. No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

Note that the 14th amendment is why we don't really need an ERA.

--G

 

[derelictjay]

If your going to run a campaign set in the era, IMO, you gotta keep it at least relativly authentic, but keep most of the racial tension on the side. Don't make them main line, just keep them for a little flavor.

As a side. Us living in the U.S. from a German background really got ethicnally castagized after WWI and exspecially WWII. So make sure you call all those with German in their background as krautheads. Hey, I might be speaking that archaic form of German that my grandparents spoke if it weren't for those wars.

 

[Dogbrain]

As a side. Us living in the U.S. from a German background really got ethicnally castagized after WWI and exspecially WWII. So make sure you call all those with German in their background as krautheads. Hey, I might be speaking that archaic form of German that my grandparents spoke if it weren't for those wars.

Actually, anti-German racism is still remarkably common in the USA to the present day. Whenever some political loony decides that he wants to portray all that is evil, he'll drop into a pseudo-German accent or start using pseudo-German spelling. Why? Because the little politiloon is of the prejudice that "German" == "Nazi". Having worked with several Germans, studied with several other Germans, and done a bit of looking at modern Germany, I'd say that this attitude is pretty much identical to any other form of racism. The best part is that it is done so very unquestioningly and casually by its perpetrators. It's a much more insidious and harmful form of racism than is the very open and very intentional sorts that we hear about on the news when a Klan rally has crudesced locally.

Essentially, talking about "Herr Busche" and writing "Amerika" whenever they want to portray certain politicians and countries as "fascist" is very close to the sort of all-pervasive racism that one could find in the historical era in question, just substitute "colored" for "German" and "lazy, shiftless, childlike" for "fascist/Nazi".

 

[mmadsen]

It all depends upon how much your players need to be coddled and have everything bowdlerized, sanitized, and sugar-coated, of course.

Although I wouldn't put it that way, I have to agree. I find it peculiar that most gamers would have zero problem depicting the mass slaughter of industrialized combat or terrorist acts, but an out-of-date attitude in a period piece -- shudder!

 

[Jehosephat]

I hadn't really thought about it before, but as I think deeper, slurs and stereotypes exist in all eras. I guess depending on what the GM wanted to go with, there could be several examples from any decade. They don't have to be directed solely at race either. There could be prejudices based on gender, sexual preference, political affiliation, mental health, etc. Based on time and place the prejudices would vary a bit. I suppose how much was included and what shapes it took would depend on the maturity of players to handle the subjects, the ability to seperate real feelings and PC feelings, the comfort of the GM and players in dealing with such issues, and to explore such issues in the context of an RPG without having it degenerate into hard feelings and an unpleasant experience for the group. The bottom line still being fun, and when that line is crossed and fights emerge I think it has gone too far.