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<blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 8327190" data-attributes="member: 42582">So is it essential to FRPGing that conflicts consist in the threats to &quot;civilisation&quot; posed by nameless hordes of . . . . ? That the solution to the world's problems is the extermination of those hordes?If so, maybe it's impossible to prise FRPGing of racialised tropes. That's not a conclusion that can be excluded a priori by merely wishing that it weren't so!That said, I think there are other possibilities. REH's Conan stories are full of casual and sometimes vicious racism, but the basic sword-and-sorcery idea I think can be preserved without it. I think the Silmarillion shows us how we can approach romantic, heroic fantasy without the same degree of racialisation as we see in LotR; and even in LotR perhaps we can draw less on the &quot;ill-favoured fellow&quot; of Bree and more on the (already quoted upthread) sympathetic response Sam has to the battle between the Gondorian rangers and the soldiers marching north.Martial violence can still easily be a part of the game - but the focus is more on &quot;honourable&quot; fighting between opponents who have been brought into opposition by an unhappy fate (think of the Iliad as perhaps the most famous example of this, and the First World War looked at through a de-historicised lens - which I think is a fitting lens for FRPGing - as providing a modern example), and on the consequences of that, than on righteous violence directed at extermination of the forces of evil. I don't think this has to be a poor fit even for fairly mainstream D&amp;D play.Upthread, or maybe in another recent similarly-themed thread, I posted that I take the view that aesthetic value can diverge from political value. (Not everyone agrees with this. Proponents of &quot;socialist art&quot; are obviously one such group of dissenters from my proposition, but I think many liberals dissent as well, and probably many &quot;radical&quot; as opposed to traditional conservatives also.) I am aware that what I have posted in the preceding two paragraphs rests upon my view. If someone thinks that we can't have a RPG of violence without engaging with genuine morality and politics of violence, than maybe FRPGing really is doomed. Again, that's not a conclusion we can rebut just by wishful thinking.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="pemerton, post: 8327190, member: 42582"] So is it essential to FRPGing that conflicts consist in the threats to "civilisation" posed by nameless hordes of . . . . ? That the solution to the world's problems is the extermination of those hordes? If so, maybe it's impossible to prise FRPGing of racialised tropes. That's not a conclusion that can be excluded a priori by merely wishing that it weren't so! That said, I think there are other possibilities. REH's Conan stories are full of casual and sometimes vicious racism, but the basic sword-and-sorcery idea I think can be preserved without it. I think the Silmarillion shows us how we can approach romantic, heroic fantasy without the same degree of racialisation as we see in LotR; and even in LotR perhaps we can draw less on the "ill-favoured fellow" of Bree and more on the (already quoted upthread) sympathetic response Sam has to the battle between the Gondorian rangers and the soldiers marching north. Martial violence can still easily be a part of the game - but the focus is more on "honourable" fighting between opponents who have been brought into opposition by an unhappy fate (think of the Iliad as perhaps the most famous example of this, and the First World War looked at through a de-historicised lens - which I think is a fitting lens for FRPGing - as providing a modern example), and on the consequences of that, than on righteous violence directed at extermination of the forces of evil. I don't think this has to be a poor fit even for fairly mainstream D&D play. Upthread, or maybe in another recent similarly-themed thread, I posted that I take the view that aesthetic value can diverge from political value. (Not everyone agrees with this. Proponents of "socialist art" are obviously one such group of dissenters from my proposition, but I think many liberals dissent as well, and probably many "radical" as opposed to traditional conservatives also.) I am aware that what I have posted in the preceding two paragraphs rests upon my view. If someone thinks that we can't have a RPG of violence without engaging with genuine morality and politics of violence, than maybe FRPGing really is doomed. Again, that's not a conclusion we can rebut just by wishful thinking. [/QUOTE]

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