I am not trying to be obnoxious but genuinely want to ask: in what way can one have made-up 'races' at all in fantasy (or science fiction) without cultural stereotypes that would be unacceptable when talking about real races?
Easily? I’m not really sure how to answer this. I think you and I must have such fundamentally different understandings of what a fantasy race
is that we’re going to have a hard time communicating here, because I don’t see how what I said would in any way prevent the inclusion of fantasy races in a fictional setting.
Sure, you may want to leave open the option that all dwarves are not like X. But your setting might be real small, and all the dwarves really are from Gauntlgrym, where (most) dwarves are like X.
Even in a very small setting, I find the idea that no dwarf ever has been or could be born outside of a particular ethnically homogenous community to strain suspension of disbelief, to the point I might not be able to take such a setting seriously. I mean, we have an example in Dragon Age of a setting where there is only one dwarf city. There are certainly things you can say about the culture of the city. But not all dwarves are born there, and not all dwarves who are born there conform to the dominant culture. Yes, Orzammar is very traditionalist and has a caste system, and what have you. But dwarves are not Orzammar.
Most players are attracted to races because of the cultural stereotypes/traits and not just the appearance.
I disagree that cultural stereotypes are what attract most players to races, and I can’t get behind the notion that races are made up only of appearance and cultural stereotypes. Again looking to the dragon age example, dwarves have inherent traits that distinguish them from humans other than just their appearance. They have different bone structure, different muscle structure, they don’t dream, and consequently can’t use magic (because of the way magic works in the setting). They are naturally immune to the toxicity of the magical mineral lyrium. They have an inherent sense of direction underground called stone sense (although admittedly surface dwarves lose this sense). These things are not cultural, they are, for lack of a better word in a fantasy context, biological.
Like, in a Star Trek RPG (and Star Trek does try to consider these issues), how would you even describe "Vulcans" if you didn't use any cultural signifiers? "They're humanoids with long ears"? Not very exciting roleplaying material. You at least have to get into "Most Vulcans are culturally like X..." territory.
I mean, I would call that a flaw in the writing of Star Trek. An alien species that is only biologically different from humans in that their ears are pointed? Talk about uninspired. Though, if you really care to get into the reeds here, that isn’t actually the only biological difference between Vulcans and Humans. Vulcans also experience emotions far more intensely than humans do, and they have some low-level psychic ability in the mind meld.
Now, if you were saying "RPG races shouldn't have echoes of real-world negative racial stereotypes", that makes more sense, but I'm hearing something that's considerably broader, to the point that I can't even imagine how RPG races would work in this context.
Again, I’m not really even sure how to explain to you that fantasy can be different from each other in ways that aren’t cultural.
Also, like, having distinct cultures in your fantasy settings is fine. In fact, it’s a good thing. The more culturally diverse a setting, the better! The problem comes when you tie that culture inextricably to a race.
I mean, if we were to really apply the same standards of sensitivity to describing RPG 'races' that we did to describing real races... not only would no cultural generalizations be acceptable, but even generalizations about physical appearance would be REALLY problematic.
Well, that’s not what I’m suggesting, so I don’t know what to tell you.
So given this, how can fantasy or sci-fi races work at all? Isn't it futile beyond a point to apply 'real' standards of sensitivity?
I don’t know what to say, other than “no.”