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Message: <blockquote data-quote="gizmo33" data-source="post: 4331480" data-attributes="member: 30001">If it makes you feel any better, fantasy is chok full of ideas that were used to justify the torture and murder of millions of people over the centuries.  In fact, the concept of evil itself as it is represented in fantasy could probably be seen as a root cause of religious wars, inquisitions, cruelty towards the mentally ill, cruelty towards people who are disfigured, etc.  One could become uncomfortable if you took note of how often villains' physical appearances were evocative of certain ethnic physical types (though it changes at times based on current fashion - Nosferatu I'm looking at you).  Or think about how often wolves, sharks, etc. are stereotyped as evil creatures and the consequence to how people relate to their environment and the extinction of species.Then again, would fantasy be any fun if it was diluted too much with sensitivity and nuance?  I don't consider dwarves, orcs, et. al. to be like human "races" and so I feel that it gives me a "safe" way to play around with biases and mythological ideas that would otherwise be distasteful if applied to humans.  Or I used wargs in place of wolves so I can avoid the discomfort of having wolves behave in ways that would offend a zoologist.  Concepts that IMO are really based on man's inherent ignorance of his surroundings and other people might be paradoxically the most vivid elements to work with in an RPG.  I honestly hope that the real women who were unjustly burnt at the stake based on ideas that I consider barbaric in real life will forgive me for using the witch stereo-type as a villain because IMO it's just so darn cool.</blockquote>

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