Racial roleplay

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Liranne
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Re: Racial roleplay

#41 Post by Liranne » Tue Aug 26, 2008 9:38 am

I'm not so much worried about the racism part. I think that will be part of any fantasy game. I think sexism is too. I don't think too many muds are pc..cuz I sure would look at the real person who admitted eating human flesh funny right after calling the police.

I think I can wrap my mind around the rp encouraged/enforced and take it from there. Thanks all!

vurdijak
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Re: Racial roleplay

#42 Post by vurdijak » Tue Aug 26, 2008 10:19 am

I have seen a lot of characters lately who are not trying to make the best PvP character. Besides, as Geas is exanding to include magic, it is getting more true that no one character will have huge advantages in PvP. Therefore, it doesnt matter if you do or dont powermud to make the best PvPer out there, because someone is stronger. And if they arent stronger, they are most likely smarter.

This is all good, because hopefully it will shift the power centers in Geas away from the most formidable fighting teams and toward a roleplay dictated center.

Zengo
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Re: Racial roleplay

#43 Post by Zengo » Tue Aug 26, 2008 8:59 pm

At the risk of sounding like I am part of the "Tessa Clique" I am going to have to agree with almost everything she posted.

I have also been guilty of everything she has stated before, but now I find the mud much more enjoyable just ignoring any OOC thinking and playing my chars the way I want. However, some players still seem to think it is an attack on them, not their character when their way of thinking seems to not make sense in this fantasy world, and it is pointed out to them.

Who cares though? Being racist and sexist is fun and enjoyable. Much more pleasing than creating a dwarf/elf/human and chatting with inferior races at the crossing for the sake of not hurting that players feelings.

Everyone should give it a try!

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Re: Racial roleplay

#44 Post by adanath » Wed Aug 27, 2008 9:34 am

Tshaharks half-elf's and dwarfs I think are the best examples of this. Lately there has been a lot of talk of elves and truthfully I do not find many of them to be nearly "haughty" enough. Tshaharks are dumb sure, Adanath hates evil people not so much races..perhaps due to tshaharks would tend to be one of the least racist races, after all they were created by mortals rather than immortals, and frankly they are just so stupid it takes a little of it out of them. One thing that does surprise me, however, is the number of characters who just love tshaharks to death no matter what..every tshahark is a cuddly teddy bear..at first Adanath didn't know what to think of it, but what is a tshahark to do after 10 different characters start out hugging a big monstrous lizard..it kind of throws you off. Do all of a sudden characters not have derision for a race created by mortals? For a race of such stupidity?

It also confuses me why dwarves and elves aren't more at odds than they are in Geas. It seems like every race will inter-mingle with racial lines completely gone, as if this were a modern day society of acceptance and "so-called tolerance". In such a setting such lines were not only there they were OBVIOUSLY there. I would definately like to see more of that.

Half-elves are running rampant and currently a lot of people are all about half-elf "rights". This isn't the civil movement of yesteryear here.

I guess I am simply saying I would like to see more derision and racial divides, rather than a bunch of characters running around as if races didn't exist. It is understandable to a point in some circumstances, with a really holy god people attempting to reach out more, but that doesn't mean there wouldn't be some underlying tension there. There are a couple players in particular I think do a fantastic job with this, and I try to with a couple of my alts. Though I am not the best either.

I guess what I am asking here is..please people..could we be a little more racist?

Delmon
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Re: Racial roleplay

#45 Post by Delmon » Wed Aug 27, 2008 10:33 am

Is there any real motivation to suddenly become racist? I find it would be impossible to be racist unless we all started new characters.

Or are you just saying in the future with alts? sorry

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Re: Racial roleplay

#46 Post by Zengo » Wed Aug 27, 2008 11:36 am

Delmon tells Rex in common : My mother always told me to hate dwarves. I am an idiot for not listening. Die you longbearded bastard.

Delmon shaves the beard of Rex from his face.

That is one way you can do it ;)

In my point of view, elves are usually raised to hate dwarves. So all these elves running around that do not hate them, possibly are ALL siblings from the same household. Or perhaps it was just a mass generation that never listened to their parents.

Just throwing out ideas for Delmon ;)

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Re: Racial roleplay

#47 Post by ganandorf » Wed Aug 27, 2008 11:39 am

I'm going to be completely honest here, with such a small playerbase and sometime so little people playing at a time, being racist would limit your options so much. It would make the game much much worse if there was more racism about in my opinion
Meow

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Re: Racial roleplay

#48 Post by Zengo » Wed Aug 27, 2008 12:43 pm

If you read the earlier posts, you can see that this was already mentioned.

Personally, I would rather not sacrifice RP for the sake of OOC convenience.

I am not saying you have to hate everyone, but when you first meet someone and they are an "enemy" race, I really don't think teaming with them to go to the goblin camp is very reasonable. Maybe after you get to know them better, but not right at first.

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sun
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Re: Racial roleplay

#49 Post by sun » Wed Aug 27, 2008 1:14 pm

ganandorf wrote:I'm going to be completely honest here, with such a small playerbase and sometime so little people playing at a time, being racist would limit your options so much. It would make the game much much worse if there was more racism about in my opinion
Why? Would you care to elaborate?

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Re: Racial roleplay

#50 Post by Zengo » Wed Aug 27, 2008 1:35 pm

From what I gather......he means he would rather have a friendly OOC atmosphere than to RP. I could be wrong though. However, that is what I gathered.

I hope I am wrong ;)

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Re: Racial roleplay

#51 Post by ganandorf » Wed Aug 27, 2008 2:27 pm

Well zengo has it right basically./

First off, i think the playerbase of the game is a bit too small to have racism shown. random example, my who list atm shows 3 elves, one human, one dwarf. Humans and elves can get along fine, but dwarves are supposed to hate elves and vice versa, this would really alienate that one dwarf. You could say well he can go ahead and associate with other dwarves. But there are most likely no other dwarves on, and not many dwarven PC's in the game. Alienating this dwarf even more from the elves that would be hanging out with the dwarves. Don't know if this example the way i wrote it makes sense but yeah, thats how i percieve it.

As well NPC wise it would not make too much sense
Dwarves are not big fans of elves, therefore dwarves and elves should not associate or should show racism towards one another. Now how would this racism be shown? Dwarven shopkeepers charging elves more, maybe not dealing with elves? Yet the only custom shop is in the elven city capital run by an dwarf why would this shop not be located in the underground, and have higher prices for elves?
Unless xuchal is an exception to a racist dwarf

I wouldnt mind if more racism was shown in the game. because really it should be. But it would not be fair to some players, but theyd have to deal with that on their own :d
Meow

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sun
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Re: Racial roleplay

#52 Post by sun » Wed Aug 27, 2008 2:46 pm

Well, you don't have to overdo it.

"Racism" can be anything from hating someone else's guts.. to be just afraid of him, or simply letting him be the guy to speak to last. You gotta understand that racism is something different than IRL since there actually are different races in the game. It's something natural. There is fear, lack of understanding of the different, status hierarchies.. but it does not mean you shut everyone out like your worst enemy. It can mean just "you are the lowest standing, but we accept your presence".

The history of races is also somewhat different. It is true that dwarves and elves hate eachother, but I believe the role of mankind is far more important to Geas lore. They came only for the last 100 years and disturbed basically every race... of course, there was also the alliance of races - so there is all of it.

The point about racism is that it creates some shreds of identity for the races, which would otherwise be nearly meaningless to everything other than your combat style. Marking your stand does not have to mean cutting the guy in half.. it can be little - but it will still count a lot if you do.

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Re: Racial roleplay

#53 Post by Delmon » Wed Aug 27, 2008 4:28 pm

Delmon tells Rex in common : My mother always told me to hate dwarves. I am an idiot for not listening. Die you longbearded bastard.
Sounds good to me :twisted:
simply letting him be the guy to speak to last
Yeah, this is good too.

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Re: Racial roleplay

#54 Post by adanath » Wed Aug 27, 2008 4:35 pm

I for one, do not want a "more friendly ooc atmosphere", if I wanted that I would go to chat rooms or non-roleplay muds. When people come here it should be the right crowd you attract, the crowd that wished to roleplay. To do that the players should roleplay. Roleplay involves forgetting modern euphemisms and stereotypes and tolerance and moral equivalance and moving towards actually getting into your character. Racism is part of it in this world. To not incorporate it so alienates the roleplay base.

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Re: Racial roleplay

#55 Post by jezz » Wed Aug 27, 2008 5:07 pm

In response to Adanath's note about why everyone loves and hugs tshaharks:

I believe there are two main factors here:

1 - Tshaharks are the best fighters. That means, if you want to gain a walking killing machine, you should be nice to them. The same way it is understandable a new character should try to be nice to that living legend who fought the first invassion of insects on Arborea, it is true that a tshahark who has played for 1 week is as strong as 75% of the current playerbase, and that's why most players suddenly are the best tshahark friends.

2 - Because we don't have a clear concept of tshaharks physically. We know they are lizard-like, and big. I can easily then create two images of a tshahark in my mind, a cuddly-muscled-lizard-headed guy, and a gruesome hulking frog-like creature with sharp teeth. So, if a player has that two images in his mind and suddenly he finds one of that creatures, he can think: "Hmmmm, do I run in fear of him because he's ugly and terrifyng, and lose a powerful ally that way? Or do I start to make jokes with him and in 1 week or 2 we'll bash trolls and I'll throw miracles/arrows/stones from backrow while he does the dirty job?"

The choice is clear in most cases, although it's quite poor RPing talking.

I think the RP of tshaharks is the hardest to "perform". We're talking about _stupid_ beings. They have survival instincts, a basic intelligence that allows them to talk and little else and, I believe, a very advanced fighting skill.

But in my experience with tshaharks, that has not been the case. They lead guilds, write long and structurated posts and so on. What's even more surprising is that a tshahark is very stupid until suddenly something important ICly is going, call it a life-quest, pvp or something like that. Then, suddenly, they start talking normally, giving clever orders and sometimes even becoming small "sherlock holmes".

I'm not attacking the tshahark players, because, personally, I think I'd do the same, but I just wanted to express my opinion on the tshahark topic.

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Re: Racial roleplay

#56 Post by Zengo » Wed Aug 27, 2008 5:37 pm

Just code a curse turning them all into green-skinned human beings out of nowhere.

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Re: Racial roleplay

#57 Post by adanath » Wed Aug 27, 2008 9:32 pm

Jezz,

I find that tshaharks are very hard to play in many ways, I do my best to be stupid, and many times make many stupid mistakes. I tend to play him somewhat smart in battle, because that is all he knows, but many times when it comes to some posts and even notes in my own guild it is hard to know when I have crossed the line, and frankly, I am sure I have many times. I can almost see it from a lilithan perspective of making a tshahark a very good friend with ulterior motives of using them to be your "killing machine", though I will say a young tshahark I really don't believe is as strong as 75% of the player base. A young tshahark has incredibly terrible agility and is very very slow, as well as very encumbered by his armours until he gets strong because his/her armours weigh so much more. They bleed worse than any other pc in the game and have multiple other drawbacks. Many of the characters I have fought in pvp I know could have killed me if they only would have persisted or done something a bit different. Light armoured and quick characters I really do believe are better in many ways, the difference being when a light armoured character starts winning a fight against a tshahark the tshahark has (should have) enough sense and con to get away, yet when a tshahark starts winning a fight, many times it is due to a massive hit that can't be overcome. So where the light-armoured faster character may be winning the fight more often than not, they do not deliver the unbelievable strong hits that a tshahark can deliver (unless many dwarves and very strong humans do many times) that effectively end the fight. They get the character so hurt that he/she can run away, but then come back and hope for a big hit amongst 10 misses. Rather than 5 small hits and 5 misses.

I must say though it is a very big struggle to play a tshahark just due to the fact that I find it very hard many times to be "stupid" enough. Though some that may know me may argue the point that I am already there out of character anyways :P. I, myself will definately renew my efforts therein, and some of them...that I personally have roleplayed with to be fair have done a very good (and probably much better than I) job.

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Re: Racial roleplay

#58 Post by adanath » Wed Aug 27, 2008 9:40 pm

I also don't like making clear concise paragraphs :P

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Re: Racial roleplay

#59 Post by tessa » Wed Aug 27, 2008 10:16 pm

As said already, racism doesn't have to be an all or nothing situation. If you're a human that's racist against halfelves, it doesn't mean you have to insult, provoke, and assault every one you find. And indeed, such an attitude would probably make you a prime target of others, and rightfully so.

However, there can be more mild racism. If you're buying beer for others, serve the halfelf last. Invite him to places last, send him to do the scouting work while others sit back and stay safe. Take his opinions with a grain of salt. There's many ways to go about it.

I have at least one racist character that's not openly so. She'll talk with the lesser races, even work with them. However, she sees them as completely dispensible, and wouldn't care if one (or all) of them were killed in an expedition, as long as she got what she wanted. In actuality, she'd probably prefer it and subtly seek it out. By making her own ends meet and ridding the world of unworthy creatures, she's accomplishing two good deeds within a single task.

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sun
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Re: Racial roleplay

#60 Post by sun » Thu Aug 28, 2008 10:27 am

I would still like to see more hard-coded differences between the races. If "racism" gets too subtle, it does not add much to the general atmosphere. Hard-coded rules are also easier to accept since players do not have to stick out their necks as much.

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