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inexorabletruth
2018-02-22, 09:45 AM
TL;DR: How do you get into the character of someone who is different from your race/gender identity/sexual orientation without making it a caricature?

I like roleplaying games, because I like to play a role. I want to really get into a character and feel what they feel, think what they think, and experience life through their unique lens.

But things get weird the further out from my IRL biological framework, and I'm always nervous that I'm doing a disservice to the group I'm representing when I'm playing. With fantasy races, it's a little easier to play out, because racially charged fluff is built into the template, giving them an easy-to-follow guideline. i.e. Dwarves are gruff, but loyal, and love beer. Elves are pretty and graceful, but a little arrogant. Gnomes are mischievous and playful, but generally good-hearted and creative.

But things get more difficult to play something hits closer to home. Let's say, I wanted to play an Hispanic trans-female pansexual? Or a black male heterosexual? Or, the hardest of all for me, a Native American, literally any gender or orientation?

In the cases of real world inspired culture groups, I don't want to play caricatures of them. That already happens enough with Asians in D&D. I want to play something that is honest and respectful... not just superimpose my personality over a racial template, or play strictly to the stereotypes of the represented culture, because I feel both of these:
1) insult the culture being represented
2) cheapen the experience of roleplay
3) are lazy ways to play the game in general

So, often times, I will hit up google. I study cultural statistics, history, religion, and census. I rarely attempt to play it from my personal experience, because that is viewing the culture from a "tinted lens" so to speak. I look at languages spoken from the culture and listen to accents derived from that when they speak English (which is my defacto for Common). I research paintings and drawings of people from the cultural era being loosely represented in the campaign I'm in, and I also look for common figures of speech and important cultural milestones from the era. For instance, was that culture group free or slaves? Theocratic? Tribal? Civilized? Were they equals in their culture groups or were the elites? Second class citizens? Were they even represented at all? If so how would they clash/mesh with the cultural zeitgeist? It sometimes takes more work than I have time for, so I often cut corners in my research and hope the final version feels true enough. But I still often worry that what I'm doing is somehow... inappropriate.

I imagine cosplayers, especially crossplayers, have a similar dilemma. As a white male, passably straight, let's say I wanted to cosplay as, say... Sailor Moon. There are many conventions where I live that won't allow this, even if I make an effort to cover all the "private bits". The problem gets more severe if I want to cosplay as a dark elf. Even though the race doesn't technically exist in this world, it's hard to imagine a scenario where this would be a culturally acceptable cosplay. It's hard to tell where the line crosses from heartfelt roleplay of a character or concept you love, to some form of accidental "ism."

And so, I thought this would be a nice place to discuss what we do to get into character and really play true to the nature of the culture we are trying to emulate. Also, if anyone wishes to share their questions/concerns/frustrations with roleplay outside of your specific cultural purview, they are welcome to do so here. How do you handle the RP? What are some challenges you've faced playing your character and were you able to overcome it? If so, how? If not, maybe the collective minds on the forum can help.

What methods and techniques do you use to get into character and overcome the obstacles of accidentally superimposing yourself onto the character you are playing without playing a two dimensional caricature of your character?

I'm talking about method acting (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Method_acting), or other techniques, as a role playing technique for developing the subtler aspects of your character (i.e. the nuances of a personality that is sculpted, or influenced by, the cultural and societal aspects and ramifications of race, gender identity, and sexual orientation) with respect to the archetype being represented and with a heightened level of verisimilitude. This is all assuming the game being played allows for, and encourages, this kind of roleplay.

This not an attempt to discourage this kind of RP, defend it, or feel better/worse about it. This is an effort to promote discussion about it in the hopes that those of us who enjoy this type of in depth roleplay can hone their skills by sharing with and learning from techniques and practices being used, and how those techniques and practices worked out.

Obviously communication is not my best skill, so I apologize if I've been unclear. It's one of the reasons I enjoy role play as much as I do. It feels like a safe playing field for practicing how to interact with people. Therefore, I'm hoping this post rewrite clarifies my original intent.

Max_Killjoy
2018-02-22, 10:05 AM
Start with the person.

Forget that they're _____, or ______, or _______. Put it completely out of your head.

Figure out who the person is that you're playing. Concentrate on the things that make that individual who they are. What do they care about? What kind of family are they from? Are they from a little farming village or a forest town or the big city? What kind of education do they have?

Look at all the discussions here --we're all gamers, but that doesn't define any one of us in some universal way. There's a tremendous amount of diversity inside that box. Same with anything else. Any two ________ people will be as different as any two non-_________ people.

Individual people are not defined by being _____, or ______, or _______ -- those things are just pieces of their experience and identity, not the single defining element.

Respect each character as a character (and as a "person") first and foremost, and the rest will follow.

...

I'm not saying that it's utterly unimportant, or that culture or personal experience or shared challenges for _______ people don't have an effect, and won't show. But if you start out worrying about ________ instead of the individual person, you're going to end up with the cliche or stereotype that you were hoping to avoid in the first place.

Segev
2018-02-22, 10:23 AM
Just going to back Max Killjoy up, here. Make the character. This character may happen to be gay, transgendered, orcish, Moorish, Aryan, Hindu, Wiccan, North Korean, or New England Old Money. But they happen to be those things.

By all means, research cultural and subcultural traits that would shape their behavior and outlook, but don't focus on them. Just let them inform behavior and outlook. Unless the character is placing this aspect of themselves at the center of their lives, they should be, at most, noteworthy. Not defining.

And, as long as you're playing a PERSON, if that PERSON believes certain things about their own subculture, who is anybody to tell them they're wrong or insulting? I mean, they're entitled to their opinions, but...

Now, that said, if you do find you're offending another player at your table, discuss it with them OOC.

If you're not, and you're having fun, don't worry about offending a nebulous Platonic Ideal of a subculture. They shouldn't be poking their noses in your private elfgame pretendy fun times. This goes for whether you're portraying a homosexual cannibal or a Trump-supporting Nazi (both of which, I'm sure, offend people who identify with one aspect of those descriptions but are offended by others). As long as you're not making somebody at your table uncomfortable with the linkage, who has any right to care that they'd be offended if they broke into the house in which you're gaming and stood at your table, uninvited, and eavesdropped?

Telonius
2018-02-22, 11:57 AM
Every person (and every character) has a bunch of different qualities that make up that person. Nobody's just one thing, and each person might have a slightly different idea of how important those parts are to the whole. A bisexual female Tiefling who's dedicated her life to making society accept her as a Tiefling, a woman, and a bisexual is probably going to assign a different level of importance to those components than a gender-fluid Changeling who doesn't care that much and just wants to "pass."

An individual component is not the most important aspect of the person, unless the person and the society decide that it is. So, do talk with the DM to work out exactly how much emphasis the society in question is going to put on any of that.

It does get a bit trickier when you start getting away from Tieflings and into Humans. If you're thinking of cross-playing a race, gender, ethnicity, or any other thing, I'd suggest politely asking someone of that group for advice. You aren't entitled to get the advice, and one person can't speak for their whole group; but asking is always good and respectful. Some groups are more protective of their customs and sensitive to cultural representations than others, and it can be tricky to know if you don't ask. I don't know what your own heritage is, but it seems you're already aware that whitewashing is an issue and care about addressing it. Most people will realize that you're trying to fix the problem and meet you on that level.

Faily
2018-02-22, 12:22 PM
I've played a few characters that were either bi, gay, a different gender than I, asexual, pansexual, and such...

... And it all comes down to treating the character like a person, imo.

JNAProductions
2018-02-22, 12:54 PM
Speaking as a cis white straight male here (so, you know, grain of salt) I'll echo what the others have said. Just make a character, and if they happen to be bi or gay or black or a potato farmer or an Olympic gold medal winner, see how that would affect the base personality and character.

Now, obviously the character will be different if they're gay instead of straight in a world where homosexuality is persecuted, but in a world where equality is the name of the land? I don't see much, if any, difference between a straight character and a gay one who have the same base personality. Actions will be slightly different (the gay one won't hit on the cute barmaid, and instead probably hit on the busboy) but personality won't be.

inexorabletruth
2018-02-22, 02:06 PM
Alright! :smallsmile: Let's dig in, then.

http://goblinscomic.com/comics/20050819.jpg

More often than not, I'm the DM. As such, I let the dice decide much of the basics of gender identity, race, names, personality traits, and etc just to keep it random. I mean... if the geographic location is Asian themed (comes up a lot in D&D), then I'm going to roll from a chart of top 100 Asian names, so it's not painfully random. But still, you get the gist.

Before I get into my particular quandary, let me sum up the world and the game flow in a spoiler, in case you want to skip over that.

The game I'm running is high adventure mixed with certain steampunk themes and an anachronistic vibe of cultural progression and conveniences for the sake of relatability. So, matters of sexual identity and orientation are generally relegated to the role of personal choice and of no major social consequence. I suppose the defacto orientation would be panromantic in the sense that whether the adventurer chooses to fall in love with the local tavern wench or busboy, either way, they've got a shot, as long as the steamier aspects of love, romance, and seduction is left "off camera". Racism and discrimination still exists in the world though, because I struggle to imagine a D&D setting where it wouldn't be. Dwarves and Elves kind of don't like each other. Half-Orcs don't fit in well with Orcs or Humans. Half-Elves are kind of liked everywhere, but don't really fit it anywhere. It's already in the official fluff. And the racial traits, bonuses, and favored classes found in older D&D systems help indoctrinate a certain degree of racialism anyway.

So, using all this as a mechanic, my adventure group walked into a bardic tavern, which is essentially a gogo club with a half-orc bouncer. It's close to closing so the night has turned from gogo to pole dancing, to rake in those last few coppers. A dark, brooding band plays some sultry music on center stage while an oil-slicked half-orc male dances on one pole to the left and a tattooed elf female performs a suspended spin from a pole on the right of the band. A couple of off-duty guards are flicking coins at the half-orc while nursing the last of their drink. A male gnome tends bar.

Of course, the idea of this seems very silly from a middle earth, high adventure, point of view, but I thought I'd throw in a little bit of lighthearted fun into a game that has had a lot of downers in it. But that doesn't mean I don't want to play it right. The half-orc and elf dancers have personalities... interests, hobbies, problems and well back stories.

Spoiler Alert: If you are in my campaign, back away slowly! The rest of this gives away stuff that might effect the plot depending on how you play it.

The half-orc dances for the love of the art, and happens to enjoy the attention. He's a fun loving acrobatic Commoner who has shed the predetermined confines of his race and now earns a modest wage dancing for the local bards who come in after a long day of rehearsal for the upcoming performance. He lives a bohemian lifestyle and loves as freely as his somewhat intimidating physique allows.

The elf is a low level sorcerer illusionist in a world where arcane users are shunned, and sometimes openly (and legally) hunted for their bounty. Knowing this, she has decided to shed her former lifestyle and start new. It took a lot of money, time, and personal sacrifice to build a new identity, and the fastest way she could think of to rebuild her wealth without drawing attention to her abilities was to use that fine CHA score of hers to shake it out on the dance floor. She's been thinking about joining the bard's troupe for a while, and some of her regulars have been trying to give her that emotional push. But she's lost so much already and lacks the confidence to enter a stage where the audience looks above the neckline.

I want them to be flirty... they're entertainers and flirting makes good tips, but I want to play it right. I struggle with sexier themes like this because that doesn't really fit into my personality. I'm really into my spouse, and that's about it. I don't go to exotic clubs nor do I enjoy gogo clubs or pole dancing clubs, and you would have to drag me kicking and screaming to a strip club because I truly dislike them. No judgement there, it's just not my thing. Anyway, it's in the campaign, and I want to do it right. Therefore, I don't want the Half-Orc to talk in a breathy lisp and say generic lines like "Hey big-boy," or "Girl, you fierce." And I don't want the elf female to jiggle all the time and offer cheesy porn line tropes. I'd like there to be enough of a hint of character depth that the PCs would be intrigued if they bother to interact.

So, any advice? Also, I understand this is a tricky question to ask on the Playground. I ask we keep it as clean and respectable as possible. I'm looking for subtle hints. Body language, phrases that suggest flirtation, not whang you over the forehead with it. I'm looking for something clever.

Nullstellensatz
2018-02-22, 02:29 PM
Our similarities far outweigh our differences. I play my standard base character, and swap the pronouns/physical characteristics. If there are setting-specific political and/or cultural elements to be considered, they're left by the wayside until I'm confronted by them.

I'm not going to hit on every male bartender if I'm playing a gay character, because I wouldn't hit on every female bartender as a straight character. If a female NPC is trying to seduce me to some end, I'd just make a comment like "Sorry, but I'm a confirmed bachelor."

Jormengand
2018-02-22, 03:07 PM
To an extent, you can take the advice of the multiple cis straight white men who've insisted "Make the character first, then add the details", but you have to take into account something: minorities grow up in a world that isn't designed for them and that influences who they are as a person. A lot of LGBT people - particularly on the T end of things - are going to have potentially grown up never knowing that people like them existed. They might easily - again, particularly trans people - be nervous or insecure about sexual situations. In the modern, real world, being trans is almost a guarantee of having been physically and/or sexually assaulted for it. If you're trans, your childhood is almost certainly going to be something that you're inclined to forget. If you're a woman, you've quite probably grown up in a world determined to suppress your ambitions and ignore your desires.

I'm so close to white that I won't try to pretend I can talk about the experiences of people of colour, but I will talk about fantasy speciesism because there are no orcs to suffer for it if I screw up. I want you to imagine that a human, a half-orc and a gnome walk into a bar in Dwarven territory.

The half-orc walks in, sits down, and has a beer. The bartender gives him a funny look. Someone tsks. He overhears someone asking their friend if they think his tusk's real. The beer isn't the one he ordered - he doesn't think it was a deliberate mistake, but he keeps quiet because he knows that if he complains, he'll just be a typical boorish half-orc. If he snaps about the people being quietly bigoted, he'll just be a typical savage greenskin. He doesn't want to play into stereotypes. So he downs his beer, and walks out, angry but unable to do much about it.

The halfling walks in and... ack, there's nowhere to sit. All the seats are either dwarf-sized, because this is a dwarven bar, or human-sized, because everyone makes reasonable adjustment for humans. He may be told that he's too young to drink, because everyone's assumption is that he's a human until shown otherwise.

The human walks in, has a drink, and walks out, wondering what all the fuss is about.

Being a member of a minority can affect everything that you do, in ways you might not even think of. For example, I'll admit that I never realised that having a mandatory "First name" and "Surname" field on a form can cause issues for people with mononymous names, particularly Javanese names (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Javanese_name), until this was pointed out to me. In general, things tend to be designed for majorities, or sometimes for majorities and prevalent minorities (it's depressingly rare to get an "Other: please specify" field on questions about sexuality or gender, because people haven't realised that not everyone is a straight, gay or bi man or woman).

Also, people tend to treat trans people like they're their personal info source or like them being trans is this massive deal in a way that they don't seem to with people of colour or LGB people, probably because they already grok what PoC and LGB people are. I've had a lot of job interviews recently, and they almost always bring up the fact that I'm trans for no good reason.

Oh, and of course, a lot of members of minorities can get harassed for it daily, which you have to keep in mind when determining their attitudes and reactions to prejudice. I've had people shout abuse at me or even physically attack me multiple times in the same day before, and after a while you just stop caring too much about it. Don't expect a realistically-played trans character to get into a shouting match every time someone calls them something untoward.

I wrote all of this before actually reading your specific situation, but... well, I guess I hope it helps in general and in specific.

inexorabletruth
2018-02-22, 03:20 PM
I wrote all of this before actually reading your specific situation, but... well, I guess I hope it helps in general and in specific.

No, actually, this is really good, Jormengand! And it's exactly the kind of discussion and advice I'm hoping to get. I'm not looking specifically for help for my campaigns and characters. I'm hoping this will make a good general advice thread for people attempting to RP outside of their Race/Gender paradigm.

Max_Killjoy
2018-02-22, 03:24 PM
Jormengand's advice isn't bad, or wrong.

The point for me is that there's a fundamental difference between "I'm going to play a person who is among other things ______" versus "I'm going to play a ______". The latter just sounds like a straight and quick path to cliches.

Pleh
2018-02-22, 04:12 PM
I have one character I have built this way. Yes, for the most part, it doesn't affect build choices or mechanical properties. I chose identity first, then let it speak to the Class, then built the class to be functional, and rounded it back out to tie the loose ends back into the basic concept.

It does affect motivation and certain life choices. I picked Warlock as a way of describing how my character wasn't someone who would be willingly trained in more "honorable" professions by a society that rejected her; she was turning to the powers that didn't discriminate (not a little bit out of spite of the more socially acceptable paths that had rejected her). Not that she's a fool, either; she knows dealing with demons tends to end badly, but without the power they can give in return, there wasn't much of a path to any meaningful power anyway so her fate was already sealed without it. And she needed power because she needed to feel vindicated (not because every person in her situation does, but because SHE does), and if only the demons will help her do it, why the heck not?

She's Evil alignment, not because of orientation or anything like that, but because she maybe enjoys getting her revenge on the bigots just a little too much, indulging in torture when finding people who remind her of the evil people in her own life and making them feel the physical pain she has endured emotionally. She finally has the power of self-determination, the power to defend her identity, and has no regrets about using that power, despite the cost to her soul.

In essence, I aimed to use the identity of my character to help form her life choices, much as how I typically use Class or Race to describe the fundamental starting points to any character's story. I suppose it's a bit like a 5e Background with Flaws, Bonds, and Ideals (even though I made the character for 3.5). Flaws: willing to do unspeakable things to maintain self-determination. Bonds: never allowing oneself to be belittled ever again. Ideals: freedom.

RazorChain
2018-02-22, 04:44 PM
As a GM running a historical game in late 12th century Kingdom of Sicily which was multicultural (Jews, Greeks, Sicilians, Arabs, Berbers, Gypsies) of both genders

I don't sweat about it because all my NPC's are persons. I just focus on their personality the rest is just flavour. If they are greedy, brave or pious then ethnicity, gender or sexual orientation doesnt count that much.

inexorabletruth
2018-02-22, 05:09 PM
As a GM running a historical game in late 12th century Kingdom of Sicily which was multicultural (Jews, Greeks, Sicilians, Arabs, Berbers, Gypsies) of both genders

I don't sweat about it because all my NPC's are persons. I just focus on their personality the rest is just flavour. If they are greedy, brave or pious then ethnicity, gender or sexual orientation doesnt count that much.

But a personality can be cultured by its society. Someone who grows up loved, supported, protected, or accepted by a society is likely to have a different outlook, level of education, life span, overall health, and attitude that someone who grows up hated, neglected, abused, or rejected by society.

People who grow up "normal" for their society are also going to have a different perspective paradigm than someone who grows up "different."

As a white male, my experiences in life have been different than those of a black female. Also, as a white male who has spent most of his life in the lower class, my experiences with society have been different than white males who grew up in the upper or middle class. As a younger GenXer, my experiences in society, and therefore my perspectives on society are way different from those of Baby Boomers, and a little different from those of Millennials. Even my sexual orientation complicates the nature of my relationship with those of other sexual orientations... not always in a bad way, but sometimes. I've lost a job before because the boss found out I wasn't hetero. And I've been sexually harassed at a job by a boss because I'm not straight. I've gotten jobs before because the boss thought I was gay, only to find out I'm not actually gay either.

The fact that I'm married has changed the way I behave in the world. The fact that I have a son dramatically changed the way I see the world. And all these things are affected by Race, Gender, Sexual Identity, and Sexual Orientation. They aren't the only things that develop a persons unique character signature, but it plays a huge part, and I think it's worth exploring.

LordCdrMilitant
2018-02-22, 05:34 PM
I might have some insight on this:

It isn't my only character trait, it probably shouldn't exclusively define your character.

A few things to observe:
Transgender people generally identify as "male" or "female", and like to be referred to as such.
It's not conducive to being accepted by society as fe/male if one goes around telling the world they had the opposite parts at birth. Only those close to you need to know what you were born with.
Homosexual or bisexual people aren't any more sex-crazed than heterosexual members of their gender. As straight people don't hit on every wo/man s/he sees, neither do gay or bi people.
Just because a person is okay with making jokes about themselves, that doesn't mean it's okay for you to do so. Please just don't.

Also, I will definitely take you bringing an LGBT+ character to my game at more than face value.




Jormengand's advice isn't bad, or wrong.

The point for me is that there's a fundamental difference between "I'm going to play a person who is among other things ______" versus "I'm going to play a ______". The latter just sounds like a straight and quick path to cliches.

That would be the ideal that we strive for, though it's a very cisgendered white male point of view to say it doesn't matter. It colors a lot of our social interactions, though we wish it didn't.

However, you're on to something: I would personally rather be identified as a tabletop miniature wargamer, a roleplay gamer, an aerospace engineer, a recreational archer, and an enthusiast of medieval hand-to-hand techniques and military strategy and tactics before other identities.

Some people like it if your character explores these themes. Personally, I'd appreciate if you don't at my table. I can't convey to you how it feels through your character, and I don't really consider trying helpful. Acknowledge the challenges people face in real life, and accept me[and others] as I[we] want to be accepted.

Rhedyn
2018-02-22, 05:57 PM
The correct answer depends on your friend group, everyone's comfort levels, and the dynamic of the group.

As far as advice to being authentic? Imagine yourself looking "out from" rather than "in on" the character. How much does skin tone really mean in a fantasy setting where no one ever made a big deal of it? How differently is gender perceive in a world where physical ability is not generally different between the two?
Keep in mind that real world situations need not always apply and your role-playing thought process should try to divorce your own biases/political opinions from the character.

RazorChain
2018-02-22, 06:55 PM
But a personality can be cultured by its society. Someone who grows up loved, supported, protected, or accepted by a society is likely to have a different outlook, level of education, life span, overall health, and attitude that someone who grows up hated, neglected, abused, or rejected by society.

People who grow up "normal" for their society are also going to have a different perspective paradigm than someone who grows up "different."

As a white male, my experiences in life have been different than those of a black female. Also, as a white male who has spent most of his life in the lower class, my experiences with society have been different than white males who grew up in the upper or middle class. As a younger GenXer, my experiences in society, and therefore my perspectives on society are way different from those of Baby Boomers, and a little different from those of Millennials. Even my sexual orientation complicates the nature of my relationship with those of other sexual orientations... not always in a bad way, but sometimes. I've lost a job before because the boss found out I wasn't hetero. And I've been sexually harassed at a job by a boss because I'm not straight. I've gotten jobs before because the boss thought I was gay, only to find out I'm not actually gay either.

The fact that I'm married has changed the way I behave in the world. The fact that I have a son dramatically changed the way I see the world. And all these things are affected by Race, Gender, Sexual Identity, and Sexual Orientation. They aren't the only things that develop a persons unique character signature, but it plays a huge part, and I think it's worth exploring.

Yes but that's it. I'm a white male but our experiences are wastly different. I'm autistic and a father of three autistic children. And as labels go if you know one autist then you know ONE autist.

We are all sum of our experiences and if you try to portray a white autistic man then even I cant say you got it right because I don't know all autistic white men.

So don't sweat it

Jay R
2018-02-23, 09:03 AM
I offer one piece of advice.

We don't role-play everything that happens in life. [If we did, role-playing one day would take a day of play time.] We don't role-play eating, cleaning, bathing, or many other activities that are real but unimportant to the story or game.

It will be much easier to role-play the adventure part of the life than the private or intimate aspects of somebody's life. And the most embarrassing mistakes will happen role-playing the private and intimate moments. So just don't role-play them.

inexorabletruth
2018-02-23, 09:15 AM
I offer one piece of advice.

We don't role-play everything that happens in life. [If we did, role-playing one day would take a day of play time.] We don't role-play eating, cleaning, bathing, or many other activities that are real but unimportant to the story or game.

It will be much easier to role-play the adventure part of the life than the private or intimate aspects of somebody's life. And the most embarrassing mistakes will happen role-playing the private and intimate moments. So just don't role-play them.

I was more interested in advice, experience-share, and brainstorming rather than gate-keeping. If roleplaying the subtler or more intricate parts of a character's personality isn't your bag, then there's nothing wrong with that. But then, this thread isn't really for you.

I'm looking for struggles and successes with getting into the character mindset, and how to play races, gender identities, and sexual orientations with respect to the core concept of the subject. And I would prefer not to be told that I can't do that, because I like playing that way; I play with others who like playing that way. And I don't think there is anything wrong with that. Actors and actresses literally do this for a living, yet we're not trying to shut down Hollywood or the theater.

Max_Killjoy
2018-02-23, 09:21 AM
My own experience is that I'm so mentally / emotionally different from what we're constantly told about humans, with most of the commentary on the human mind and such that I come across in psychology books, TED Talks, Radiolab, whatever, sounding just utterly alien to me, and my internal priorities and reactions so clearly different from most people around me, that I'm playing the role of "normal person" every day with most of the humans I interact with.

So in some ways when I get to play a non-human in an RPG, I'm having to do less work.

Cluedrew
2018-02-23, 10:04 AM
I'm going to give a variant rule of the "play a person". Don't have a single defining character trait. Have... three at least. So a bisexual character is not great, a studious bisexual who does archery for fun is a better start. And all three of these might come up in a variety of ways, sure they might pick up a bow if they need an improvised weapon, but the people they know people through the archery club may come up.

Max_Killjoy
2018-02-23, 11:00 AM
I'm going to give a variant rule of the "play a person". Don't have a single defining character trait. Have... three at least. So a bisexual character is not great, a studious bisexual who does archery for fun is a better start. And all three of these might come up in a variety of ways, sure they might pick up a bow if they need an improvised weapon, but the people they know people through the archery club may come up.


That's a great approach.

There's a big difference between "I'm going to play a ______", and "I'm going to play someone who is an archer, is an avid reader, wishes they could have a pet goat, and is ________".

Segev
2018-02-23, 11:11 AM
Looking at your two specific examples, the half-orc seems comfortable in his own skin, so his performance is less of a façade. Obviously, there is a bit of one there, but he genuinely is close to the exaggerated stage presence he uses.

"Flirty" for him can be normal for a straight guy who just happens to know he looks sexy and that people want him. He also can respond "in kind," if he's acting a character-role, so if somebody is sending him signals with THEIR flirting, he can react as if he were the kind of person that that flirting would work on. I would generally play him as friendly and a bit eager, but given that he's a half-orc male, those who're throwing money at him probably want a man, not an effeminate pretty-boy. He can be a pretty, even gentle man, but he shouldn't be "girly." In-character, in-setting (i.e. the strip club), he knows people want him. (All the dancers know the audience wants them; that's why the audience is THERE.) He can play off of that in his come-ons.

Out of character (in this case, I mean performing persona, not "OOC" in the gaming sense), he can potentially be a little more shy, or a little less overtly flirtatious, because he's not making money off of his confidence and manly come-ons. But he should come off as happy (in the content, if not the bubbly) sense. Friendly, too; he's not going to be as much at risk of handsy patrons forcing themselves on him, simply due to his size and physical power. Though he might have to fend off girls who think that the usual seductive clinginess of the cliché will work, when...let's be honest...as a guy who makes his money "being sexy," he probably gets all he wants from his pick of the litter. So if he's jaded, it's probably in the same way a rock star is jaded over his swooning fangirl groupies.

The negative side would be that, as a half-orc, if the world is "typical" for D&D, he's going to be viewed as potential trouble. If he has built a trustworthy reputation in town, he still had to work to build it. He would be proud of that reputation, and would capitalize on it not by exploiting it, but by living up to it as much as possible and being quick to make sure people know "it wasn't me" if something happens that could be incriminating. If he hasn't built that reputation, he might have some anxieties over that lack and be working towards it. In this case, he might seem meeker than "normal" because of the need not to give people an excuse. And thus he might be nervous around well-armed adventurers and thugs.


The elf, on the other hand, sounds like she's less comfortable with the job. She's got enough Cha to make it work, and her persona is probably more exaggerated. She likely wants to avoid interacting with the "audience" when out of character, because she knows she can't use her magic to defend herself without a lot of risk, and she may not be comfortable with how they see her. Or, maybe she is, or has gotten that way. Regardless, she's likely a very different kind of proud in and out of stage-character. On stage, she's working that charisma and her looks to command attention, to make men want her and women want to be her. She's Jessica Rabbit in her intro scene. Off stage, she would probably not normally have "stooped" to this kind of work, and a mix of her wounded dignity and her understanding that it was her own choice still means she's going to act shy even while telling herself that she's "not like this," not "really." She's a powerful sorceress in a disguise. That's all.

Which she then might, in some moments, berate herself for since thinking like that can make her break "character." She's not comfortable in her own skin. If the party gets to know her, they should eventually notice that she's skittish. Worried.

She might try a little too hard to be seductive. She also, since she didn't choose to go into prostitution, might take a particular umbrage at the suggestion that she sells her body for sex. Whether she has an active sex life that is not work-related will depend on how she looks at it. Is it a normal activity she enjoys on her own terms? Is it a weakness she indulges occasionally, exacerbated by the sexual nature of her work? Does she avoid or pursue it in a way deliberately different from her stage persona?

When not "in character," it should be noticeable how she's not exactly comfortable in her own skin. When "in character," her discomfort should be harder to spot, but still be there for those who can get past her sky high bluff/perform/diplomacy.

MeimuHakurei
2018-02-23, 11:31 AM
While I generally agree with the basic idea phrased here, I think it should be phrased as "who are they, other than their race/gender/orientation/etc.?" since that's what you're trying to say. Still, that thinking alone is not enough since it's likely your perception of that identity is colored by your own experiences. You could still end up doing Guys Smash, Girls Shoot or put a gay person into a stereotypically "glamorous" role like a bard class. So just thinking of other traits might not be enough.

What should you do, then? Hear out what the minority has to say. You probably won't need to directly consult a marginalized person just to roleplay their identity properly, but you could read up on the experienced of people of that race/gender/orientation/etc. to have a better picture (doesn't have to be struggles with discrimination, it could be casual everyday stuff even). Another thing I like is better representing said identity in the campaign world - if there's a number of PoCs and queer people in the setting, chances are they'll be different from one another and not all act in a certain way.

In any case, chances are you're still going to get things wrong some of the time - it's important that you admit you made a mistake and that you should learn from it.

inexorabletruth
2018-02-23, 12:28 PM
Looking at your two specific examples, the half-orc seems comfortable in his own skin, so his performance is less of a façade. Obviously, there is a bit of one there, but he genuinely is close to the exaggerated stage presence he uses.

"Flirty" for him can be normal for a straight guy who just happens to know he looks sexy and that people want him. He also can respond "in kind," if he's acting a character-role, so if somebody is sending him signals with THEIR flirting, he can react as if he were the kind of person that that flirting would work on. I would generally play him as friendly and a bit eager, but given that he's a half-orc male, those who're throwing money at him probably want a man, not an effeminate pretty-boy. He can be a pretty, even gentle man, but he shouldn't be "girly." In-character, in-setting (i.e. the strip club), he knows people want him. (All the dancers know the audience wants them; that's why the audience is THERE.) He can play off of that in his come-ons.

Out of character (in this case, I mean performing persona, not "OOC" in the gaming sense), he can potentially be a little more shy, or a little less overtly flirtatious, because he's not making money off of his confidence and manly come-ons. But he should come off as happy (in the content, if not the bubbly) sense. Friendly, too; he's not going to be as much at risk of handsy patrons forcing themselves on him, simply due to his size and physical power. Though he might have to fend off girls who think that the usual seductive clinginess of the cliché will work, when...let's be honest...as a guy who makes his money "being sexy," he probably gets all he wants from his pick of the litter. So if he's jaded, it's probably in the same way a rock star is jaded over his swooning fangirl groupies.

The negative side would be that, as a half-orc, if the world is "typical" for D&D, he's going to be viewed as potential trouble. If he has built a trustworthy reputation in town, he still had to work to build it. He would be proud of that reputation, and would capitalize on it not by exploiting it, but by living up to it as much as possible and being quick to make sure people know "it wasn't me" if something happens that could be incriminating. If he hasn't built that reputation, he might have some anxieties over that lack and be working towards it. In this case, he might seem meeker than "normal" because of the need not to give people an excuse. And thus he might be nervous around well-armed adventurers and thugs.


The elf, on the other hand, sounds like she's less comfortable with the job. She's got enough Cha to make it work, and her persona is probably more exaggerated. She likely wants to avoid interacting with the "audience" when out of character, because she knows she can't use her magic to defend herself without a lot of risk, and she may not be comfortable with how they see her. Or, maybe she is, or has gotten that way. Regardless, she's likely a very different kind of proud in and out of stage-character. On stage, she's working that charisma and her looks to command attention, to make men want her and women want to be her. She's Jessica Rabbit in her intro scene. Off stage, she would probably not normally have "stooped" to this kind of work, and a mix of her wounded dignity and her understanding that it was her own choice still means she's going to act shy even while telling herself that she's "not like this," not "really." She's a powerful sorceress in a disguise. That's all.

Which she then might, in some moments, berate herself for since thinking like that can make her break "character." She's not comfortable in her own skin. If the party gets to know her, they should eventually notice that she's skittish. Worried.

She might try a little too hard to be seductive. She also, since she didn't choose to go into prostitution, might take a particular umbrage at the suggestion that she sells her body for sex. Whether she has an active sex life that is not work-related will depend on how she looks at it. Is it a normal activity she enjoys on her own terms? Is it a weakness she indulges occasionally, exacerbated by the sexual nature of her work? Does she avoid or pursue it in a way deliberately different from her stage persona?

When not "in character," it should be noticeable how she's not exactly comfortable in her own skin. When "in character," her discomfort should be harder to spot, but still be there for those who can get past her sky high bluff/perform/diplomacy.

I think I've got you. The Half-Orc would take a Freddie Mercury approach: bold on stage, shy off stage. He's got racial biases to overcome, so he keeps his head down and nose clean when he's off the clock. So maybe, on the pole is the only time he can truly be himself. So he feels powerful and acts more aggressively?

I like the concept of the elf being uncomfortable in her own skin. I hadn't actually thought of that, but I'm not sure how to play that in a description. According to this link (http://www.improveyoursocialskills.com/body-language/discomfort-field-guide), she would rub her face, neck, and legs a lot, try to lean away from people addressing her, or put physical obstacles between her and those she is being addressed by. She would avoid eye contact, and point her body slightly away from people she is talking to... as if to have an easy escape from the conversation.

But how do you suppose this would this effect her ability to engage with people she has an interest in? Would she be equally awkward and shy, or would to the exact opposite, and attempt to touch the target of her affection (punching, slapping, or plausibly deniable accidental contact mybe?) while leaning in almost uncomfortably close? Where would her obstacles go? Lets say, for ease of context, the obstacle is her make up kit which she will use on her stage performances and also on the streets in order to change her look enough to not be instantly recognizable. So conceivably, she would have it around a lot. It would be large and bulky enough to serve as an obstacle, yet lightweight enough to not be a burden for her to carry it everywhere. Would she put the make up kit down? Leave it in front of her because even though she wants to engage, she is still wrestling with her own insecurities, or would it be at her side? Ready to put back up as a shield if her affections are spurned or scorned?

Segev
2018-02-23, 12:41 PM
For this specific elf, with her ex-sorceress backstory (well, really still a sorceress, just hiding it), for those she's interested in, she might let more of her real personality slip through. She was used to commanding respect via her beauty and force of personality, and presumably she wants those she's interested in to see her has more than the eye candy on stage. Which might contribute to her discomfort in her own skin becoming more pronounced when she catches herself doing that, and tries to shift to a false persona to "hide." She may well be worried people will see through her.

While obstacles and rubbing the face and stuff are good general cues, the discomfort I was picturing was more along the lines of trying too hard to act the role she thinks she's filling. She's still high charisma, so I'd play her "straight" on the surface, and just have little things, like having anything unexpected cause her to initially act like her real/old self. Then, as soon as she notices this, she tries to shift back into "character," and the shift should be a little jarring.

Think of comedy acts where a character is presenting a happy and obsequious façade, and looks disgusted the moment the mark's back is turned, only to shift immediately back to the smiling and helpful expression. Only instead of hiding her disgust (unless she is), she's hiding her discomfort at being over one of her old self's lines that her "slutty" new self would have no problem with, or she's hiding a sudden burst of high-handedness behind her façade of bubbly good nature, or...

Well, you'll have to come up with what her pre-hiding personality was, and what her persona both on-stage and off are supposed to be now. She might shift more into her on-stage persona when she realizes she's acting more like her old self, because that act is more conscious.

LordCdrMilitant
2018-02-23, 01:51 PM
I was more interested in advice, experience-share, and brainstorming rather than gate-keeping. If roleplaying the subtler or more intricate parts of a character's personality isn't your bag, then there's nothing wrong with that. But then, this thread isn't really for you.

I'm looking for struggles and successes with getting into the character mindset, and how to play races, gender identities, and sexual orientations with respect to the core concept of the subject. And I would prefer not to be told that I can't do that, because I like playing that way; I play with others who like playing that way. And I don't think there is anything wrong with that. Actors and actresses literally do this for a living, yet we're not trying to shut down Hollywood or the theater.

It's not gate-keeping. And I'm now this close to being offended.

You asked how you can play a character who is while being respectful to real people who are. And my 2c is: I am not an exhibit in a zoo, a lecture in a university psych class, or an abomination against God and nature. I am a lot of things and have several interests, and I believe it would be respectful to me and to people like me to represent that in your characters. Treat your characters normally: being transgendered or homo/bi/asexual doesn't make them special or magical or strange. Acknowledge that in real life we have a variety of obstacles before us and behind us, and accept us as we want to be accepted in real life.

If someone wants to experience how I feel, a roleplay game is not the vehicle for it. Talk to me directly if you're really curious. You're also not going to curry any favor trying to empathize with me through your character.
If you want to explore your own identity, I would recommend letting the character develop naturally from yourself and your desires.

That's my 2c.

inexorabletruth
2018-02-23, 01:54 PM
Ok! Thanks ^_^

I'm going to flesh this out more in my NPC dossier. I hope I get to actually play this out. She's already more interesting to RP than when I first started, but it's up to the PCs to decide whether or not she's worth getting to know.

Pex
2018-02-23, 02:22 PM
In an old Pathfinder game my gay Paladin took a philosophical approach. Where does the custom of shaking hands in greeting come from? Showing an open palm means you don't have a weapon in it, being a friend. Similarly, the salute comes from men in armor lifting their head visor to be recognized as a friendly. As a Paladin my character is trained to fight and kill. He wears full plate and wields a great sword. He has the feats Power Attack and Furious Focus (no Power Attack penalty on the first attack in a round). He hits hard before smiting. While there are female warriors and monsters, generally speaking when he fights he'll be fighting another male whether human, orc, or troll.

It's his job to enter danger. Old retired paladins are very rare. They are meant to die. He will suffer great physical pain. He's allowed a respite of physical pleasure. If he is to be clad in plate mail and all geared up for battle protected by gear and blessings ready to kill another man, then there's no better opposite than to be unarmed, unarmored, completely vulnerable with another man to embrace each other instead of trying to kill each other.

He was not a virgin during the game.

Segev
2018-02-23, 03:04 PM
I am not an exhibit in a zoo, a lecture in a university psych class, or an abomination against God and nature.

Now you're just discriminating against liches. Harumph. Implying that being an abomination against God and nature is a bad thing. *grumble grumble*

Jormengand
2018-02-23, 03:30 PM
I think that being a player role-playing games provide a great opportunity for you to learn about the experiences of a minority group, if the DM is familiar with these experiences. I absolutely think that there's a lot you can get from a well-written game where the prejudices and challenges of being a member of that minority are fully explored. Hell, that's why people write books about it too. I've written before why I think that tabletop roleplaying games have the potential to be the last word in artistic expression, neatly punching out basically every other medium with video games coming a close second and other types of games running a less-close second (see the Progenitus effect (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?550781-Favorite-MTG-Card-and-Why&p=22840048#post22840048) for why games in general are good at conveying meaning. I feel like I had a better post about it, though...) and part of the reason why is that they let you experience from your character's point of view, to an extent.

inexorabletruth
2018-02-23, 03:39 PM
In an old Pathfinder game my gay Paladin took a philosophical approach. Where does the custom of shaking hands in greeting come from? Showing an open palm means you don't have a weapon in it, being a friend. Similarly, the salute comes from men in armor lifting their head visor to be recognized as a friendly. As a Paladin my character is trained to fight and kill. He wears full plate and wields a great sword. He has the feats Power Attack and Furious Focus (no Power Attack penalty on the first attack in a round). He hits hard before smiting. While there are female warriors and monsters, generally speaking when he fights he'll be fighting another male whether human, orc, or troll.

It's his job to enter danger. Old retired paladins are very rare. They are meant to die. He will suffer great physical pain. He's allowed a respite of physical pleasure. If he is to be clad in plate mail and all geared up for battle protected by gear and blessings ready to kill another man, then there's no better opposite than to be unarmed, unarmored, completely vulnerable with another man to embrace each other instead of trying to kill each other.

He was not a virgin during the game.

It sounds like you went with the "manly embrace" concept found in ancient Grecian literature, and found in Spartan and Theban soldiery? So you play up sexual orientation more as an abstract desire to cleanse the pallette of violence and warfare rather than a matter of gender and identity labels or constructs.

Most of the world I create when I run campaigns is run this way, because that's mostly how I think. In my IRL life gender and identity labels do not occur to me as prerequisites for love and affection. I am attracted to an individual because I feel a strong connection of love, and I only really have enough emotional energy to feel that way for one person at a time. So it's easy to relate that in my games. But it makes matters of love and romance feel rubber stamped, and I'd like my worlds to be more vibrant than that without feeling cliched. How do you handle unique expressions of this sentiment?

Pex
2018-02-23, 03:41 PM
On the humorous side there are my 5E characters I've played in one shots where in this group we're allowed two characters because we're a small number of players. I play a monk named Chip and a sorcerer named Dale. They are an entertaining troupe "Chip 'n Dale" aka "The Shirtless Wonders". They do acrobatic stunts instead of their 'dancing', or both, depending on the audience. It was the DM who called them the "Ambiguously Gay Duo".

Ambiguous is accurate. A situation never came up to be definitively answered. They'll share a room at an inn, but that's not enough evidence so to speak. I haven't decided myself. The ambiguity is fun to play.

Frozen_Feet
2018-02-25, 03:38 AM
TL;DR: How do you get into the character of someone who is different from your race/gender identity/sexual orientation without making it a caricature?

You do research on whoever it is you want to play and hopefully get to know an individual who fits the rough description. You then use that as basis for your character, regardless of how well you can get "into" them. Getting inside the head of another person who is genuinely different from you is always difficult, internalizing such viewpoints can only happen with time. Accept that your role, and your interpretation of your role, won't be ready the moment you are finished filling your sheet. Only long-term play and practice will allow you to develop a caricature into a character. Yes, they are points on a continuum - almost every RPG character begins their life as a caricature, and any nuanced character can turn into a caricature if the player isn't paying attention.


With fantasy races, it's a little easier to play out, because racially charged fluff is built into the template, giving them an easy-to-follow guideline. i.e. Dwarves are gruff, but loyal, and love beer. Elves are pretty and graceful, but a little arrogant. Gnomes are mischievous and playful, but generally good-hearted and creative.

The actual reason it is easier is because fantasy races are built as caricatures from the get-go, in addition to being easily acknowledged as not representing any real people. Hence there's much less pressure on portraying them right. Your stereotypical portrayal of an elf can't harm real elves, because there are no real elves.

Exceptions exist for players who insists elves indeed do represent some real group, and player who are hardcore about some particular version of elves. You should not take example of the former group and can safely ignore the latter group when not using their pet version.


In the cases of real world inspired culture groups, I don't want to play caricatures of them. That already happens enough with Asians in D&D. I want to play something that is honest and respectful... not just superimpose my personality over a racial template, or play strictly to the stereotypes of the represented culture, because I feel both of these:
1) insult the culture being represented
2) cheapen the experience of roleplay
3) are lazy ways to play the game in general

Okay, so go play a realistic game where you are playing actual members of those cultures, in actual historical context they existed in, researched to whatever degree of accuracy that starts to feel sufficient.

Oh, no, wait... you want to play cultures inspired by real ones in context of kitchen sink fantasy like D&D?

*sigh*

Okay, let me paraphrase myself from the thread over at Friendly Banter: diversity and representation are two different things. It is a questionable thought to begin with that any fantastic character is truly representative of any real person or group of persons. It doesn't matter if or how much they are inspired by the real world. Your black gay spanish knight templar who fights dragons in faux-medieval Central Asia is not a representative of blacks, gays, knight templars, or anyone else. They are only representative of "what inexorabletruth could imagine and thought was fun to play today".

Same goes if you play a stereotypical feudal samurai in faux-medieval Europe. Out of the three complaints you make, I will only admit the third: yes, using pre-existing archetypes, stereotypes, tropes, cliches etc. is less effort than implementing things to realistic fidelity or coming up with things from scratch. You are entitled to call such practice "lazy", but there is a strong reason why things are done this way, explained in detail as far back as 1st Edition AD&D Dungeon Master's Guide by Gary Gygax. To paraphrase: complete fidelity to reality and complete originality require the game's players to be hyper-competent multitalents with degrees in history, physics and whatnot. It's not a realistic expectation for a game. You are allowed to do the lazy thing because it makes for a faster, playable game.

And now to your other two complaints:

1) who are the real people being insulted, and what is the mechanism they are getting insulted by?

Chances are the only person being insulted is yourself, you are just using imagined response of the other people as a smokescreen. For example, the Japanese people? They are generally just fine with crazy stereotypical samurai, they use those themselves all the time. No real Japanese person will be worse off for you using a stereotypical samurai in your game. The only real exception goes for if you fail to acknowledge your crazy stereotype as such, which, given you started this discussion, isn't likely going to be a problem, now, is it?

The only time when 1) is likely to happen at all, is when actual representative of some group is at your table, and for some reason you are trying to act as representative of their group. This situation is often quickly defused by asking them if your interpretation is plausible, or by not pretending to be their representative to begin with.

2) This is highly subjective and, worse, comes with an element of self-fullfilling prophecy. That is: sure, if you honestly think unrealistic portrayals cheapen roleplay, they will do so (to you), but why do you think so to begin with?

Like, I know that poor portrayal can take you out of a game due to being distractive, comical or what not. If, say, a player who clearly does not know Finnish suddenly tries to hold a serious in-character speech Finnish, I will have to work on my poker face. But that is my opinion of their roleplaying, not their or anyone else's opinion of roleplaying. They might actually be doing the best they can. They might feel they're really in-character right up untill my poker face fails.

And that's the problem with your complaint number 2). It's unrealistic to expect perfection from your fellow players. There are countless little errors which could take you out of game, which are not result of laziness, lack of concern, or whatever. They do not cheapen the experience, because you were not realistically going to get more value from the game to begin with. People constantly fall prey to stereotypes without meaning to, you can't change that without changing how people think on a fairly deep level. Also remember: what seems stereotypical or cliched will depend on exposure. Somewhere out there, there is a player to which the stereotypical samurai is a completely new thing, and they won't think of it as either stereotype or cliche unless someone else insists it's one.



This is not the conversation point... this is just an example:]I imagine cosplayers, especially crossplayers, have a similar dilemma. As a white male, passably straight, let's say I wanted to cosplay as, say... Sailor Moon. There are many conventions where I live that won't allow this, even if I make an effort to cover all the "private bits". The problem gets more severe if I want to cosplay as a dark elf. Even though the race doesn't technically exist in this world, it's hard to imagine a scenario where this would be a culturally acceptable cosplay. It's hard to tell where the line crosses from heartfelt roleplay of a character or concept you love, to some form of accidental "ism."

I happen to also be part of a cosplay scene, so let me tell you a bit on our take on it:

Accidental "isms" are not.

We, on the side of event organizers, have decided to pay no heed to the sort of people who see, say, a Finnish teenager using dark make-up to cosplay as their favorite manga character, as offensive use of "Blackface".

Why? Because event organizers serving as moral guardians would force people to walk on eggshells and make the atmosphere of the hobby intolerably suffocating. It would also hit new and young hobbyists the worst, as they can't be expected to know where the lines happen to be drawn by whoever is being most activist at the moment.

We follow the standard set by Finnish law, and that's it.

Or in other words, there is no dilemma in using dark make-up or crossdressing as a good-faith attempt to portray your character. I can fetch you pictures of people doing both last week if you want to. If someone wants to be insulted and have their sense of being insulted taken seriously, it's on them to prove the intent was to insult or that some real harm has been done.

Satinavian
2018-02-25, 05:23 AM
The actual reason it is easier is because fantasy races are built as caricatures from the get-go, in addition to being easily acknowledged as not representing any real people. Hence there's much less pressure on portraying them right. Your stereotypical portrayal of an elf can't harm real elves, because there are no real elves.
I can understand it for fantasy religions instead of real religions. Because portraying priests or rituals of real world religions without having any clue about the corresponding doctrin can be grating fast and insulting religious feelings is easy.

But i never got that argument for races. Fantasy races never live in any cultures that are remotely close to what e have today. And pretty much all the race stuff for humans is purely cultural as there are no significant biological differences. Thus portraying some human race in a fantasy setting has nothing to do at all with the real world issues with that particular race. So where is the difference to a pure fantasy race ? (Outside of fantasy races sometimes having significant biological differences).

It is slightly different if you really copy some real world cultures for your fantasy world. But then again, none of the players is from any of those historical cultures. Why would it seem easier to play some long gone culture which had predominantly people with a similar skin colour to some other long gone culture which had predominently people with a different skin colour ? Both options should be equally foreign experiences.


Everything else gives "race" for humans far more credit than it should have. There is nothing significantly different between humans of different races. Or their experience if you disregard culture. There is not something like a "black cultural idendity" spanning continents and millenia. That is why science long abandoned the concept of human races.



As for cosplay in Germany : Don't use forbidden symbols. Yes, there are a lot of Manga-/Anime characters of Faux-Nazi-Germany and some do show a lot of swasticas, but you are still not allowed to show them as part of your costume.

Everything else is accepted. Cross-dressing is not a problem. And "blackface" is an American thing, it is not seen as insulting to blacks to use color to look black as part of a costume. Because we didn't have those shows here. Instead doing so is traditionally part of some christmas play costumes as one of the biblical three wise man is always shown as black since the middle ages as acknowledgement of the african coptic Christians (especcially Ethiopia).

Frozen_Feet
2018-02-25, 05:47 AM
It primarily seems to come from mistaking diversity for representation, and applicabilty for analogy. See other thread. (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?551141-Survey-re-Representation-in-Tabletop-RPGs&p=22867525#post22867525)

That is: a weird pointy-eared thing does not look like real human, and is hence usually not taken to represent any real human.

A dark-skinned human looks like some real humans, so is taken to represent some real humans.

By extension, treatment of weird pointy-eared thing in a game is not taken to imply anything about real humans. Through a leap of logic, treatment of dark-skinned humans is taken to imply something about real humans.

Note that this is not hard rule, exceptions exist. For example, an author could make their weird pointy-eared things an analogue to some real group of humans, and a savvy player could use this to draw conclusions about the author's message. On the flipside, even if the pointy-eared thing is analogy of nothing, you might still be able to learn something about it.

But no matter which way the train of thought goes, it's always questionable. Because fictional people in fantastic circumstances aren't really representative of anyone.

inexorabletruth
2018-02-25, 07:51 AM
And so... to clarify my questions (not complaints):

What methods and techniques do you use to get into character and overcome the obstacles of accidentally superimposing yourself onto the character you are playing or playing a two dimensional caricature of your character?

I'm talking about method acting (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Method_acting) as a role playing technique for developing the subtler aspects of your character (i.e. the nuances of a personality that is sculpted, or influenced by, the cultural and societal aspects and ramifications of race, gender identity, and sexual orientation) with respect to the archetype being represented and with a heightened level of verisimilitude. This is all assuming the game being played allows for, and encourages, this kind of roleplay.

This not an attempt to discourage this kind of RP, defend it, or feel better/worse about it. This is an effort promote discussion about it in the hopes that those of us who enjoy this type of in depth roleplay can hone their skills by sharing with and learning from techniques and practices being used, and how those techniques and practices worked out.

Obviously communication is not my best skill, so I apologize if I've been unclear. It's one of the reasons I enjoy role play as much as I do. It feels like a safe playing field for practicing how to interact with people. Therefore, I'm hoping this post clarifies my original intent. If it does, I may just add this to post 1.

Florian
2018-02-25, 08:03 AM
But i never got that argument for races. Fantasy races never live in any cultures that are remotely close to what e have today. And pretty much all the race stuff for humans is purely cultural as there are no significant biological differences. Thus portraying some human race in a fantasy setting has nothing to do at all with the real world issues with that particular race. So where is the difference to a pure fantasy race ?

Pure fantasy races almost always come as a complete package of race and culture, often quite monolithic when it comes to that, starting with their primary deity and separate pantheon, while humans come in a broad variety of colors and culture, with very well defined difference between those (interestingly enough, I know only the old Wilderlands setting that actually adds real fantasy variants to human, like skin-color ranging from spotty purple to pure red, blue and green).


What methods and techniques do you use to get into character and overcome the obstacles of accidentally superimposing yourself onto the character you are playing or playing a two dimensional caricature of your character?

Groundwork: Get to know the setting, get to know the game rules and get comfy with the expectations your group has about how the actual game should be played. Might sound totally trite, but we're talking about RPGs and how they portray "heroes", doing stuff that no sane person would ever do, potentially surviving multiple fireballs and such. No use in aiming for a level of "verisimilitude" that doesn't touch on with what is going to happen in the actual game. To use PF/Golarion as an example, while it´s interesting to see what a commoner in Cheliax does, what matters is what an adventurer from Cheliax does.

Know yourself: Even with some advanced training, you are still you and that comes attached with some baggage like certain patterns, behaviors and reactions. While that can be suppressed for a while, that's a certain level of stress and needs control, being a sure bet that you will slip from time to time, so superimposing yourself on your character can´t really be avoided. So be honest with yourself here, curb your ambitions a bit and go for what you actually can portrait just fine, avoid what you know will not work for you. (Example: I've a rather deep voice and my native dialect is bavarian, which is rather "slow" compared to other german dialects, especially the northern ones, so I'm really bad at voice-acting something "small and cute" like an excited halfling but can do the menacing Judge Dredd growl just fine).

Starbuck_II
2018-02-25, 09:33 AM
But things get more difficult to play something hits closer to home. Let's say, I wanted to play an Hispanic trans-female pansexual? Or a black male heterosexual? Or, the hardest of all for me, a Native American, literally any gender or orientation?

Well as a cis-Native American, I'd like you to know we aren't all that different from you likely. I mean, sure we have magic powers, but essentially we are the same. :smalltongue:

I mean, it really depends on how much their ethnic background is ingrained in their sense of being. Otherwise, we are just like pale skins, (whites).

If they grew up tribal, ten it would have more impact on their being. I didn't so I act more white-ish.



I imagine cosplayers, especially crossplayers, have a similar dilemma. As a white male, passably straight, let's say I wanted to cosplay as, say... Sailor Moon. There are many conventions where I live that won't allow this, even if I make an effort to cover all the "private bits". The problem gets more severe if I want to cosplay as a dark elf. Even though the race doesn't technically exist in this world, it's hard to imagine a scenario where this would be a culturally acceptable cosplay. It's hard to tell where the line crosses from heartfelt roleplay of a character or concept you love, to some form of accidental "ism."


And so, I thought this would be a nice place to discuss what we do to get into character and really play true to the nature of the culture we are trying to emulate. Also, if anyone wishes to share their questions/concerns/frustrations with roleplay outside of your specific cultural purview, they are welcome to do so here. How do you handle the RP? What are some challenges you've faced playing your character and were you able to overcome it? If so, how? If not, maybe the collective minds on the forum can help.

On your spoiler, if you go with purple or blue skin, like video games use, you should be fine with dark elves. Black is not due to the racial overtones of "black face" makeup used in the past.

inexorabletruth
2018-02-25, 10:41 AM
I mean, sure we have magic powers, but essentially we are the same. :smalltongue:

I knew it! :smallbiggrin:


I mean, it really depends on how much their ethnic background is ingrained in their sense of being. Otherwise, we are just like pale skins, (whites).

If they grew up tribal, ten it would have more impact on their being. I didn't so I act more white-ish.

Therein lies the subtlety of the RP I'm referring to. You know what acting white-ish is, implying that there are cultural seasonings which can effect RP from that perspective. And this is where I want to dig in.

Not counting what I've seen from media entertainment, historical exhibits, guest visits to my school when I was a child, and one casino, I've only had two genuine interactions with Native Americans.

One was at my granddad's funeral in Oklahoma, and another in Germany. Neither led me to believe that our lives and experiences were similar. In fact, the experiences were existentially jarring, in a wonderful yet tragic way.

My granddad was not well loved by his family by anyone but me. To everyone he knew he was a violent, philandering, alcoholic with sexual proclivities that were generally deemed unacceptable, even abhorrent, in his era (bisexual). He collected divorce papers with the same veracity as he pounded Wild Turkey (which I had actually seen him use instead of milk for his cereal, and performed jazz piano for tips at a series night clubs throughout Oklahoma. He squandered his inherited wealth on liquor, drugs, sex, gambling, and music instruments, and never treated anyone with respect or compassion. But he was always good to me. He taught me how to play the drums and the piano, inspiring my love of music. He taught me to dance, and he never said an unkind word to me. I don't know why I was the exception, but there it is. I lost track of him in the last decade of his life when he vanished into a reservation and never returned. According to what I learned at the funeral, he spent the remaining days of his life drinking and getting high on the reservation.
So, it stands to reason, that his funeral was somewhat awkward. His family arrived, relieved to see him gone, disgusted and frustrated to be there, but interested to see if any of his trust fund remained to be parceled out amongst the surviving members.
That was when the Native Americans arrived: filing in like an army of woe, weeping and sobbing as if each were a parent who had lost their child. They praised his life and lamented his passing.
They loved him... lots of them loved him. I never had the luxury of finding out why. After the funeral, the Native Americans returned to the reservation as far as I know. I was just a boy at the time, and wasn't really sure if it would be appropriate to talk to them about their experiences with my granddad. In retrospect, I wish I would've had the courage to do so.
______
In Germany, I met a group of musicians dancing and singing in the striezelmarkt. Recognizing the traditional clothing, cheekbones, and complexion as Native American, I walked up to toss in a few marks and enjoy the show. Afterwords, I found out they were selling CDs. Forgetting, for a moment, that I was in Germany, I walked up to them and started speaking to them in American English. I've never been looked at with such hatred before after doing so. The dancers eyes were a fierce glare of wrath and contempt, that I felt inexplicably ashamed of myself. Figuring I must've just confused the man by speaking the wrong language, I switched to German. "No, I heard you the first time." he snapped. "Show me your money first, then you can have a CD." I gave him the money, and he shoved a CD at me. I had so many questions about what brought him here, and how long the group had been travelling, and if they ever performed any shows in America... typical fanboy questions (I really enjoyed the group). But he just kept staring at me contemptuously before turning his back on me and walking away.
I read the literature inside the CD jacket. It was filled with rage and heartbreak about the things European immigrants to America did to his people. Apparently, most of his songs on the album were about the tragic decimation of his people by the white immigrants. It was a great album. I didn't understand a word of it, though.

And that's about all I know about Native Americans. It seems even the internet, with all its vast resources, has blanketed knowledge of the culture, or disseminated misinformation about it. Or should I say them? There seem to be a slew of Native American cultures out there, each with unique languages, histories, art, and cultural perspectives in both the here and then. I created a Native American for a 3.5 campaign that didn't get very far, inspired by the Shawnee tribe. Fit into the classic tropes, he was a loincloth clad, tomahawk wielding, face-painted, barbarian, and all around 2D stereotype with no other depth beyond a cool look, stern visage, and a quiet wisdom. The core concept was riveting to me... but the lack of data to formulate my fluff left a vacuum in the RP that I could only fill with stereotypes. I was ultimately frustrated with the character, and relieved when the campaign died.

I'm not even sure how to play the dialect, accent, or colloquialisms of the culture, other than to utterly white wash it, or play into some of the most basic stereotypes of the source material.

How would you recommend I come to a better understanding of the character I attempted to build?

Lorsa
2018-02-26, 05:03 AM
My recommendation would actually be to use your personal experiences, even if you discarded that idea yourself.

I don't mean your personal experiences as to casual meets or based on what you've seen in other media, I mean experiences from actual friends or at least acquaintances you've spoken to a lot.

It is a lot harder to disrespect a group when you have friends in that group. Similarly, it is a lot easier to see how the group is quite similar to yourself when you have friends in it. So my advice is simple; try to befriend someone who is of a particular race, gender, sexual orientation or whatever that you want to portray. If you can meet and interact with a couple of people, you will find that no two of them are exactly the same either, which will help you avoid stereotypes or caricatures.

On the flip side, culture DOES matter. It does not define a character, but it does give people of a certain group common experiences which shape them somewhat.

In any case, as a GM I have portrayed a lot of different races, genders, sexual orientations, sexual identities etc. So far noone has accused me of being disrespectful (and my groups have similarly been almost as diverse). Get to know the people, learn to like them, befriend them, and you're not going to WANT to be disrespecting.

Segev
2018-02-26, 11:02 AM
So my advice is simple; try to befriend someone who is of a particular race, gender, sexual orientation or whatever that you want to portray. If you can meet and interact with a couple of people, you will find that no two of them are exactly the same either, which will help you avoid stereotypes or caricatures.Be...careful...with this. Befriending people only because they have "marginalized" traits is dangerously close to tokenism. Now, admittedly, you CANNOT make friends, in a real sense, if that's all you think about them, but the fact you're seeking them out for friendship for that reason inherently is hazardous to the notion of actually making friends in a genuine sense.


On the flip side, culture DOES matter. It does not define a character, but it does give people of a certain group common experiences which shape them somewhat.Culture doesn't define everything about a character, but it is far more important than skin color or even sexual orientation. People are what they do, not what they look like.

One thing that personally roils me every time I see it is when people conflate culture and skin color (I'd say "race," but that's ambiguous on a D&D-heavy forum...and depending on the setting, actual D&D-style racial differences can have genuine differences other than culture). It is highly racist to assume that comments on a culture are comments on a race associated with that culture. Culture includes behaviors and mannerisms, and it's okay to not like certain behaviors and mannerisms, just as it's okay to admire others. It's highly racist to assume that all people with a particular skin tone will behave in a manner you disapprove of because there is a culture that is predominantly made up of people of that phenotype. It is equally racist to assume that any distaste for a particular culture is based upon disliking people who have a particular phenotype that dominates that culture.

Culture matters a lot more than how somebody looks, though how they look - particularly voluntary things like clothing styles, hair styles, makeup, jewelry, or tattoos - can be an indicator of culture. But unless it's important to make a snap decision for safety purposes, it's foolish to judge based solely on appearance. It's particularly foolish and actively racist to do so based on involuntary, inborn phenotypical traits. Whether you're doing it by saying you can't trust somebody of a particular phenotype because of a culture, or by saying it's racist to judge a culture because it is practiced by those of a particular phenotype.

Max_Killjoy
2018-02-26, 11:11 AM
Be...careful...with this. Befriending people only because they have "marginalized" traits is dangerously close to tokenism. Now, admittedly, you CANNOT make friends, in a real sense, if that's all you think about them, but the fact you're seeking them out for friendship for that reason inherently is hazardous to the notion of actually making friends in a genuine sense.

Culture doesn't define everything about a character, but it is far more important than skin color or even sexual orientation. People are what they do, not what they look like.

One thing that personally roils me every time I see it is when people conflate culture and skin color (I'd say "race," but that's ambiguous on a D&D-heavy forum...and depending on the setting, actual D&D-style racial differences can have genuine differences other than culture). It is highly racist to assume that comments on a culture are comments on a race associated with that culture. Culture includes behaviors and mannerisms, and it's okay to not like certain behaviors and mannerisms, just as it's okay to admire others. It's highly racist to assume that all people with a particular skin tone will behave in a manner you disapprove of because there is a culture that is predominantly made up of people of that phenotype. It is equally racist to assume that any distaste for a particular culture is based upon disliking people who have a particular phenotype that dominates that culture.

Culture matters a lot more than how somebody looks, though how they look - particularly voluntary things like clothing styles, hair styles, makeup, jewelry, or tattoos - can be an indicator of culture. But unless it's important to make a snap decision for safety purposes, it's foolish to judge based solely on appearance. It's particularly foolish and actively racist to do so based on involuntary, inborn phenotypical traits. Whether you're doing it by saying you can't trust somebody of a particular phenotype because of a culture, or by saying it's racist to judge a culture because it is practiced by those of a particular phenotype.

Indeed. Exactly.

And that is where we start getting into the dire underlying problem with the notion of "X culture" where X is a superficial phenotype trait.

I try to make it very clear in my worldbuilding that if a "culture" and a "race" appear to be synchronous, it's because most people of that "race" are raised in that culture for social/political/economic/geographic reasons, not because those cultural traits are inherent to that "race".

When different "races" are actually distinct species or subspecies, then there are species traits, and cultural traits, and the two interact, but someone from species X raised in culture A will tend to be different from someone from species X raised in culture B, or someone from species Y raised in culture A or B.

Starbuck_II
2018-02-26, 02:04 PM
And that's about all I know about Native Americans. It seems even the internet, with all its vast resources, has blanketed knowledge of the culture, or disseminated misinformation about it. Or should I say them? There seem to be a slew of Native American cultures out there, each with unique languages, histories, art, and cultural perspectives in both the here and then. I created a Native American for a 3.5 campaign that didn't get very far, inspired by the Shawnee tribe. Fit into the classic tropes, he was a loincloth clad, tomahawk wielding, face-painted, barbarian, and all around 2D stereotype with no other depth beyond a cool look, stern visage, and a quiet wisdom. The core concept was riveting to me... but the lack of data to formulate my fluff left a vacuum in the RP that I could only fill with stereotypes. I was ultimately frustrated with the character, and relieved when the campaign died.

I'm not even sure how to play the dialect, accent, or colloquialisms of the culture, other than to utterly white wash it, or play into some of the most basic stereotypes of the source material.

How would you recommend I come to a better understanding of the character I attempted to build?

See, now you already have a vast wealth of knowledge from your own experiences you could have pulled from.

Now, first, the musician:
song and instruments including dance are very much important in most tribes. While some cultures had writing, oral traditions are big among the all tribes. Almost all tribes felt the impact of colonist took their land by force or cheating them out of it. So he has anger for the what past people did to other past people (mostly because the they were his past people). So he also had stern visage, but only because he saw you as one of those who were apart of the attackers. Likely he has a jolly face when by his friends.

So you could have made your character have a respect deep for music or even play a instrument himself during downtime (or multiclassed to Bard so you'd use in combat).

This is also why your granddad probably taught you because it is important to him. So he care enough to share it with you.

Now, vices: liquor is a strong one, fire water is dangerous as we are easily alcoholics (something genetically I guess), which is why I don't drink just in case. Sex and gambling is not unique an issue, but eh.

So you can add those if you desire.

So even without changing much you can redo that character:
Native American for a 3.5 campaign that didn't get very far, inspired by the Shawnee tribe. Fit into the classic tropes, he was a loincloth clad, tomahawk wielding, face-painted, barbarian, but the has a great love of music.
Maybe he sings ancestral songs around campfire. Maybe he has special words for things. You can make him a drunkard or not your choice. You can make him a gambling man even. He believes in fate in all things so he loves to risk it all every once in a while.
After all, this is fantasy so you can incorporate all tribes in this guy if you like.

Lorsa
2018-02-28, 10:15 AM
Be...careful...with this. Befriending people only because they have "marginalized" traits is dangerously close to tokenism. Now, admittedly, you CANNOT make friends, in a real sense, if that's all you think about them, but the fact you're seeking them out for friendship for that reason inherently is hazardous to the notion of actually making friends in a genuine sense.

You are correct, you should not befriend people for the sole reason that they hold some sort of "marginalized" trait. You should befriend them because they are good people (and if they are not, you should avoid them regardless of race or sexuality).

My point was more that I find that the best way to treat a group with respect is to have friends in the group.

If you, for some reason, never encounter people in your life with a different skin color, different cultural background or whatever, you should probably expand the circles you move in. Take up activities that are not solely dominated by "your own group".

Also, I find it quite unlikely that anyone has managed to live their life without encountering anyone who is not hetero-normative (that is the word right?). So all you need to do is to make sure to be open-minded and friendly and you'll get to know at least *someone* who is not hetero-normative.

If you don't have a friend of the opposite gender, I can only say... WTF? How did you manage to exclude half the population from your friends list?

inexorabletruth
2018-02-28, 10:58 AM
So even without changing much you can redo that character:
Native American for a 3.5 campaign that didn't get very far, inspired by the Shawnee tribe. Fit into the classic tropes, he was a loincloth clad, tomahawk wielding, face-painted, barbarian, but the has a great love of music.
Maybe he sings ancestral songs around campfire. Maybe he has special words for things. You can make him a drunkard or not your choice. You can make him a gambling man even. He believes in fate in all things so he loves to risk it all every once in a while.
After all, this is fantasy so you can incorporate all tribes in this guy if you like.

This is pretty helpful! I'd like to know a bit more about the dialects (to proper effect his accent when speaking common), colloquialisms, religion, art (particularly pertaining to music), and takes on love and romance to fill him out, but this is a way better start than what I had.

Maybe my character will get a script re-write and I'll throw him into another campaign. The core concept was enticing, and I want to give it a proper run-through.

Friv
2018-02-28, 05:10 PM
Now, vices: liquor is a strong one, fire water is dangerous as we are easily alcoholics (something genetically I guess), which is why I don't drink just in case. Sex and gambling is not unique an issue, but eh.

At the risk of "Well, Actually"ing you about your own genetics, I was under the impression that the belief that Native Americans are more likely to lack the genes that prevent alcoholism is based mostly on shoddy research done by white scientists in the early 20th century.

There is a quite long article on the subject here (https://psmag.com/news/whats-behind-the-myth-of-native-american-alcoholism), but the short version is that those old studies mostly ignored environmental factors, and alcoholism has been shown since to be much more dependent on environmental factors, poverty, and generational alcohol use than with anything inherent. The original instances of alcohol use were largely due to European alcohol being a lot stronger than North American alcohol, and on Europeans also being heavier drinkers, giving them built-up resistance to their own alcohol that the cultures they met didn't have yet.

Kaibis
2018-02-28, 11:26 PM
This is not the conversation point... this is just an example:
I imagine cosplayers, especially crossplayers, have a similar dilemma. As a white male, passably straight, let's say I wanted to cosplay as, say... Sailor Moon. There are many conventions where I live that won't allow this, even if I make an effort to cover all the "private bits". The problem gets more severe if I want to cosplay as a dark elf. Even though the race doesn't technically exist in this world, it's hard to imagine a scenario where this would be a culturally acceptable cosplay. It's hard to tell where the line crosses from heartfelt roleplay of a character or concept you love, to some form of accidental "ism."

Without derailing (because you have heaps of great responses), I do have something to add here. Following your example about men not being allowed to cosplay a female character, but women are very welcome to cosplay a male character (costume example below). In a perfect world where gender equality exists (and likewise a world where minorities were never treated with disrespect) a male could cosplay a female, a white person could throw on a wig and paint their skin colour dark... In a perfect world where everyone respects everyone. The problem is that at the moment we are going through a huge social change, and as a huge group we are trying to figure it out, we are collectively working out what is okay and what is not. The white-cis taking roles of the non-white-cis (ie whitewashing), or the male taking roles that a female could play (e.g. the lack of female super hero movies, or the disproportionate amount of male extras in a crowd scene), is an issue, a big current issue. So when a man cosplays as a woman (or a white puts on blackface, or a person pretends to be transgender), they are saying that they either don't care about the issue or are ignorant of it.

https://i.pinimg.com/564x/51/27/8e/51278e37d6b8b17ca3114f4810c71ceb.jpg

For me when I roleplay I like to completely avoid the idea of my race or gender being treated differently (in any kind of negative sense). This is a fantasy setting, so a huge part of my fantasy is to treat every character as equal. A dragonborn, a tabaxi, and halfing female barbarian walk into a huge city, and... no one baits an eyelid. I know that a lot of people discuss making dragonborns "attract attention"and stuff (and I realise that the backstory even suggests it), however I completely refuse that rule. Sure the dwarf might be the best choice to talk to the other dwarves at the tavern (give him advantage because they are wondering if they were born in the same city or if he knows anyone that they know), but there is no disadvantage to the tiefling walking up and trying. Because, wouldn't it be great to live in a world like that~!

Segev
2018-03-01, 01:30 AM
Honestly, I think women can get away with crossplaying more than men can in Cosplay because male costumes tend to be less revealing. The more you can layer and cover up, the easier it is to disguise the uncomfortably obvious presence or absence of certain parts.

The stigma against men dressing as women is also stronger in modern society than it is for women dressing as men. There are very few outfits that people will actually say, "Wait, why is she wearing that? She's a GIRL!" about these days, outside of very specific events where there's a clear dress code. Nobody bats an eye at a woman in the most dapper of tuxedos unless it's at a formal ball.

Men wearing dresses is...not normal. People gawk, point, laugh, or try not to do so.

There is also the odd fact that women's clothing, even when particularly covering, is designed to explicitly flatter the feminine form. Men's clothing, while normally designed to at least passably do so for male forms, can be retailored to do the same for a woman. A fitted women's tuxedo will not disguise her sex, but will flatter her just fine.

Some of this, again, goes back to the male clothing simply being more covering (outside of swimwear and the like).

Thinking about it, I suppose a man wearing a retailored dress, designed to actively flatter the male form, would probably easily be mistaken for wearing a medieval-style robe. Or a greek-style or scottish-style "kilt." (I put this in quotes because I understand real kilts are more than "men's skirts," and involve particular tartan patterns and accessories. I apologize if I'm wrong about this.)

I would, frankly, be highly embarassed to wear clothing as tight-fitting as most notably female garb, even if I were physically fit enough that I'm not showing paunch in the process. But that's because I'm used to men's wear, which is quite concealing and doesn't cling.

Heck, I've occasionally wanted to cosplay as Dark Schneider, but I know I couldn't pull it off. And that's not even crossplaying!

Kaibis
2018-03-01, 01:55 AM
Men wearing dresses is...not normal. People gawk, point, laugh, or try not to do so.

idk, every time we have a mufty day at school, all the boys put on girls school uniforms. I suppose they *are* doing it for a laugh, but no one is laughing at them, only with them.



There is also the odd fact that women's clothing, even when particularly covering, is designed to explicitly flatter the feminine form. Men's clothing, while normally designed to at least passably do so for male forms, can be retailored to do the same for a woman. A fitted women's tuxedo will not disguise her sex, but will flatter her just fine.

When the OP mentioned a male wearing a sailor moon costume, I assumed he was making he male-appropriate (similar to the Dr Who cosplay that I posted. Many female cosplayers create skirted versions of Dr Who outfits. I don't see why a man couldn't make a male version of a sailor moon costume.
E.g.
http://img.gawkerassets.com/img/185ysor0n9t9gpng/original.png

I realise I have both put an argument for not cosplaying minorities, and then have also shown appreciation for cross-gender cosplays. Truthfully, I love cross-gender cosplays, I just also appreciate that we are in a period of time where there are other important factors that influence whether it is appropriate or not. For now it is not appropriate for a white-cis-male to cosplay anything other than a white-cis-male.

Back on topic, as a female, I feel so uncomfortable with a male playing a female character with me *if* the gender is emphasised, or worse, the character becomes sexualised. If they have picked the character because they really wanted to model "Captain Phasma" or "Aria Stark" then fair call. But if I sit down to a tabletop game with a man playing a female character, I am honestly expecting them to grab their own boobs and get silly about it. I mentally gird myself for the stupidness will probably occur.

As a female I already put up with a lot of over-sexualisation. I understand having a limited range of miniatures/avatars (because sure, their are less female players), however it upsets me when the small range that I am presented with is full of boobs, hourglass hips, and sexy posing. Those female characters are not for me, they are *also* for the males. Then when a male player decides to plonk down a hyper-sexualised female character onto the table, I am ready to leave. I was joining a game on roll20 recently in which a male player offered up a picture of his character. It was clearly not even the same class as what he had describe, but it was huge boobs, and a slit up to the crotch. I am not going to play with him.

Satinavian
2018-03-01, 03:22 AM
I realise I have both put an argument for not cosplaying minorities, and then have also shown appreciation for cross-gender cosplays. Truthfully, I love cross-gender cosplays, I just also appreciate that we are in a period of time where there are other important factors that influence whether it is appropriate or not. For now it is not appropriate for a white-cis-male to cosplay anything other than a white-cis-male.I disagree. If the character that is to be shown is a valid cosplay inspiration itself (which might exclude some offensive carricatures and the like), then the cosplay is appropriate. It is utterly irrelevant who the cosplayer is. Yes, some people have a harder time to achieve a recognizable or convincing costume, but that doesn't cahnge anything for appropriateness.


Back on topic, as a female, I feel so uncomfortable with a male playing a female character with me *if* the gender is emphasised, or worse, the character becomes sexualised. If they have picked the character because they really wanted to model "Captain Phasma" or "Aria Stark" then fair call. But if I sit down to a tabletop game with a man playing a female character, I am honestly expecting them to grab their own boobs and get silly about it. I mentally gird myself for the stupidness will probably occur.
That is just intolerant.

Also it is prejudiced. Do you also presume that if a women plays a male character that that character will surely be all playing with his **** ?


As a female I already put up with a lot of over-sexualisation. I understand having a limited range of miniatures/avatars (because sure, their are less female players), however it upsets me when the small range that I am presented with is full of boobs, hourglass hips, and sexy posing. Those female characters are not for me, they are *also* for the males. Then when a male player decides to plonk down a hyper-sexualised female character onto the table, I am ready to leave. I was joining a game on roll20 recently in which a male player offered up a picture of his character. It was clearly not even the same class as what he had describe, but it was huge boobs, and a slit up to the crotch. I am not going to play with him.How much sex-related stuff people want in their RPG experience differs and the base assumption is "little to none". It is ok to leave a game if there is a surprising disagreement about that.

Doesn't have anything to do with crossplaying.

Kaibis
2018-03-01, 03:32 AM
That is just intolerant.

Also it is prejudiced. Do you also presume that if a women plays a male character that that character will surely be all playing with his **** ?


Unfortunately it is merely experience and cynicism. I wish it were not the case. :(

Satinavian
2018-03-01, 03:54 AM
Unfortunately it is merely experience and cynicism. I wish it were not the case. :(
Well, it is certainly possible. Can't really argue with personal experience especcially with players from around the globe who might experience different gaming cultures.

But after decades of gaming in several different cities i estimate the percentage of cross-gender characters who are sexualized at all at about 5-10%. Which is not significantly different from sexualized characters who share the sex of their players. (Also most of those sexualized characters both male and female were played by women but due to the overall number being so low and thus sampling error becoming high i would not generalize that aspect too much)

So yes, i find your experience quite surprising.

Kaibis
2018-03-01, 04:49 AM
Well, it is certainly possible. Can't really argue with personal experience especcially with players from around the globe who might experience different gaming cultures.

But after decades of gaming in several different cities i estimate the percentage of cross-gender characters who are sexualized at all at about 5-10%. Which is not significantly different from sexualized characters who share the sex of their players. (Also most of those sexualized characters both male and female were played by women but due to the overall number being so low and thus sampling error becoming high i would not generalize that aspect too much)

So yes, i find your experience quite surprising.

Ah, the issue might be in the wording. If you re-read my original quote, I didn't say I wouldn't play with a man who had a female character, I said I wouldn't play with a man who was sending out all the signals that they were about to play a hyper-sexualised female character (e.g. the half-naked female avatar of the wrong class). I will err on the side of "I do not want to waste my time" when it comes to giving them the benefit of the doubt, that is an experience thing (or an "I'm too old for this ****" thing). It's currently (for reasons mentioned above) really distasteful to play (roleplay, cosplay..) a minority character that you have no understanding of, for me personal I feel the same about men playing women (really with the exception of someone cosplaying via roleplay, if that makes sense, I get why someone would want to play a Brienne of Tarth character).

As to why I see more, lots of reasons. I am probably looking for it / noticing it (in a 'guard up' kind of way). Possibly (though only theorising) the nature of online RPGs (ie roll20, where we don't see facial reactions, generally don't know each other, and use googled avatars) means guys feel more okay being inappropriate (idk).

I mean, it is just my experience as one women (who has been online for over 20 years) interacting with males* - the guard has to go up. Just last Sunday I had a male character act uncomfortably suggestive with my male character. Another player mentioned that I wasn't playing a female, and the offending player immediately retconned the incident (worth mentioning, that creating males characters/avatars is a 101 defensive move for women on the internet). The guy did not apologise for being sexual without discussing this with me, he had only known me for twenty minutes (He was joining our game) but felt like it was okay to have his character make advances. He should have had an out-of-game conversation ("Hi, I'd love to RP-ing a romantic relationship, are you interested?" or "Hi, I want to have a really flirty character, is it okay if I flirt with your character?"), if the out-of-game conversation is too awkward, then the in-game one is going to be much much worse.

*I have a very close white-male friend, he is all non-cis, however he was shocked to learn how much the experiences of a white-women differ to a white-man. I assumed that because he was non-cis that he was completely aware, but I was very wrong. So I am trying to not assume that everyone knows this, I realise that it can a big eye-opener.

Florian
2018-03-01, 04:49 AM
Unfortunately it is merely experience and cynicism. I wish it were not the case. :(

While I would prefer attractive women to play topless or actually naked, best when the session also has sushi and a good whiskey or rum, I'm with Satiavian on this: Last time I had this happen, so guy playing an comically horny female, was during my teens when hormones ran the highest. That's now some decades in the past and the later cross playing experiences rather showed that sex and gender are pretty irrelevant things.

Frozen_Feet
2018-03-01, 04:53 AM
For now it is not appropriate for a white-cis-male to cosplay anything other than a white-cis-male.

What, do you live in one of those places where they stone men to death for wearing women's clothes?

No?

Then get real.

"White-cis-males" cosplaying as whatever is a near total non-issue and people who make claims to contrary only make the hobby hostile to a pretty fat share of potential hobbyists. And again, this attitude hits young and inexperienced hobbyists most.

Translated to the roleplaying environment, the quoted kind of attitude is a good way to ensure that a segment of the hobby is type-locked to only playing characters of their own ethnicity and gender, never learns to play anything else, and never produces any content with that much-desired "diversity" and "representation", out of fear of offending someone. Doesn't sound particularly desireable to me.

Related is your ridiculous idea that a person cosplaying as someone of different gender or race must be either ignorant or apatheic towards minority problems. This is homologous to the idea that gay men putting on drag is somehow disrespectfull to women. It's ridiculous on a logical level - nothing about the act requires apathy or ignorance - but also on the practical level. Like, baked into the argument is the assumption that if a man goes through serious trouble to put on make-up and wear feminine clothing, suddenly they will understand feminine troubles less? Come on.

In reality, motives to cosplay various characters are countless, and knowledge of minority issues may as well inform a costume decision than not. Translated to a roleplaying environment, someone might choose to play a different ethnicity or gender for the specific purpose of examining that kind of character's position in the game world, or to make a point about the reality of such a character. You should not make assumptions of their motives without additional proof.

---

@Segev: yes, in normal events, a man dressing up as a woman (etc.) is something bizarre.

Carnevals, costume balls (which cosplay events by definition are), live-action roleplays, tabletop games and acting are not normal events.

In Europe, there is a tradition going back hundreds of years that a man dressing up as a woman is fine in a carneval, a costume ball, or on the stage. This isn't just a cosplay thing, but a general thing. Same goes to dressing up as another race or ethnicity. Throwing hissy-fits about the practice is a fairly recent conceit and effectively stands on a series of bad-faith assumptions (like the above assumptions of ignorance and apathy).

---

@Satinavian: my experience of female-majority groups is that they are not any less prone to engage in low-brow humour or sexual antics. Female players using their male characters for some weird form of sexual gratification totally is a thing. (Lord save me from my friend's little sister's Yaoi fantasies!)

The reason why we associate this behaviour with men is a matter of hobby demographics. Let's suppose that each player has 20% of being a pervert. In a group of one woman and four men, which is more likely: that the perv is woman, or that the perv is a man?

The discussion is further skewed by history of the hobby. Shortly: during 2nd edition of AD&D, TSR made a conscious decision to market their product to kids and sanitized it in many respects compared to 1st edition. This worked in that 2e and its licensed products penetrated pop culture and the market fairly well, but it also gave rise to the idea that RPGs need to be particular type of PG-13 heroic fantasy. Since many current gamers grew up during this era and view it with rose-tinted lenses of nostalgia, we get the situation where PG-13 heroic fantasy is the default and sexual things are either too juvenile or too adult to game.

The default is quite different in those pockets of the hobby which grew up on, say, Cyberpunk or Vampire, as part of the allure for those games was that they dealt with "adult" stuff that (A)D&D did not.

I look hopefully into the future where kids I raised on Lamentations of the Flame Princess will make gore, murder and rape the new default. :smalltongue:

Kaibis
2018-03-01, 05:05 AM
While I would prefer attractive women to play topless or actually naked, best when the session also has sushi and a good whiskey or rum, I'm with Satiavian on this: Last time I had this happen, so guy playing an comically horny female, was during my teens when hormones ran the highest. That's now some decades in the past and the later cross playing experiences rather showed that sex and gender are pretty irrelevant things.

You sound like a great person to play with. I agree, this is the way it should be. For me, there are no stats differences between male and female, so their is zero benefit in-game to playing a cross-gender character (idk, maybe a player has their 8yo daughter playing with them, so they play a female paladin because it makes their daughter happy... there are heaps of good reason to play a cross-gender character).

Back to my way-back post, and giving my thoughts on the OP question. This stuff shouldn't matter, and I would love to live in a world where it didn't. Currently it does matter, for really good important reasons, minorities be races, sexual identities, or gender, are kindly asking to not be "whitewashed". I won't explain it all, I can't, I am only grasping the importance of it myself. But I know this is a period when it is respectful to not mimic something that you do not fully understand. Ie. I wouldn't play a transgender character, or even a gay character.

tl;dr It's a really big and important issue, so we tread carefully, with respect, and don't whitewash (or anything that resembles that)

Also, I feel like I might be derailing the thread. Apologies.

Florian
2018-03-01, 05:43 AM
Translated to *snip*

In short: Don´t transport intra-cultural battles into a hobby, especially not in places that don't have the problem(s) in the first place.

I never cease wondering about the "blackface" thing and I´d get seriously angry if someone would try to argue with me about crossdressing when I'm on my way to the annual Rocky Horror Picture Show event.

Liquor Box
2018-03-01, 05:53 AM
I think that you are overthinking this.

It is no harder to roleplay someone who is gay or a different gender etc, than it is to roleplay someone who is very different to you in myriad of other ways. Often the being gay or a different gender will be less of a difference, and thus easier to roleplay than other differences.

Take the character in your signature, Carric Hollmion, for example. Even if Carric were a different gender, sexuality than you, and trans as well, there are other characteristics he has which are likely to be far more intrinsic to his character and more removed from your reality than gender, sexual preference and ethnicity.
For example, the simple fact that Carric is a Wood Elf is probably more of a difference from you than sexual preference or gender would be - not only is he more biologically different from you than any human race my some margin, his culture is also more different, the reactions he receives from other races will be more distinct than any human ethnicity. He is a ranger and skilled in a range of weapons, and presumably you are not, which again is probably more of a difference from you than (say) gender would be. If you are not chaotic neutral and do not subscribe to his motto of "when I'm strong I'll take what I want", that ideological difference is probably larger then (say) sexual preference would be. If any of his ability scores are very different from yours that is another difference which probably has more bearing on his day to day life than his gender/sexual preference. Being an adventurer in a magical world is more different from you than being (say) trans in this world.

I suppose what I am trying to say is that every time you roleplay you are roleplaying someone who is far further removed from yourself in terms of experience and outlook than another human who has a different race, gender or sexual preference would be. If you manage to play wizards (or even fighters) how hard can it be to play someone who is the opposite gender?

Florian
2018-03-01, 06:27 AM
This stuff shouldn't matter, and I would love to live in a world where it didn't. Currently it does matter, for really good important reasons, minorities be races, sexual identities, or gender, are kindly asking to not be "whitewashed". I won't explain it all, I can't, I am only grasping the importance of it myself. But I know this is a period when it is respectful to not mimic something that you do not fully understand. Ie. I wouldn't play a transgender character, or even a gay character.

Difficult topic to get into and even more difficult to elaborate on without getting the thread locked due to politics.

You (apparently) argue from a position that has a "leading culture" which is imposed upon everyone and suppresses any kind of "sub-culture" instead of just assimilating and incorporating it. That is actually a quite rare state that either happens in some very isolated countries, or in countries that are so large with such a far-flung population that they needed the artificial construct of "dominant culture" to have at least something that the populace has in common to start with.

jojo
2018-03-01, 06:44 AM
In my experience the differences that alienate people from one another exist solely in our own minds. Whether that's gender identity, ethnicity or sexual orientation everyone shares a majority of the same basic needs from comfort to companionship to entertainment to nutrition. The manner in which those needs are expressed or fulfilled might appear to "vary wildly" but really what does that even mean? When you choose to focus on what makes someone different instead of finding a shared framework or experience to enable communication you become "part of the problem."

This is especially true in a Tabletop RPG since the fundamental goals usually center around resolving potentially deadly conflicts. If a group of 10 Goblins ambushes a group of 3 fighters what will dictate those fighters' responses isn't their sexuality or gender identity but rather the fact that they all swing swords for a living. In this case, as with the vast majority, sexuality, gender and/or identity are utterly incidental to the events if you as a player were to try to insert those things, or assign them some sort of significance relative to the response then you're being disrespectful.

That's my two paragraphs on the matter.

inexorabletruth
2018-03-01, 07:01 AM
So again... to clarify:

I'm talking about method acting in an traditional RP settings in regards to playing races, gender identities, and sexual orientations.

I'm humbly requesting we not attempt to make this about cosplay, or attempt to explain why there is no need to roleplay these aspects of a character.

I'm going to change Post 1, in hopes that a re-write can keep things on topic. I think this thread can help myself and others who wish to include these aspects of their character into their roleplay, and I'd like it if we can all accept this specific topic as a foundational concept.

Satinavian
2018-03-01, 07:45 AM
Ok, as for method acting :

I don't roleplay human races. There is nothing about race that should change behavior thus there is nothing to act out.

I do roleplay non-human races. Emphasis is on biological differences. E.g. when acting as a cold blooded lizard i act sleepy when it is cold and nearly hyperactive when it is unusually warm.

I do roleplay cultures. Now most RPGs i play do have extensive source material about cultures. Most of those cultures don't exist anywhere in the real world, even if sometimes there are obvious influences. I tend to make sure i know the culture of my PC.
But even in this case there is nothing that seperates certain cultures from others. There are no special options handled differently from regular characters. All of my many character's cultures are somewhat foreign to me. I actually never really played someone from my own time and place.

But yes, playing culture is the most important thing. How to do that... well, that completely depends on the culture. But the small differences count. E.g. if the culture of your character is big on numerology (and the setting sepplement is nice enough to include a breakdown about which numbers are deemed important and why and what the associations are), you could pay attention to number. Comment on lucky ones. Feel uneasy about unlucky ones. Be inspired to interpret events in connection with the hidden meaning of the numbers present.



I don't tend to play homosexual characters. But the sexual orientation is so unimportant that i hav not even decided for all my characters what kind of sexual partners they prefer. It hardly ever comes up. And i certainly would not play a homosexual any different at all. There is literally nothing to being gay than what kind of romantic avances your character would undertake or how he/she would react to those received. It is not any more important than if your character prefers blond or brown hair of or likes beards. Also most of the time the other players will never know if your character is gay or not.

As for gender idendity, well, that is linked to gender roles. As you are most of the time playing in other cultures, your character will have experienced completely different gender roles than you the player know. Which makes those concepts a bit difficult. Someone who might be Trans here and now might be not in the game world and vice versa. Playing a trans person even works only if the game culture has significant detail about gender roles.
Personally i never played a real trans character. I played one character defying gender roles but tried to do so by leaving her home region to a more fitting place where she can now do the jobs she likes but in turn is treated dirty foreign barbarian/monster. I have some other character who i decided is gender fluid. But only because until the end of caharcter generation i still had no mental picture of either a male or a female character. Which is kind of rare.


I don't really do accents. Because i am pretty sure i can't speak accents convincingly. I do change my voice a bit to fit the character. I do include proper nouns and words without a direct equivalent in the original language. I make sure beforehand i can pronounce those properly. That might take quite a lot of time if your language is missing certain sounds. But it is worth it. Nothing illustrates the foreigness as clearly as using words the rest of the players can't even repeat.
But you should really take a character name the other players can pronounce. I made this mistake once.

inexorabletruth
2018-03-01, 09:33 AM
Take the character in your signature, Carric Hollmion, for example. Even if Carric were a different gender, sexuality than you, and trans as well, there are other characteristics he has which are likely to be far more intrinsic to his character and more removed from your reality than gender, sexual preference and ethnicity.

Ok, this is a good start, sort of. We can take Carric and really flesh him out. He's a direct copy/paste from the build instructions for a Ranger from DnD Beyond, so he started out very vanilla. I won't say I put a lot of work into his character, because he was built more for learning a new system than for RP purposes, but I'm willing to go down the rabbit hole, if this keeps the thread on topic.


For example, the simple fact that Carric is a Wood Elf is probably more of a difference from you than sexual preference or gender would be - not only is he more biologically different from you than any human race my some margin, his culture is also more different, the reactions he receives from other races will be more distinct than any human ethnicity. He is a ranger and skilled in a range of weapons, and presumably you are not, which again is probably more of a difference from you than (say) gender would be. If you are not chaotic neutral and do not subscribe to his motto of "when I'm strong I'll take what I want", that ideological difference is probably larger then (say) sexual preference would be. If any of his ability scores are very different from yours that is another difference which probably has more bearing on his day to day life than his gender/sexual preference. Being an adventurer in a magical world is more different from you than being (say) trans in this world.

I acknowledge that gender identity and and sexual orientations are finer points to RP than say, whether or not you can cast spells. In fact, that's the whole point of why I like to roleplay this way. For me, the RP gets more enticing when we really dig in to the finer points of being a person, rather than just being an adventurer.

Here's a bit of exposition to Carric's backstory. It's a bit more ham-fisted than how I tend to play, but like I said... he's vanilla on purpose.

Carric Holimion comes from a special tribe of Wood Elves who haunt the western stretch of Neverwinter Woods, not far from the High Road. Even amongst wood elves, they are considered a bit feral, and have been known to commit acts of banditry against wealthy merchants and low ranking nobles. The Holimion clan simply believes that if the merchants really wanted their possessions, they would've hired better protection.

The elves were generally tolerated because they never killed anyone who didn't pursue them into the woods, and they often handled other larger, more sinister threats, like goblins, orcs, and bugbears, which would've otherwise infested the region. However, Carric led a raid against one of Lord Nasher Alagondar's caravans, and succeeded, but not without getting noticed. Soon his face was plastered all around the High Road from Neverwinter on north with bounties. His clan used the winnings from the otherwise hugely successful raid to donate to local farmers, tradesmen, peasants, and the occasional guard to buy Carric's anonymity, but it wasn't long before it became obvious to the tribe that this life was no longer safe, or affordable, for Carric. Seeing no other recourse, Carric left his home and family to vanish into the safety of anonymity and avoid the ire of the legendary fighter turned lord.

Because of this, Carric is generally untrusting of local officials, and members of society in general. He generally prefers the company of the creatures of the wild, but he has come to appreciate the generous nature of local commonfolk, since they have come to see him as a Robin Hood archetype, in a manner of speaking.

Matters of Race:
I don't usually play elves. I don't enjoy their fluff. But for crunch, it made sense. The Wood Elf concept seemed like a more exciting variant to play out, so I went with it, bleeding in barbarian tropes and mixing it with a Robin Hood vibe (if Robin Hood weren't so goody two-shoes). I thought about why Wood Elves would be distinct from any other Elf, and decided, based on their descriptors and bonuses that it was because of their more feral nature: preferring to live in the wilderness and enjoying the thrill of the hunt. Due to the setting the campaign is placed in, I thought about how the geographic location and social pressures might effect their ecosystem and social patterns. I decided to use references from biological and ecological sciences when humanity encroaches on wildlife and how they adapt. Monkeys, bears, raccoons, and birds will often find ways to adapt to the encroaching civilization through acts of banditry and vandalism, often overturning trash bins, raiding unsecured kitchens, or even picking pockets (in the cases of monkeys) to get the food they desire. I took from this aspect and decided that the Holimion Clan were bandits. But how did they thrive as bandits? This must mean they had a certain code of honor amongst themselves. Might makes right was the flaw I rolled, and I could see aspects of that amongst many pack/herd creatures. The social hierarchy is preserved through displays of power, competency, and deception. Though their clan is not inherently evil, it would be decidedly selfish and anarchic. I got all that from race.

Matters of Gender:
I chose male for simplicity. I found a cool picture of a wood elf, and it happened to be male. But to determine what that meant, I looked at the setting and in the fluff I was hashing out for my clan. The setting is Neverwinter, which is topically gender neutral, but built and played male-dominant. Therefore, while I made some assumptions about how men would be treated in a social patriarchy. Amongst his clan, he would receive no benefits or setbacks from his gender. They're interested in ho good you are at providing supplies for the clan, not the specifics of how you fill out an outfit. However, in civilized regions, which have unfortunately become his home due to his exile, he has come to expect a certain degree of special treatment. This makes him brash and presumptuous, which is only exacerbated by his might makes right mentality. Those with badges or mantles of authority are both a challenge and threat to his level of comfort and entitlement, but he curbs his desire to posture with enough wisdom to know he has a bounty on his head. Therefore he chooses to pick the fights he can win. However, if the presence of another male of higher rank and status threatens his influence amongst the local townsfolk, he's likely to push back, either through force or guile.

Matters of Sexual Orientation:
I play him demisexual, because that's what I can easily relate to. Really, that was for ease of RP, more than anything. If I were to think harder about it, I can look into early tribal cultures and see plenty of examples where heterosexual bonds were strongly encouraged as constructs for the continued survival of the clan/tribe. Therefore, I could probably play him as at least passing-straight, in the construct of duty. Perhaps even though he is capable of having romantic feelings for transfemales or males, he feels a cultural pressure to focus his romantic energies on females or transmales with functioning female reproductive capabilities. This creates a struggle within himself, especially if he has found a life partner for whom he is discourage from pairing with. Perhaps that partner lives in the clan and Carric can't see him again, or he forms a romantic bond with an NPC in the city he can't explore. Or perhaps something less tragic. Maybe there is a special someone working in the local tavern that doesn't know exactly how to handle his advances and hasn't decided if he/she likes the attention or not, but Carric has hearts in his eyes and is giving it his best shot to prove he is worthy of said tavern workers affection. Of course, he could also be enjoying the relative freedom he gets from not suffering the clans agenda to be fruitful and multiply. Maybe now, he is entering the world with open eyes and an open heart. It certainly opens up a lot of avenues for RP. Would he reject true love because of the agenda of procreation? Would he shed the manifestos of his clan and open his heart to any present possibility of love? Would he continue to remain predominately closed hearted and assume a martial life, which would be perfectly well suited given his circumstances?


I suppose what I am trying to say is that every time you roleplay you are roleplaying someone who is far further removed from yourself in terms of experience and outlook than another human who has a different race, gender or sexual preference would be. If you manage to play wizards (or even fighters) how hard can it be to play someone who is the opposite gender?

That really depends. The more basic the template, the easier the RP. In a world where males and females are all homogenized and androgenous, it's not a challenge at all. Simply play whatever comes naturally. But in a world there there are power struggles, gender wars, racial elements, social constructs, theological constructs, political constructs, ecological and economical constructs, it gets a little trickier. In fact, the more subtle and more intricate the change, the more challenging it is to play it out.

Jormengand
2018-03-01, 02:34 PM
So again... to clarify:

I'm talking about method acting in an traditional RP settings in regards to playing races, gender identities, and sexual orientations.

Playing Races (Ethnicities): You play the same character except they look different and potentially have a different name. The character's experience with prejudice and discrimination is often based around directly being treated worse in situ or living in a poorer area. Ask people of actual minority ethnic groups for anything more specific than that.

Playing Races (Cultures): Character may have traditions which seem strange to others (since forum rules dictate that we should be trying to avoid real-world politics as much as we can, I'll use Brom from the Inheritance cycle as an example: he was considered weird because he had a cultural habit of knocking three times on any doorway he passed through which was common where he was from but not where he went to). This may require some inventiveness - what kind of things do Muldhorandis do that would be considered weird in Neverwinter? The character's experience with prejudice and discrimination is often based on cultural erasure and misappropriation, for example using the religious or traditional symbols of the culture as throwaway fashion statements.

Playing Races (Species): Character may be subjected to prejudices in the form of exaggeration of real traits (for example, orcs have a -2 to intelligence, which means that orcs tend to be slightly less intelligent than humans on average, but that the top 50% of orcs are at least as intelligent than 37.5% of humans and more intelligent than 25.93% of humans. They're generally portrayed as being a lot dumber than that, though). This is analogous to some of the ridiculous exaggerations around sexism.

A lot of the differences in cultures may be accounted for in terms of physiology; in terms of jewellery, for example, elves may think that humans and orcs are weird for putting sharp pieces of metal through their ears, noses and even tongues in the name of fashion (piercings, basically) because elven ears are a little more delicate. Orcs, on the other hand, may think that human piercings are unimpressive. Where physiology doesn't come into it, it makes sense to have a lot of the same traditions pop up between species some elves have tea ceremonies and some of them play tribal drums much like different cultures among humans. Just because someone is a non-human species doesn't mean that they're going to play into a species-wide culture, after all.

Playing Genders (Absolute Genders Such As Male and Female): Characters are influenced by gender stereotypes and norms. Female characters may feel a need to be a home-maker or feel a need to defy this gender role or feel the need to have a freedom to choose between them. Prejudice and discrimination takes the form of assuming lesser ability, exaggeration of real but negligible differences (usually looking like a more extreme version of the orc example above in terms of assumptions about physical capabilities), sexualisation, and a disregard for women's choices, as well as enforced gender roles. Your character will have been impacted by all of this if she's a woman (or indeed if he or they are AFAB), but also men have to conform to gender roles or make a big point of breaking out of them, and suffer from a level of boys-don't-cry emotional suppression. These gender roles may be different in different societies.

Drow are weird and I'm not familiar with them beyond the female-dominant aspect. Elves have a more androgynous culture and fewer gender roles. IIRC orc culture expects everyone to be combat-capable and has a more masculine set of gender expressions for everyone. Of course, this will be different between different settings.

Playing Genders (Relative Genders such as Transgender and Cisgender): Trans people will have had a period, sometimes more than the entirety of their childhood, where people tried to socialise them into the wrong gender, but they experienced it as their own gender. A trans girl who hears the "other boys" shouting sexually explicit things at girls experiences that from the perspective of a female onlooker, rather than a male one, even if no-one realises that yet. This generally leads to trans people either deliberately playing into stereotypes in order to pass as their gender, or eliding them entirely. Prejudice and discrimination are often via physical and sexual violence, denial (legal or social) of trans people's gender, and making gendered spaces inaccessable. In extreme cases people treat trans people as though they have a contagious disease. The number of barriers to basic social acceptance can make trans people very world-weary very quickly. Many don't bother arguing back when harassed because they'd never get anything done.

Playing a nonbinary character would basically rely on the amplification of a lot of the above problems. Playing a genderfluid character would essentially be the same only even more so - in fact, some people who are nonbinary or genderfluid don't express their gender identity in its entirety immediately (case study: I was assigned male, identified as that up to 15, realised I was genderfluid, lived as male in meatspace and female online for a while, then female in meatspace and nonbinary online, and am now trying to live openly as genderfluid in both). Trying to play a genderfluid character without being one is going to provide a lot of problems - even I haven't yet tried to play another genderfluid character because how individual genderfluid people react to gender.

Playing Sexual Identities (Orientations Such as Gay and Straight): Your character's relationships may be treated with scorn; they may feel ashamed or believe their preferences make them a pervert. I played a lesbian character on these forums (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?546455-The-Generic-Campaign-IC) and honestly, her struggles with her own sexuality provide a good example of how someone's sexuality can become an important trait, so I'll leave this explanation at that as far as lesbian and gay are concerned. Also note that bisexual characters may feel pressure to "Choose one or the other", and characters - even straight ones - may question or be unsure of their sexualities.

I have no idea whether to fit asexual in this category or the next one, but the idea that asexual people are "Broken" runs rampant in some cultures at some times.

Playing Sexual Identities (Intensities Such as Demisexual): These nuanced concepts don't tend to be well-developed at the level of societal advancement D&D is - indeed, most games are - implied to take place at. Plus, there tend not to be people saying that demisexuals are terrible in the same way as there are for homosexuals, though there are enough saying that they don't even exist to be getting on with. Someone who is demisexual or even someone who is asexual may be unable to express themselves because the terminology doesn't exist for them to do so yet (oh, and this can be a problem for trans people too, while we're at it).

Playing Sexual Identities (Polyamoury and Other Things I've Missed): The idea that monoamoury should be the norm or that there even should be a norm is somewhat manufactured, but sometimes polyamoury is shamed much as promiscuity is, especially among women. Characters who are polyamourous may have difficulties explaining this to potential lovers and other people.

There are a few other ways in which someone's sexual preferences can come into play. If you want to go hard-mode, try a different chronophilia on for size.* I'm sure there are a bunch of other things because sexuality is complicated.

*Please don't try this unless you know what you're doing.

Playing Neuroatypicalities: You can also have a go at playing someone whose mind just works slightly differently from normal, or indeed a lot differently from normal. Remember that people's reactions to them will also inform how their neuroatypicality affects them. An autistic person will get along a lot better in a society full of people who are very literal-minded than a society full of abstraction and metaphor. A person with dissociative identity disorder will get on a lot better in a society which doesn't paint them in a negative light. People with social anxiety often do better when invited to speak rather than in societies where conversations are very informal. Also remember that neuroatypicalities are the subject of a lot of stereotypes - be clear on what each one does and how it can vary between people. For example, the idea of people with dissociative identity disorder having dangerous splinter personalities is mostly a myth - they just have multiple personalities who can sometimes get along and sometimes not, and all of whom have the same continuity of existence from the original personality.

Intersectionality: This is a slightly complicated fact of being any combination of oppressed groups. Intersectionality is entirely Googlable, but the ultimate point is that it's to do with the problems which arise specifically because of the conjunction, or indeed intersection, of minorities (or oppressed majorities, in cases where that is the case). This can take some turns in fantasy that it can't in reality. For example, a human woman can escape to elven lands to avoid sexism, but a drow man can't, because the elves hate drow. Of course, he can always take his luck with the humans and try to enjoy his newfound status on the top of the gender heap, but he won't be well-treated in human lands either. Non-fantastical examples include racism in LGBT communities and homophobia in black communities causing LGBT people of colour to be excluded from conversations about LGBT issues and also from conversations about black issues. Transgender lesbians can find themselves the subject of backlash from cisgender lesbians who, having spent a lot of their time convincing people that no, they are fine dating women thanks, reject them on the basis that they think that trans people are trying to trick lesbians into having straight sex.

In a world with fantasy "races" (species), this problem can turn up a lot of extra questions which a setting would need to answer for someone to be played faithfully. How are trans people treated in orc culture, where everyone acts somewhat masculine anyway? How about orcs living in human societies? How about drow culture - is it even possible for someone assigned male to be treated as a woman in drow culture, and would a trans man keep in the closet to keep the benefits of being a woman in drow society? Goblins have a variety of different skin tones: is there racism within goblin societies?

Stuck in the Middle (Bisexuality, Mixed Heratige and so Forth. Also, Half-Elves): If you're playing a character who has a trait that can be construed as being between two "Sides", expect them to be rejected by members of both "Sides", as the oppressed group lumps them in as an oppressor and the oppressing group lumps them in as undesirable.

Turning Prejudice on its Head (Noughts and Crosses, the Drow, et al): Honestly, this is mainly useful as a how-would-you-like-it talking point - if you want to represent oppression in a way analogous to the real world, it's better not to do it. But it's kinda interesting to build a setting, or part of the setting, around it. Notably, sometimes this does actually happen, but it's so spectacularly microcosmic by comparison to standard prejudice[Dubious - Discuss] that it's probably not worth exploring if you're only just dipping your toe into the "Playing nonstandard things with respect" waters.

Taking Out the Prejudice: In one of the D&D computer games, one of the characters...

The Valsharess in Neverwinter Nights: Hordes of the Underdark

...tries to seduce the main character, and you can tell her you're not interested in women. The interesting thing is that the conversation goes, as far as I recall, the exact same way irrespective of your character's gender - she tries to seduce you if you're a woman and there's no option to be horrible about her preferences; you can tell her you're not interested in women if you're a man and she'll give you the same response as if you were a woman. It's not like the game didn't have the capacity to alter the conversation based on your gender, either. They just chose to have sexuality be no big deal.

Removing the prejudice means that you have diversity but not proper representation. Diversity is good in its own right: it gives people a chance to identify with characters and feel like their existence hasn't just been completely glossed over...

Although the female seductress villain being bisexual is probably a little overplayed

...but it doesn't actually represent a lot of the struggles of their lives. If you do this, then people of minority ethnicities will have no real problems or functional differences from people of majoritiy ones, LGB people will work like straight people except with different genders involved, trans people will still suffer from dysphoria but that gets a lot better if you coat the world in universal acceptance, and neuroatypicalities will still suck but people handling them better will make them a lot easier to deal with. Essentially, it allows you to emphasise that these subgroups of humanity (I'll get to orcs in a moment) are pretty similar apart from the random crap they're put through just for being who they are.

It may be a good idea to do this in regard to different species. The greatest strength of playing with the prejudices against orcs - that it has no real consequences if you mess it up - is also its greatest weakness: it has no real consequences if you get it right, either. Certainly, exploring the prejudices surrounding different fantasy species is good practice, but once the training wheels are off, it's potentially better not to do it because it isn't really analogous to actual prejudices and is just distracting from any real point you might have had.

Oh, on that note, avoid superherophobia (for lack of a better word) like a plague. Oppression isn't so bad when you can react to it by turning the offending person into a newt. Part of why being trans sucks is because you're vulnerable. Part of why being black sucks is that there are systems of oppression that are bigger than you. Hatred of people with magical powers that can topple nations rings hollow as an analogy to any real-world prejudice. Yes, it may be realistic that people would resent their magical nature: do not spend screen time elaborating on this. It's a tired plot device which honestly lacks any power as a social commentary and is often used as one (or inferred as being one) anyway.

Putting it all Together - Building Legion: So, suppose I want a character whose primary character feature is a neuroatypicality, Dissociative Identity Disorder, which means that they actually have multiple personalities. This is a request that loads of people ask for help with: how do I build someone with multiple personalities?

First, Google. Put "Multiple personality disorder" or "Dissociative Identity Disorder" into Google and you'll get the Wikipedia page up pretty quickly. Read through the information. People with DID usually have one name that they're holistically known by and often take a nickname: because it's a nickname, we can use a name like Legion. Hey, we're overplaying the DID thing, right? Next, people with DID often have multiple genders, so we can slap on genderfluidity (we're still in the "Work out what essential born-with traits this person has" stage, so we don't have to worry yet about how any of this affects Legion's life). People with DID tend to have anxiety, trans people tend to be autistic, and members of minority groups tend to suffer from depression, so you can build up some interesting neuroatypicalities. If you're feeling adventurous, fit in a pansexual/demisexual sexuality on them, with demisexual being only for some genders and not others, oh and let's have one of the personalities be asexual too.

Oh, we need to make sure we're fitting the setting: if it's a real-world setting you're gonna be a human. If the story's set in, say, the UK, then they're likely to be white, but let's throw in something minor there... pick a minority ethnic group, let's say the Parsis, and have it be in that group. It looks outwardly white, but because Parsis are patrilinear rather than percentage-based, it can have as much connection to India as a tiefling does to the hells and still be a Parsi.

We've had a look-in on a lot of different protected characteristics, now, let's build Legion's actual personality. We've noted that it has DID, so they're actually going to have four different personalities for four different, well, personalities (or rather, identities). One of them can be outgoing and aggressive, one kind and passive, one dark and brooding, and one innovative and obsessive. We can build these personalities a bit more, but let's look at how the minority groups fit in here: being outgoing and aggressive is something that a man who had people questioning his masculinity (say, because his alter-ego was a woman) might have developed, so we can give those to the male personality and have them be things that he's developed from a reaction to other people's view of him. You can have a woman who's afraid to open her mouth because of her voice sounding male, but kind because she's seen first-hand the kind of harm that being unkind can do. And so on and so forth.

Not everything has to be relevant. What does Legion being a Parsi have to do with the dark and brooding personality of one of its alters? Not a bloody clue, to be honest. But that trait probably comes from the erasure of nonbinary people and therefore the internal existential crisis that a quarter-person with people trying to convince it that it doesn't exist suffers from. Being a Parsi doesn't have to do more than give Legion a funny surname (if this is a modern setting, it won't just be able to go by a nickname for anything that's remotely official).

Their backstory can feature these qualities - remember, being part of an oppressed group or having neuroatypicalities can affect many of your interactions. For example, Legion may have had trouble with teachers at school because its different style of learning (autistic, remember) didn't mesh with the way things were taught at school. It's probably going to have had a fairly nasty backstory in places - trans people don't tend to get to have happy childhoods or adolescences or honestly lives - it's going to have prejudices play into everything, from trying to hide who they are, to trying to work out who they are, to trying to live as themselves and getting backlash from other people. If you're going to write LGBT characters commonly, be prepared to write a lot of backstories involving bullying and sexual harassment at best.

So this character's personality, backstory, and how it goes through its day-to-day life (even filling out a form can require several extra stages if you're trans) are all affected by the subgroups it's in. In an ideal world, Legion would be able to live without having to think about how persecution, oppression and honest ignorance will affect it today. In the real world, however, it has to spend a lot of time explaining how it's affected by these things. Rather than having the argument each individual time, though, it prefers to organise these thoughts on a page...

...and post them on forums under the username "Jormengand."

(Okay okay I know that most of you saw that plot twist coming, but shoosh. Point is, our lives get hella complicated, hella fast, because of these characteristics - and it's not just a thought experiment: it's like that in real life too. Props for asking how to portray these things faithfully rather than just rushing in.)

inexorabletruth
2018-03-01, 03:02 PM
Rather than having the argument each individual time, though, it prefers to organise these thoughts on a page...

...and post them on forums under the username "Jormengand."

(Okay okay I know that most of you saw that plot twist coming, but shoosh. Point is, our lives get hella complicated, hella fast, because of these characteristics - and it's not just a thought experiment: it's like that in real life too. Props for asking how to portray these things faithfully rather than just rushing in.)

I had to snip it for space, but this was brilliant, and you are a treasure. May I link your post to my signature for future reference when I'm building a character?

Jormengand
2018-03-01, 03:10 PM
I had to snip it for space, but this was brilliant, and you are a treasure. May I link your post to my signature for future reference when I'm building a character?

Absolutely! I'm just glad you're finding my ramblings useful (I'll admit that being in all these minorities kinda skews your perspective on what will be obvious to members of majorities and what they'll find hard to grasp because they haven't experienced it.).

Segev
2018-03-01, 03:26 PM
It's also worth noting that, in a fantasy setting with the right magics (or a sci-fi one with the right supertechs), gender dysphoria and even body/mind dysmorphias can be remedied far more effectively than in the real world.

If you're a transsexual, it's actually possible to go and find a cursed belt (or pay a cleric for a bestow curse spell) that will swap your sex. And there's none of the complications that stem from our real world limitations on such surgeries.

The presence of these solutions may enrich the setting and story, if you play them right. They may also cheapen the drama and the story you want to explore, however, if you don't. One of the most reviled kind of PCs you'll find on sites like livejournal's bad_rpers_suck are fix-it Mary Sues who walk up to other players' characters who have life-altering disabilities that, in setting, made sense, and created interesting aspects about them...only for the Sue to bat her magic healing eyelashes at them and solve that problem.

So the realities of the setting as defined by both mechanics and fluff just need to be considered. Some things that are serious problems IRL just aren't in games. And vice-versa.

Jormengand
2018-03-01, 03:45 PM
It's also worth noting that, in a fantasy setting with the right magics (or a sci-fi one with the right supertechs), gender dysphoria and even body/mind dysmorphias can be remedied far more effectively than in the real world.

If you're a transsexual, it's actually possible to go and find a cursed belt (or pay a cleric for a bestow curse spell) that will swap your sex. And there's none of the complications that stem from our real world limitations on such surgeries.

The presence of these solutions may enrich the setting and story, if you play them right. They may also cheapen the drama and the story you want to explore, however, if you don't. One of the most reviled kind of PCs you'll find on sites like livejournal's bad_rpers_suck are fix-it Mary Sues who walk up to other players' characters who have life-altering disabilities that, in setting, made sense, and created interesting aspects about them...only for the Sue to bat her magic healing eyelashes at them and solve that problem.

So the realities of the setting as defined by both mechanics and fluff just need to be considered. Some things that are serious problems IRL just aren't in games. And vice-versa.

+1 this. (+4 this? Do I get to +4 things because I'm 4 people? :smalltongue:)

Honestly, if we assume 3.5 for a second (I blame Segev he started it) I'd just remove the Girdle of Masculinity/Femininity from the game and have it so that nothing short of possibly Wish and Miracle (or nothing at all if your characters are high enough level that Wish and Miracle are two-a-penny or even castable) can fix mental disorders. This does, OTOH, cause problems relating to physical disabilities: preventing Regenerate from regrowing lost limbs can cause problems if one of the other PCs was relying on it to fix a lost limb and can force people to play a disabled character when they don't want to and won't play it well.

Though, one other point is that just as being trans would still suck if you remove the prejudice aspect but keep the difficulty of transitioning aspect, the converse is true. Playing in a setting where sex reassignment is a quick thing but people still have their prejudices, then playing in a setting where sex reassignment isn't quick and easy but people are accepting of trans people, and then playing in a setting similar to the real world, can be an interesting way to make a similar point to the intersectionality point I mentioned: the combination of prejudices against you and a generally sucky experience can hit harder than either of them individually.

(Although of course by this point you'll have played three different trans characters and spent screen time exploring the way that being trans affects them, which may cause the other players to get a bit sick of hearing about trans issues. Admittedly, the part of me that's annoyed about having to hear about trans issues every day just to validate my own existence wants to tell them to suck it up, but rightly or wrongly, people eventually take issue with all this being brought up all the time. Bear in mind that you can explore the pseudo-intersectionality issue of the combination of prejudices and inherent difficulties in just one character anyway.)

inexorabletruth
2018-03-01, 04:00 PM
True, but pinning down the economics of such an issue is a matter that varies from edition to edition, setting to setting, and system to system.

Also, in matters of gender identity, things like that aren't always clear to the individual attempting to define themselves. Societal pressures can still easily play a role in muddying those waters even further. Identity often comes through struggle, and struggle develops (for better for worse) our character.

Also, wealth and social class can bring about other stalls or impediments to simply spell-blasting your way into a new gender. In your example, you mention the cursed item that changes your gender. I can't remember which source text it's in. But it's probably at least $1000 GP to make in 3E 3.5 setting (which is the setting I'm most familiar with) to craft, and most likely much more expensive to buy outright, unless someone is dying to unload it because it was supposed to be a Belt of Giant Strength and the spell went wonky.

Considering WBL for an adventurer, the soonest they could get such an item is somewhere between 2nd and 3rd level: enough time for them to have become a fully developed adult and travelled a bit to earn the XP and GP forced to present a gender they do not identify as. For an NPC class like Commoner or Expert, we're looking at a maximum wage of 14 GP per week at level one to save up for that belt while paying their bills and taxes. Sure a disguise kit or makeup kit (if we want to dig into Book of Erotic Fantasy) can help with this. But ultimately, one could argue that it is way easier to get a transition surgery and hormones today than it is to magic the problem away in a fantasy setting.

Also, owning a belt that changes your gender doesn't erase your past. It doesn't change the fact, that for much of your formative years, you struggled with an image in the looking glass that didn't match the image in your heart. It didn't change how you were perceived, acted, and were treated all those years you were saving or training to buy or craft such an item.

Although, I will say... that's an interesting quest point.

Jormengand
2018-03-01, 04:13 PM
Also, owning a belt that changes your gender doesn't erase your past. It doesn't change the fact, that for much of your formative years, you struggled with an image in the looking glass that didn't match the image in your heart. It didn't change how you were perceived, acted, and were treated all those years you were saving or training to buy or craft such an item.

Oh, absolutely. In fact, having the belt (or spell-based solutions) might actually bring the trans experience closer to the modern real-world trans experience because of the fact that sex reassignment surgery is available in the real world (although it's pretty much impossible to get before the age of 22 for any trans person born in 1997 or earlier, 21 for anyone born in 1998 or 20 for anyone born in 1999, at least in the UK (the minimum age to start transition changed recently (nested brackets are fun!)) whereas even if you wait until you start adventuring, you might be able to get access to sex-changing magic at 16 or 17 depending on character class in D&D).

It's more an issue with regenerate/heal and disabilities, honestly - I doubt people are going to treat you differently if you used to have a disability to anything like the extent they do if you have one right now, and miracle treatments like that don't exist in the real world (we're getting there with blindness, though).

Still, just... be careful with items that can fix that kinda thing up. Also if you're the DM (or the DM is amenable to this kind of idea) consider a homebrew spell that's more analogous to real HRT than one which magically does the whole thing all at once. Oh, and proper sex reassignment surgery F2M does not work properly yet, so a quick-fix spell can make the F2M experience in your campaign unrealistic.

Segev
2018-03-01, 04:56 PM
Also, owning a belt that changes your gender doesn't erase your past. It doesn't change the fact, that for much of your formative years, you struggled with an image in the looking glass that didn't match the image in your heart. It didn't change how you were perceived, acted, and were treated all those years you were saving or training to buy or craft such an item.This is an interesting point to examine. Let's replace "gender identity" with "obesity."

This is actually something that CAN be 100% changed with sufficient effort, provided a moderately healthy underlying frame. (i.e., yes, I know some people have disorders and injuries that make this impossible, and I'm not fat-shaming anybody here except possibly myself...so let's use me as an example.)

I'm 250 lbs and 6 feet tall, and that isn't due to muscle. I have a notable amount of fat in my torso. I've been told I carry it well, and I'm inclined to agree; the way I dress and the way my fat distributes, I don't look obese. Just a little chubby. But I can assure you, if I were in swimwear, the appearance changes considerably. Still not looking "obese," but definitely "fat." I couldn't play Santa Clause, but I would be one of the unpleasant examples of why beaches aren't paradises of hot bods.

I am healthy enough and lacking in any real injuries or disabilities that, if I were to hire a slave-driving nutritionist and a tyrannical personal trainer, and allowed them to force me into a schedule, diet, and exercise regimen, I could probably get to a nicely sculpted physique that would make me look pretty good. If I looked at myself in the mirror then and saw tone without flab, I would definitely like what I saw better than I do now. I can also tell you that my mental image of myself is such that it is moderately surprising and disappointing to realize how fat I am when I look at myself with objective appraisal in the mirror. (Admittedly, I don't think of myself as "muscular and toned" either, but I do think of myself as not-as-fat-as-I-am).

I say all of this to get around to the point that, if I found myself looking in the mirror and saw something that looked closer to my mental image of myself, or at least something I was happier with (e.g. the toned figure I could be with sufficient work and dedication and tolerance for low blood sugar headaches until my body got used to the idea that it shouldn't be storing so much as fat), I don't think the past of seeing a body that is surprisingly unappealing in the mirror would have a negative impact on my appreciation for seeing something I did like.

Now, there might be residual low self-esteem if it had been ground into you by others, and certainly any hateful behavior directed towards you should your preference be considered "bad" would still be something to worry about. I mean, if there's stigma for wanting to swap sexes, there's probably stigma for having done so. Having a secret you have to keep, no matter how easy, is stressful. However, if it's just a pressure to either put up or shut up about it (the closest I can come to the pressure to "stop being fat" and get physically fit that social stigma can apply in the case of being overweight), then getting done with it would be seen as laudible, I think. If there's no need to keep a secret, it's just a past dissatisfaction you've overcome, I can't really see that "lingering" too negatively.


Although, I will say... that's an interesting quest point.Could have political implications, too. Imagine a kingdom whose rules are for primogenitor and who wants to keep the crown in the current royal family, but the only scion of the line is a princess. The quest is to find a belt of gender-swapping to turn her into a prince. Maybe she's even an action girl who's a PC or who's joined the party as an NPC they must escort as she dresses up as a boy to get herself fully used to it as she commits to the quest, herself.

I could even see tensions arising over romantic entanglements between her and a male or female member of the party. If male, does she give up the quest and stay a girl? Convince her male lover to swap sexes as well, so he (now she) can bear children for the royal line? Do they try a homosexual relationship? If she and a female fall for each other, the question of whether sexual preference swaps with the belt comes up. And whether the non-princess girl in this relationship is falling for the masculine image the princess projects, or for...the girl the princess is. Will they still have chemistry when she becomes a boy?


Still, just... be careful with items that can fix that kinda thing up. Also if you're the DM (or the DM is amenable to this kind of idea) consider a homebrew spell that's more analogous to real HRT than one which magically does the whole thing all at once. Oh, and proper sex reassignment surgery F2M does not work properly yet, so a quick-fix spell can make the F2M experience in your campaign unrealistic.Male to female transition also isn't "working properly" as it stands, to my knowledge. Not if you want full functionality.

But what either wants is, I suppose, really even more specifically personal than just the choice in general, so I'll leave them to it. Hopefully they can find as much contentment or even happiness as possible.

Jormengand
2018-03-01, 05:27 PM
I could even see tensions arising over romantic entanglements between her and a male or female member of the party. If male, does she give up the quest and stay a girl? Convince her male lover to swap sexes as well, so he (now she) can bear children for the royal line? Do they try a homosexual relationship? If she and a female fall for each other, the question of whether sexual preference swaps with the belt comes up. And whether the non-princess girl in this relationship is falling for the masculine image the princess projects, or for...the girl the princess is. Will they still have chemistry when she becomes a boy?

This is also absolutely a problem for real trans people, incidentally. Oh, and you could have a "fun" time if she does use the belt and then realise that transitioning tends to be a bad idea if you're cisgender.


Male to female transition also isn't "working properly" as it stands, to my knowledge. Not if you want full functionality.

But what either wants is, I suppose, really even more specifically personal than just the choice in general, so I'll leave them to it. Hopefully they can find as much contentment or even happiness as possible.

It's close enough if you're not actually planning on reproduction (if you are, then the technology needed to do the surgery exists but the social progress isn't there) to the effect that it's generally impossible to tell the difference.

inexorabletruth
2018-03-01, 06:29 PM
I'd sign up for that game! :smallbiggrin:

Also, I'm now considering making a transfemale or gender fluid PC who is actually saving up for the belt/girdle. Little PC sub plots are fun, and I always reward that kind of thoughtfulness in the fluff when I run games... which is most of the time.

To use an example here in the Playground, Haley Starshine had this whole secret objective to free her father, and Elan had his evil twin subplot, has Durkon has a slew of subplots in the air right now. It makes for great immersion and really thickens out a campaign.

Segev
2018-03-02, 12:06 PM
While the "saving up for the magic item" subplot wouldn't apply, if you want to play genderfluid, Exalted's Lunars have a Knack that explicitly lets them swap at will. There's also a Hearthstone (3 dot, water aspect, IIRC) that lets the attuned owner of the associated Manse do the same.

Could probably do the same with a Changeling (D&D/Eberron) or any sort of shapeshifter that has omnimorphic capabilities.

Jormengand
2018-03-02, 12:28 PM
While the "saving up for the magic item" subplot wouldn't apply, if you want to play genderfluid, Exalted's Lunars have a Knack that explicitly lets them swap at will.

...though this can run straight into the problem of cheapening the experience, of course.

inexorabletruth
2018-03-02, 12:56 PM
...though this can run straight into the problem of cheapening the experience, of course.

Agreed. The journey is more important than the destination on this type of RP.

But while that may cheapen the experience for, say, the changeling, it could open up other avenues for other types of gender/race/any-body-type experiences in game.

For instance, changeling, by their fluff, are generally mistrusted. Add a bit of misunderstanding and perhaps jealousy to the social dynamic, and you have a boiling hotpot for xenophobia.

"Must be nice... change who your are at will! Must be just dandy to not have to work for it and earn it like we do! Where do you get off telling us to be free to express ourselves without the constraints of social pressure? This is my body! This is what I'm stuck to work with!"

Envy is an ugly thing if allowed to fester. And a race that can just redefine itself at will could be a big bright target for all that anger from those who are, for one reason or another, dissatisfied with their current appearance.

Jormengand
2018-03-02, 01:04 PM
Agreed. The journey is more important than the destination on this type of RP.

But while that may cheapen the experience for, say, the changeling, it could open up other avenues for other types of gender/race/any-body-type experiences in game.

For instance, changeling, by their fluff, are generally mistrusted. Add a bit of misunderstanding and perhaps jealousy to the social dynamic, and you have a boiling hotpot for xenophobia.

"Must be nice... change who your are at will! Must be just dandy to not have to work for it and earn it like we do! Where do you get off telling us to be free to express ourselves without the constraints of social pressure? This is my body! This is what I'm stuck to work with!"

Envy is an ugly thing if allowed to fester. And a race that can just redefine itself at will could be a big bright target for all that anger from those who are, for one reason or another, dissatisfied with their current appearance.

This also runs straight into the superherophobia thing I mentioned initially, though. You basically have to choose whether you're trying to be terribly clever and interesting, or actually make the thing work. And as Wizards of the Coast themselves will tell you repeatedly, trying to be too clever and interesting at the expense of more valuable design goals is one of the main mistakes people make.

Florian
2018-03-02, 01:32 PM
...though this can run straight into the problem of cheapening the experience, of course.

Why? I recently received some flak for asking a Golarion-specific question to the Trans community here, one dealing with the Rivethun, a tradition that starts by overcoming sex first and moves on to race. Apparently set people on edge.

Jormengand
2018-03-02, 01:40 PM
Why? I recently received some flak for asking a Golarion-specific question to the Trans community here, one dealing with the Rivethun, a tradition that starts by overcoming sex first and moves on to race. Apparently set people on edge.

"Overcome" how?

But the point is that in the real world, gender and sex do have a synæsthetic relationship and it's not possible for trans people to just "Overcome" sex. If you have a game where they don't have that connection and people can just shrug their shoulders and ignore what their sex is, then you lose any ability to say anything truthful about real-world trans experiences, and you spread the lie that trans people's existences are the backlash of a sexist society, which is already a falsehood that directly contributes to our oppression. So I'm not surprised it set people on edge.

inexorabletruth
2018-03-02, 01:43 PM
Hmm. I want to help, but I may need more explanation.

The Pathfinder Wiki for the Rivethun is a stub, which doesn't help for shedding context.

Can you elaborate? I know nothing about PF lore. I spent all my free time learning D&D lore, and was sated.

Florian
2018-03-02, 01:58 PM
"Overcome" how?

But the point is that in the real world, gender and sex do have a synæsthetic relationship and it's not possible for trans people to just "Overcome" sex. If you have a game where they don't have that connection and people can just shrug their shoulders and ignore what their sex is, then you lose any ability to say anything truthful about real-world trans experiences, and you spread the lie that trans people's existences are the backlash of a sexist society, which is already a falsehood that directly contributes to our oppression. So I'm not surprised it set people on edge.

Overcome in the sense that you're handed the "tools" to actually have a choice and have that choice all over again, whenever you like. The "cost" is "just" being prepared to move on to a more fluid state that comes along with overcoming to be "locked in" to only one body type, which is actually a quite challenging thing.


Hmm. I want to help, but I may need more explanation.

The Pathfinder Wiki for the Rivethun is a stub, which doesn't help for shedding context.

Can you elaborate? I know nothing about PF lore. I spent all my free time learning D&D lore, and was sated.

Hm, ok, I´ll try but will keep it short. The Rivethun are an ancient dwarves tradition, heavily based on animism, shamanism and the power of change. One of their core fundamentals is that a dysfunction (agony in the classic greek sense of the term) between soul and body will lead to a higher state of awareness for certain aspects, the same way that a Fighter in plate mail will develop the muscles and callouses to handle that. A Riventhun will generally work towards transcending boundaries, starting with the flesh and aiming towards doing it to the soul. Riventhun can be broadly categorized into the "occult classes", meaning not arcane, not divine, the "power source" is just you.

Rivethun Psychic Disciple: https://www.aonprd.com/PsychicDisciplinesDisplay.aspx?ItemName=Rivethun
Rivethun Emissary PrC: https://www.aonprd.com/PrestigeClassesDisplay.aspx?ItemName=Rivethun%20Em issary

Concept-wise, it tackles some of the issues that crop up with a "high fantasy, high magic" game and I´d actually take a bet that not even Jorm has the problem of not been born an angel.

Frozen_Feet
2018-03-02, 02:52 PM
The general take-out should be that once a fantastic scenario a character is facing gets sufficiently outlandish, no-one can really tell you how to play it right by virtue of there being no real precedent.

Jormengand
2018-03-02, 02:57 PM
Concept-wise, it tackles some of the issues that crop up with a "high fantasy, high magic" game and I´d actually take a bet that not even Jorm has the problem of not been born an angel.

I mean, actually, I wasn't born an angel, and this has caused me persistent problems... :smalltongue:


The general take-out should be that once a fantastic scenario a character is facing gets sufficiently outlandish, no-one can really tell you how to play it right by virtue of there being no real precedent.

This is...false.

No matter how "Outlandish" something is, it can still be portrayed in ways that lack verisimilitude, and ways that are harmful via analogy, however tenuous, to real concepts, or ways that imply falsehoods about the real world. There are certainly ways that people can advise how to avoid those things. Precedent doesn't come into it.

strangebloke
2018-03-02, 03:53 PM
Good grief.

Play a character. Play a realistic character. If where your character comes from as a person is realistic, I don't see how it can be offensive. If your character's sexual preference (for example) is nothing more than a punchline, that's offensive, but then, you're not really playing a character. You're playing a punchline.

There is no problem if I play a damsel-in-distress princess type who expects the world to revolve around her, and my justification is:"Her aging father and his servants doted on her and she's grown up very spoiled."

There is a problem if I play a damsel-in-distress princess type who expects the world to revolve around her, and my justification is: "She's a woman, that's how they think."

Male, Female, Gay, Straight, Black, whatever. When it all comes down to it, we're people, and you can't cut us into neat groups. In the end, the identity that matters more than anything is the identity of the individual. Some religious folks act like the worst stereotypes of religious folks. Some gay folks behave like they're straight out of some poor-taste camp gay comedy routine from the 90s. Those people are people and they have their reasons for behaving the way they do. Think through where your character is coming from and work out how they behave and you can't go too far wrong.

Maybe you'll be way off in terms of some aspect of something you haven't experienced, but I honestly doubt that comes up very often.

Jormengand
2018-03-02, 04:09 PM
Maybe you'll be way off in terms of some aspect of something you haven't experienced, but I honestly doubt that comes up very often.

In my experience of people trying to play characters with traits they don't have and haven't looked into, it comes up all the time.

I also love how you're ridiculing the effort someone has put into playing a realistic character by telling them to play a realistic character.

Max_Killjoy
2018-03-02, 04:32 PM
This conversation is getting into why I'm deeply skeptical of most assertions of symbolism and allegory in fiction (and gaming), and deeply skeptical of the idea that authorial intent doesn't matter ("death of the author").

If it's a symbol or an allegory simply because at least one person can see it that one, we're left with... what?

JNAProductions
2018-03-02, 04:37 PM
This conversation is getting into why I'm deeply skeptical of most assertions of symbolism and allegory in fiction (and gaming), and deeply skeptical of the idea that authorial intent doesn't matter ("death of the author").

If it's a symbol or an allegory simply because at least one person can see it that one, we're left with... what?

I'd definitely agree that here, intent matters. If you're honestly trying to play, say, a genderfluid character when you yourself are cis, and you mean no harm with it, then that does matter than if you're playing a genderfluid character because you "want to play a freak for once". With that in mind, though, your actions also matter, and cannot be salvaged solely by good intentions. Let's say, for instance, you play a born-male character who wishes to be female. As a male, the character is generally a take-charge, kick-ass kind of person, but as soon as they get a Girdle of Femininity or a Sex Change spell or whatever, they immediately become a quiet, demure, shy, and meek person? That's gonna be offensive, since you are who you are, and sex wouldn't stop someone from being a BAMF if they were before. Even if you had the best of intentions with this character, your actions didn't follow that through.

inexorabletruth
2018-03-02, 04:47 PM
Think through where your character is coming from and work out how they behave and you can't go too far wrong.

This is literally the first part of what this thread is about. The rest is about discussing methods you use to get to that point, or helping others attempting to flesh out a character to do so. That's why this is in the RP forum, and not in any other discussion forum.

I haven't forgotten about you, Florian. I just haven't had time to look through the links you gave me, and I have to go pick up my son from school. It would help to mention what kind of developmental quandary you are experiencing in the back story or within the context of setting/RP.

Liquor Box
2018-03-02, 04:48 PM
That really depends. The more basic the template, the easier the RP. In a world where males and females are all homogenized and androgenous, it's not a challenge at all. Simply play whatever comes naturally. But in a world there there are power struggles, gender wars, racial elements, social constructs, theological constructs, political constructs, ecological and economical constructs, it gets a little trickier. In fact, the more subtle and more intricate the change, the more challenging it is to play it out.

Well your world is Forgotten Realms (the character sheet refers to the Neverwinter Woods), and while there might be gender wars and racial elements (as in different human races) and social constructs, these are relatively minor themes relative to the fact that it it is a high fantasy setting. They certainly all take a backseat to themes like tension between humans and non-humans etc in terms of importance and degree of tension.

I guess what I am saying is that if you are working toward realistically roleplaying your character, understanding their sexuality, race or gender is not going to get you very far. The part of who they are which is likely to have a much bigger influence on their perspective etc is things like whether or not they know magic or have super combat skills etc, what race (as in human or elf or ogre etc) they are, and the simple fact that they live in a world with dragons and other such creatures. You are putting in a lot of effort when the reality is that you will be left guessing at how to roleplay the vast majority of the factors that influence who your character is.

Frozen_Feet
2018-03-02, 04:51 PM
This is...false.

No matter how "Outlandish" something is, it can still be portrayed in ways that lack verisimilitude, and ways that are harmful via analogy, however tenuous, to real concepts, or ways that imply falsehoods about the real world. There are certainly ways that people can advise how to avoid those things. Precedent doesn't come into it.

Wrong.

Verisimilitude, harmfullness via imagined analogy, imagined implications etc. are subjective variables founded upon real-world precedents. You cannot find similarity, and hence analogue, if a thing resembles nothing you were previously aware of.

Furthermore, verisimilitude is not a good measure for "doing things right". Plenty of real things break verisimilitude because reality does not perfectly adhere to human intuition. There are cases where fidelity to what you're modelling will come at cost of the audience's sense of verisimilitude, and you will have to choose which is more important. It can be something as simple as existence of pink aluminum christmas trees.

Once you get deep enough into speculative elements of fiction, all ideas of verisimilitude, analogue and implication break down, under close scrutiny if not superficial glance. At that point, everything you do rests on willing suspension of disbelief by the audience, and there are no hard rules for maintaining such, because it varies immensely from person to person.

inexorabletruth
2018-03-02, 04:54 PM
You are putting in a lot of effort when the reality is that you will be left guessing at how to roleplay the vast majority of the factors that influence who your character is.

I think you may be missing the point that I, and those I play with, enjoy putting a lot of effort into it. Based on this premise, if you have any tips or advice on how to RP those characteristics I listed with respect both to the setting and to the subject, I'm all ears.

But saying it isn't necessary doesn't help within the confines of this topic. It's as if I went to a crunch thread who was asking how to build a blaster druid with the biggest possible spell list and posted:

"RP is the only real important stat. Forget about rolls and focus on the roles, everyone... jeez."

JNAProductions
2018-03-02, 04:56 PM
Wrong.

Verisimilitude, harmfullness via imagined analogy, imagined implications etc. are subjective variables founded upon real-world precedents. You cannot find similarity, and hence analogue, if a thing resembles nothing you were previously aware of.

Furthermore, verisimilitude is not a good measure for "doing things right". Plenty of real things break verisimilitude because reality does not perfectly adhere to human intuition. There are cases where fidelity to what you're modelling will come at cost of the audience's sense of verisimilitude, and you will have to choose which is more important. It can be something as simple as existence of pink aluminum christmas trees.

Once you get deep enough into speculative elements of fiction, all ideas of verisimilitude, analogue and implication break down, under close scrutiny if not superficial glance. At that point, everything you do rests on willing suspension of disbelief by the audience, and there are no hard rules for maintaining such, because it varies immensely from person to person.

Okay, yes, if you go 100% departed form the realms of reality, make up a new set of physics, a new language, and draw literally no inspiration form the real world AT ALL, then yes, nothing you do can have parallels to the real world.

But look at most games of D&D, or GURPS, or Savage Worlds, or whatever system you care to choose. It's based on reality, with some changes. It's easy to draw parallels to reality, and you can quite easily offend someone.

For instance, take D&D. Let's say you have savage, brutish, thuggish orcs. They're not smart, they're bad people, and you can very easily offend someone by saying "The orcs are just like [REAL WORLD GROUP]". No orcs are being offended-it's the real people who are.

Florian
2018-03-02, 04:56 PM
we're left with... what?

A relaxed attitude towards the fact that we're actually gaming, maybe some good food and even better beer, a relaxed time with some friends and that's it. There's enough time to take things serous, have a good debate or argument and go for it, but not when relaxing with a hobby.

Max_Killjoy
2018-03-02, 04:57 PM
I'd definitely agree that here, intent matters. If you're honestly trying to play, say, a genderfluid character when you yourself are cis, and you mean no harm with it, then that does matter than if you're playing a genderfluid character because you "want to play a freak for once". With that in mind, though, your actions also matter, and cannot be salvaged solely by good intentions. Let's say, for instance, you play a born-male character who wishes to be female. As a male, the character is generally a take-charge, kick-ass kind of person, but as soon as they get a Girdle of Femininity or a Sex Change spell or whatever, they immediately become a quiet, demure, shy, and meek person? That's gonna be offensive, since you are who you are, and sex wouldn't stop someone from being a BAMF if they were before. Even if you had the best of intentions with this character, your actions didn't follow that through.

Actions matter too, I'm not going to dispute that in the slightest, and playing to a stereotype, cliche, or caricature is bad form.

JNAProductions
2018-03-02, 04:58 PM
Actions matter too, I'm not going to dispute that in the slightest, and playing to a stereotype, cliche, or caricature is bad form.

Then I think we're in agreement.

I would add this, though-if you have good intentions, and find out you're misrepresenting someone or some group, then it's on you to change your actions. Ignorance is only an acceptable excuse before it's explained to you.

Jormengand
2018-03-02, 05:03 PM
If it's a symbol or an allegory simply because at least one person can see it that one, we're left with... what?

There's a difference between "Is a deliberate allegory" and "Will have an effect on how real humans percieve other real humans."

The difference is that for me, it's not just a thinkpiece. Crap like this actually has an impact on my life, so I don't get to say "Dude, it's your character, play it how you like!" People who are actually members of minority groups who are affected by people, intentionally or otherwise, spreading falsehoods that, I'll say it again, directly contribute to our oppression, don't get to sit there and armchair-philosophise about it the way you do. We don't have that luxury.

People making characters in a variety of media who are depicted unrealistically creates stereotypes, stereotypes lead to bigotry, bigotry causes oppression, and oppression leads to us suffering. And that leads to the dark side, or something. The point is, yes, this is a big deal for real people, because the way that people treat us is based on the way they percieve us in media, and in the case of trans people especially, people's first experience with characters in that minority group may well be when someone plays one in an RPG. Yes, I'm getting worked up about it because it's kinda freaking important.


Wrong.

Verisimilitude, harmfullness via imagined analogy, imagined implications etc. are subjective variables founded upon real-world precedents. You cannot find similarity, and hence analogue, if a thing resembles nothing you were previously aware of.

Yes, except that all things are analogous to real world things if they're to have any meaning to humans at all.

Liquor Box
2018-03-02, 05:07 PM
I think you may be missing the point that I, and those I play with, enjoy putting a lot of effort into it. Based on this premise, if you have any tips or advice on how to RP those characteristics I listed with respect both to the setting and to the subject, I'm all ears.

But saying it isn't necessary doesn't help within the confines of this topic. It's as if I went to a crunch thread who was asking how to build a blaster druid with the biggest possible spell list and posted:

"RP is the only real important stat. Forget about rolls and focus on the roles, everyone... jeez."

To be clear, I am not suggesting that stats are more important than roleplaying. All I am saying is that the most difficult* and important** roleplaying elements here are not sexuality, gender or human race, but things like whether your character is a fighter who can wrestle an elephant to the ground or a cleric who can cast spells etc.

Of course, if you do want to focus on those particular elements which you have listed, then that is your call. There is plenty of advice in this thread (some contradictory, so take your pick as to what you think sounds most fun or most realistic).

* By difficult i mean most removed from your own experiences.
** BY important, I mean those elements that are likely to contribute most to you characters outlook etc.

Florian
2018-03-02, 05:16 PM
I haven't forgotten about you, Florian. I just haven't had time to look through the links you gave me, and I have to go pick up my son from school. It would help to mention what kind of developmental quandary you are experiencing in the back story or within the context of setting/RP.

The "quandary" is that the setting takes some RL things and then explores them by applying the high fantasy, high magic sense to it and sees what comes out. That leads to implications and results some people have a problem with. Rinethun is an example that in world with shape changing magic, trans people actually have a leg up when using it, while Multiple Personality Disorder and Medium, certain archetypes of Bloodrager and Spiritualst go hand in hand because that's an actual power source or Nidal exemplifies the sheer power gained from S/M practices. Can be a bit hard to swallow for some.

(Jorm, I suspekt Medium would be the class for you. Base "physical shell" and the rest is pretty dependent on who is actually in control of it right now, with each personality having their own feats, spellcasting or what-not - you start out with 7 distinct personalities and maybe even acquire some more as you level up. So far, haven't had a player interested in tackling that sort of challenge.)

inexorabletruth
2018-03-02, 06:28 PM
Rinethun is an example that in world with shape changing magic, trans people actually have a leg up when using it...

Mkay... I read the URL you gave me and don't see how specifically trans people get a leg up. I can't get much from it, other than it feels very Druidy... if you know what I mean. Though one could make an argument for Psion or Incarnum user. There's not much to build off of yet, and there's almost no fluff in the class concept.

All the fluff I found:


You have embraced those aspects of your body that cause you agony, respecting the perspective they grant you if not necessarily the roles they’ve condemned you to in life.

Best I can tell this is just a class, not a character concept. A personality can fit onto any chassis. In order to fill it out, you need more.

I guess the first question is:
Why would your character pick this particular discipline?

____
EDIT:
I can see how someone who needs to frequently change their appearance or stats might be interested in this class.

Bandits, spies, and assassins would all benefit from the ability to change their basic appearances. Diplomats, social manipulators, seducers, and foreigners in xenophobic territories may find this particularly useful as well.

Frozen_Feet
2018-03-02, 07:03 PM
@JNAProductions: your counter-argument misses the point because a work does need to be 100% outlandish things for the effect I mention to apply. It only needs one such element.

For example, if you have realistic humans but one highly odd spell, all arguments of how the humans should react to it are suspect. There is no verifiable right way, because there is no sufficiently analogous real-life thing. The process of getting other people to play along is not one of stating facts, it's one of persuasion where you haggle for their willing suspension disbelief. And for that, things like your standing in the group, your interpersonal skills and their attitude matter far more than the portrayal of the thing.

---

@Jormengand:
Yes, except that all things are analogous to real world things if they're to have any meaning to humans at all.

1) Quite a few fictional things are meaningless. What about it?

2) Regardless, humans are pretty good at inventing meaning for meaningles things, AKA your imaginary analogues and imaginary implications. But such people are not right and thus their arguments do not tell you what is the right way to portray the thing. They are acting on their own confirmation bias in order to make a fictional thing adhere to their preconceptions, they are telling you which kind of portrayal would please them, but pleasing people is not the same as portraying something correctly.

Lord Raziere
2018-03-02, 09:06 PM
Wrong.

Verisimilitude, harmfullness via imagined analogy, imagined implications etc. are subjective variables founded upon real-world precedents. You cannot find similarity, and hence analogue, if a thing resembles nothing you were previously aware of.


Except all fantastical things are made from combinations of real life stuff. there is always similarities and connections because the human mind can't make concepts out of nothing, they have to have a concept to start with: for example a fire elemental might seem unlike things in real life, but really its just person + made of fire. so not finding similarity doesn't really matter, because everything has a similarity.

missmvicious
2018-03-02, 09:17 PM
So I see a lot of stuff about how the gender/race/orientation doesn't effect your ability to hit stuff and I think that part is pretty obvious but honestly thinking about it in just regards to how well you hit something is more like "roll play" then role play I think.

I really like playing characters different myself. It doesn't always come up of course in game, but I like having that part of my character fleshed out, especially for more rp heavy games. I've had longsuffering druidic dudes, lusty barbarian women, asexual scholars with a single minded pursuit for knowledge and I have enjoyed them all. I even sported a goblin general for a while who was so evil it made me feel sick playing her but playing the character was still interesting.

My longest running character is a short, socially awkward, human, lesbian, necromancer and honestly there is a pretty good chance the party doesn't even realize it. She fell in love with Monica,her love because she wasn't judgemental about the necromancy, instead she was supportive and understanding and protective. Her lover died, tragically, of course and she is still carrying a solid torch for her. Like the long game is bringing Monica back from the dead. #Necromancy
So I have really enjoyed debating if she is going to get butterflies in her stomach when someone else accepts her for who she is, necromancy and all of if she feels more a sense of friendship or comradary. I will say, that does kinda reflect myself though, I was a chronic friend dater and I don't regret that. I am looking forward to when the right lady maybe rescues her and she'll catch feelings for her. Then I can go through all that guilt because she still obviously love Monica, but also there is a new person who I don't know maybe she could have a life with. Will she abandon her quest to bring Monica back from dead or maybe she's polyamorous. Its been exciting for me to play so far.

Honest Tiefling
2018-03-02, 10:05 PM
People making characters in a variety of media who are depicted unrealistically creates stereotypes, stereotypes lead to bigotry, bigotry causes oppression, and oppression leads to us suffering. And that leads to the dark side, or something. The point is, yes, this is a big deal for real people, because the way that people treat us is based on the way they percieve us in media, and in the case of trans people especially, people's first experience with characters in that minority group may well be when someone plays one in an RPG. Yes, I'm getting worked up about it because it's kinda freaking important.

I'd kinda have to agree with this. Racism, homophobia and transphobia are still active forces, even in America. (Which I mention, since that's where I live). I assume people at my table have to deal with this, and I try not to broach certain subjects unless I'm certain that everyone at the table is comfortable with it. Which brings me to my suggestion: Ask your friggin' table. And ask them not to share campaign details if you are worried about it, and explain that you are worried about accidental offense. I tend to exercise this if things get to the raunchy side of things, since it's just plain hard to explain to a lot of folks.

If you start dragging in sexuality of ANY stripe into the game with highly conservative folks, it doesn't matter if you have the best representation of a gay man, they don't want to hear about anything lower than the belt unless it's about your magical shoes regardless of who you wish to share that equipment with. Forcing these issues on people who just want to bash some zombie brains in is also a no-no. By asking your table, you know if you are going to offend people by bringing up very sensitive topics or not.

However, I suggest research. There's going to be plenty of political literature about any matter of topics to give you a wide range of views on any particular subject. There's probably forums dedicated to this sort of thing, even. There's also the matter that in a group large enough, you will quickly encounter varying and very different opinions on any given topic. Identity is no different.

And I really don't agree with the idea of never doing it. Yeah, the first few attempts might offend people, but in my opinion, that's kinda the learning process. Better to try to identify and learn about different people than to never try at all. Hence the emphasis on communication earlier.


It's also worth noting that, in a fantasy setting with the right magics (or a sci-fi one with the right supertechs), gender dysphoria and even body/mind dysmorphias can be remedied far more effectively than in the real world.

When I do worldbuilding, I assume that given enough magic or tech, people will likely stop caring about these issues to instead gang up on the people turning themselves into dragons to hump things or trying to turn their junk in a flamethrower. There is nothing humans at large will not use inappropriately.

LibraryOgre
2018-03-03, 11:13 AM
The Mod Wonder: I will remind everyone that the question is "How" to do this, not "Should" I do this. Folks play the game in different ways, and for different reasons, and saying "You're playing it wrong" or "Why should I care about this" is dangerously close to flame territory.

inexorabletruth
2018-03-03, 01:20 PM
How about this fella I created for 5E:

Human, Non-Binary Androgen (typically male though), Asexual, Dissociative Identity Disorder)


Name: Archibald Thwipp
Class: Blood Hunter, Order of the Profane Soul (Otherworldly Patron- Great Old One)
Crimson Rite: Rite of the Flame
Blood Curse of the Marked: Blood Maledict


He's a homeless wanderer, haunted by thoughts images and voices in his head. He started as a sage working in the Paragnostic Assembly Temple of Ioun when he stumbled a tome that revealed ancient, esoteric knowledge that the world they lived on was the severed head of a god.

This information spurred him to extend his studies through biological research, excavation, and adventuring. But in his heart, he's not a killer, and preferred a defend-and-flee approach to encounters. However, investigating the deeper tunnels of the world (filled with terrifying monsters, paralyzing sounds, and possibly ancient divine insinuations) he slowly grew wild, then feral, then completely mad. It was during this madness he began hearing the voices, which ties into the Otherwordly Pact (Great Old One) which began teaching him new philosophies and granting him new insight to the world. But due to his madness, he couldn't be sure if the voices were real.

His perspective is that we are all organisms of the god head. That which saves the god head, saves us all. That which harms the god head, harms us all, so violence isn't inherently his go to in combat. His preference is to run. But when he must fight, he uses an ability called Blood Curse of the Marked, to mark a target and have it share in his pain. When he takes damage, the mark takes a portion of the damage. This fits into a kind of self-harm tendencies I often saw amongst homeless people I used to work with that also had DID.

Battle is not where his mind is clear. Battle is when he is most in pain, and most conflicted. He's nonconfrontational by nature and the jumble of thoughts and voices in his head keep make it difficult for him to articulate his needs, thoughts and discoveries, and desires. Most of the time, he engages in theoretical debates, broken up with imagined interruptions and fragmented thought. Because of this his sentences are blurted out in fragments,

"Of course I did! Why would- no we could never do such a thing. Well I know that! ... And that's what I said!"

When he gets a clear, coherent thought, he tends to blurt it out loudly, trying desperately to communicate before the noise in his head drowns his thoughts, so he often comes across as a street corner profit of doom. Especially since most of his coherent thoughts center around his theory that we all living on the severed head of a god. People tend to shy away from him, crossing the street to avoid his rantings. Others gawk at him in amusement or disdain. He's aware of their mockery but his fractured communication skills limit his ability to reach out and only make him appear more manic which he attempts to do so. When he approaches someone for help, he' just as likely to get a few coppers as he is to get a thorough thrashing, neither of which can actually help him with what he is struggling with.

Any thoughts on how to play this out?

I originally drew from inspiration from Magic Betty from Adventure Time, but while that archetype is amusing and creepy, it wears thin with prolonged game experiences. Still random snickering or cackling while attempting to be taken seriously seems only theatrical, and not my experience when dealing with those suffering from psychological conditions, although I've never interacted with anyone with an extreme psychosis. I'm only situationally familiar with depression, anxiety, GAD, AAD, Adult ADHD, Alzheimers, and dementia, in the concept of my interactions with the homeless and the elderly. I've also interacted with those with autism, aspergers, and terrets at work.

The homeless people I've worked with (or for), however are usually the more "higher functioning" ones. Homeless people with deeper psychoses like delusions, paranoia, what-have-you, tend to avoid interaction with people. When trying to get them some food or clothes, they tended to run away, sheltering their treasures as they scurried into back alleys and poorly lit regions I honestly had no courage to go down.

I'm not entirely sure why they do this, though I can make assumptions. But there were other homeless people who explained to me that homelessness is not about being too poor to afford a home. It's a psychological condition that prevents them from functioning in our society. That even if I gave them clothes, food, and a home, without extensive therapy, they would simply abandon all those gifts and return to their life in dumpsters and dark alleys.

I took the statement as face value, since I never had the luxury of going to college to study psychology. But through RP, I find an opportunity to explore that theory.

I'm keeping this post here, spoilered for transparency. However, I acknowledge I shouldn't have introduced Archibald Thwipp here, since roleplaying psychosis isn't a covered topic in this thread.

Honest Tiefling
2018-03-06, 01:52 AM
So, uh...Your first foray into exploring different genders is absolutely bonkers? While not really such a bad thing in of itself, it can be easily misconstrued. If you are worried about offending others, maybe a slightly easier concept would be better?

The question arises of why even bother? He's not coherent in the slightest, so a party might not even pick up on the gender identity because it'll be confusing enough to understand him. Also...Wouldn't most parties avoid him? Assuming he could even cast spells (the vocal component might be an issue), he's nuttier than the entire peanut harvest of Georgia. I'd assume most parties wouldn't be inclined to have him tag along, especially if they rely on stealth or not freaking people out.

Jormengand
2018-03-06, 06:33 AM
So, uh...Your first foray into exploring different genders is absolutely bonkers? While not really such a bad thing in of itself, it can be easily misconstrued. If you are worried about offending others, maybe a slightly easier concept would be better?

The question arises of why even bother? He's not coherent in the slightest, so a party might not even pick up on the gender identity because it'll be confusing enough to understand him. Also...Wouldn't most parties avoid him? Assuming he could even cast spells (the vocal component might be an issue), he's nuttier than the entire peanut harvest of Georgia. I'd assume most parties wouldn't be inclined to have him tag along, especially if they rely on stealth or not freaking people out.

Yeah, all of this. Someone who isn't crazy might be a better showcase of all this stuff, especially if you don't want to run head-first into all of the stereotypes of certain groups as being crazy.

inexorabletruth
2018-03-06, 07:37 AM
Wha? No.

My first foray into a different gender was a female gnome I played back in 2008. This is my first foray into playing someone with a psychosis. Trying to overcome the ravages in his mind to communicate in a society he can't quite connect with.

Perhaps I shouldn't have presented this character to be workshopped. He's much more of a challenge than what I usually play, but he doesn't fit exactly into the parameters I set out for this thread. My bad. I can present another one.

Meet Sergeant Sylvia of the Flery City Watch (https://www.myth-weavers.com/sheet.html#id=1508149). She's largely inspired by my wife and by a few other powerful women I've known. She's tall, aggressive, competitive, intelligent, but still social (desiring to fit in and be accepted), and aware that her features and upbringing don't mesh well with civilized society, so she tries to soften her appearance to better fit in. She's aware of the differences of the shape of her ears, her skin tone and tusks. While she tries to play it down, like it's no big deal, she still feels self conscious about it when people shy away from her. She even changed her name from the more Orcish "Shautha" into something more relatable while still being unique enough to sound pretty to her: "Sylvia." Only the name more often reflects what she wants to see, and not what others see. Her parents still insist on calling her Shautha, and she nettles at this. She gets defensive when people say she doesn't "look like a Sylvia."

But when left unprodded, she is generally kind and social. Dedicated to her duties she tries to represent her position with honor and dignity. Off the clock, she refrains from "orcish" behavior and instead prefers to go to the market, socialize with friends, rather than hit up the taverns looking for liquor, lust, and violence. But she still comes from a background which encourages rage and violence and free living, so under the right circumstances, her anger can get the best of her (hence the Barbarian Rage).

I haven't gotten to play her much yet. The campaign moves very slowly. Most of what she is can be found in her character sheet.

Ashiel
2018-03-06, 02:50 PM
What methods and techniques do you use to get into character and overcome the obstacles of accidentally superimposing yourself onto the character you are playing without playing a two dimensional caricature of your character?

I'm talking about method acting, or other techniques, as a role playing technique for developing the subtler aspects of your character (i.e. the nuances of a personality that is sculpted, or influenced by, the cultural and societal aspects and ramifications of race, gender identity, and sexual orientation) with respect to the archetype being represented and with a heightened level of verisimilitude. This is all assuming the game being played allows for, and encourages, this kind of roleplay.

Pretty much +1 to Max_Killjoy's post (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=22865375&postcount=2).

Asking questions can help too. Or if they have a quirk, try explaining why.


But things get more difficult to play something hits closer to home. Let's say, I wanted to play an Hispanic trans-female pansexual? Or a black male heterosexual? Or, the hardest of all for me, a Native American, literally any gender or orientation?
That's easy.
1. You select their ethnicity.
2. You choose their sex.
3. You discriminate between potential romantic interests as appropriate.

And then you forget about it unless it's anything more than a minor feature. And it will be nothing more than a minor feature unless the campaign specifically has some reason why it isn't. For example, halflings are a slave caste in Pathfinder's Cheliax, so being a halfling might actually inject some sort of adversity to be overcome. In your example of a trans-female, that's also a source of drama in that it could represent some sort of goal or struggle to be overcome or dealt with in some fashion (maybe even questing for a specific "cursed" item since one man's trash is another woman's treasure).

Unless the aspect of the character directly injects some sort of growth into the character, it's nothing more than a minor feature along the lines of "I was born and raised in Baldur's Gate" or "I have three siblings, a brother and two sisters". That doesn't mean that the feature can't deepen the character. If your character is from Baldur's Gate, maybe they occasionally talk about stuff related to the city, or if you have three siblings maybe you're family oriented, or have different relationships with them (maybe you're trying to make your family proud next to a trio of siblings who get all the attention, or maybe you're questing for a way to help cure one of your family members of a genetic disease or something).

I think the biggest issue I see is that bigot-levels of emphasis are being placed on what someone is in the OP's quote, and not who they are. I mean, how stupid would it sound to say "Help, how do I play a human, male, heterosexual"? It says pretty much nothing about the character other than they have dangly bits and are sexually attracted to she-folk instead of he-folk. It says absolutely nothing about their character or who they are as a person.

Again, the only exception to that being if there is some sort of stigma or something to be overcome. Being a homosexual just means you dig people who are the same sex. That only matters if homosexuals are treated differently in the campaign (maybe to be a priest of a particular faith you gotta be homosexual, or maybe people consider them unnatural and shun them, or maybe their family just wants them to settle down and get married to someone they can have kids with and they really aren't into that idea).

Then, the reason this becomes an exception is because it gives something that the character has to deal with, which grows them as a character and as a person and makes their journey an interesting one.

Mordaedil
2018-03-08, 03:23 AM
Back on topic, as a female, I feel so uncomfortable with a male playing a female character with me *if* the gender is emphasised, or worse, the character becomes sexualised. If they have picked the character because they really wanted to model "Captain Phasma" or "Aria Stark" then fair call. But if I sit down to a tabletop game with a man playing a female character, I am honestly expecting them to grab their own boobs and get silly about it. I mentally gird myself for the stupidness will probably occur.

As a female I already put up with a lot of over-sexualisation. I understand having a limited range of miniatures/avatars (because sure, their are less female players), however it upsets me when the small range that I am presented with is full of boobs, hourglass hips, and sexy posing. Those female characters are not for me, they are *also* for the males. Then when a male player decides to plonk down a hyper-sexualised female character onto the table, I am ready to leave. I was joining a game on roll20 recently in which a male player offered up a picture of his character. It was clearly not even the same class as what he had describe, but it was huge boobs, and a slit up to the crotch. I am not going to play with him.
I kinda get this, because it was my experience as well, back when I started roleplaying. Heck, I was this guy. It was while roleplaying though that my mind was blown open, my hypocracy revealed to me and I became a more mature person as someone patiently turned the mirror on me. It made me change my roleplaying since and approach things with a more open mind.

I've since met other guys who also play it like me, but it's still kind of a rare thing, finding people who do it right. So I won't say your experience is wrong, but some can be cured of that immaturity. Sadly, this is a hobby that attracts a lot of man-children.

inexorabletruth
2018-03-08, 08:43 AM
@Mordaedil
@Ashiel

Do you have any characters that you would to workshop with us within the context of this thread?

Do you have any roadblocks or crossroads in your character RP that you would like help working through within the context of this thread?