Advice for Roleplaying class-ism and prejudice

[Shackled Slayer]

So i'm home brewing a low magic system with a heavy inspiration from medieval history, it still has elves, dwarves, yuan-ti and the like, but the setting is dominated by (mostly) historically accurate human civilizations and functionality. The setting is just in it's infancy but i can already see that it's going to be RIFE with classist prejudice, anti-magic prejudice and anti non-human prejudice, as well as imperial colonialist ideas and generally all the icky stuff of mankind.

And i have a player who wants to play a peasant girl who learned magic mysteriously found in the wilderness. I told her "hey this might end up in your character catching serious crap from people and being really discriminated against, are you ok with that?" And she said yes emphatically.

Soo... Now i've gotta figure out how i wanna approach this maturely and delicately. I really like this player and dont want any feel-bads, SO.
How can i represent the kind of class-ism, discrimination and prejudice against the un-known without hurting anybody IRL? I know keeping open communication and giving the players the powers to stop play at any time if they feel uncomfortable are baseline.
Should i pull punches to the extent of the prejudice? The setting has medieval Catholicism as the main faith (but isnt specifically verified, gods dont show themselves much) should i pull back the churches' pursuit of non-catholic behavior?
How might i be able to temper any discrimination on NPC behavior to be more... Palatable?
Should the players be able to change the wide spread distrust of magic and the "other"?

[JadedDM]

Is she open about her magic, or does she try to keep it under wraps?

I ran a very similar scenario, and the idea was the mage kept her powers a secret when she could. Fortunately, she specialized in enchantment/charm, so it was easier to be subtle about it; people would suddenly agree with her or like her more, and if anyone questioned it, she'd claim she was just very persuasive. If she were chucking fireballs and lightning bolts around, that would be more difficult to cover up.

[False God]

So i'm home brewing a low magic system with a heavy inspiration from medieval history, it still has elves, dwarves, yuan-ti and the like, but the setting is dominated by (mostly) historically accurate human civilizations and functionality. The setting is just in it's infancy but i can already see that it's going to be RIFE with classist prejudice, anti-magic prejudice and anti non-human prejudice, as well as imperial colonialist ideas and generally all the icky stuff of mankind.

And i have a player who wants to play a peasant girl who learned magic mysteriously found in the wilderness. I told her "hey this might end up in your character catching serious crap from people and being really discriminated against, are you ok with that?" And she said yes emphatically.

A wise quote for the player: "In for a penny, in a for a pound."

Soo... Now i've gotta figure out how i wanna approach this maturely and delicately. I really like this player and dont want any feel-bads, SO.
How can i represent the kind of class-ism, discrimination and prejudice against the un-known without hurting anybody IRL?

You can't. The best you can do is present it honestly and if someone is hurt (which is quite possible) you'll be faced with a choice to make: the IRL person or the game. If you don't want to change the world (you're Super-DM-God Man here, so, you can) you'll need to either tell the player to accept it or make a different character or stop playing.

Honestly, I'll take friends over "honest" presentations of unpalatable subjects.

I know keeping open communication and giving the players the powers to stop play at any time if they feel uncomfortable are baseline.
Should i pull punches to the extent of the prejudice? The setting has medieval Catholicism as the main faith (but isnt specifically verified, gods dont show themselves much) should i pull back the churches' pursuit of non-catholic behavior?
How might i be able to temper any discrimination on NPC behavior to be more... Palatable?

Perhaps the "distrust of bad things" is also matched with a culture that doesn't favor vocal or overt discrimination. Things are subtle but the point is clear. It is impolite not to do business with the "others" but the price of bread is slightly higher for an other(not backbreakingly so, but noticably, say 10-25%). The church's pursuit of heathens is more clandestine. Stormtroopers don't march down the streets, but "fingermen" hide in the shadows. A mob attack on an elf might receive lesser punishment than an elf stealing some bread.

All that is to say, a gentle touch can convey a much more oppressive air than overt violence in the street.

Should the players be able to change the wide spread distrust of magic and the "other"?

Why not? IRL that change happened/is happening, if your players find this to be a worthy cause and they want to champion the change, why not have your setting be open to the possibility? It may be slow. It may be fraught with peril. It may have setbacks. The characters may not live to see the outcome of their actions. But if your players are into that and want to do it, again, why not let them?

Also, just as a word of advice: IRL history is great for getting some general guidelines from, but I would be very cautious about following or recreating it too closely.

[KineticDiplomat]

Bearing in mind you’ll know your players better than anyone on the internet:

This is a good session 0 topic. I would start with a pull no punches statement and see the response. Something to the effect of:

“Just so we understand, people are going to respond to you as a twisted near sub-human agent of Evil. Magic here is not a respected scientist conducting experiments in a tower, it is at best bargaining with unknowable, otherworldly and alien power(s) that are at best indifferent to and quite possibly inimical to, human life or well being. To use magic is to be an object of fear and loathing. When the peasant who finds your secret turns you in, he will know in every ounce of his being that he is purging an evil from this world and saving his soul. When you are tortured in front of a cheering crowd before being burnt alive, the inquisitor doing it will firmly believe he is redeeming your soul from the Great Enemy with fire and pain. As you die the most painful way imaginable, it will be to the sound of hymns, cheering, and mothers telling their children what a horrible thing you were and why you needed to die this way. No one will mourn your passing, and your family will be relieved you didn’t taint them in the process. That is what it means to be a magic user in this setting.”

“On top of that, you are a peasant. The very act of wandering off your bound lands makes you a criminal, and whatever slim legal protections you had are now forfeit. Running away didn’t make you free, it made you an outcast. Not everyone will see you as such, but since plenty of outcasts turn to banditry, thieving, whoring and begging, it’d be a rare face that didn’t treat you with suspicion...and the more rural the land, the more suspicious they’ll be. Those in cities will likely just see you as another mark or another faceless being of no note.”

And of course: “and you’re a woman. A girl actually. Whatever hope you had of somehow getting around your class and your inherent status as a twisted loathsome magic user, cut those odds down by a dozen or so.”

See how the player reacts. If she’s all in, great, no change needed. If she wants you to back it off, time to talk about how much to back it off without depriving the other players of their grimdark.

[CarpeGuitarrem]

Work with the player to draw lines on things they aren't okay with, and be clear that this can happen during play/between sessions, too. Nobody understands 100% upfront what they are and aren't okay with. We're people, not machines, so we aren't always consistent with that, even on a day-to-day basis. So don't try to set everything perfectly ahead of time, set some boundaries, revisit them, make it clear that it's okay to push back. What this actually does is help players push into difficult content, because it gives them the assurance that if things go too far for them, there's support and they can step back. It's like using a rope when you climb--you feel more confident going where you normally wouldn't if you didn't have a rope.

Communication is the most important part. It's not "too meta" (man how I wish the RPG scene would scrub that phrase from existence) to level with the players OOC and check in with them during a session. The more you work together, the better the game will be. Be open about things that can be difficult.

[Berenger]

Should i pull punches to the extent of the prejudice? The setting has medieval Catholicism as the main faith (but isnt specifically verified, gods dont show themselves much) should i pull back the churches' pursuit of non-catholic behavior?
How might i be able to temper any discrimination on NPC behavior to be more... Palatable?

You don't have to make "The Church" a monolithic block of fanatic hardliners, even if the organization as a whole is unsavory. Unless they openly embrace evil for the sake of evil, some of the more fair, humane, open-minded and progressive members will strive to embody the more benevolent aspects of the faith and seek to protect innocents from excessive persecution (you can use these people to 'pull punches' in a realistic way). Also, in areas where The Church coexists with other religions, they will eventually find some form of modus vivendi and there will be less severe discrimination against non-believers.

[Jay R]

Your job as a DM isn't to provide a stress-free environment -- just the opposite. It's to give her encounters, obstacles, difficulties and enemies to overcome and conquer.

Give her an opportunity to save the village that sneered at her, to defeat the foe who insulted her, and to defend another, younger wizard who is being bullied.

Just remember that the goal of any encounter is for the PC to have the opportunity to do great things, ad for the player to come away satisfied.

[Mastikator]

My D&D DM is running a setting with some similarities, namely the discrimination against magic users. It's a grimdark steampunk setting where they have discovered a way to turn magic users into magic fuel (anyone with spell casting as a racial trait or class feature is on the menu). The DM also gave the players a choice, we can be against it and even change the world, or be in favor of it and potentially profit off it.
Give the players an option to benefit from partaking in the discrimination, that way it's not a no-brainer to fight against it.

Secondly I think if you want to convey this dark setting then have the PCs witness an NPC be killed for their magic use, have the NPC be obviously innocent of any wrong doing and obviously guilty of using magic. This should happen in the first 10 minutes, the PCs should be powerless to stop it. It will leave an impression.

Your player said yes emphatically, so don't worry about causing her stress. And honestly, don't make discrimination palatable. Only make bad things palatable if you want an NPC to trick the players into being bad.

[Jay R]

It can be fun, but the player(s) need to keep the right attitude up.

About ten years ago, I played in a 2e AD&D game in which magic was looked down on by the church, and had been more-or-less banned for centuries. Only nobles were supposed to have swords, too. And elves weren't around mostly, and were also looked down on. It was kind of fun to deal with the issues. I was playing an teen-aged outcast lowlife Elven Thief/Wizard -- an elf using both magic and a sword.

At one point we were leading an army against the keep of an evil cleric who had taken over a County and had been oppressing the people there for some time. At one point near the end of the battle, I was facing him, and he looked at me and sneered, "You? You are the 'great heroes' who think you can conquer me?"

I replied, "And you'd have gotten away with it if it weren't for us meddling kids."

[KineticDiplomat]

A point to remember here, since someone mentioned the church not being “all fanatics.” Hating magic users isn’t the position of those goofy hardliners, it is THE line. The idea of being “progressive” about magic for your setting is like the idea of being progressive about torturing children for your own intimate satisfaction would be today. There is no spectrum of morality here, theres the extraordinarily perverse and twisted evil (that’s you!) and there’s the rest of society.

When people talk about how they can forgive a lot of things in family, but there’s a line where they have to realize their blood kin are evil? They’re talking about magic users.

When you need a criminal with a heart of gold (not really a trope at the time, since familiarity with actual crime was common), but there are things he doesn’t do to show he isn’t the irredeemable scum of the world? He would never use magic, and he probably would turn in a magic user to the authorities because it’s the self evidently morally right thing.

Although movies don’t exist, if Quentin Tarantino needed a villain against who any transgression is acceptable, who can be the target of hyper violence gone hilarious, who the audience will cheer for their death and feel morally righteous about? Yeah, that guy isn’t Hitler, it’s you Magic User.

If you save a town with magic, it’s as if you saved a town by doing horrible things to children. If you protect another mage from “bullying” you are in fact intervening to protect a hideous criminal - let’s say a known serial rapist slasher - from getting their just deserts. And you’re probably doing it because you’re just as bad as them.

You are the worst, lowest, most detestable, universally hateable type of person around. Nothing you do can ever atone for your cardinal sins against humanity. This isn’t a line between a misunderstood sub-section of society and a overly controlling power structure, this is the type of thing that every even marginally decent person with half a conscience cannot forgive, cannot tolerate, and will know no amount of other good deeds can redeem.

If you can get that mindset across, you’ve really hit it on the head.

[LordCdrMilitant]

So i'm home brewing a low magic system with a heavy inspiration from medieval history, it still has elves, dwarves, yuan-ti and the like, but the setting is dominated by (mostly) historically accurate human civilizations and functionality. The setting is just in it's infancy but i can already see that it's going to be RIFE with classist prejudice, anti-magic prejudice and anti non-human prejudice, as well as imperial colonialist ideas and generally all the icky stuff of mankind.

And i have a player who wants to play a peasant girl who learned magic mysteriously found in the wilderness. I told her "hey this might end up in your character catching serious crap from people and being really discriminated against, are you ok with that?" And she said yes emphatically.

Soo... Now i've gotta figure out how i wanna approach this maturely and delicately. I really like this player and dont want any feel-bads, SO.
How can i represent the kind of class-ism, discrimination and prejudice against the un-known without hurting anybody IRL? I know keeping open communication and giving the players the powers to stop play at any time if they feel uncomfortable are baseline.
Should i pull punches to the extent of the prejudice? The setting has medieval Catholicism as the main faith (but isnt specifically verified, gods dont show themselves much) should i pull back the churches' pursuit of non-catholic behavior?
How might i be able to temper any discrimination on NPC behavior to be more... Palatable?
Should the players be able to change the wide spread distrust of magic and the "other"?

I don't try to "pull punches" with respect to prejudice, systemic discrimination, and the general ism's.
I usually take the opposite approach, actually, and make it unpalatable to my players.

I've already got two marks for politics so I'm not going to go into it too far, but I feel like if you're going to portray prejudice and hate in your game, you absolutely should not be toning it down to 'palatable' levels, since that would defeat the point of placing that pressure upon the players, and underplay the degree of damage and disadvantage that 'ism's inflict on peoples. IMO the players should chafe under the injustice, feel like it's an uphill battle against the wrongs of society, and feel fundamentally motivated to take action to change it.


Right now, I'm actually setting up and conducting preliminary groundwork for a game to start about a year, maybe a year and a half from now, set in the first half of the 20th century. The various 'isms will be on full display, with the core campaign conflicts being colonial subjugation and racism, equal suffrage movements, working class exploitation. My objective is for the players to be frustrated by being stymied by the various 'isms and take action to change the world, and hopefully have some out-of-character discourse in the process. [My RPG's have been called "Katherine's Political Hour" by my friends ;) .]

[Grod_The_Giant]

There is no spectrum of morality here, theres the extraordinarily perverse and twisted evil (that’s you!) and there’s the rest of society.

This absolutely does not need to be the case. It's Shackled Slayer's game and setting; prejudice can be as virulent or subtle as they want.

As for not upsetting people IRL, I suggest emphasizing fantasy prejudice over real-world, at least when it comes to things that are still prevalent. Let anti-magic sentiment be the face of the church's evil, rather than burning heretics; replace anti-Semitism with anti-elf sentiment. To quote one of the greats:

Racism was not a problem on the Discworld, because—what with trolls and dwarfs and so on—speciesism was more interesting. Black and white lived in perfect harmony and ganged up on green.

[KineticDiplomat]

It doesn’t NEED to be, but given he has expressed a desire to be on par with medieval Europe and “RIFE” with those social themes, that would be a far more appropriate take than a sort of modern romance novel version of it.

To extend that by an analogy, imagine two novels about the south near the ACW. One seems to have every belle and beau secretly be an abolitionist and reformer torn by duty and family, most people can be made to see the light of justice by seeing one or two slaves demonstrating amazing human qualities, and the whole idea of racism is vaguely handled as something forced on “society” and only really personified as maybe one true caricature villain. The other...well let’s just say it aims for authenticity based on the recorded letters and records of the time, and has a far different outlook on the matter as a result.

I don’t know which novel would be better, but I know which one would be better at conveying the “isms” of the ACW era south.

If you want to portray a society rife with the ism’s of medieval Europe, I would suggest pretending they’re just a vague thing easily disproven by personal example and really just the province of a few hardliners is not the route to go.

[Grod_The_Giant]

I don’t know which novel would be better, but I know which one would be better at conveying the “isms” of the ACW era south.

Sure, but it wouldn't necessarily be a better action-fantasy-- 12 Years a Slave vs Django Unchained, to continue your example. There's a wide gulf between "this is a story about the evils of society and how the protagonists deal with them" and "this is a story about an evil dragon that takes place in a morally-grey setting."

[GentlemanVoodoo]

So i'm home brewing a low magic system with a heavy inspiration from medieval history, it still has elves, dwarves, yuan-ti and the like, but the setting is dominated by (mostly) historically accurate human civilizations and functionality. The setting is just in it's infancy but i can already see that it's going to be RIFE with classist prejudice, anti-magic prejudice and anti non-human prejudice, as well as imperial colonialist ideas and generally all the icky stuff of mankind.

And i have a player who wants to play a peasant girl who learned magic mysteriously found in the wilderness. I told her "hey this might end up in your character catching serious crap from people and being really discriminated against, are you ok with that?" And she said yes emphatically.

So out the gate the player has agreed that they will become the target of such "isms" for this character. One thing to point out here before getting to the questions is the player has agreed to this. Thus there is no excuse for complaints, should they have any later on,with regard to treatment as they were told upfront. I would always keep this in mind just in case you have to remind them of this.

Soo... Now i've gotta figure out how i wanna approach this maturely and delicately. I really like this player and dont want any feel-bads, SO.
How can i represent the kind of class-ism, discrimination and prejudice against the un-known without hurting anybody IRL? I know keeping open communication and giving the players the powers to stop play at any time if they feel uncomfortable are baseline. Should i pull punches to the extent of the prejudice? The setting has medieval Catholicism as the main faith (but isnt specifically verified, gods dont show themselves much) should i pull back the churches' pursuit of non-catholic behavior?

Really that is all there is to it. You were upfront about that possibility so you weren't hiding the fact. The question now is how do you want to represent the discrimination and prejudices of your world? It will probably be given that if common town folk find out about this player's magical abilities they will not associate or help them. This means no buying items from a store, no access to an inn, doctor, etc. Though other than simply ignoring the player, do you intend to have these discrimination/prejudices to such an extreme that the town folk will form a lynch mob once they find out? Is it simply they will drive the character out of town? What of being reported to a religious or law authority? How extreme are you wanting to go?

I bring up these questions as for characters that are dealing with a discrimination/prejudice it can be a deadly affair with character death being a possibility. If you are wanting to have this extreme element in the world, then that should also be brought up to your player as a very likely outcome. See if they are willing to agree with that possibility. If not, then it probably would be best to advise the player such a character would not be best to play.

More so have you confirmed with your other players if such a setting is acceptable to them? If not have the discussion along with what levels of extreme the npc's of this world will go to and see if they are cool with that.

How might i be able to temper any discrimination on NPC behavior to be more... Palatable?

If being palatable is a concern for you then perhaps limit the discrimination/prejudice more to roleplaying where the npc's either refuse to aid or even talk. You can also go the route of your interactions showing a clear favoritism is some social situation. These alone would be enough to get the idea across of discrimination/prejudice.

Should the players be able to change the wide spread distrust of magic and the "other"?

That would make for a good overall story goal for the characters if that is something they show interest in. You could craft a situation where social change is the outcome and see if they like that as a possibility. You could also use this angle to have the players gain allies in some measure.

[icefractal]

First off, while there's nothing wrong with having the setting be that way if that's what you're specifically going for, don't feel like you "have" to include anything for "realism". At that point where you have magic at all, not to mention non-human sapients existing, those would considerably change the world. It's actually rather unrealistic to say "it's pretty much like RL medieval Europe", not that unrealistic is necessarily bad. The point is, add the amount of prejudice that will fit what you're going for, it'll be about equally realistic either way.

Oh, and check out Ars Magica if you're interested in (one take on) what a medieval society where magic is real could look like.


Secondly, I think how much is the right amount depends on what you want the relationship of the PCs to society to be:
1) They're willingly part of it, despite its flaws.
2) They don't like it, but they don't have the power to overthrow it, so they pretend to fit in - but might leave given the opportunity.
3) They want to change it, potentially to the point of revolution, but not destroy it.
4) They've given up on it, but can't escape it yet, so they become criminals and work around it as much as possible, building up resources to eventually escape it entirely.
5) They say '**** this nonsense' and leave, either to go in search of a different society, live in the wild as hermits, or build an army and come back to overthrow it.

The worse you make it, the more responses are going to tend to the latter side of this spectrum. There's a saying - "a child who is not embraced by the village will burn it down to feel its warmth" - so don't expect PCs to come to the defense of their society if that society has been nothing but ****ty to them.


Edit: Also, I think there's a bit of "grimdark exaggeration" going on ITT. The medieval period was not actually "maximal horror, all the time", that's a combination of questionable history by the Victorians and the tendency to add fake realism/maturity by just making things more awful (the same idea as "my character sucks mechanically, so you know I must be a good roleplayer").

[Berenger]

It doesn’t NEED to be, but given he has expressed a desire to be on par with medieval Europe and “RIFE” with those social themes, that would be a far more appropriate take than a sort of modern romance novel version of it.

You seem to have a pretty narrow view on cultural and religious diversity in medieval europe. The amount of conformity and widespread malice you suggest seems less like 'gritty realism' and more like 'grimdark caricature' to me.

If you want to portray a society rife with the ism’s of medieval Europe, I would suggest pretending they’re just a vague thing easily disproven by personal example and really just the province of a few hardliners is not the route to go.

That's not at all what I suggested.

[False God]

A point to remember here, since someone mentioned the church not being “all fanatics.” Hating magic users isn’t the position of those goofy hardliners, it is THE line. The idea of being “progressive” about magic for your setting is like the idea of being progressive about torturing children for your own intimate satisfaction would be today. There is no spectrum of morality here, theres the extraordinarily perverse and twisted evil (that’s you!) and there’s the rest of society.

....

Although movies don’t exist, if Quentin Tarantino needed a villain against who any transgression is acceptable, who can be the target of hyper violence gone hilarious, who the audience will cheer for their death and feel morally righteous about? Yeah, that guy isn’t Hitler, it’s you Magic User.

This also produces a very one-dimensional "bad guy" when the historical reality (again, the OP said they were basing this off real history, which I will restate is IMO, a bad idea) is very much more nuanced.

The "Totally not the IRL Chuch" probably doesn't hate magic. It wants control over the magic. The people "in charge" are undoubtedly not so stupid as to believe magic is bad. They recognize magic is power and a threat to theirs. A threat to their control, a threat to their governance, a threat to belief in their flavor of divine. The folks in charge at The Church may still be evil of course. But they're evil because of what they've done and what they continue to do, not the other way around. Some of them might even be magic users, using their position in The Church to shield themselves, and to exert their power over others.

They understand that a Cleric casting "read magic" and a wizard casting "read magic" are doing the same thing. Which is exactly why they need to exterminate all wizards, because if people figure out they can just read a book and do the same thing that The Divine has granted their Most Loyal Followers*TM, everything The Church has accomplished will be undone. And there are as many True Believers who see this as the Divine Work as there are Realists who know it must be done to maintain the status quo as there are the Ignorant who just go along with it.

But ultimately, and this is again why I advise against playing through fantastical IRL history. Subjects like "The Church" are not universally agreed-upon mustache-twirling villains. They are subjects that you very much risk pissing people off if you present them in in a one-dimensional manner. That's not to say you can't present a fair picture, but it's a lot of real work with no guarantee that it'll pass the smell test.

[KaussH]

If you really want to get the feel right, you may want to focus more on the good npcs as opposed to the villains. Hardliners and villian npcs can very much be over the top, ranting and frothing with isums, pretty easy.

But the good people should do it as well. Deliver a crass comment with a smile, say how everyone knows. Make sure they tell the pc " oh, your not at all what i expected for (comment here) "

Isums from evil and bad people, its expected. But unintended microagressions can make the world feel like even the " good" people are against them.

Note, please make sure your player is cool about all this after session for a bit, sometimes people have an " idea" and dont realize how it might play out.

[jjordan]

So i'm home brewing a low magic system with a heavy inspiration from medieval history, it still has elves, dwarves, yuan-ti and the like, but the setting is dominated by (mostly) historically accurate human civilizations and functionality. The setting is just in it's infancy but i can already see that it's going to be RIFE with classist prejudice, anti-magic prejudice and anti non-human prejudice, as well as imperial colonialist ideas and generally all the icky stuff of mankind.

And i have a player who wants to play a peasant girl who learned magic mysteriously found in the wilderness. I told her "hey this might end up in your character catching serious crap from people and being really discriminated against, are you ok with that?" And she said yes emphatically.

Soo... Now i've gotta figure out how i wanna approach this maturely and delicately. I really like this player and dont want any feel-bads, SO.
How can i represent the kind of class-ism, discrimination and prejudice against the un-known without hurting anybody IRL? I know keeping open communication and giving the players the powers to stop play at any time if they feel uncomfortable are baseline.
Should i pull punches to the extent of the prejudice? The setting has medieval Catholicism as the main faith (but isnt specifically verified, gods dont show themselves much) should i pull back the churches' pursuit of non-catholic behavior?
How might i be able to temper any discrimination on NPC behavior to be more... Palatable?
Should the players be able to change the wide spread distrust of magic and the "other"?

Yes, you should pull punches. You only need enough power to the punch to convey the idea of the prejudice, you don't need to give them the full feels experience.

Players should be able to overcome obstacles. So while the prejudice may never go away, it should be possible for the player to carve a reasonable lifestyle for herself.

Extended session zero should include a solo roleplay for this player where she deals with the prejudice in a short scenario. Then go over what worked and what didn't, with particular attention paid to what made the participants feel uncomfortable. I will note that you are actively trying to find the discomfort level in this test scenario. If you don't find that level you won't know where the line is. So find the line. If you can't do this then you shouldn't play the prejudice (either as a campaign element, as that specific character, or that specific player).

There's been a lot of really good discussion on this thread. Thanks everyone.

[kyoryu]

As others have said, inform the player, and let them decide. Then you can either go as-is, let them change the concept, or change the world, or decide it's not a good fit.

I'd go one further, though. When you tell the player how they can expect their character to be treated, get specific. Like give very specific examples of the types of things that will happen to them. It's one thing to be told "you'll be discriminated against." It's another thing to be told "if you're in town buying stuff, and somebody gets a glimpse of <identifying feature of magic>, you can expect them to call the guards so that you'll be detained, tried, and possibly hung" (as an example). Don't rely on generic terms, get as specific as you can.

[OldTrees1]

When you are having a character demonstrate or speak prejudice, it can help to mention OOC that they are wrong. For some players the side comment will mean nothing. For others it will help them remain comfortable with the game.

--source someone wiser than me from this forum. I forget the name, I am sorry.

[Shackled Slayer]

Thank you for replying everyone! Im beginning to think i should probably go less accurate to the time period i want to draw inspiration from, as well as not worry about palatability if what im describing is supposed to be uncomfortable.

I had originally thought about making the setting a close model of the dark ages world, but i might eschew the stuff i had thought i'd use and opt to present a milder face on it. I'll definitely make explicitly clear the intent and themes i plan to work with and make sure the player is still on board with it.

[Jay R]

I think who you are running the game for makes a difference. I was in a game with class prejudice, race prejudice, anti-magic prejudice, sexism, and other such things. I played an elf thief/wizard, my wife played a wizard, one friend had an elven ranger, and another had a female paladin. The world was not decent to our party.

It was great fun, but we were all positive and self-confident people. I would hesitate to run such a game for people who were introverted, nervous, shy, unsure of themselves, or lacking self-confidence.

[hewhosaysfish]

One concern that I would have, which I haven't seen voiced up-thread yet, is the impact on the *other* players. The ones that aren't spell-casters but one of their companions gets outed as a "witch".

If the witch is shunned or ostracised, will people consorting with the witch face disapproval? Will people put prices up for them if people think that you are buying for the witch? If people won't deal with a witch, will patrons offer a job to a group witch *contains* a witch?

Every vaguely social scene is bent around either concealing this character's transgressions, or concealing that they are involved.

It obviously get worse if the "witch" faces stronger sanctions. If they get driven out of town, then does the whole group have to move on the the next town? Abandon any successes or aspirations in this town? Or do they (temporarily) disown the "witch", carry on in town without her, and then meet up with her again when (if?) they leave (requiring that player to sit out any adventurers in between)?
Witch-burning, gives a similar result. Either the rest of the party stages a hasty jail-break (and flee) or or they join the throng and cheer (and the witch player rolls a new character).

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Racial prejudice (whether "race" means "species" or "ethnicity") has similar questions attached.
If people shun the outsider, will they shun people who deal with outsider?
Can the outsider can "pass" as the dominiant race, or will the group try to hide how closely they are working with them?

The community is unlikely to arrest, banish and/or execute foreigners just for being foreigners, so that's slightly better than being a witch. An authenticly bigoted community may accuse an outsider of any unsolved crimes in the jurisdiction but the DM controls how many unsolved crimes there are in a town, how severe they are and whether there are any other outsiders to get the blame.
If the PCs see a foreigner get hung for murder on the flimsiest of evidence, then that will underline the prejudices of the setting without that feeling of "Oh, we need to break so-and-so out of jail. Again."

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Sexual prejudice is not going to derail events the same way. Obviously, no society makes being a woman illegal, even if they are second-class citizens. And people aren't jsut going to blame random crimes on the nearest woman.

The problems of a woman are mostly going to involve not being take seriously. Maybe not being listened to, maybe not being allowed to speak in certain fora at all.
She'll have to either have to have a male party member act as mouthpiece for her ideas (awkward for her but not a big hardship for him), or confine herself to the society of other women (actually good in a game as it gives different players different angle to work on), or speak out of turn and get put "in her place" (may confer some second-hand shame on the men around her but still leaves the door open for them to carry on without her afterwards).

If people won't do business with a woman, then maybe one of the male party members can act on her behalf and they don't have really make a secret of it because it's not regarded as cheating the system. Rather it's how the system is *expected* to work. ("May I speak to the man of the house, please?") That man may have to pretend to be her husband/brother/father/cousin to make this palatable to townsfolk, though, which could make things more troublesome for him if she later acts outs and he is expected to be the one to rein her in. But that's his risk to take when he takes "responsibility" for her.

[Ravens_cry]

On the subject of role playing classism, you basically have the assumption that, no matter how good someone else is, you are better than them in some vaguely defined way. If you are big on noble obligation, you may put their needs in front of yours, "No, no, the others first." but the offer should be made, because that is your due. A lot of your interactions with those your considers your inferiors will have a certain condescension to them. "Ah, I see you are one of the good ones." or "You are a credit to your people." "If only more X were like you." are things that might be said to someone you see as your inferior who you have a positive opinion of all the same. If someone would disappoint you, you might shrug it off as "That's all right, one really can't expect any better of one of you folk." Thoughtless little microaggressions more than frothing at the mouth hatred.

[Cuttlerilla]

I would say not to pull any punches with most npcs, but have the occasional npc who's got no qualms at all with it. As some respite, you know?

[Segev]

Play it straight. Don't go out of your way looking for excuses, but don't pull your punches. Think about WHY the prejudice, discrimination, and the like exist. Classism is a very common root of it: as a member of XYZ class, the society tells the person they have certain rights, entitlements, and duties. It is common for people to seek to maximize their rights/entitlements while minimizing the cost to themselves of adhering to their duties, and the more wicked the person the more likely they are to do both.

So, if she's a peasant with mysterious magic, how the classism and prejudice manifests will vary.

Is it seen as a blood right thing? There will be a lot of folks who assume she's a by-blow of a noble, and treat her accordingly.

Is it seen as proof of their right to be upper class? She probably is best off feigning upper-classness, herself, since "obviously" she "must be," and if she doesn't, people will assume she's faking or that she's committing some horrible taboo.

Is it seen as a privilege of the upper class? Then she'll be seen as somebody "putting on airs" at best, and maybe as some sort of thief or subversive insurrectionist who is trying to claim powers not meant for her ilk.

But how to manifest it will depend on the cultural norms and expectations, and what people assume magic is signalling them, socially, vs. what she actually is/does. Prejudice will either be based on having magic, followed by shock and discomfort (and associated mistreatment) based on learning the prejudice was wrong, OR it will be based on her class, and the fact she has magic will create that shock and discomfort and associated mistreatment.

What the mistreatment will be will largely depend on the nature of the social discomfort.

[Catullus64]

Alright, if I were the first person to answer your question, this would definitely not be my primary advice. However, everything I might have to say about how to handle it with delicacy and maturity has more or less been said already, so I'll consider an alternate approach:

Have you considered making prejudice ridiculous?

Have the Witch Hunters of the church be so obsessed with procedure and dogma that they miss super obvious black magic going on right in front of them. Have the people at the top of unjust power structures be frothingly insane. Have the bigoted merchants and farmers be so dense that you don't want their respect and approval.

I once played a character who was meant to be a zealous witch hunter, and he became a lot more fun once I stopped trying to make him a tortured soul constrained by the prejudices of his time, and started playing him as a nigh-unhinged loon.

In other words, go so over the top that it approaches the level of black comedy, rather than dignifying bigotry with po-faced realism. The Warhammer 40,000 approach, or at least the approach 40k used to have.

It will certainly have an impact on the tone of your game. You might have to sacrifice a little bit of that vaunted historical realism. But it is definitely one way to explore real-life-adjacent themes of prejudice and injustice without making things uncomfortable for players who may have real-life problems in that arena.

The problem with serious portrayals of these issues in a game is that they can very seldom be solved by swords and Fireballs. The more authentic to real-life analogues you get, the less it becomes plausible to have a scrappy band of adventurers bring about real change. Unless you want your game to be 5 sessions of overthrowing the evil prince, and then 25+ sessions setting up a revolutionary council to administrate the regime change and institute legal reforms, I would dial back the authenticity.

[truemane]

So there's three things here. There's the story she wants to tell (and by that I mean the story of her character). There's the the story you want to tell. And then there's the amorphous combo-blob of realism and verisimilitude.

There's no *correct* version of any of these three. She can want what she wants. You can want what you want. Both of you can desire different levels of realism. And all of you can be right. But the whole thing is going to work best the more aligned the three can be.

So. You should talk to her. Don't assume that, because she expressed enthusiasm for an 'oppressed magical peasant' story means that she's enthusiastic about the oppressed magical peasant you want to tell. Genuine political oppression doesn't look much at all like YA novel political oppression, so you want to be as clear as you can about what that kind of story means to you, and try to get her to be as clear as she can about what kind of story does she want to be a part of.

Get specific.
-How often will this be a factor in the on-going story?
-What things in-universe will be made more difficult? How much more difficult?
-Are here things she might want to do that she won't be able to do?
-Are there things she doesn't want to do that she might be forced to do?
-What are some specific examples of things that she thinks might happen would be fun?
-What are some specific examples of things that she thinks might happen would not be fun?

And so on. And if her vision of this doesn't match yours, don't try to convince her that her view is too realistic or not realistic enough. And you don't have to change your world or story-telling style to suit her. If you find you disagree in a way that generates conflict, just tell her that this character idea won't work.

The real mistake, I think, is assuming that there's one real way this kind of story can go. And then deciding in a vacuum whether to do it the "right way" or "tone it down" for her. There's no right way. There's just the way you'd like to do it, crossed with what feels realistic to you. But a truly realistic Medieval story would be mostly about farming turnips and dying of scurvy.

So making it work is about aligning three completely arbitrary and subjective reference fames. If you can align them, awesome. If not, also fine, it it's best to know about it now.