The Many Deaths of Regdar [Archive]

Emprint

08-23-2010, 04:16 PM

Actually, the story isn't well known to me. :D Why DO they hate the guy? IMO a good ol' fashioned Human Fighter is a old standby...

Monte Cook explains. (http://montecook.livejournal.com/150303.html)

When I worked at TSR, there was always basically a truism in cover art--the central figure had to be a white male. Most of us actually helping to create the cover art, either by conceiving it or actually creating it, hated that kind of outlook, but the powers that be believed that our audience was entirely white males and they needed someone that they could identify with on the cover.

So, when D&D was bought by WotC and we started working on 3E, we really felt that this was a time when we could break this mold. We worked with the artists to create iconic characters of different ethnicities (both in appearance and in name) and with equal representation of male and female. At some point in the process, someone said, "hey, you don't have a male human fighter in the mix.

It was a thumb to the nose of the old TSR requirement. Because, sadly, the people who noted that there was no "male human fighter" were basically saying "white human male fighter." It was our intention that while humans would be multi-ethnic, nonhumans were just that. So Tordek wasn't a white dwarf or a black dwarf, he was just a dwarf. So the core fighter wasn't a white guy. At least that was our intention.

Regdar intruded his way into 3E, empowered by marketing and sales people. At the last minute, in a matter of just those few short weeks, the old TSR standard reared its ugly head. Not only was Regdar on the scene, he was in the spotlight. This was the character that would be on the cardboard standees and other promotional items, and would usually take center stage in the covers. I was caught entirely off-guard and was far too late to even comment on him. Now, to his credit, the initial Regdar artist, Todd Lockwood, made Regdar's ethnicity kind of vague. (Regdar had shown up in Todd's earlier sketches when he designed the look of 3E armor.) It's only in later artwork that Regdar seems to be pretty clearly the white male fighter we tried to avoid. And to the credit of a number of people--artists, art directors, designers and editors alike--our disdain for Regdar made its way into a lot of art. If you look closely, Regdar is getting thrashed on most of the early pieces he shows up in. (Look for his ignominious fate on the original DM's Screen, for example.)

I sympathize with him a lot. Non-white people are the only subject (along with frontal male nudity) that I've actually had freelance artists refuse to draw.

That said, the claim that just because a character's an elf or a dwarf, they're not white or black or whatever is kind of silly to me.

TheTygre

08-23-2010, 04:51 PM

If I'm not mistaken, wasn't Regdar the statue for the 4e Medusa?

Whizbang Dustyboots

08-23-2010, 05:08 PM

I sympathize with him a lot. Non-white people are the only subject (along with frontal male nudity) that I've actually had freelance artists refuse to draw.
Clearly they weren't freelancing long enough if they were refusing perfectly reasonable subjects.

A hungry freelancer is a compliant freelancer. :D

Christopher V. Brady

08-23-2010, 05:13 PM

Emprint

08-23-2010, 05:19 PM

Clearly they weren't freelancing long enough if they were refusing perfectly reasonable subjects.

A hungry freelancer is a compliant freelancer. :D

I should mention I don't think there are that many freelancers who wouldn't draw non-whites. (There are more who won't draw male nudity, but still probably not too many.) Just that it's happened, and that it's very frustrating when it does.

That Idiot

08-23-2010, 05:19 PM

Eh, I always thought that the reason he died so much was because the player was an idiot and stuck with the Fighter Class, rather than doing the smart thing and dipping into it for two levels and going Barbarian or whatnot.

Me too. I though the fighter always being the guy who dies was a subtle way of saying 'this class isn't the best at survival'.

Lawful_Indifferent

08-23-2010, 05:23 PM

It's funny, because I never really thought of him as a white guy. I remember him being kind of a middling shade of tan, like a native american or something.

Learn something new every day, I suppose.

Christopher V. Brady

08-23-2010, 05:28 PM

Me too. I though the fighter always being the guy who dies was a subtle way of saying 'this class isn't the best at survival'.

Yeah, I mean... Colour never entered into my view. After all, there's a Black Paladin woman who was always there, Tordek was a White male, if a Dwarf, but he wasn't used as often either. Ember the Monk was more Hispanic than Asian if I remember the art correctly. There was a White male cleric of Pelor (Jozan) and he didn't get ganked as often, so it never occurred to me that Redgar was picked on because he was Fighter Genericus Whiticus.

So again, I always thought it was a hint at the class sucking, rather then artists getting uppity about 3.x marketing division getting cold feet over nothing.

Armitage

08-23-2010, 05:53 PM

And petrified in the 4E Monster Manual, under "Medusa".

If I'm not mistaken, wasn't Regdar the statue for the 4e Medusa?

I believe the 4e Medusa art is recycled from the Sinister Spire cover art mentioned by the OP.

reitschule

08-23-2010, 08:12 PM

White males are clearly better than other genders and ethnicities.

We're so much more enlightened and objective that we don't need characters that look like us to identify with.

The lesser races and genders still appreciate that kind of silliness, so we humor them with pictures that look like them.

CowboyEnergy

08-23-2010, 08:19 PM

Yeah, I mean... Colour never entered into my view. After all, there's a Black Paladin woman who was always there, Tordek was a White male, if a Dwarf, but he wasn't used as often either. Ember the Monk was more Hispanic than Asian if I remember the art correctly. There was a White male cleric of Pelor (Jozan) and he didn't get ganked as often, so it never occurred to me that Redgar was picked on because he was Fighter Genericus Whiticus.

So again, I always thought it was a hint at the class sucking, rather then artists getting uppity about 3.x marketing division getting cold feet over nothing.

Jozan did turn evil though.

Smartmonkey

08-23-2010, 08:25 PM

Waffle Zombie

08-23-2010, 08:26 PM

Jozan did turn evil though.

I remember the debates on the forums over this. Did we ever get any explanation about him casting Symbol of Pain? Was it an easter egg, or just a mistake?

Smartmonkey

08-23-2010, 08:26 PM

Christopher V. Brady

08-23-2010, 08:28 PM

Ember was black, so far as I could tell. I'd have to go track down my old 3.5 PHB to be sure.

Was she? You may be right. I don't have my 3.x books handy. Either way, she's still popular, and despite being a Monk, she wasn't beaten to death all the time as poor Regdar seemed to be.

Sangrolu

08-23-2010, 08:32 PM

Was she?

Yep.

CowboyEnergy

08-23-2010, 08:44 PM

I remember the debates on the forums over this. Did we ever get any explanation about him casting Symbol of Pain? Was it an easter egg, or just a mistake?

I was more thinking of him becoming a vampire, but yeah that's a good one. Jozan was a jerk too! Remember him stepping on Krusk's face?

Owesome

08-23-2010, 09:01 PM

Just for laughs:

- Regdar considers the hand of Vecna an inferior substitute. He's right.

Ah, memetic mutation. (http://suburbaknght.livejournal.com/335668.html#cutid1)

Alter_Boy

08-23-2010, 09:32 PM

In Fiendish Codex I and Demonomicon 4ed, Regdar is wandering aimlessly through the abyssal layer of Zuggtomy. Martial PC on an inhospitable outer plane = dead man!

Hammel

08-23-2010, 10:35 PM

This is absolutely hilarious. I had no idea. I will have to go through my books to see if I can find a Regdar sighting.

A fighter wandering about alone is pretty normal fare for me.

Front Toward Everybody

08-23-2010, 11:16 PM

Heh, I just checked my Call of Cthulhu D20 book because I figured that he'd be dead in the illo of the iconics fighting Cthulhu in the appendix about mixing D&D and CoC.

He's indeed dead as fuck, page 285, lower right.

http://www.wizards.com/dnd/images/CoC_55.jpg

Front Toward Everybody

08-23-2010, 11:33 PM

Dig this: He's not just doomed in 2 dimensions:

http://www.atoncer.com/miniatures/games/dungeon-dragon-images/D&%20D%20Archfiends%20%20Ochre%20Jelly%20-%20Rare.jpg

mrlost

08-24-2010, 12:05 AM

I just figured from Heroes of Horror and stuff that fighters died first. I do recall that the one Greyhawk game had an 16th level Redgar, Alhandra, and Gimble? die at the hands of the Illithid PCs. Jozan and Mialee escaped thanks to a contigency spell though.

Good times. Also thank you book of challenges for providing fodder for my Evil world domination games.

Hellzon

08-24-2010, 12:09 AM

Ember was black, so far as I could tell. I'd have to go track down my old 3.5 PHB to be sure.

wizards.com to the rescue!

http://www.wizards.com/dnd/images/ember_color.jpg

The iconic paladin, on the other hand, looks hispanic. And has a broken knee.

http://www.rocketllama.com/blog-it/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/nIK-3353114-183x300.jpg

simontmn

08-24-2010, 12:11 AM

It's funny, because I never really thought of him as a white guy. I remember him being kind of a middling shade of tan, like a native american or something.

Learn something new every day, I suppose.

His original appearance was more kind of Latino.

Personally as a white human male without any particular self-loathing, the attitude of Monte & co rather pisses me off. I guess I could be charitable and say their hostility was to the Marketing dept rather than white males* per se, but the fact that they had deliberately sought to avoid any white human males, in particular the classic white human male Fighter types, speaks against that.

*Leaving aside camp Sorcerers in many-buckled fetish wear. Or was he a Half-Elf? :D

Five Eyes

08-24-2010, 12:18 AM

Curious. Anyone aware if Regdar bites it in Dungeonscape? Against apparent trends, he's not part of the adventuring party that gets whittled down over the course of the book, but I don't know if he's elsewhere in there...

KromeLizard

08-24-2010, 05:36 AM

His original appearance was more kind of Latino.

Personally as a white human male without any particular self-loathing, the attitude of Monte & co rather pisses me off. I guess I could be charitable and say their hostility was to the Marketing dept rather than white males* per se, but the fact that they had deliberately sought to avoid any white human males, in particular the classic white human male Fighter types, speaks against that.

*Leaving aside camp Sorcerers in many-buckled fetish wear. Or was he a Half-Elf? :D

It's strange to interpret his opposition to TSRs narrow gender and race requirements as hostility to white men.

Jim DelRosso

08-24-2010, 05:43 AM

It's strange to interpret his opposition to TSRs narrow gender and race requirements as hostility to white men.

Strange, but sadly not uncommon.

Front Toward Everybody

08-24-2010, 05:47 AM

Personally as a white human male without any particular self-loathing, the attitude of Monte & co rather pisses me off.

Speaking as a white human male without any self-loathing and no "lol reverse racism" axe to grind, I find them thumbing their nose at an ill-conceived and arguably racist marketing directive hilarious.

Chris Gardiner

08-24-2010, 05:48 AM

That said, the claim that just because a character's an elf or a dwarf, they're not white or black or whatever is kind of silly to me.

Yeah, that's pretty flimsy.

"Our iconic fighter isn't a white guy!"

"Sure he is. There. The short dude with the beard."

"He's not white. He's a dwarf."

"He's a white dwarf."

/ Games Workshop sues.

Front Toward Everybody

08-24-2010, 05:53 AM

Yo! Master

08-24-2010, 06:08 AM

No, that looks like him just being a PC. ;)

Front Toward Everybody

08-24-2010, 06:13 AM

No, that looks like him just being a PC. ;)

"Can I get a bonus to Climb if I step on the barbarians head?"

ESkemp

08-24-2010, 06:31 AM

One thing that got done with Exalted was the dare to put out a major fantasy RPG with a black woman front and center on the cover and see if it sold.

It did.

Portin Astorm

08-24-2010, 06:35 AM

"Can I get a bonus to Climb if I step on the barbarians head?"

Best part is, he can get away with it. Cardinal rule: never piss off the cleric.

Acastus

08-24-2010, 06:45 AM

Jozan, ostensibly a cleric of PelorYes, Pelor...of the Burning Hate!

Eurhetemec

08-24-2010, 06:54 AM

Speaking as a white human male without any self-loathing and no "lol reverse racism" axe to grind, I find them thumbing their nose at an ill-conceived and arguably racist marketing directive hilarious.

This, as they say. I really love the "Regdar is dead again" meme, and the reason for it only makes an already funny thing funnier.

One thing that got done with Exalted was the dare to put out a major fantasy RPG with a black woman front and center on the cover and see if it sold.

It did.

This is true. That picture was awesome and helped make me even more pumped for Exalted (and I was already pretty pumped prior to Exalted's release).

I note, however, that WW went for a more standard "array of characters" for second edition but kept the black iconics literally front and center respectively.

ESkemp

08-24-2010, 06:56 AM

I note, however, that WW went for a more standard "array of characters" for second edition but kept the black iconics literally front and center respectively.

Panther's a big dude. You put him over on one side, and the whole platform's going to start tilting.

That Idiot

08-24-2010, 07:09 AM

One thing that got done with Exalted was the dare to put out a major fantasy RPG with a black woman front and center on the cover and see if it sold.

It did.
This was several years after putting a black man front and center on the Mage core book. Ho hum.

Didn't WW make Panther a black guy because the core team thought no one would believe in a white guy bringing the righteousness? I recall posts to that effect from years ago, but I'm having trouble finding links.

ESkemp

08-24-2010, 07:16 AM

This was several years after putting a black man front and center on the Mage core book. Ho hum.

Say what you like, but the fantasy market's even more conservative than the modern occult market.

Didn't WW make Panther a black guy because the core team thought no one would believe in a white guy bringing the righteousness? I recall posts to that effect from years ago, but I'm having trouble finding links.

That would be news to me.

Particle_Man

08-24-2010, 07:24 AM

The D&D mostly 3.5 webcomic Order of the Stick has Roy, the black fighter.

Come to think of it Roy died too, but got better.

Wields-Rulebook-Heavily

08-24-2010, 07:33 AM

"Regdar always dies" really transformed into "Fighters always die" over the course of 3.x, mostly because it was truth in advertising. :p

Monkey King

08-24-2010, 07:36 AM

That said, the claim that just because a character's an elf or a dwarf, they're not white or black or whatever is kind of silly to me.
It's kind of noteworthy that there's a black halfling in the 4E PHB. It seems like they just sidestep the issue by mostly drawing dragonborn and tieflings, though.

larqven

08-24-2010, 07:41 AM

Man, I was mostly ignorant about all of this. I do remember at some point (by 4E no less) thinking--Regdar sure seems to get axed a lot!

But considering the fighter in my own game seems bound and determined to put himself in harms way, indeed, supposed to to some degree--it doesn't strike me as that weird. Fighters live and die by the sword--throw in magic and worse--and stranger-danger things can happen to them!;)

First and Forsaken Brian

08-24-2010, 07:45 AM

Another fun Iconic "Easter Egg" from the 3.X days.

Jozan, ostensibly a cleric of Pelor, is a bit of a heel, if not turning entirely to evil.

Casting Symbol of Pain:

It's worth noting that the image of Jozan casting Symbol of Pain first appeared in the 3.0 PHB. At the time, the symbol of pain was one option of the larger Symbol spell, and did not carry the [Evil] descriptor.

Emprint

08-24-2010, 08:18 AM

It's kind of noteworthy that there's a black halfling in the 4E PHB. It seems like they just sidestep the issue by mostly drawing dragonborn and tieflings, though.

Halflings, sadly, are always underrepresented. It's cool that they're multi-ethnic, though.

Blindsniper

08-24-2010, 08:22 AM

Ember was black, so far as I could tell. I'd have to go track down my old 3.5 PHB to be sure.

Shame on you! Surly you mean "African Forgotten Realmian" or "African Greyhawkian" or "African Eberronian". OK yeah I am done.

Front Toward Everybody

08-24-2010, 08:25 AM

Shame on you! Surly you mean "African Forgotten Realmian" or "African Greyhawkian" or "African Eberronian". OK yeah I am done.

I think the moniker would be "African Oerthican," as Greyhawk is more or less the 3.X "default setting." However there's no Africa on Oerth as far as I'm aware, so you'd have to find their analogue where darker complected people hail from. Of course it could be that the whole of Oerth is fairly heterogenus, and doesn't mirror our worlds social constructs with regard to "race."

I'm taking your comment far too seriously, of course. :P

Xenophile

08-24-2010, 08:43 AM

It's kind of noteworthy that there's a black halfling in the 4E PHB.

I thought that the two dark-skinned dwarves would be more noteworthy, especially since they're also both female.

Zeiram

08-24-2010, 09:16 AM

Hmm, this puts the illustration for this week's encounter in D&D Encounters into a new light. That certainly looks like Regdar being attacked, though I'm not 100% on it.

Topher

08-24-2010, 09:27 AM

Ooh, an ignore list fodder thread! We haven't had one of these in a while!

Topher, clicking merrily away

Portin Astorm

08-24-2010, 09:29 AM

Ooh, an ignore list fodder thread! We haven't had one of these in a while!

Topher, clicking merrily away

Ok, I'm not even going to ask what you found offensive about this thread, instead:

Was there a point to your post?

Monkey King

08-24-2010, 10:08 AM

Ooh, an ignore list fodder thread! We haven't had one of these in a while!

Topher, clicking merrily away
What? :confused:

Lostdwarf

08-24-2010, 10:18 AM

Ooh, an ignore list fodder thread! We haven't had one of these in a while!

Topher, clicking merrily away

So . . . you posted in a thread solely for the purpose of telling us you are not going to follow the thread? What kind of shrieking narcissism festival are running there Topher?

Matt Sheridan

08-24-2010, 10:19 AM

Personally as a white human male without any particular self-loathing, the attitude of Monte & co rather pisses me off.
Maybe you should be pissed off at the marketing suits who assume you're a racist and a sexist who would feel alienated by portrayals of characters whose demographic checkboxes are different from your own.

masshysteria

08-24-2010, 10:48 AM

Ax_

08-24-2010, 10:57 AM

...So was I the only one who didn't much look at the art of player races, but instead liked seeing dragons and such? :p

(Anyway - that Jozan guy looks awesome.
I fully approve of characters acting as PCs would.)

Sethra007

08-24-2010, 11:29 AM

One thing that got done with Exalted was the dare to put out a major fantasy RPG with a black woman front and center on the cover and see if it sold.

It did.

Not to derail into non-d20 games, but....

Same with Mage: the Ascension (well, except it was modern fantasy). You guys put a black man front and center on the cover, and it sold. :D

I remember when that book released at Gen Con and I went to get my copy, I talked to a black guy at the White Wolf booth (don't remember his name for sure, now...Travis, maybe?) and I was all "Dude! HOW did you pull this off?!?!" He told me that nearly every non-white gamer at the con had asked him the same question.

Eurhetemec

08-24-2010, 11:34 AM

I remember when that book released at Gen Con and I went to get my copy, I talked to a black guy at the White Wolf booth (don't remember his name for sure, now...Travis, maybe?) and I was all "Dude! HOW did you pull this off?!?!" He told me that nearly every non-white gamer at the con had asked him the same question.

This is fascinating, because when I got Mage, I didn't think for a second that it having a black character on the cover was remotely significant. I mean, it's set in the here and now, more or less, and being a wizard is one thing that is definitely never race-specific (er... except in a D&D 2E and earlier sense!). It just looked like a cool modern wizard to me.

chiguayante

08-24-2010, 11:37 AM

Ok, I'm not even going to ask what you found offensive about this thread,

Probably the white guy getting pissed at Monte for wanting a non-white-guy in the books, or the (presumably) white guy that was making fun of the term "african american" as opposed to "black".

Nai_Calus

08-24-2010, 11:39 AM

While Regdar keeps getting ganked, at least he kept showing up in art. Poor Nebin, the iconic gnome illusionist, was overshaowded by Gimble the iconic gnome bard when 3.5 came out.

Nebin managed to make a few more brief appearances before finally being written off in Dungeonscape.

Don't forget Devis, who also got overshadowed by Gimble. Poor Devis. And IMO a half-elf Bard is a hell of a lot more iconic than a gnome bard, to boot. Every Bard I've ever seen in a 3.x game was a half-elf. Most of the 4E bards I've seen were half-elves too, come to think of it.

Sethra007

08-24-2010, 11:41 AM

This is fascinating, because when I got Mage, I didn't think for a second that it having a black character on the cover was remotely significant. I mean, it's set in the here and now, more or less, and being a wizard is one thing that is definitely never race-specific (er... except in a D&D 2E and earlier sense!). It just looked like a cool modern wizard to me.

If you're used to seeing people who look like you on the cover of the books you like, you likely didn't care one way of the other.

If you never see people who look like you on the covers of the books you like, and have pretty much resigned yourself to never, ever seeing anyone who looks like you on those covers....well, the day Mage: the Ascension released just about knocked you over from sheer shock.

ETA: I'm sorry, I'm derailing the thread so I will shut up now.

Front Toward Everybody

08-24-2010, 11:45 AM

4e neatly skirts the issue by putting a hot human or near human chick and a male weird monster on each cover.

jephlewis

08-24-2010, 11:48 AM

Another fun Iconic "Easter Egg" from the 3.X days.

Jozan, ostensibly a cleric of Pelor, is a bit of a heel, if not turning entirely to evil.

Casting Symbol of Pain:
http://www.wizards.com/leaving.asp?url=/dnd/images/ph35_gallery/PHB35_PG291_WEB.jpg&origin=dnd_ag_20030705a Finding his footinghttp://www.wizards.com/leaving.asp?url=/dnd/images/ph35_gallery/PHB35_PG68_WEB.jpg&origin=dnd_ag_20030705a

Yes, Pelor...of the Burning Hate!Totally beat me to it! For those who don't know, there were some posters on the old wizards boards that concluded Pelor was actually EEEvil: http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/75882/19558798/Pelor_the_Burning_Hate

Front Toward Everybody

08-24-2010, 11:50 AM

ETA: I'm sorry, I'm derailing the thread so I will shut up now.

I think it's interesting to get another perspective on it. Kind of highlights how invisible privilege can be. It's easy to say "it's not a big deal" what the fighting man in the illustrations of a D&D book looks like, when 95 times out of 100 he looks like you.

Emprint

08-24-2010, 12:11 PM

This is fascinating, because when I got Mage, I didn't think for a second that it having a black character on the cover was remotely significant. I mean, it's set in the here and now, more or less, and being a wizard is one thing that is definitely never race-specific (er... except in a D&D 2E and earlier sense!). It just looked like a cool modern wizard to me.

This is kind of significant to Monte's point, I think. As a white male, and from outside the production pipeline, I didn't often notice this stuff, either. There's a lot of conventional wisdom that says that the race of a character on the cover is important, but outside of people who are actively racist, it doesn't seem to stick out much to, well, white guys. So why do it?

Wields-Rulebook-Heavily

08-24-2010, 12:28 PM

Nai_Calus

08-24-2010, 12:38 PM

Well, if you believe your target audience is composed of actively racist people...

Well, it is in some ways. I actively hate anyone who isn't an elf/eladrin. ;)

Naxuul

08-24-2010, 12:43 PM

This is kind of significant to Monte's point, I think. As a white male, and from outside the production pipeline, I didn't often notice this stuff, either. There's a lot of conventional wisdom that says that the race of a character on the cover is important, but outside of people who are actively racist, it doesn't seem to stick out much to, well, white guys. So why do it?
Because a good deal of marketing is based on avoiding risk. So you get commercials for Brokeback Mountain that never give the impression it's a gay love story, books with black protagonists where the marketing group and author have to compromise and put a blue alien on the cover and movie posters that put white minor cast members further in the front than black major cast members.

And there certainly is risk to it. The bile in reaction to Rochelle of Left 4 Dead 2 was quite shocking to me, since apparently to many it was not only unconscionable for there to be two black characters in a four character game but for the only female character to be black.

-Naxuul

Front Toward Everybody

08-24-2010, 12:49 PM

And The bile in reaction to Rochelle of Left 4 Dead 2 was quite shocking to me, since apparently to many it was not only unconscionable for there to be two black characters in a four character game but for the only female character to be black.

Ugh, I'm glad I missed out on that. Apparently two white guys per game is just not enough. The fricking game is set in a place where the survivor mix is actually pretty demograpically probable, even without a deliberate effort to be "inclusive."

Me, I play Coach. I identify with him because he's a chocoholic fatty like me.

verdantgreen

08-24-2010, 12:52 PM

Re: the relevance of Panther's race to his status as a holy man in Exalted.

I have the art book from the collectors' edition of Exalted. Inside Grabowski talks about how he wanted to divorce the Unconquered Sun from many of the more pacifist religions his readers would be familiar with. His solution was to present the iconic priest of the Sun as a more Old Testament prophet than modern clergyman. He felt like making Panther a black man got that message across more effectively.

Emprint

08-24-2010, 12:56 PM

And there certainly is risk to it. The bile in reaction to Rochelle of Left 4 Dead 2 was quite shocking to me, since apparently to many it was not only unconscionable for there to be two black characters in a four character game but for the only female character to be black.

Wow. I completely missed that.

simontmn

08-24-2010, 01:06 PM

Maybe you should be pissed off at the marketing suits who assume you're a racist and a sexist who would feel alienated by portrayals of characters whose demographic checkboxes are different from your own.

I'm fine with them wanting someone who looks like me there - I like having someone who looks like me there. I'm also fine with "portrayals of characters whose demographic checkboxes are different from your own". I just want someone who looks a bit like me - and preferably carries a big sword - in there too. Yaay Regdar! :p

Hammel

08-24-2010, 01:18 PM

Hmm, this puts the illustration for this week's encounter in D&D Encounters into a new light. That certainly looks like Regdar being attacked, though I'm not 100% on it.

They definitely all look similar, don't they? It's just difficult to tell who they are when they have helmets and things.

CowboyEnergy

08-24-2010, 01:23 PM

I'm fine with them wanting someone who looks like me there - I like having someone who looks like me there. I'm also fine with "portrayals of characters whose demographic checkboxes are different from your own". I just want someone who looks a bit like me - and preferably carries a big sword - in there too. Yaay Regdar! :p

Well, I'm sure that 99/100 is tolerable :p

Dalmatian Twills

08-24-2010, 01:52 PM

So . . . you posted in a thread solely for the purpose of telling us you are not going to follow the thread? What kind of shrieking narcissism festival are running there Topher?

No, no, no, he's *ignore listing* merrily away.

This thread is hilarious. And in some spots a bit sad.

Christopher V. Brady

08-24-2010, 02:50 PM

Ok, I'm not even going to ask what you found offensive about this thread, instead:

Was there a point to your post?

What? :confused:

So . . . you posted in a thread solely for the purpose of telling us you are not going to follow the thread? What kind of shrieking narcissism festival are running there Topher?

It's Topher, he wouldn't be who he is if he didn't do this once in a while. Just roll with it and move on.

Maybe you should be pissed off at the marketing suits who assume you're a racist and a sexist who would feel alienated by portrayals of characters whose demographic checkboxes are different from your own.

Actually, I'm pissed at BOTH sides. The Marketing Suits for being overly sensitive over a topic that makes them look racist, and Monte and friends for not sticking to their guns and using passive aggressive tactics to show their disapproval.

Not cool.

Icon

08-24-2010, 02:51 PM

Because a good deal of marketing is based on avoiding risk. So you get commercials for Brokeback Mountain that never give the impression it's a gay love story, books with black protagonists where the marketing group and author have to compromise and put a blue alien on the cover and movie posters that put white minor cast members further in the front than black major cast members.

Case in point the cover to this novel by Michael Flynn:

http://g-ecx.images-amazon.com/images/G/01/ciu/05/c5/4ac3e893e7a016488ef75110.L._SL500_AA300_.jpg

The protagonist happens to be a black woman.

I'm assuming people complained as later printings have the following cover:

http://media.us.macmillan.com/jackets/258H/9780765344984.jpg

Tadatsune

08-24-2010, 02:58 PM

ETA: I'm sorry, I'm derailing the thread so I will shut up now.

I don't think you are deraling at all; the conversation has naturally evolved from the observation that Regdar seems to die frequently, to the reason why that is so and the context surrounding it. Personally, I'm inclined to think a conversation about bias in the fantasy and sci-fi genres is more interesting than a post pointing out all the times that "Redgar" died in your D&D supliment.

Christopher V. Brady

08-24-2010, 03:03 PM

Case in point the cover to this novel by Michael Flynn:

http://g-ecx.images-amazon.com/images/G/01/ciu/05/c5/4ac3e893e7a016488ef75110.L._SL500_AA300_.jpg

The protagonist happens to be a black woman.

I'm assuming people complained as later printings have the following cover:

http://media.us.macmillan.com/jackets/258H/9780765344984.jpg

Uh, wait. The top pic is of a WOMAN? I'm thinking that the bottom picture is better at showing her gender, even if the skin colour is dead wrong...

CowboyEnergy

08-24-2010, 03:06 PM

Uh, wait. The top pic is of a WOMAN? I'm thinking that the bottom picture is better at showing her gender, even if the skin colour is dead wrong...

*Facepalm*

Old Gumphrey

08-24-2010, 03:06 PM

I don't think you are deraling at all; the conversation has naturally evolved from the observation that Regdar seems to die frequently, to the reason why that is so and the context surrounding it. Personally, I'm inclined to think a conversation about bias in the fantasy and sci-fi genres is more interesting than a post pointing out all the times that "Redgar" died in your D&D supliment.

Then go start your own thread about it. This thread is about Regdar, and how much he dies, which is awesome.

I'm pretty sure this is Regdar getting melted by a slime devil. I mean. Who else could it be?

http://mygirlfriendisadm.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/10-mm3-slimedevilbyfranzvohwinkel.jpg

Christopher V. Brady

08-24-2010, 03:10 PM

*Facepalm*

The top pic looks like a Black man. Which makes JUST AS WRONG as the picture of a White woman. But at least the second picture makes what is more important to me up front. It's a book from a female point of view, or as close to it as Mr. Flynn could do it. That to me is more important than what skin colour she is. People are people, in my opinion, it doesn't matter what they look like colour wise. She could be purple with yellow polka dots, and it still doesn't change the fact that this particular book has a woman as the main protagonist.

YMMV.

ESkemp

08-24-2010, 03:25 PM

Same with Mage: the Ascension (well, except it was modern fantasy). You guys put a black man front and center on the cover, and it sold. :D

I remember when that book released at Gen Con and I went to get my copy, I talked to a black guy at the White Wolf booth (don't remember his name for sure, now...Travis, maybe?) and I was all "Dude! HOW did you pull this off?!?!" He told me that nearly every non-white gamer at the con had asked him the same question.

You know, I totally overlooked that. Probably because I joined White Wolf about a year later, so I missed any discussions or juicy anecdotes about how that came about (but was present for the Exalted thingy).

I think the first moment that sort of really changed how I was looking at my own projects was when Andrew Bates, who was illustrating the templates for the Shadow Lords Tribebook, asked me "Hey, can a Shadow Lord be black?" He thought the Philodox would just work really well as a black guy, and I suddenly felt a little abashed that the question was sufficiently unclear that he felt he had to ask.

I have the art book from the collectors' edition of Exalted. Inside Grabowski talks about how he wanted to divorce the Unconquered Sun from many of the more pacifist religions his readers would be familiar with. His solution was to present the iconic priest of the Sun as a more Old Testament prophet than modern clergyman. He felt like making Panther a black man got that message across more effectively.

Bam. And now it's made clear. Thanks!

I kind of feel bad for Regdar, to return to topic. Admittedly, I have a serious love for the plain human fighter, and sure, I like them in male; I find stoicism to be a really entertaining thing to explore in RPGs, and my wife thinks stoicism is hott. (I am not made of stone!) I have lots of respect for Lockwood for being defiant, and it's a shame that going generically white was the result anyway.

Front Toward Everybody

08-24-2010, 03:28 PM

I'm pretty sure this is Regdar getting melted by a slime devil. I mean. Who else could it be?

Giant hamhand, big pointy-guard bastard sword.

Yeah, I'd lay money on it.

I still find it hillarious that he appears on the DDM miniature of the Ocre Jelly as the Jelly's victim.

Smartmonkey

08-24-2010, 04:49 PM

This thread is why I love RPG.net. Or, rather, symptomatic of my reasons for love. I'm kinda proud that I'm the only one that took the bait early on - it's been like, the most civil thread about ethnicity in gaming I've seen in a long time.

Then again, the other places I've seen discussions like this were from MySpace and IGN, so, uh... yeah.

CowboyEnergy

08-24-2010, 05:22 PM

The top pic looks like a Black man. Which makes JUST AS WRONG as the picture of a White woman. But at least the second picture makes what is more important to me up front. It's a book from a female point of view, or as close to it as Mr. Flynn could do it. That to me is more important than what skin colour she is. People are people, in my opinion, it doesn't matter what they look like colour wise. She could be purple with yellow polka dots, and it still doesn't change the fact that this particular book has a woman as the main protagonist.

YMMV.

The point was that the first cover page had a white man as the central figure (actually, the only figure) when the protagonist was actually a black woman.

Christopher V. Brady

08-24-2010, 05:57 PM

The point was that the first cover page had a white man as the central figure (actually, the only figure) when the protagonist was actually a black woman.

The top pic was of a WHITE man? :eek: Oh. Oh dear. I thought he was Black. My apologies...

*Slinks away*:o

reitschule

08-24-2010, 06:48 PM

Speaking as a white human male without any self-loathing and no "lol reverse racism" axe to grind, I find them thumbing their nose at an ill-conceived and arguably racist marketing directive hilarious.It's not racist. A marketing directive can't be racist. They don't have the capacity for real human emotions. They just want to make money. If it's true that having a white male on the cover helps to sell product, then the marketing directive is a good one, as that's the only standard by which it's judged.

The question is why does Monte Cook "hate this kind of outlook"? Before this is explained, he's most clearly the guy with the "axe to grind".

simontmn suggests he's self-loathing.

I suggested that he's self-indulgent. In an under-handed sort of way, he's giving himself and other white males the compliment that they don't need to identify with someone that looks like them on the cover. It doesn't matter how gentle and sublimated the intent is, there's always an element of condescension to those people who still get off on that sort of thing. I think it's more humble to admit that you, like every other human being, do identify more readily with people that look similar.

Is it to bring the races depicted in the art more in line with the reality of gaming demographics or the roots of the standard D&D gameworld? No. It is in fact true that most of the players are white males. And it is true that medieval fantasy gaming, hodgepodge though it is, clearly is influenced the most by European history and folklore, where the people doing interesting things were mostly white males. I don't think that you combat racism by simply pretending things are different from the way they are. That's naive and masturbatory.

Naxuul

08-24-2010, 06:54 PM

It's not racist. A marketing directive can't be racist.
Racism is the institutionalized disenfranchisement of a race, so a marketing directive to downplay or remove certain races is actually pretty much textbook racism.

-Naxuul

reitschule

08-24-2010, 07:10 PM

Racism is the institutionalized disenfranchisement of a race, so a marketing directive to downplay or remove certain races is actually pretty much textbook racism.

-NaxuulFair enough—I don't think that a preponderance of white males in a medieval fantasy game is institutional or structural racism either.

What I was getting at is that, given the absence of intentional hatred on the part of the marketers, and that a multi-ethnic D&D doesn't actually bring the game closer to its roots, or to a more accurate reflection of the demographics of the players, I think it's fair to ask what bothers Monte Cook about it. Instead of just assuming that he's being reasonable.

Chocobo

08-24-2010, 07:16 PM

While Regdar keeps getting ganked, at least he kept showing up in art. Poor Nebin, the iconic gnome illusionist, was overshaowded by Gimble the iconic gnome bard when 3.5 came out.

Nebin managed to make a few more brief appearances before finally being written off in Dungeonscape.

http://www.wizards.com/dnd/images/dungeonscape_gallery/102766.jpg

Nebin: One... last... chance... this illusion of a club can save me!

Jozan: Oh, the gnomanity!

Lidda: *cry* *cry* He was the only man short enough for me.

Tordek: Not the only one, babe. Scha-wing!

CowboyEnergy

08-24-2010, 07:20 PM

Fair enough—I don't think that a preponderance of white males in a medieval fantasy game is institutional or structural racism either.

What I was getting at is that, given the absence of intentional hatred on the part of the marketers, and that a multi-ethnic D&D doesn't actually bring the game closer to its roots, or to a more accurate reflection of the demographics of the players, I think it's fair to ask what bothers Monte Cook about it. Instead of just assuming that he's being reasonable.

At this point in the setting, D&D is hardly "medieval fantasy". The technology level is vaguely medievalesque, but that's about it. That's a really lame reason for having only caucasians.

Edit: Tordek has always been in it for the bitches.

Ascanius

08-24-2010, 07:21 PM

It's kind of noteworthy that there's a black halfling in the 4E PHB. It seems like they just sidestep the issue by mostly drawing dragonborn and tieflings, though.

I thought that the two dark-skinned dwarves could be more noteworthy, especially since they're also both female.
I have a fun game for you!

Read the description of elven appearance in the Player's Handbook:

They have the same range of complexions as humans, tending more toward tan or brown hues. A typical elf’s hair color is dark brown, autumn orange, mossy green, or deep gold. Elves’ ears are long and pointed, and their eyes are vibrant blue, violet, or green.
Now go and look at as many pictures of elves as you can find in Fourth Edition D&D books.

Notice how "tan or brown hues" seems to have morphed in the artists' imagination into "white"?

Icon

08-24-2010, 07:45 PM

What I was getting at is that, given the absence of intentional hatred on the part of the marketers, and that a multi-ethnic D&D doesn't actually bring the game closer to its roots, or to a more accurate reflection of the demographics of the players, I think it's fair to ask what bothers Monte Cook about it. Instead of just assuming that he's being reasonable.

Perhaps the way to grow the market is to appeal to more than your current market?

ESkemp

08-24-2010, 07:52 PM

Fair enough—I don't think that a preponderance of white males in a medieval fantasy game is institutional or structural racism either.

I was very impressed long, long ago when I actually read a guide to the World of Greyhawk and realized that of the four major ethnic groups of humans, only one was actually pale in skin tone. The others were "tan to olive," "lighter, almost copper to a very dark tone which is deepest brown" and "golden-hued."

You can pin white guy dominance on a lot of factors, but accuracy to the source material? Nope.

Naxuul

08-24-2010, 07:58 PM

Waffle Zombie

08-24-2010, 08:04 PM

http://i283.photobucket.com/albums/kk303/loathar2/DnDBillboard_Encounters_S2_S12.jpg

I know it sounds stupid, but he's not even safe on Athas.

ESkemp

08-24-2010, 08:27 PM

IIRC, the original description of Athasian Giants, Half-Giants, Dwarves, Muls and Elves pretty much said they come in two shades: Dark and darker. Not exactly replicated in the artwork.

You have no idea what it meant to work with artists who'd get ethnicity right. One of my favorite sections of my run on Werewolf was the Changing Breed books, largely because I would say things like "Mokolé are going to have a lot of African, Indian, Amerind and Asian members. Some of the notable sigs are Australian aboriginal. White guys are fairly rare." And the guys? Prescott and Spencer in particular? They got it. They actually loved the opportunity to incorporate different cultural design motifs.

Hammel

08-24-2010, 09:46 PM

I know it sounds stupid, but he's not even safe on Athas.

*looks at picture*

Waaaay too much armor, guy, even if you're being eaten by some sort of weird thing.

While it might be common sense that heavy armor in deserts are bad, I first learned that in Al-Qadim. :)

Xenophile

08-24-2010, 09:49 PM

Yeeeah, as good as the 4E artists are, I wish that more of them would take things like elven skin tones into consideration. I for one blame Tolkien's precedence.

The idea of elves with alabaster skin doesn't make much sense when you look at it. I mean, they spend all of their time gallivanting around outside; don't you think that they'd tan just a little? Eladrin, on the other hand... they'd burn like match heads unless they applied some sort of alchemical lotion.

Ascanius

08-24-2010, 10:02 PM

CowboyEnergy

08-24-2010, 10:52 PM

*looks at picture*

Waaaay too much armor, guy, even if you're being eaten by some sort of weird thing.

While it might be common sense that heavy armor in deserts are bad, I first learned that in Al-Qadim. :)

Metal armour too! Ugh, he's going to end up cooked alive in a metal shell, like a lobster!

Hammel

08-24-2010, 11:15 PM

Metal armour too! Ugh, he's going to end up cooked alive in a metal shell, like a lobster!

hmm..that's a jungle, though, right?

Heh. Yeah. Man, I think it would still suck to wear heavy armor in a jungle.

Christopher V. Brady

08-24-2010, 11:18 PM

http://i283.photobucket.com/albums/kk303/loathar2/DnDBillboard_Encounters_S2_S12.jpg

I know it sounds stupid, but he's not even safe on Athas.

That... Doesn't look like Regdar. This guy looks Mediterranean, and his hair is black, not chestnut brown... I may be nitpicking, but... I don't think that's him.

Still, again, another picture of a Fighter sucking.

Jack of None

08-24-2010, 11:52 PM

Mapache

08-25-2010, 12:00 AM

chiguayante

08-25-2010, 12:18 AM

It's laziness. It doesn't have to be deliberate racism on the part of artists who believe that nonwhite people are unworthy of immortalisation in their work, it's just the dumb, easy, ignorant assumption that "white" is the same as "default".

I am a pretty white guy. My ancestors in the last century or so were either English or Irish. I live in a country which is about 90% white. If I'm sick and tired of seeing an overwhelming preponderance of pale-skinned characters in my fantasy roleplaying games, I don't think "it's what the audience expects!" really holds water.

It doesn't even have to be lazy white artists. I'm an artist going to art school where fantasy illustration is a large part of the gigs people get after graduating. There are non-white kids who buy into the same thing because they think that that's what publishers want. That it IS what publishers want just makes it more sad.

(Props to White Wolf though, I'm moving and was going through a lot of my books today and noticed how diverse a lot of the persons in the art were. Good job.)

Save-vs-DM

08-25-2010, 12:26 AM

Is it weird that to this day I remember Redgar as looking like Michael Dorn portraying Worf? Maybe it's the name. Regdar sounds like a good Klingon name. But every time I see him and his skin is pale it throws me for a loop, because to this day I keep remembering him as being portrayed by Michael Dorn.

simontmn

08-25-2010, 02:21 AM

Mulling it over, actually my prime concern is to see a human male Fighter iconic, I don't really care whether he's white black brown red etc, but the lack of any such definitely bugs me.

simontmn

08-25-2010, 02:24 AM

I was very impressed long, long ago when I actually read a guide to the World of Greyhawk and realized that of the four major ethnic groups of humans, only one was actually pale in skin tone...

And the blond, fair-skinned race are the bad, Nazi-esque Suel of Scarlet Brotherhood fame (whose symbol is a blue swastika on red) - ie they're a stereotype, too!

Mr.Samedi

08-25-2010, 03:15 AM

Mulling it over, actually my prime concern is to see a human male Fighter iconic, I don't really care whether he's white black brown red etc, but the lack of any such definitely bugs me.

Erm, there was Regdar. The guy this thread was about. Why would the exclusion of such an iconic bug you?

Surely Jozan, the male white cleric of Pelor who features prominently among the cast of iconics will suit your need for racial validation?

simontmn

08-25-2010, 04:20 AM

Erm, there was Regdar. The guy this thread was about. Why would the exclusion of such an iconic bug you?

Surely Jozan, the male white cleric of Pelor who features prominently among the cast of iconics will suit your need for racial validation?

1. I was talking about Regdar, and the hostilty of Monte, the artists et al to being forced to include him, rather than just Tordek.

2. Clerics don't count. Like I said, it's a Human Fighter thing, you wouldn't understand. :p I suppose a Paladin might have been ok though...

That Idiot

08-25-2010, 04:59 AM

*looks at picture*

Waaaay too much armor, guy, even if you're being eaten by some sort of weird thing.

While it might be common sense that heavy armor in deserts are bad, I first learned that in Al-Qadim. :)

Judging by the background and text, the guy is not in a desert.

Mr.Samedi

08-25-2010, 05:24 AM

1. I was talking about Regdar, and the hostilty of Monte, the artists et al to being forced to include him, rather than just Tordek.

2. Clerics don't count. Like I said, it's a Human Fighter thing, you wouldn't understand. :p I suppose a Paladin might have been ok though...

As I said in my previous post, why would such a thing bug you?

Seriously, I want to know, why would a PHB where only a dwarven fighter been present and not a male human fighter been a deal?

Would a female fighter have been okay? Why wouldn't a white male of another class ben sufficient?

Sethra007

08-25-2010, 06:03 AM

I have a fun game for you!

Read the description of elven appearance in the Player's Handbook:

They have the same range of complexions as humans, tending more toward tan or brown hues. A typical elf’s hair color is dark brown, autumn orange, mossy green, or deep gold. Elves’ ears are long and pointed, and their eyes are vibrant blue, violet, or green.

Now go and look at as many pictures of elves as you can find in Fourth Edition D&D books.

Notice how "tan or brown hues" seems to have morphed in the artists' imagination into "white"?

I was very impressed long, long ago when I actually read a guide to the World of Greyhawk and realized that of the four major ethnic groups of humans, only one was actually pale in skin tone. The others were "tan to olive," "lighter, almost copper to a very dark tone which is deepest brown" and "golden-hued."

You can pin white guy dominance on a lot of factors, but accuracy to the source material? Nope.

Dammit, now I'm going to have to go back and dig out my D&D stuff. I've got the 4e books, but haven't looked at them closely, and just assumed the source material matched up with the art work.

And here I was thinking the only dark folks to be found in D&D were in Al-Qadim and Dark Sun. Huh. This is actually a very cool thing to learn--thanks!

You have no idea what it meant to work with artists who'd get ethnicity right. One of my favorite sections of my run on Werewolf was the Changing Breed books, largely because I would say things like "Mokolé are going to have a lot of African, Indian, Amerind and Asian members. Some of the notable sigs are Australian aboriginal. White guys are fairly rare." And the guys? Prescott and Spencer in particular? They got it. They actually loved the opportunity to incorporate different cultural design motifs.

God, I effin' love that book. For a lot of reasons, natch, but the artwork is certainly one of them. As you say, the artists got it.

Matt Sheridan

08-25-2010, 07:42 AM

I suggested that he's self-indulgent. In an under-handed sort of way, he's giving himself and other white males the compliment that they don't need to identify with someone that looks like them on the cover. It doesn't matter how gentle and sublimated the intent is, there's always an element of condescension to those people who still get off on that sort of thing. I think it's more humble to admit that you, like every other human being, do identify more readily with people that look similar.
This is an interesting point. And, in all honesty, I don't care if this isn't humble: I can identify with characters who don't look like me. In fact, I think it's bizarre to the point of absurdity to suggest that anyone in the world can't.

But, that said, it doesn't help gaming--or society at large, really--to pretend that people other than white males don't exist or don't matter. Even aside from the subtle, pervasive "This is not for you" and "You are not wanted here" messages that some folks have said these marketing decisions send to them, it's just plain visually boring.

Is it to bring the races depicted in the art more in line with the reality of gaming demographics or the roots of the standard D&D gameworld? No. It is in fact true that most of the players are white males. And it is true that medieval fantasy gaming, hodgepodge though it is, clearly is influenced the most by European history and folklore, where the people doing interesting things were mostly white males. I don't think that you combat racism by simply pretending things are different from the way they are. That's naive and masturbatory.
I think the "European folklore" dodge has already been addressed elsewhere, so I'm not going to bother with it, here. But I have to take issue with the assumption that whitewashed character art is merely a prudent reaction to a racist status quo, with no affects beyond ensuring greater game sales among the target audience.

I'd argue that practices like this are the racist status quo. They don't just cater to a backwards, destructive mindset, but support and maintain it. Asking companies to change such practices isn't "pretending things are different"; it's trying to make them different.

masshysteria

08-25-2010, 08:11 AM

Now go and look at as many pictures of elves as you can find in Fourth Edition D&D books.

Notice how "tan or brown hues" seems to have morphed in the artists' imagination into "white"?

This seems to be an indictment of the art direction as much as anything else. Most portrayals of elves are fair skinned, so I can see an artist being told to make and elf coming up with what we see in the books.

The authors of D&D 4 at least tried to mix things up, but if he artist doesn't read or isn't given the source material and the art director never follows up on it, the fair skinned elf motif continues. In a perfect world, the art director would have sent the picture back to the artist with notes to change skin tone to a tan or brown hue.

Voadam

08-25-2010, 08:53 AM

And the blond, fair-skinned race are the bad, Nazi-esque Suel of Scarlet Brotherhood fame (whose symbol is a blue swastika on red) - ie they're a stereotype, too!

They are also the norse like northern barbarians. I forget whether the great kingdom had them as well.

Voadam

08-25-2010, 08:58 AM

IIRC, the original description of Athasian Giants, Half-Giants, Dwarves, Muls and Elves pretty much said they come in two shades: Dark and darker. Not exactly replicated in the artwork.

-Naxuul

I thought Dark Sun was originally designed as basically based off of RK Post's postapocalyptic fantasy desert art first so that this is a rare case of a contradiction between art and writing not coming from the artist failing to match existing writing but from writers contradicting the art.

simontmn

08-25-2010, 09:31 AM

They are also the norse like northern barbarians. I forget whether the great kingdom had them as well.

The Great Kingdom are bronzed Oeridians. The Norse Suel seem to have lost some of the Suel Imperium's evilness, being barbarian savages instead.

Actually, for Greyhawk nerds, there are some non-evil civilised Suel, along the Sheldomar Valley in Keoland.

simontmn

08-25-2010, 09:39 AM

As I said in my previous post, why would such a thing bug you?

Seriously, I want to know, why would a PHB where only a dwarven fighter been present and not a male human fighter been a deal?

Would a female fighter have been okay? Why wouldn't a white male of another class ben sufficient?

I like an iconic human male Fighter. I'm no sure there's any rational reason, but maybe something about grounding the fantasy, since the human male Fighter corresponds closest to real-life adventurers. On reflection the skin colour is not an issue, as I said above - Roy in Order of the Stick fills the iconic-human-Fighter role nicely, for me, whereas white-skinned Tordek does not. Or, I love this image:

https://www.webtrix.net/shopcart/ethnicart/CartImages/blackknt.jpg

I think that's Western European armour, but I've always found the idea of Abyssinia/Ethiopia with its Christian knights fascinating. That would do me as an iconic just fine. So I guess I'm speciesist rather than racist on this one?

Emprint

08-25-2010, 10:19 AM

Seriously, I want to know, why would a PHB where only a dwarven fighter been present and not a male human fighter been a deal?

I'll admit, TSR did manage to train me that the default D&D character is a human fighter with the same appearance, gender, and personality as the player. Some of that ("looks like a regular person, looks like me") makes sense. Why it's any more likely that your fantasy alter ego will be better with a sword than at putting goblins to sleep is sort of beyond me. I think it's probably a rules thing.

TSR's conclusion that players wanted to identify visually with characters makes a lot of sense. You'll also notice that a lot of TSR artwork, especially early on, actually downplays player characters, in favor of showing the things that PCs do and see.

Where this starts to break down is the assumption that a teenaged white male won't be interested in a book whose cover shows someone who's not a white male. At least from a White Wolf perspective, that doesn't appear to be true. Monte's also had a fair amount of experience with art and sales on his own at Malhavoc, so he's speaking from a lot of experience.

rex monday

08-25-2010, 10:22 AM

I thought Dark Sun was originally designed as basically based off of RK Post's postapocalyptic fantasy desert art first so that this is a rare case of a contradiction between art and writing not coming from the artist failing to match existing writing but from writers contradicting the art.

Pretty sure you mean Brom here. I don't think rk post was in the business yet when DS was being published.

Dragon_Blooded

08-25-2010, 10:26 AM

I thought Dark Sun was originally designed as basically based off of RK Post's postapocalyptic fantasy desert art first so that this is a rare case of a contradiction between art and writing not coming from the artist failing to match existing writing but from writers contradicting the art.

I guess you mean Brom? Because rk post doesn't have a single piece of art on DS's first boxed set. Or any DS product, according to the Pen & Paper Database.

Eduardo Penna

Imprisoned in Amber

08-25-2010, 11:03 AM

It's not racist. A marketing directive can't be racist. They don't have the capacity for real human emotions. 'Real human emotions' have nothing to do with it.

Are there actually any studies which suggest that having white people on covers increases sales? I'm aware of a few such results for books in general, but I wonder whether roleplaying games do better by creating an 'exotic' feel. It's a bit lame for black people to equal 'exotic', but human perception is like that sometimes.

Momeeche

08-25-2010, 11:58 AM

Asking companies to change such practices isn't "pretending things are different"; it's trying to make them different.

Good luck with that. Really. Status quo is god.

Matt Sheridan

08-25-2010, 11:58 AM

Are there actually any studies which suggest that having white people on covers increases sales? I'm aware of a few such results for books in general, but I wonder whether roleplaying games do better by creating an 'exotic' feel. It's a bit lame for black people to equal 'exotic', but human perception is like that sometimes.
I dunno. I suppose I can see people thinking "Maybe this isn't supposed to be for me" if they look at a book at see no one that looks (however vaguely) like them, especially if the characters on the cover are all the same ethnicity. But covers featuring big, multi-racial ensemble casts ought to be welcoming to everybody, right?

And I don't care if it's blatant tokenism, either. I grew up in the 1980s, so anything else looks weird to me.

Icon

08-25-2010, 12:16 PM

'Real human emotions' have nothing to do with it.

Are there actually any studies which suggest that having white people on covers increases sales? I'm aware of a few such results for books in general, but I wonder whether roleplaying games do better by creating an 'exotic' feel. It's a bit lame for black people to equal 'exotic', but human perception is like that sometimes.

Is there some particular reason to think that games views on race differ from the larger population to such an extent that blacks are viewed as exotic?

Icon

08-25-2010, 12:23 PM

I dunno. I suppose I can see people thinking "Maybe this isn't supposed to be for me" if they look at a book at see no one that looks (however vaguely) like them, especially if the characters on the cover are all the same ethnicity.

So either that does that not apply to movie posters (http://www.impawards.com/2009/std.html) or there is an expectation on the party of minorities that they will go see movies anyway.

Tadatsune

08-25-2010, 12:28 PM

Are there actually any studies which suggest that having white people on covers increases sales?

Using white characters to appeal to the majority is standard operating procedure in books and film marketing - so much so that it isn't questioned by many. That said, I'd be very surprised if the marketing guys didn't do focus groups and the like with what they consider the "target audience".

I wound't be surprised if, on average, it was found that using an "ethic" character was less popular with focus groups than a white one. That said, it's a bit of a self-fufilling prophecy: if you never put non-white characters on your book cover, then the audience doesn't get used to seeing them there.

larqven

08-25-2010, 12:41 PM

It's a long running and continuing problem. Mr. Spock is a cultural icon who almost never happened due to producers dislike and admonishments of "Who is going to relate to an alien?"

Well, lots of people, actually. The character helped revolutionize what could be shown on television. Unfortunately, marketing ideas of giving the target audience what they supposedly want, what they relate to, still exist. Frankly, artists are either successful or not--or they have enough work or not. Even if they want to paint a brown, or black, or green character they have to worry about the employer's wants. Like an employee who worries that taking his fully allotted vacation will make waves, an artist will always have to question if he's producing something that sells--and sells enough so he gets a another offer. A disparaging word from somebody in marketing, just saying, "Does this really fit our target audience?" can turn a lucky break into a bad break.

So, I think the idea is to produce pictures that 'meet perceived expectations' enough to be safe. Figures in art tend to white for that reason. Keep in mind also that 30 years ago, the perceived market for said art were thought to be upper middle class to upper class white boys with assorted older gamer white men. Add to this that the members of the TSR magagement had convinced themselves that they were going to be the next Disney Co., and controlled images in keeping with that goal. The history of the premier rpg game came to be slanted towards mass marketing which helped solidify fantasy stereotypes.

Works on gender as well--females are almost invariably young and very attactive. Unless the description is very specific and directs the character to be old or unattractive--an artist is likely to draw her slanted towards babitude. It's all about appealing to the 'reptile brain', unfortunately. SUVs were made big and sat tall on the same premise, that men like to look over and smash through anything with their wheels. Marketing analysts got paid big bucks for 'revealing' this concept. I'm afraid that marketing execs still think of race prejudice in purchasing product in much the same way.

simontmn

08-25-2010, 01:04 PM

So either that does that not apply to movie posters (http://www.impawards.com/2009/std.html) or there is an expectation on the party of minorities that they will go see movies anyway.

AIR US studies on moviegoing habits indicate that African-Americans prefer there to be African-American leading actors, it makes them more likely to buy tickets, but Latinos don't care, and generally don't think of themselves as non-white anyway (just as white Americans don't tend to think of eg Cameron Diaz or Charlie Sheen as non-white/minority ethnic). I don't think any other US minorities were studied.

Matt Sheridan

08-25-2010, 01:09 PM

So either that does that not apply to movie posters (http://www.impawards.com/2009/std.html) or there is an expectation on the party of minorities that they will go see movies anyway.
I'd say the latter is pretty obviously the case. Pretty much everybody watches movies, after all.

The whole "blaxploitation" phenomenon was the result of filmmakers realizing that, if they actually featured black folks in movies, black Americans would flock to them regardless of how cheaply-produced they were, since they had no representation anywhere else.

Tadatsune

08-25-2010, 01:16 PM

Icon

08-25-2010, 02:00 PM

AIR US studies on moviegoing habits indicate that African-Americans prefer there to be African-American leading actors, it makes them more likely to buy tickets, but Latinos don't care, and generally don't think of themselves as non-white anyway (just as white Americans don't tend to think of eg Cameron Diaz or Charlie Sheen as non-white/minority ethnic). I don't think any other US minorities were studied.

Perhaps but just how many movies are being filmed with black leads?

Here are the 20 top grossing films of 2009:

Avatar
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
The Twilight Saga: New Moon
Up
The Hangover
Star Trek
The Blind Side
Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squequel
Sherlock Holmes
Monsters vs. Aliens
Ice Age: The Dawn of the Dinosaurs
X-Men Origins: Wolverwine
Night at the Museum: Battle at the Smithsonian
2012
The Proposal
Fast and Furious
G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra
Paul Blart: Mall Cop
Taken

Not exactly swimming in black leads there and yet I am thinking that the expectation was that black movie going dollars were going to be had.

The Scribbler

08-25-2010, 02:09 PM

Another fun Iconic "Easter Egg" from the 3.X days.

Jozan, ostensibly a cleric of Pelor, is a bit of a heel, if not turning entirely to evil.

Casting Symbol of Pain:
http://www.wizards.com/leaving.asp?url=/dnd/images/ph35_gallery/PHB35_PG291_WEB.jpg&origin=dnd_ag_20030705a
Finding his footing:
http://www.wizards.com/leaving.asp?url=/dnd/images/ph35_gallery/PHB35_PG68_WEB.jpg&origin=dnd_ag_20030705a

He comes off as a major ass in the commentary track with he, the thief, and Krusk for the second D&D movie.

Icon

08-25-2010, 02:09 PM

The whole "blaxploitation" phenomenon was the result of filmmakers realizing that, if they actually featured black folks in movies, black Americans would flock to them regardless of how cheaply-produced they were, since they had no representation anywhere else.

Yeah, I know. It was a glorious period in my youth. :p

Matt Sheridan

08-25-2010, 02:14 PM

Not exactly swimming in black leads there and yet I am thinking that the expectation was that black movie going dollars were going to be had.
Black Americans have a choice between watching movies about white people, not watching movies at all, or watching movies with Tyler Perry's name in the title. Yes, movies full of white people are indeed going to be watched by black people.

This doesn't mean that the world wouldn't be a better place if Hollywood had the balls to put more black folks in starring roles.

The Scribbler

08-25-2010, 02:17 PM

Not to derail into non-d20 games, but....

Same with Mage: the Ascension (well, except it was modern fantasy). You guys put a black man front and center on the cover, and it sold. :D

I had to actually go look up the covers online because my first thought was, "There was someone on the cover of Mage?"

I swear I pretty much never glanced twice at the card on the front cover, just like I never looked at the rose on the Vampire book more than once or twice.

Still, that is sort of cool. :)

Icon

08-25-2010, 02:17 PM

Black Americans have a choice between watching movies about white people, not watching movies at all, or watching movies with Tyler Perry's name in the title. Yes, movies full of white people are indeed going to be watched by black people.

This doesn't mean that the world wouldn't be a better place if Hollywood had the balls to put more black folks in starring roles.

I think you missed my point.

Non-whites are expected to go to the movies without being overly marketted to in all the ways that are used to justify having to market to white people. Seems a bit insulting to the white audience.

Sethra007

08-25-2010, 02:29 PM

Are there actually any studies which suggest that having white people on covers increases sales?

I don't know about RPGs, but in the fashion world it's been a truism for a while that if you put a black model on the cover of a fashion mag, sales of that issue will be lower. (Yes, even if the model is Naomi Campbell.)

Matt Sheridan

08-25-2010, 02:33 PM

I think you missed my point.

Non-whites are expected to go to the movies without being overly marketted to in all the ways that are used to justify having to market to white people. Seems a bit insulting to the white audience.
Oh, okay. Yeah, that's what I've been saying, too: Marketing departments aren't full of racists; they're just assuming that their largely-white target audiences are. I'd like to believe better things about us, personally.

Ascanius

08-25-2010, 02:42 PM

This seems to be an indictment of the art direction as much as anything else. Most portrayals of elves are fair skinned, so I can see an artist being told to make and elf coming up with what we see in the books.
It's true, it need not necessarily be the case that the artist was given the description in the books and didn't follow it; it's quite possible that the art orders weren't properly written. Either way, though, it comes down to people thinking that "white" = "default", and that's a bad thing.

Seb Wiers

08-25-2010, 02:52 PM

Portin Astorm

08-25-2010, 02:54 PM

Just out of curiosity, what is the "anthropological" justification for a dark skinned dwarf? Don't dwarves have dark-vision because they live underground, with minimal exposure to sunlight?
Seems if a group of dwarves needed enough melanin in to protect them from the sun, they would loose the dark vision trait (as well as a major cultural identifier).
On the other hand, albino dwarves (of whatever anthropological background) would make a lot of sense, but are never seen. So, yeah. And again... drow.

Easy.... dwarf skin coloration is founded in the dwarven origination with elemental earth. As long as they are earthen creatures (which dwarves will tell you they are, carved and forged by their gods from the stuff of the earth), they have the same coloration as the earth itself.

Armitage

08-25-2010, 02:55 PM

Matt Sheridan

08-25-2010, 02:56 PM

I don't know about RPGs, but in the fashion world it's been a truism for a while that if you put a black model on the cover of a fashion mag, sales of that issue will be lower. (Yes, even if the model is Naomi Campbell.)
Well, that's depressing.

Portin Astorm

08-25-2010, 03:09 PM

Well, that's depressing.

Doubly depressing. First because it shows that we still have an unfortunate amount of residual racism, and second because Naomi Campbell is far better than most of these cover models...

Jack of None

08-25-2010, 03:46 PM

Well, that's depressing.

I know it happens in the YA book trade too -- conventional market wisdom says that white teens will not buy a book with a minority on the cover, but non-white teens will buy a book with a white person on the cover. Unless they're marketing specifically towards an 'ethnic' audience, they'll slap a white person on the cover regardless of who the main character is. I can think of three examples of this recently among books I've read, including one that was about a Chinese girl in ancient China, where there was quite literally not a single non-Chinese character in the book. There are probably more examples I've overlooked because I haven't read the actual book or the author didn't see fit to make a fuss about it.

It's kind of the equivalent of the publishers slapping a scantily-clad babe on the cover of your fantasy novel, regardless of whether or not such a character exists in your book.

theshoveller

08-25-2010, 04:29 PM

Chucky

08-25-2010, 04:37 PM

See, in my head, he's played by Vin Diesel.

Wouldn't Sean Bean more fitting?

Portin Astorm

08-25-2010, 04:42 PM

See, in my head, he's played by Vin Diesel.

Wouldn't Sean Bean more fitting?

Yeah, I have to say no to Vin Diesel as well. he always wins. Sean Bean, on the other hand, seems to die alot. Like Regdar....

theshoveller

08-25-2010, 04:46 PM

Wouldn't Sean Bean more fitting?
I see your logic.

Kai Tave

08-25-2010, 04:54 PM

There are probably more examples I've overlooked because I haven't read the actual book or the author didn't see fit to make a fuss about it.

The one I remember from about a year back, discussed on John Scalzi's blog I believe, is the novel Liar by Justine Larbalestier. The novel is told from the perspective of a rather unreliable narrator about which only few concrete facts are known to be true, such as the fact that the protagonist is a young female of mixed caucasian/African ethnicity.

So of course, guess what the cover for the first American printing looked like. (http://sjaejones.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/liar.jpg)

There's an article on this subject by the author here. (http://justinelarbalestier.com/blog/2009/07/23/aint-that-a-shame/)

At least in this case, the story does have a happy ending in that enough public pressure was generated to get the publisher to revise the final cover design. (http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_nIccA6r7lXY/Snvuaf-MWVI/AAAAAAAABf4/pZ8GIMb-RJk/s1600/FinalLiar.jpg) But still.

CowboyEnergy

08-25-2010, 04:57 PM

Oh, okay. Yeah, that's what I've been saying, too: Marketing departments aren't full of racists; they're just assuming that their largely-white target audiences are. I'd like to believe better things about us, personally.

So they're racist against white people because they assume that we're all racist. :p

Tadatsune

08-25-2010, 06:40 PM

reitschule

08-25-2010, 07:26 PM

It's laziness. It doesn't have to be deliberate racism on the part of artists who believe that nonwhite people are unworthy of immortalisation in their work, it's just the dumb, easy, ignorant assumption that "white" is the same as "default".

I am a pretty white guy. My ancestors in the last century or so were either English or Irish. I live in a country which is about 90% white. If I'm sick and tired of seeing an overwhelming preponderance of pale-skinned characters in my fantasy roleplaying games, I don't think "it's what the audience expects!" really holds water.You are offended that the artists and marketers assume that you need someone that looks like you to identify with. How dare they challenge your open-mindedness? You're a smart guy, you need exotica for stimulation!

Is that fair?

Personally, I think it's useless and a little childish to be offended by it. I don't care what a marketing department thinks of me. It's nothing personal. They're just doing their job, and doing it well, as has been pointed out. Targeting the majority does increase sales.

But what irks me is the sanctimoniousness of people who think that this has anything to do with combating racism. If you think it's boring to have someone that looks like you on the cover, but feel sorry for those who don't have this and want them to have it, you're being patronizing.

reitschule

08-25-2010, 07:29 PM

I was very impressed long, long ago when I actually read a guide to the World of Greyhawk and realized that of the four major ethnic groups of humans, only one was actually pale in skin tone. The others were "tan to olive," "lighter, almost copper to a very dark tone which is deepest brown" and "golden-hued."

You can pin white guy dominance on a lot of factors, but accuracy to the source material? Nope.I certainly don't consider that relatively minor feature of Greyhawk to be sine qua non D&D.

I only ran a short campaign in Greyhawk, but I didn't really care about or use that information. (I thought it was kinda lame—transparently native americans...but with curly hair? Can you imagine a live-action Greyhawk film with native american actors with perms?) Everyone imagined their characters' appearance however they liked. Presumably everyone imagined their characters as having a similar skintone to their own.

Sure, that's the default. That's the default for anyone without a contrived agenda.

I don't find multi-ethnic representation in a game setting to be impressive just because it's there. I'd like it to be actually interesting and serve some thematic purpose in connection with other elements. If the author is just going to toss in a remark about the people looking like a visible minority to pat themselves on the back, I'd rather that ethnicities are left up to the imaginations of the players.

reitschule

08-25-2010, 07:46 PM

This is an interesting point. And, in all honesty, I don't care if this isn't humble: I can identify with characters who don't look like me. In fact, I think it's bizarre to the point of absurdity to suggest that anyone in the world can't.

But, that said, it doesn't help gaming--or society at large, really--to pretend that people other than white males don't exist or don't matter. Even aside from the subtle, pervasive "This is not for you" and "You are not wanted here" messages that some folks have said these marketing decisions send to them, it's just plain visually boring.

I think the "European folklore" dodge has already been addressed elsewhere, so I'm not going to bother with it, here. But I have to take issue with the assumption that whitewashed character art is merely a prudent reaction to a racist status quo, with no affects beyond ensuring greater game sales among the target audience.

I'd argue that practices like this are the racist status quo. They don't just cater to a backwards, destructive mindset, but support and maintain it. Asking companies to change such practices isn't "pretending things are different"; it's trying to make them different.A preponderance of white males in fantasy art is not pretending that other people don't exist. It accurately reflects the demographics of gamers, and the imagery that most readily comes to mind when people think of medieval fantasy. It's certainly not intentionally hateful, and I'm not convinced it's destructive to society in any way. Again, please consider the possibility that people of other genders and races are just as psychologically strong as yourself. You don't need to protect them from images of people that don't look like them.

I respect your aesthetic opinion that this imagery is boring, but I find that multi-ethnic representation in medieval fantasy worlds usually feels contrived and self-gratifying on the part of the author or artist. So I don't share it.

Shiyuan

08-25-2010, 07:56 PM

If the author is just going to toss in a remark about the people looking like a visible minority to pat themselves on the back, I'd rather that ethnicities are left up to the imaginations of the players.

And by your implication, sir, mainly the imaginations of the players in the minority who are not represented in the artwork?

Your condescension on the legitimate concerns of some posters here about the nature and consequences of such "purely marketing tactics" on society and ethnic relations as whole belies a far greater lack of depth in your understanding of sociological and anthropological findings that demonstrate that presentation does indeed have a large impact (and therefore a responsibility for) on society, deleterious or beneficial. For instance, a historical example would be the initial reaction of some Mexica (natives of Aztlan and Tlatelolco) to the appearance of Hernan Cortez due to their own preconceptions developed from the depictions of Quetzalcoatl.

chronostrike

08-25-2010, 08:40 PM

You are offended that the artists and marketers assume that you need someone that looks like you to identify with. How dare they challenge your open-mindedness? You're a smart guy, you need exotica for stimulation!

Is that fair?

Personally, I think it's useless and a little childish to be offended by it. I don't care what a marketing department thinks of me. It's nothing personal. They're just doing their job, and doing it well, as has been pointed out. Targeting the majority does increase sales.

But what irks me is the sanctimoniousness of people who think that this has anything to do with combating racism. If you think it's boring to have someone that looks like you on the cover, but feel sorry for those who don't have this and want them to have it, you're being patronizing.

You are assuming that the white guys that are offended in any sense other than vicariously on the part of minorities are doing it to pad their diversity cred. There are other reasons. I don't want to be condescended to by marketers who assume I am a racist. I want the art to be accurately reflective of the text, however the characters fall.

Most importantly, I object to the buck being passed to me. The marketers claim that they have to show only white people because it won't sell otherwise. I call shenanigans. This fault is on the part of the marketers, not me.

Christopher V. Brady

08-25-2010, 08:50 PM

So they're racist against white people because they assume that we're all racist. :p

You could say that about other minorities too, sadly.

You know what would be revolutionary, though? Having Regdar win. Not unscathed, beaten, broken and scarred but alive. That would be unexpected.

Xenophile

08-25-2010, 08:55 PM

I'm not sure how I feel about the implication that a white male would not create a non-white and/or non-male character for any reason other than to appease the PC Police or inflate his own ego. As a gamer and an author, I regularly design characters who look entirely unlike myself. I do so because that's just how I picture them.

And concerning the worldbuilding aspect, what about the fantasy settings that aren't entirely European? Is there something contrived about Golarion having African-looking people in its Africa analogue and Asian-looking people in its Asia analogue? Is there something contrived about a European player wanting his character to be from one of those places instead of the Europe analogue?

Yeah, when I see a fantasy setting that explicitly states that its inhabitants aren't homogeneously Caucasian, I'm impressed. I'm impressed because not many settings do that and I like to see some variety. It's not a social agenda, it's an appreciation of novelty.

Christopher V. Brady

08-25-2010, 09:05 PM

My favourite 3.x D&D character was a Half-Orc, Half African (Analog) human Fighter, who actually favoured (Genetically) his human half. In other words, visually, he would have been an unusually broad, and maybe having some small under jaw tusks, but mostly looking human.

Joe_G_Kushner

08-25-2010, 09:10 PM

If white designers are worried about featuring more ethnicity in their RPGs, then they need to make compelling stories about such characters and the lands they come from. Throwing generic black dude one on the cover doesn't show diversity as much as white people thinking their showing diversity.

Christopher V. Brady

08-25-2010, 09:12 PM

Tadatsune

08-25-2010, 10:01 PM

A preponderance of white males in fantasy art is not pretending that other people don't exist. It accurately reflects the demographics of gamers, and the imagery that most readily comes to mind when people think of medieval fantasy. It's certainly not intentionally hateful, and I'm not convinced it's destructive to society in any way. Again, please consider the possibility that people of other genders and races are just as psychologically strong as yourself. You don't need to protect them from images of people that don't look like them.

I respect your aesthetic opinion that this imagery is boring, but I find that multi-ethnic representation in medieval fantasy worlds usually feels contrived and self-gratifying on the part of the author or artist. So I don't share it.

Eh. The United States is over 60% white. African Americans, by contrast, make up a mere 13% of the population. And while there are assurredly black people who play D&D, I imagine the world-wide demographics are scued even further toward caucasians.

That's a good argument against, say, 1:1 representation. It's pretty natural for D&D to have a perpoderance of white character images, given that it was made by((I assume) white designers, designed with a largely Medieval European setting, and played by a largely white audience.

That said, I think we are missing the big picture, here. The problem is not that any particular artist's rendering, book cover, movie casting, or RPG setting is "racist" because it lacks non-whites. It's that if every image and every setting is designed to cater to the percieved preferences of the "target audience" you end up never depicting non-whites at all. I'm sitting here with my 2e AD&D DMG and PHB and there isn't a sinlge illustration depicting a non-caucasian. I've got a pile of suppliments, as well, and I bet you if I went through them I'd get similar, if not identical results. (There is a arab dude and a black lady pirate under "Human", as well as two asians getting beat up by an ogre-mage in the MM, but that is about it.) Asia and the Middle east get campaign settings thanks to eastern exoticism, but I can't think of one African inspired campaing setting. I take your point about contrived nature Politically Correct tolkenism, but don't you find this utter derth a bit odd for a game which allows you to simulate pretty much anything you can imagine?

Erstwhile

08-25-2010, 11:08 PM

Ursula Le guin had an interview about the frustrations of trying to get her characters portrayed correctly in various media; she was rather furious with that version of the Tales of Earthsea that Miyazaki's son did which made all the characters light-skinned. with animie standard features.

Yeah, never mind the made-for-TV movie that had one of the frickin' Ashmores playing Sparrowhawk.

I loved the Earthsea books, because they were so different from the other fantasy stuff I'd read.

Actually I devoured most of LeGuin's early stuff; it was distinct from so much other sci-fi and fantasy. When I learned she was Kroeber's daughter it all made sense to me. Maybe that's why I ended up as an Anthro major. :D

(And for what it's worth I almost never play a white guy when I game. Nothing to do with my White Lefty Diversity Merit Badge, either.)

Tadatsune

08-25-2010, 11:49 PM

Yeah, never mind the made-for-TV movie that had one of the frickin' Ashmores playing Sparrowhawk.

I loved the Earthsea books, because they were so different from the other fantasy stuff I'd read.

Actually I devoured most of LeGuin's early stuff; it was distinct from so much other sci-fi and fantasy. When I learned she was Kroeber's daughter it all made sense to me. Maybe that's why I ended up as an Anthro major. :D

(And for what it's worth I almost never play a white guy when I game. Nothing to do with my White Lefty Diversity Merit Badge, either.)

While I think the social justice angle is compelling, it's not something that I usually expend mental energy over when playing D&D; if it was I probalby wouldn't be playing a game where entire species are tied to a single alignment and stereotype and where chopping through hordes of pigmented sub-humans is the path to advancement.

As a DM with a penchant for world building and ameture game design, my first concern would be with the artistic intergrity of my work. If I were a artist or a novelist and some marketing guys came along and said "sorry, we can't sell this unless you lose the black guy" or slapped a completely non representitive cover on my book, I'd be furious.

Neil Phillips

08-26-2010, 12:29 AM

He's dead in the Rituals chapter splash image in the 4th Edition PHB, if I'm not mistaken.

Hilariously the headshot of dead Regdar has been rotated 90 degrees and is available as a portrait in character builder.

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3580/3441706270_80345ea209_m.jpg

I kind of feel bad for Regdar, to return to topic. Admittedly, I have a serious love for the plain human fighter, and sure, I like them in male; I find stoicism to be a really entertaining thing to explore in RPGs, and my wife thinks stoicism is hott. (I am not made of stone!)

As opposed to Regdar, obviously!
http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y158/Ebony1590/f-medusa.png

simontmn

08-26-2010, 12:38 AM

Ursula Le guin had an interview about the frustrations of trying to get her characters portrayed correctly in various media; she was rather furious with that version of the Tales of Earthsea that Miyazaki's son did which made all the characters light-skinned. with animie standard features.

She's offended that Japanese illustrators make the characters look like them?

I always thought LeGuin was particularly silly making the very fantasy-north-west-European-culture 'good guy' Earthsea folk brown, the vaguely middle-Eastern-culture 'bad guy' Atuan folk blond and pale, then complaining when they're not depicted 'right' by others. The Earthsea folk as imagined by her clearly don't correspond to any real-world population group, but are culturally fantasy-medieval-European. I don't see how using black or south-Asian actors would be any more accurate. The closest physical approximation might be to use dark-skinned Italian & Greek actors with some makeup.

Xenophile

08-26-2010, 12:50 AM

She's offended that Japanese illustrators make the characters look like them?

I always thought LeGuin was particularly silly making the very fantasy-north-west-European-culture 'good guy' Earthsea folk brown, the vaguely middle-Eastern-culture 'bad guy' Atuan folk blond and pale, then complaining when they're not depicted 'right' by others. The Earthsea folk as imagined by her clearly don't correspond to any real-world population group, but are culturally fantasy-medieval-European. I don't see how using black or south-Asian actors would be any more accurate. The closest physical approximation might be to use dark-skinned Italian & Greek actors with some makeup.

You're saying it was silly of her to complain that they didn't depict her characters in a way that matched her descriptions of them?

Ascanius

08-26-2010, 01:49 AM

You are offended that the artists and marketers assume that you need someone that looks like you to identify with.
No.* I'm offended that they believe the notion "our players need to be able to identify with the characters in our art" is a) true, b) the same as saying "our players are mostly white men and therefore our art should be dominated by white men", and c) more important than potentially pursuing female and nonwhite players by providing plenty of examples of female and nonwhite characters in the artwork alongside the white men.

The problem is not the existence of white men in D&D art. The problem is that you pretty much either have white people or nonhuman "exotics", and the majority of characters from human-like nonhuman races - elves and dwarves as opposed to dragonborn or tieflings - likewise are white-looking elves or white-looking dwarves or whatever.

Frankly, I think my ideal approach to art in D&D books would be to get away from the idea of iconic, single-figure illustrations for each class. It's kind of cool that the fighter illustration in the Player's Handbook is a dragonborn fighter, but I actually kind of prefer the notion that you might illustrate the fighter description with images of several different fighters of various races, appearances, and genders in action.

Check out the fighter chapter: there's the narrow vertical image of the dragonborn fighter linked to the page quote at the beginning, then one picture about two-thirds of the way through the chapter of what looks like a white male human or maybe half-elf killing a hobgoblin or something, largely obscured because the creature is in front of him.

* It is a fact that I don't identify with the characters in D&D artwork at all. I don't even identify with my own characters. That's simply not part of the equation of roleplaying games for me. So it mildly irritates me that the whole question of player self-identification is taken for absolute granted and used to justify artwork which reinforces "white male" as the default, but it doesn't offend me.

Ascanius

08-26-2010, 01:51 AM

TL/DR: I'm sick of seeing D&D art dominated by white characters because it's fucking boring.

simontmn

08-26-2010, 01:52 AM

You're saying it was silly of her to complain that they didn't depict her characters in a way that matched her descriptions of them?

Yup.

I also thought her original assigning of skin colours was a bit iffy and seemed more to make a political point than naturally connected to the cultures she depicted. Her Earthsea folk are culturally very "white", and slapping a brown skin tone on them doesn't make them "non-white".

Dalmatian Twills

08-26-2010, 02:08 AM

Topher

08-26-2010, 05:42 AM

Didn't you guys know? The default human is a straight white male. Any other type of person is a bizarre deviation from the norm.

Topher

That Idiot

08-26-2010, 05:54 AM

Didn't you guys know? The default human is a straight white male. Any other type of person is a bizarre deviation from the norm.

Meh, you left out political party and religious affiliation.

Icon

08-26-2010, 05:58 AM

ESkemp

08-26-2010, 06:09 AM

If the author is just going to toss in a remark about the people looking like a visible minority to pat themselves on the back, I'd rather that ethnicities are left up to the imaginations of the players.

Doing something like that solely to pat themselves on the back, that'd be pretty egotistical.

Can you point to somewhere that's provably taken place?

I've seen is that very frequently, particularly in the age of the internet, it is entirely possible that people actually interact with gamers who are ethnicities other than their own. And some of these people are game designers. Sometimes when you talk about "including people other than white males", a designer can put specific faces to the sort of people they'd like to include, instead of some sort of nebulous statement of ideal. Ever watched your brother explain why evil elves in D&D were dark-skinned save for a rare few exceptions to his black girlfriend? I can assure you it did not make her feel better to know that someone defended the idea because "most gamers are white anyway so it's a non-issue for them."

Arrogant though it may for someone in a complete ivory tower to give the white male gamers fewer role models to emulate in a medium already choked with them for the purpose of making themselves feel better, it's at least as arrogant to claim that this must be the reason they're doing so. Is it really so hard for a gamer to imagine another reason?

Eurhetemec

08-26-2010, 06:31 AM

Yup.

I also thought her original assigning of skin colours was a bit iffy and seemed more to make a political point than naturally connected to the cultures she depicted. Her Earthsea folk are culturally very "white", and slapping a brown skin tone on them doesn't make them "non-white".

Could you explain, in detail, and with examples, how the people in Earthsea are "culturally very white", not just fairly typical human beings? What is it that makes their culture "white", and is not typical of various islander cultures? To me it looks like there's a mish-mash of Celtic, Faroes/Scandinavian, Native American, Pacific Islander, Greek/Mediterranean and all sorts in the various cultures in Earthsea.

I'm also interested in the idea that there's an inherent connection between culture and skin-tone in fantasy worlds entirely unconnected to our own. LeGuin specifically said that she was trying to break the connection. To my mind, that's not a political point, that's a literary/world-building one. If every culture in fantasy had to resemble a real-world one, right down to the perceived ethnicity of it's members, surely that would be very limiting for fantasy writers?

That Idiot

08-26-2010, 06:40 AM

Man, I'm a shortish, fat half-Mexican. Why are there never any characters that look like me?

What about this guy? (http://www.elfwood.com/~dahlberg/Dwarf-guy-whith-a-dagger.2661359.html)

Menteroso

08-26-2010, 06:52 AM

What about this guy? (http://www.elfwood.com/~dahlberg/Dwarf-guy-whith-a-dagger.2661359.html)

Not quite, but the knife is a good start. :D

Tadatsune

08-26-2010, 09:34 AM

I also thought her original assigning of skin colours was a bit iffy and seemed more to make a political point than naturally connected to the cultures she depicted. Her Earthsea folk are culturally very "white", and slapping a brown skin tone on them doesn't make them "non-white".

This is a rather odd statement.

Could you explain, in detail, and with examples, how the people in Earthsea are "culturally very white"

I'm going to guess that the answer to this question is "I didn't see any strongly 'ethnic' markers in the culture so I naturally defaulted to viewing it as 'white'."

A fairly natrual response; if you were to give a million people each a sheet of paper and a box of crayons and tell them to draw "a person", I'b bet most would draw someone the same race and gender as themselves. Hence, if you grow up white surrounded by other white people, your 'default' is going to be white. There is nothing 'racist' about this in and of itself; it's just a natural tendancy. However, it can quickly lead to discriminatory effects - like the default expectation leading to drastic under-representation of minorities in books, film, and - yes - fantasy RPG artwork.

The default also colors how you see derivation from the norm; the stronger the tendency to default (and the less aware and critical you are about it), the more likely you are to see derivations form it as being out of place - hence, I must assume, the criticims of the Earthsea cultures as "very white" and therefor, the dark skin of their inhabitants being contrived.

Look, I find blatant PC tolkenism as annoying most other people do; it isn't helpful to force artists to included random, out-of-place minorities in their work any more than it is to demand main characters be white. And the choice of skin color in Ursula Le Guin's works is certainly 'political' (nothing necessarily wrong with that - it's her right as an artist). But you have to recognize that your own internal "defaults" are going to affect what you percieve as being artificially PC or contrived; fantasy settings are often melanges of a number of diverse real-world cultures, but just because you can pick out, say, some distinctively European elements does not necesarily mean that the characters with in should default to being European.

Mailanka

08-26-2010, 09:56 AM

Doing something like that solely to pat themselves on the back, that'd be pretty egotistical.

Can you point to somewhere that's provably taken place?

I dunno, I'm kinda have mixed feelings about this. I mean, for example, right at the beginning, you brag about being able to put a black woman on the cover of Exalted and selling it. That sounds like patting yourself on the back, and I've certainly seen people promote the most absurd things like "the first female star trek captain" or "the first black star trek captain" (though he was really a commander, sucker!) as though these things were great steps forward for civil rights, rather than beating a dead horse. That's annoying.

On the other hand, I find myself doing the same thing, and I can see shades of that too in these decisions: When I realize that too many of my characters are, say, blond, I start to include some brunettes. Too many white guys? Why not a black guy? And gosh, when was the last time you saw a beautiful Asian man as a romantic lead if he didn't have kung fu? So many Americans, why not a Brit? Or, ooo, a Russian? Too many female doctors? Why can't the gentle, empathic healer-type be a guy this time?

It changes things up, makes you see the game or a character in a different light. To go back to the example of Exalted, it decidedly shifted the tone of the game away from Tolkien-inspired fantasy to something decidedly more swords and sandals that brought to mind the three centers of ancient civilization: The Mediterranean (Swarthy euros and North Africans), India and China, and it also brought to mind many of the troubles of the modern age (The global empire vs the Third World, and so on). To say that "putting a black woman front and center on the cover allowed that to happen" would be overstating it, but the same attitude that led to her placement on the cover probably led to the unique, awesome flavor of Exalted.

Regardless, I eagerly await the day that we can treat race like hair color, and I can stop looking over my shoulder whenever I decide on a character's ethnicity.

Icon

08-26-2010, 10:13 AM

I dunno, I'm kinda have mixed feelings about this. I mean, for example, right at the beginning, you brag about being able to put a black woman on the cover of Exalted and selling it. That sounds like patting yourself on the back, and I've certainly seen people promote the most absurd things like "the first female star trek captain" or "the first black star trek captain" (though he was really a commander, sucker!) as though these things were great steps forward for civil rights, rather than beating a dead horse. That's annoying.

Interesting reading of:

One thing that got done with Exalted was the dare to put out a major fantasy RPG with a black woman front and center on the cover and see if it sold.

It did.

Its a statement that they went against prevailing wisdom with favorable results. Where is the bragging? Had the statement been, "We were forwardlooking and race conscious in a way that is utterly absent in the industry and therefore we are proud to have demonstrated the pure folly of others by showing that our conviction paid off," I might see that as bragging.

That Idiot

08-26-2010, 10:17 AM

Icon

08-26-2010, 10:19 AM

I read that as bragging, too. There is a certain smug tone to the post that comes across as boastfulness there.

"We did thing A. B was the result."

Dare I ask how a statement can be any more plain that that?

No. . .better, let me ask just how you would report doing someting and getting a result in a fashion that wasn't bragging?

That Idiot

08-26-2010, 10:20 AM

"We did thing A. B was the result."

Dare I ask how a statement can be any more plain that that?

No. . .better, let me ask just how you would report doing someting and getting a result in a fashion that wasn't bragging?

Well, I wouldn't have used 'dare' in the description of the action.

Mailanka

08-26-2010, 10:23 AM

Interesting reading of:

Its a statement that they went against prevailing wisdom with favorable results. Where is the bragging? Had the statement been, "We were forwardlooking and race conscious in a way that is utterly absent in the industry and therefore we are proud to have demonstrated the pure folly of others by showing that our conviction paid off," I might see that as bragging.

They dared to put a black woman on the front of the cover (says "dare" right in there) and their struggle "against prevailing wisdom" as you put it, turned out to be a victory for the because "It did" sell well.

No, obviously, Ethan didn't say "Despite all the blatant bigotry in the fantasy RPG market, we bravely pushed forward with our defiant plan to put a black woman on our cover, and in the end, we were vindicated"

But nor did he say "Meh, I'm so tired of white guys being on the cover. We thought we'd try a black woman, just to be different, and it didn't turn out badly for us" either.

Look, there are two sides to this, and you seem to be only seeing one. On the one hand, if I put a predominantly white cast in my game, then I am a "bigot" or at least "conservative." I have seen people and games criticized for this. At the same time, if I do include an ethnic minority, then I'm "bowing to political correctness" and changing concepts out of fear of what other people are saying, or some such similar nonsense.

You can't win.

CowboyEnergy

08-26-2010, 10:41 AM

What gives someone the right to just declare that a culture is "white"? I mean, can I go and call other cultures inherently "black"?

Cripes, cultural imperialism much?

Icon

08-26-2010, 10:46 AM

Look, there are two sides to this, and you seem to be only seeing one. On the one hand, if I put a predominantly white cast in my game, then I am a "bigot" or at least "conservative." I have seen people and games criticized for this. At the same time, if I do include an ethnic minority, then I'm "bowing to political correctness" and changing concepts out of fear of what other people are saying, or some such similar nonsense.

You can't win.

I am not ever going to toss out an accusation of someone "bowing to political correctness" because I despise the term for having been appropriated by the American right to bash the left for what has always been the case--there being things which were acceptable and thing which were not in communication and discourse. The right's problem is that what is acceptable is not what they are used to being acceptable. So when someone tosses out that "African-American is the politically correct reference," I have to stop and wonder, "Is that a problem for you? What exactly did you want to use instead?"

And I see no reason to accommodate those who would rail against norms which have evolved out of people determining for themselves what they want to be called or rail against the idea of inclusion in what is considered the norm as opposed to benign neglect.

You want to present that hapless designers are going to be caught between those telling them to be inclusive and those denouncing inclusivity. I have to ask, "Why would a designer care to cater to those who have problems seeing someone not of their sex, gender, race, ethnicity included on the cover of a book that revolves around fantastic elements that don't exist in the real world anyway?"

Mailanka

08-26-2010, 10:49 AM

I see no reason to accommodate

So I noticed. I think that'll be enough of this conversation for me.

Icon

08-26-2010, 10:56 AM

So I noticed. I think that'll be enough of this conversation for me.

The need to selectively quote says a lot about how little you had to say to begin with.

Voadam

08-26-2010, 12:21 PM

Pretty sure you mean Brom here. I don't think rk post was in the business yet when DS was being published.

Yeah, one of those guys, the one who did the original covers. I just know it was not Diterlizzi.:)

Voadam

08-26-2010, 12:39 PM

I certainly don't consider that relatively minor feature of Greyhawk to be sine qua non D&D.

I only ran a short campaign in Greyhawk, but I didn't really care about or use that information. (I thought it was kinda lame—transparently native americans...but with curly hair? Can you imagine a live-action Greyhawk film with native american actors with perms?) Everyone imagined their characters' appearance however they liked. Presumably everyone imagined their characters as having a similar skintone to their own.

Sure, that's the default. That's the default for anyone without a contrived agenda.

Everyone who played greyhawk as opposed to generic D&D was actually just playing D&D and ignoring the actual Greyhawk ethnic descriptions because that is the way you played it?

That's the default for everyone not you? Anything different is a contrived agenda?

People playing in D&D settings with defined ethnicity appearances always ignored those as a default unless working from a contrived agenda?

I don't find multi-ethnic representation in a game setting to be impressive just because it's there. I'd like it to be actually interesting and serve some thematic purpose in connection with other elements. If the author is just going to toss in a remark about the people looking like a visible minority to pat themselves on the back, I'd rather that ethnicities are left up to the imaginations of the players.

You don't see the thematic connection of ethnicity to population migration patterns and the current geopolitical power structure of 1e Greyhawk with major bakluni and oeridian and suel interactions with flan and rhenee as mostly unimportant minorities as far as political power?

I don't think Gygax wrote the greyhawk ethnicities as a tossed in remark so he could pat himself on the back about visible minorities showing up in gaming.

I think he was closer to modelling himself on Howard and the range of ethnic peoples and geopolitical powers in Hyboria.

Voadam

08-26-2010, 12:46 PM

Asia and the Middle east get campaign settings thanks to eastern exoticism, but I can't think of one African inspired campaing setting. I take your point about contrived nature Politically Correct tolkenism, but don't you find this utter derth a bit odd for a game which allows you to simulate pretty much anything you can imagine?

For D&D:

Nyambe, by Atlas Games.

Svimozhia or however it is spelled by Kenzer Co.

Golarion by Paizo has a well developed "African" continent.

This is also ignoring all the Egyptian D&D stuff from Forgotten Realms to Hollow World Mystara to Hamunaptra to others.

ESkemp

08-26-2010, 01:39 PM

I dunno, I'm kinda have mixed feelings about this. I mean, for example, right at the beginning, you brag about being able to put a black woman on the cover of Exalted and selling it. That sounds like patting yourself on the back, and I've certainly seen people promote the most absurd things like "the first female star trek captain" or "the first black star trek captain" (though he was really a commander, sucker!) as though these things were great steps forward for civil rights, rather than beating a dead horse. That's annoying.

I'm patting Geoff Grabowski on the back, but the real thing is the question of motivation. Assuming that someone has no reason other than to feel superior is honestly kinda insulting. Geoff is not that guy, and I cannot help but give someone the hairy eyeball when they claim otherwise.

Seriously, a fellow can't say positive things about his former co-workers? Or correct unfounded assumptions about them?

Christopher V. Brady

08-26-2010, 02:05 PM

I'm patting Geoff Grabowski on the back, but the real thing is the question of motivation. Assuming that someone has no reason other than to feel superior is honestly kinda insulting. Geoff is not that guy, and I cannot help but give someone the hairy eyeball when they claim otherwise.

Seriously, a fellow can't say positive things about his former co-workers? Or correct unfounded assumptions about them?

I think, Mr. Skemp, that it's not that you were congratulating him, but rather the wording you used. You 'dared' to be different, and were apparently, vindicated for your choice. As if somehow it was a great stride to humanity's future.

Frankly, it's not. I mean, it's cool that Jade helped you sell your books, but at the same time... There's been a recent video game study in which it's been discovered that having a female protagonist is starting to outsell the games with male ones.

Personally, I think it's because of this: A) Male Gamers would rather stare at tits, and B) Female Gamers can now have something that they can vaguely identify with.

Although, really, it's mostly A.

Besides, I think that Nintendo was the one who pretty much pioneered the female action lead, way back in 1986, when they released Samus Aran as a woman, in their game Metroid. At least to the Video Game world, which is much, much, much larger than the RPG one at this time.

Tadatsune

08-26-2010, 02:29 PM

For D&D:

Nyambe, by Atlas Games.

Svimozhia or however it is spelled by Kenzer Co.

Golarion by Paizo has a well developed "African" continent.

Thanks for the info, it's good to know that these things are available. But I notice this is all third party stuff. I never got past 2e. How recent are these in terms of release?

Re: Egyptian/North African stuff - conceptually speaking, this sort of stuff tends to get lumped in with the "exotic eastern setting" category. That's not to say that Egypt isn't a very important part of Africa, but its only one corner of a very large continent.

simontmn

08-26-2010, 03:17 PM

...To me it looks like there's a mish-mash of Celtic, Faroes/Scandinavian, Native American, Pacific Islander, Greek/Mediterranean and all sorts in the various cultures in Earthsea...

I'm also interested in the idea that there's an inherent connection between culture and skin-tone in fantasy worlds entirely unconnected to our own...

1. I picked up on the Celtic, Faroes, and Greek cultural elements, but I didn't notice anything appreciably Native American or Pacific Islander.

2. Skin tone IRL is connected to latitude, although IRL light-brown tones seem to work ok most places. I'm fine with arbitrarily assigning skin tones to fantasy ethnicities, eg the Red Martians of ERB; or the Wilderlands' various red, green and blue human races. But when it's as arbitrary as it appears to be in the Earthsea case, rather than being an emergent property of the world-building, I don't think the author has any moral grounding to object when ethnic-Japanese adapters make the characters look Anime-Japanese, or ethnic-European adapters make them look white/European.

BTW reading the books as a child, I never noticed the characters weren't supposed to look like the fantasy-medieval-Europeans they behaved as. Maybe somebody was described as 'brown-skinned' and I thought 'suntanned'. But I grew up in what was then a 100% white part of the British Isles, maybe Americans see things differently.

Edit: Somewhat ironically though I was just telling a friend today how I nearly teared up when another friend repainted a player character mini of mine for a birthday present. Only the (deceased, very fondly remembered) player character was a brown-skinned woman, and my friend innocently repainted the figure as white. I was distraught. So I'm guessing that's how LeGuin feels about seeing a white Sparrowhawk. Trying to empathise, here. :)

Tadatsune

08-26-2010, 03:43 PM

I don't think the author has any moral grounding to object when ethnic-Japanese adapters make the characters look Anime-Japanese, or ethnic-European adapters make them look white/European.

Putting aside "moral grounding", what about artistic integrity? The characters and world are her creation, so why shouldn't she feel angry when others alter them without permission? Artists take pride in their work, and often view it as a form of self expression. I don't think its unreasonable to be upset when someone messes with your work, especially if it interferes with what your were trying to express.

BTW reading the books as a child, I never noticed the characters weren't supposed to look like the fantasy-medieval-Europeans they behaved as. Maybe somebody was described as 'brown-skinned' and I thought 'suntanned'. But I grew up in what was then a 100% white part of the British Isles, maybe Americans see things differently.

I assumed the characters were white as well, though not on cultural grounds; I simply missed - or failed to aborb - the physical description of the main chararcter (and by extention his people); this happens to me a lot when reading - wou read the description at the begining but it doesn't quite stick, and you end up making up a different picture in your head. It can be a rude awakening to be reminded later in the story - or on second reading - that the character has dark hair, or a beard, or some other feature your mental model failed to include. Thus, I saw the characters as white, by default. But, that said, the culture did not seem very "fantasy-medieval-European" to me (though I should note that I only read the first book in the series).

Wood

08-26-2010, 05:29 PM

I think, Mr. Skemp, that it's not that you were congratulating him, but rather the wording you used. You 'dared' to be different, and were apparently, vindicated for your choice. As if somehow it was a great stride to humanity's future.

Hang on. Wasn't it that someone dared Grabowski to do it?

Jim DelRosso

08-26-2010, 06:46 PM

I'm still waiting to hear how exactly the characters in Earthsea act white.

Topher

08-26-2010, 07:17 PM

I'm still waiting to hear how exactly the characters in Earthsea act white.

Why, they act "normal," of course.

And normal people are white.

Topher

Voadam

08-26-2010, 07:23 PM

Thanks for the info, it's good to know that these things are available. But I notice this is all third party stuff. I never got past 2e. How recent are these in terms of release?

Re: Egyptian/North African stuff - conceptually speaking, this sort of stuff tends to get lumped in with the "exotic eastern setting" category. That's not to say that Egypt isn't a very important part of Africa, but its only one corner of a very large continent.

Svimohzia (http://www.amazon.com/Svimohzia-Ancient-Isle-Kingdoms-Kalamar/dp/159459077X/ref=wl_it_dp_o?ie=UTF8&coliid=I1EDYJ98ZCPUUA&colid=3BGJZV7NHL4JW) is 2007 for 3.5.

Nyambe (http://www.amazon.com/Nyambe-African-Adventures-D20-System/dp/158978023X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1282874998&sr=1-1) is 2002 for 3.0.

Pathfinder Chronicles Campaign Setting (http://www.amazon.com/Pathfinder-Chronicles-Campaign-Erik-Mona/dp/1601251122/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1282875050&sr=1-1) is 2008 for 3.5 and will be updated for Pathfinder RPG in 2011 (http://www.amazon.com/Pathfinder-Campaign-Setting-World-Guide/dp/1601252692/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1282875131&sr=1-2) Golarion's two detailed continents are basically fantasy Europe/greyhawk redone and fantasy Africa. The Africa continent has an Egypt analogue, Arabian analogues, and a bunch of fantasy non-Egypt, non-Arabian, -Africa. There are an east Asian and Indian analogue continents too but they are not on the map and don't have every individual nation detailed the way the Europe and Africa ones do (two to four page descriptions for each one).

Earlier there was Aesheba (http://www.amazon.com/Aesheba-Greek-Africa-Fantasy-Master/dp/0941993140/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1282875199&sr=1-1) in 1987 which was fantasy greek colonies in fantasy Africa in a non D&D game.

During the 3e era I also found a yahoo group for a living campaign thing based in fantasy africa during the 2e era the way there was living FR but it was already defunct when I found it and I couldn't find any resources still linked in its files sections.

That Idiot

08-26-2010, 07:25 PM

Nyambe (http://www.amazon.com/Nyambe-African-Adventures-D20-System/dp/158978023X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1282874998&sr=1-1) is 2002 for 3.0.

Wow! Nyambe is 8 years old. I remember when it came out like it was only last year.

Voadam

08-26-2010, 07:28 PM

Wow! Nyambe is 8 years old. I remember when it came out like it was only last year.

I remember when it was a free internet download about half the size of the hardcopy it got turned into after Atlas bought the rights from the author to develop and publish it. :)

Christopher V. Brady

08-26-2010, 07:33 PM

Hang on. Wasn't it that someone dared Grabowski to do it?

Really? Why? Why would it matter if it was a dare or not. Actually now that I think on it, that's a little more sad. Someone had to dare him to do it, otherwise he might not have ever known that it would have sold their books as well as it did.

That's saddening. I prefer my illusion of he did it because he wanted to. Not because he was being edgy, or responding to a childish taunt.

Why, they act "normal," of course.

And normal people are white.

Topher

Define 'Normal'.

Anyway, ignoring the threadcrap, and bearing in mind that I never read the books. Perhaps part of the issue is that to those readers, the characters didn't act noticeably different than someone in say, a pseudo-European manner, perhaps they were a sea based culture, and yet their foods weren't mainly fish, and/or seaweed (Which is actually pretty tasty, if done right.) Things like that. It could also be that the writer put in a single, effectively throwaway line, about skin tone, or behavior or whatnot, and never followed it up, leaving the reader to assume things based on limited information.

And I'd like to point out that although, this particular complaint has never been leveled at Ms. LeGuin, I have heard it before. In fact, there was a sorta-Cyberpunk book out in during the 90's about a Brazilian male, who was in fact a black man, but one of my friends (Who is Black) was disgusted because the cover (Which actually had a black man) assumed that he was actually a White Brazilian male. However, inside the book, I believe it was mentioned a few times. Truth be told, all I remember is that he (The main protagonist) dies in jail, halfway through the story.

That Idiot

08-26-2010, 07:43 PM

And I'd like to point out that although, this particular complaint has never been leveled at Ms. LeGuin, I have heard it before. In fact, there was a sorta-Cyberpunk book out in during the 90's about a Brazilian male, who was in fact a black man, but one of my friends (Who is Black) was disgusted because the cover (Which actually had a black man) assumed that he was actually a White Brazilian male. However, inside the book, I believe it was mentioned a few times. Truth be told, all I remember is that he (The main protagonist) dies in jail, halfway through the story.
Several white people with whom I have personally discussed the book Starship Troopers with has told me that they thought the main character was white, even though his name is Juan Rico.

reitschule

08-26-2010, 07:46 PM

Yeah, when I see a fantasy setting that explicitly states that its inhabitants aren't homogeneously Caucasian, I'm impressed. I'm impressed because not many settings do that and I like to see some variety. It's not a social agenda, it's an appreciation of novelty.That's cool. I just think it's important to pick one or the other—appreciation of novelty, or social agenda—because they're incoherent together. That's my "objective" point. My opinion is that I'll go with neither of them.

Christopher V. Brady

08-26-2010, 07:52 PM

Several white people with whom I have personally discussed the book Starship Troopers with has told me that they thought the main character was white, even though his name is Juan Rico.

Well, that depends. Do you believe that a Mexican/Spaniard (Of which they are of similar stock) are 'White' or another colour?

What about Mediterranean folks, like Greeks. Or the Middle East like Persians?

Truth be told, it's things like this that confuse me. I mean, I have Spanish and Mexican blood in me (Although my little brother seems to have more, a lot more) so this colour thing tends to no really register.

Outside of the Far East nations, the African continental peoples and the West, the differences are so minor. Hell, even WITHIN those countries, there are variations. Tibetans look different enough from Koreans to be noticeable, there are several shades of Black folks, ranging from light brown to near black each with their own visible facial differences. Not to mention the various types of Caucasian, like Indians (As in India), the Danish countries and the like.

I don't get this whole colour thing... It's too confusing!

That Idiot

08-26-2010, 07:56 PM

Well, that depends. Do you believe that a Mexican/Spaniard (Of which they are of similar stock) are 'White' or another colour?

He's Filipino.

reitschule

08-26-2010, 07:57 PM

Everyone who played greyhawk as opposed to generic D&D was actually just playing D&D and ignoring the actual Greyhawk ethnic descriptions because that is the way you played it?

That's the default for everyone not you? Anything different is a contrived agenda?

People playing in D&D settings with defined ethnicity appearances always ignored those as a default unless working from a contrived agenda? No, no. The default, in the absence of explicitly defined ethnic descriptions, is to imagine your character as of a similar ethnicity to yourself.

You don't see the thematic connection of ethnicity to population migration patterns and the current geopolitical power structure of 1e Greyhawk with major bakluni and oeridian and suel interactions with flan and rhenee as mostly unimportant minorities as far as political power?

I don't think Gygax wrote the greyhawk ethnicities as a tossed in remark so he could pat himself on the back about visible minorities showing up in gaming.

I think he was closer to modelling himself on Howard and the range of ethnic peoples and geopolitical powers in Hyboria.First sentence of the racial characteristics section, World of Greyhawk boxed set:

"There are few pure racial groups extant on the Flanaess."

First sentence of the last paragraph of the section:

"In general, the skin color of an individual is of no particular importance."

Naxuul

08-26-2010, 08:09 PM

Well, that depends. Do you believe that a Mexican/Spaniard (Of which they are of similar stock) are 'White' or another colour?
Juan Rico is actually Phillipino, so he's definitely not white.

But technically, you're right in a general sense. A kid from a wealthy family in Buenos Aires is most likely almost entirely European in heritage and within the social structure of Buenos Aires they would almost certainly be considered white. Blond hair, blue/green eyes, lily white skin.. not like super common, but I can pretty easily find them among the models/actors of Latin America I know of.

-Naxuul

Christopher V. Brady

08-26-2010, 08:21 PM

My apologies, it's been nearly a decade since I read the book, I remember reading and wondering what made him 'different'. I mean Dizzy (Who dies) was a Black man, but even there was nothing outstanding from anyone around them.

That Idiot

08-26-2010, 08:29 PM

Tadatsune

08-26-2010, 08:36 PM

Define 'Normal'.

Actually, this is kind of the point. Normal is whatever the reader concieves it as. And, since the default for most readers in the US or UK is "white" people acting like, welll, ordinary people are coded as white. To break the conceptual barrier, characters have to do something that specifically marks them as "ethnic". The ultimate result is that the only non-white characters with real visibility are ones that comform to certain cultural or social stereo-types.

To look at it another way, if I write a sci-fi novel set 30,000 years into the future in a culture that does not bare much resemblance to contemporary Earth, and I fail to mention the physical apperance of the characters, you are likely to imagine their race/ethnicity as whatever your personal "default" is (this default may be different for sci-fi than it is for other genres - its all down to what you unconciously expect).

Now, imagine I, as the author, come in an declare that the people in the book have skin-tone X or physical feature Y. If this matches your default, no problem; things are as you assumed they were. If, however, the image doesn't match your default, you will have one of two responses: Either you will, A) say OK and roll with it, adjusting your conception to match the description, or B) experience difficulty reconciling the new physical description with the image you had imagined. If you fall in the B category, its likely because you read the character's behavior as "normal" and, unconciously, to you normal = "default". Without any distinctive "ethnic" markers to clearly mark the characters as another race (whether it be an accent, slang, a certain style of dress, food, sterotypical traits or behaviors, whatever...), the characters do not seem appropriate for ethnic group X.

Now, back to Earthsea. The issue here is that the characters are being read as "normal", and thus translated as "white" (the default); a reading which is supported by readers being able to pick out a few European cultural markers from the fantasy mish-mash world of the novel. Le Guin, however, makes the skin color and the features of the characters explicitly non-white, however, leading to a tention between the physical description and the perception of the charater's culture and behavior as white. Hence the feeling some readers are getting that the writer's ethic choice for the characters is "contrived" and doesn't mesh with the setting.

It's not that such a situation is impossible (a book about white fantasy zulus might, or black asiatic steppe nomads might indeed feel contrived, even if anything is possible in a fantasy setting). It's just that, in this case, it seems to be more in people's heads than written on the page.

Joe_G_Kushner

08-26-2010, 08:38 PM

Not at all.

It was Samurai Sunday, not something of African descent.

It was 1,001 Arabian Nights, again, not something of African descent. Lots of movies with the themes, including a certain rogue and his band of thieves no?

I'm certainly not saying that the mythology and landscape of Africa isn't rich. Nyambe the RPG and the Imaro series prove that it is ripe with opportunity. Note Nyambe wansn't heavily supported and that Imaro had to have the last two books in the series essentially self published.

However, without a widely accepted, widely shared background that is publiclly consumed into the masses, it ain't happening.

India doesn't tend to fare much better despite Green Ronin's semi-India based setting and the delving into some of those religions/themes in the Black Company latter novels.

People jumping up and talking about the richness of multi-national gaming and how it needs to expand... keep talking. I'm not disagreeing, I'm just saying it ain't happening.

Eh. The United States is over 60% white. African Americans, by contrast, make up a mere 13% of the population. And while there are assurredly black people who play D&D, I imagine the world-wide demographics are scued even further toward caucasians.

That's a good argument against, say, 1:1 representation. It's pretty natural for D&D to have a perpoderance of white character images, given that it was made by((I assume) white designers, designed with a largely Medieval European setting, and played by a largely white audience.

That said, I think we are missing the big picture, here. The problem is not that any particular artist's rendering, book cover, movie casting, or RPG setting is "racist" because it lacks non-whites. It's that if every image and every setting is designed to cater to the percieved preferences of the "target audience" you end up never depicting non-whites at all. I'm sitting here with my 2e AD&D DMG and PHB and there isn't a sinlge illustration depicting a non-caucasian. I've got a pile of suppliments, as well, and I bet you if I went through them I'd get similar, if not identical results. (There is a arab dude and a black lady pirate under "Human", as well as two asians getting beat up by an ogre-mage in the MM, but that is about it.) Asia and the Middle east get campaign settings thanks to eastern exoticism, but I can't think of one African inspired campaing setting. I take your point about contrived nature Politically Correct tolkenism, but don't you find this utter derth a bit odd for a game which allows you to simulate pretty much anything you can imagine?

Tadatsune

08-26-2010, 08:53 PM

However, without a widely accepted, widely shared background that is publiclly consumed into the masses, it ain't happening.
...
People jumping up and talking about the richness of multi-national gaming and how it needs to expand... keep talking. I'm not disagreeing, I'm just saying it ain't happening.

Point taken. I don't expect or even desire "fantasy Medieval Europe" being de-throned as the standard RPG setting anytime soon.

But that said, you have to recognize that there is a big difference between a natural tendancy toward a certain setting due to history and demographics, and a bunch of corperate suits comming down from on high and saying - "uh-no, we aren't going to print that."

Because that's litterally what we are talking about here; guys from TSR rolling up and saying that they aren't going to take the chance of putting a black or asian on the cover because they might lose sales. Multiply that out by 100,000 and spread it over the movie, tv, and publishing industry and you end up with what the social justice people call "systematic racism" - even if not a single person involved actually has any personal bias against black people.

And everybody suffers because of this; the people who get no representation, and the rest of us who are deprived of variety - stuck with clone after clone of the same setting.

With respect to your last line, I'd say it *is* happening... just very slowly. Luckily the genre gives you all the tools to do it yourself, if you have the desire to.

Joe_G_Kushner

08-26-2010, 08:57 PM

This is a good point.

But the games aren't failing (if WoTC is to be believed) so why would they bother to change?

Because Exalted did? From a company that's essentially print on demand now?

Best bet of having this happen is I believe OSR but unless I'm missing my guess, most of those aren't really about settings as much as reinventing the wheel.

It's going to take something like a filmed version of Imaro or some break out author doing a fantasy take on the gods of a region of Africa like George R. R. Martin and making it big.

Talking about the 'suits' from WoTC, because essentially, they are really one of the few companies that probably have suits, and wanting them to change, is to me, like waking up and going, "Just for some difference, I'd like that sun to really rise in the west today" and being disappointed it isn't.

Until some outside media agency makes a big splash there is zero motivation outside of a massive letter writting campaign or something along those lines and I'd bet money that ain't gonna happen either.

Point taken. I don't expect or even desire "fantasy Medieval Europe" being de-throned as the standard RPG setting anytime soon.

But that said, you have to recognize that there is a big difference between a natural tendancy toward a certain setting due to history and demographics, and a bunch of corperate suits comming down from on high and saying - "uh-no, we aren't going to print that."

Because that's litterally what we are talking about here; guys from TSR rolling up and saying that they aren't going to take the chance of putting a black or asian on the cover because they might lose sales. Multiply that out by 100,000 and spread it over the movie, tv, and publishing industry and you end up with what the social justice people call "systematic racism" - even if not a single person involved actually has any personal bias against black people.

And everybody suffers because of this; the people who get no representation, and the rest of us who are deprived of variety - stuck with clone after clone of the same setting.

With respect to your last line, I'd say it *is* happening... just very slowly. Luckily the genre gives you all the tools to do it yourself, if you have the desire to.

That Idiot

08-26-2010, 09:04 PM

It's going to take something like a filmed version of Imaro or some break out author doing a fantasy take on the gods of a region of Africa like George R. R. Martin and making it big.

I wonder if Michael Clarke Duncan is too long in the tooth to play Imaro? Or better yet, Ving Rhames?

Tadatsune

08-26-2010, 09:11 PM

The line between realism an cynicism is a fine one; the one thing that you can be certain of is that very little will change if you just shrug your shoulders and sit back.

Joe_G_Kushner

08-26-2010, 10:03 PM

The line between realism an cynicism is a fine one; the one thing that you can be certain of is that very little will change if you just shrug your shoulders and sit back.

true.

I suggest that people who are interested in seeing more of the variety they clamor for start submitting articles to dungeon and dragon magazine. this can be something simple like adding...

New Powers

New Paragon Paths

New Epic Destinies

New Weapons

New Monsters

New Builds

In some cases, this could be as simple as looking at Nyambe and seeing what has mythological roots and updating it to 4e or reviewing the old 2nd ed modules where they had various weapons and monsters based on African myhthology. Feats for priests to take to be favored of their gods? Thunder of Shango or something of that nature?

For Dungeon, something where the players are hired on as guardians to explore ancient and forgotten loot of fallen empires is never a bad thing.

Tadatsune

08-26-2010, 10:52 PM

On a more positive note, I just had flip-through of my D&D Rules Cyclopedia which is not only beautifully illustrated, but contains portrayals of a wide range of cultures and ethnic groups.

(The fighter pictured on the fighter character page is, indeed, a white male, however.)

Dragon_Blooded

08-26-2010, 11:47 PM

Juan Rico is actually Phillipino, so he's definitely not white.

But technically, you're right in a general sense. A kid from a wealthy family in Buenos Aires is most likely almost entirely European in heritage and within the social structure of Buenos Aires they would almost certainly be considered white. Blond hair, blue/green eyes, lily white skin.. not like super common, but I can pretty easily find them among the models/actors of Latin America I know of.

-Naxuul

No need to be wealthy, most of Argentina's population is white. Unless you don't consider people of mostly Spanish and Italian blood white.

Eduardo Penna

Chris Gardiner

08-27-2010, 01:36 AM

I mean Dizzy (Who dies) was a Black man,

Dizzy was a *dude*?!

[Has only seen the movie]

simontmn

08-27-2010, 01:50 AM

Now, back to Earthsea. The issue here is that the characters are being read as "normal", and thus translated as "white" (the default); a reading which is supported by readers being able to pick out a few European cultural markers from the fantasy mish-mash world of the novel. Le Guin, however, makes the skin color and the features of the characters explicitly non-white, however, leading to a tention between the physical description and the perception of the charater's culture and behavior as white. Hence the feeling some readers are getting that the writer's ethic choice for the characters is "contrived" and doesn't mesh with the setting.

It's not that such a situation is impossible (a book about white fantasy zulus might, or black asiatic steppe nomads might indeed feel contrived, even if anything is possible in a fantasy setting). It's just that, in this case, it seems to be more in people's heads than written on the page.

Yes, on both points. It's not contrived the way that say the Mongol horse-riding dwarves in Sovereign Stone are silly and contrived, it just seems arbitrary. I'm from a small Celtic all-white nation (Northern Ireland) and reading the books as a child the characters seemed like more civilised Celts/Faroe Islanders with a touch of Corfu, so yes I certainly imagined them as looking like me. I'm sure my friend who called his first PC Sparrowhawk did also. Years later it was actually quite unsettling to learn that LeGuin, from an apparently very American-centric POV, disapproves of this.

simontmn

08-27-2010, 01:57 AM

Putting aside "moral grounding", what about artistic integrity? The characters and world are her creation, so why shouldn't she feel angry when others alter them without permission? Artists take pride in their work, and often view it as a form of self expression. I don't think its unreasonable to be upset when someone messes with your work, especially if it interferes with what your were trying to express.

I'm sure that's how LeGuin feels - her Moral Right of Integrity is infringed. OTOH to me it feels like trying to stop African Christians depicting Jesus as black, or Chinese Harry Potter fans depicting him as Chinese-looking - not particularly reasonable.

Naxuul

08-27-2010, 04:13 AM

No need to be wealthy, most of Argentina's population is white. Unless you don't consider people of mostly Spanish and Italian blood white.

Eduardo Penna
I wasn't sure of Argentina's ethnic make up, so I just guessed it had similiar ethnic/class breakdown as most Latin American countries.

-Naxuul

HeridFel

08-27-2010, 04:28 AM

I don't have a problem with a running theme of "the fighter is always dying". As plenty of folks have said, that's somewhat true to the game. It does bug me a bit that the reason he was continually killed off is because of his race, regardless of what that race is. To be fair, I also don't approve of the sentiment that a human fighter was needed for some sort of racial balancing factor, but the latter doesn't excuse the former.

Eurhetemec

08-27-2010, 04:56 AM

1. I picked up on the Celtic, Faroes, and Greek cultural elements, but I didn't notice anything appreciably Native American or Pacific Islander.

I'm not going to comment on that much, because it'd be a whole other thread. Some of the stuff is pretty much "human universal" too. I still don't see any justification for "culturally very white" based on that, especially as both Celts and Greeks have been (well into the 20th Century in the West), and continue to be, characterized as "non-white" by many people (even in Britain, British-Irish is a different checkbox to White British). You also yourself said one of the cultures was "Middle-Eastern" which just confuses the issue further.

2. Skin tone IRL is connected to latitude, although IRL light-brown tones seem to work ok most places. I'm fine with arbitrarily assigning skin tones to fantasy ethnicities, eg the Red Martians of ERB; or the Wilderlands' various red, green and blue human races. But when it's as arbitrary as it appears to be in the Earthsea case, rather than being an emergent property of the world-building, I don't think the author has any moral grounding to object when ethnic-Japanese adapters make the characters look Anime-Japanese, or ethnic-European adapters make them look white/European.

Skin tones in individual populations are not consistently connected to actual latitude IRL. This is so easy to demonstrate that it's not worth arguing. It's connected to ancestral background which is connected to a wide variety of things. Plenty of ethnic groups have skin that is more dark, more pale, more reddish, more bluish or the like than is "ideal" to balance vitamin D production whilst avoiding skin damage from sun exposure. Most importantly, ethnic groups move around, often significantly, and their skin colour does not magically keep up with them, not in a post-civilization society.

In the Worldsea setting, given everyone is sailing around all the time, it is even less surprising that people have skin tones which don't necessarily match their latitude.

The claim that an author - and this must be extended to all authors - has no right to object to people changing their work unless it is deemed "non-arbitrary" seems to me like an absolutely extraordinary one. By that token, there is almost nothing that any genuine fantasy or soft SF writer (as opposed to to some hard SF or alternate world writers) could possibly ever object to being changed, because in the end, they made a decision to include what they did.

That Le Guin's world-building is characterized as arbitrary and others are not is also extraordinary. Le Guin chose to build a world with not solely white-skinned characters for a stated and considered reason. Could you please explain how that is arbitrary in a way that is materially different to other authors? Claiming that it was "political" doesn't help or explain anything. One might say the same of a thousand fantasy and SF authors, perhaps the vast majority of them. She had a reason, she stated the reason. Disliking the reason does not make it arbitrary nor does it make it in any way wrong.

Edit - Even if she'd rolled a die and used it to select the skin-tone of the peoples, that's a decision, by an author, about their work, and not "arbitrary" in an way that can be used to excuse changing it, I would suggest (unless the author encourages you to do so).

For me, it made her books feel much more like they were set in a living, breathing world that I could believe it, in a way many other SF authors failed to achieve.

BTW reading the books as a child, I never noticed the characters weren't supposed to look like the fantasy-medieval-Europeans they behaved as. Maybe somebody was described as 'brown-skinned' and I thought 'suntanned'. But I grew up in what was then a 100% white part of the British Isles, maybe Americans see things differently.

I'm a Brit from London, though very far from a "100% white" area (Hackney). I noticed the skin tones immediately because it was the first fantasy novel I read where everyone wasn't white. Having never lived in a "100% white" area, I'd always found the "all-white" concept when applied to entire novels involving multiple cultures to be a little weird.

Edit: Somewhat ironically though I was just telling a friend today how I nearly teared up when another friend repainted a player character mini of mine for a birthday present. Only the (deceased, very fondly remembered) player character was a brown-skinned woman, and my friend innocently repainted the figure as white. I was distraught. So I'm guessing that's how Le Guin feels about seeing a white Sparrowhawk. Trying to empathise, here. :)

Perhaps if you imagine that times a thousand, given that Le Guin wrote four books and spent years (decades?) on this series.

Also remember that she's dealing with repeat offenders. It's not like people changed the books once. Both adaptations decided to white-wash the characters. Once would be annoying, especially as she made the characters non-white intentionally. Twice is just a travesty. Especially as the messed up other bits as well, like making it much more violent when it's kind of the point that it's not particularly violent. To be honest, I think I'd be much more upset if I'd written books and someone changed them, especially if they gave their reasoning as "You choices were arbitrary, so I've replaced them with marketing-driven choices", which is essentially what has happened.

Years later it was actually quite unsettling to learn that Le Guin, from an apparently very American-centric POV, disapproves of this.

Accusing Le Guin of being "very American-centric" without an explanation is pretty extreme. Could you explain what you mean by this? She travelled the world with her anthropologist parents as a child, and is very interested in anthropology and other cultures. I think there are relatively few fantasy writers who have a less "nation-of-origin-centric" perspective, actually.

Also, I think that there's a fairly clear difference between mythological characters like Jesus and characters still in copyright by modern authors.

Flawless Glory of Silence

08-27-2010, 05:02 AM

Dizzy was a *dude*?!

[Has only seen the movie]

Who died on the way up.

Go read the book, and forget that misbegotten pile of shitpuke that was the movie.

simontmn

08-27-2010, 05:07 AM

both Celts and Greeks have been (well into the 20th Century in the West), and continue to be, characterized as "non-white" by many people (even in Britain, British-Irish is a different checkbox to White British)

That's done to track any discrimination against the Irish, as I expect you know. It does personally annoy me, since I am ethnically both "white-British" and "white-Irish", but I don't think that makes me "white-Other"*.

Who characterises Greeks as non-white? Maybe in Australia during the early years of Greek immigration? What you much more often see is a desire by north-west Euopeans to identify with classical Greek civilisation as "our" heritage, so Hellenes are classed "white", but those Other guys over the Hellespont (Persians, Turks et al) are "non-white". Qv "300", or Byron, Shelley et al.

*And I do sometimes get discriminated against by the English (and once by a Welsh B&B owner!) on account of my Northern Irish accent. That doesn't somehow make me ethnically non-British, though.

Yo! Master

08-27-2010, 05:18 AM

Who characterises Greeks as non-white?

Well...

Eurhetemec

08-27-2010, 05:24 AM

That's done to track any discrimination against the Irish, as I expect you know. It does personally annoy me, since I am ethnically both "white-British" and "white-Irish", but I don't think that makes me "white-Other"*.

Who characterises Greeks as non-white? Maybe in Australia during the early years of Greek immigration? What you much more often see is a desire by north-west Euopeans to identify with classical Greek civilisation as "our" heritage, so Hellenes are classed "white", but those Other guys over the Hellespont (Persians, Turks et al) are "non-white". Qv "300", or Byron, Shelley et al.

Kind of making my point for me here, Simon. There's this huge thing where the Ancient Greeks are magically white (and often straight-haired) in all depictions of them, yet modern Greeks, especially darker-skinned people are definitely treated as a non-white ethnic group in many parts of the world, including Britain. This isn't something that's changed hugely either - looking at self-depictions by the ancient Greeks, they often make themselves very dark, and and always with dark curly hair. That people with Celtic and Anglo-Saxon heritage have appropriated those myths whilst maintaining distance with the actual people reinforces what I'm saying.

I mean look at what you're writing "That's done to track discrimination against the Irish" - why are they discriminated against? Because they're seen as the other, as Celts who somehow different and worse to "True Brits" (i.e. Anglo-Saxons - which is hilarious because most Anglo-Saxon areas are about 64% Celtic by haplotype but whatever, that's a recent discovery), or to "white people". It's not because the Irish have a different accent.

Ricohard1986

08-27-2010, 05:53 AM

I mean look at what you're writing "That's done to track discrimination against the Irish" - why are they discriminated against? Because they're seen as the other, as Celts who somehow different and worse to "True Brits" (i.e. Anglo-Saxons - which is hilarious because most Anglo-Saxon areas are about 64% Celtic by haplotype but whatever, that's a recent discovery), or to "white people". It's not because the Irish have a different accent.

Mostly cause for several hundred years britain used ireland as a place to grow extra crops, raise taxes and smash for being catholic, its not really racial its far more a complicated eco-relgious problem. Add into that the Irish Navi as a hard drinking ruffian stereotype. So you can see why there used to be signs that said "No Blacks, No Irish, No Dogs."

But yeah, the primary reason for british discrimination against the Irish has never really been race but culture, religion and economy.

Eurhetemec

08-27-2010, 06:48 AM

But yeah, the primary reason for british discrimination against the Irish has never really been race but culture, religion and economy.

There's a significant racial element, I would suggest, as a British person of Celtic descent (albeit Scots).

The idea that it's a matter of religion is really seriously undermined by the fact that the bias goes back to 1000s AD, long before Cromwell's idiocy. The Irish have been portrayed as backward and inferior with regularity for the better part of a millennium.

Dragon_Blooded

08-27-2010, 09:31 AM

I wasn't sure of Argentina's ethnic make up, so I just guessed it had similiar ethnic/class breakdown as most Latin American countries.

-Naxuul

Argentina's and Uruguay's ethnic breakdown is quite different from the rest of Latin America, in that there's little native blood on the mix (and a ton of the people descended from natives that live in Argentina are actually Bolivian, Paraguayan or Peruvian immigrants). Also, unlike many Caribbean nations or Brazil, there aren't many persons descended from displaced African people brought as slaves to the New World during the colonial era either.

Eduardo Penna

Erstwhile

08-27-2010, 10:31 AM

I'm sure that's how LeGuin feels - her Moral Right of Integrity is infringed. OTOH to me it feels like trying to stop African Christians depicting Jesus as black, or Chinese Harry Potter fans depicting him as Chinese-looking - not particularly reasonable.

Her Moral Right of Integrity, as you so smugly put it, seems more justified here than if someone, say, had Hispanic actors playing Caramon and Raistlin. Making Earthsea non-white by default (and in particular predominantly African and First Nations, in colour if not explicitly in culture) was a very definite choice for LeGuin, shaped by the times in which she wrote the books (remember the trilogy came out in the 60's and early 70's). No wonder she's pissed; it was a key part of her vision for the piece, and it's the one part that nobody seems to get right. Yeah, yeah, artists are prima donnas. But is it really so odd that she's irritated that people (I'm guessing studio execs in particular) Just Don't Get The Fucking Point?

Of course with the made-for-TV miniseries who can say which was the real reason she was upset - an Ashmore as Sparrohawk, the mutilating of the plot, or the fact that the series sucked all manner of donkey balls?