August 12, 2010

Racism in RP

Posted in Roleplaying Things To Know, World of Warcraft at 3:54 PM by K Kouki S

One of the things I don’t see often in RP enough is racism. I’ve always wondered if it’s because people just don’t want to touch on things, but I wonder, if for example, the campaign book states one race is very attached to their own race and not open to others, how many people, when they roleplay this aspect, actually follow that?

I DM a campaign, homebrew of course, where I’ve pretty much set my own rules and ideals. My players are a couple of folk who are rather open to other races and cultures (even species) not of their ilk, however, I like to cause trouble as a DM and so I throw in a few NPCs who have hatred for all things that are not them. This adds flavor to the game and can result in combat or at the very least, a heated discussion.

I enjoy making characters who are, for the most part, quite flawed. I don’t need to make them as attractive as all hell (ugly elves? check!) or even as thin as they should be (fat chick elves? Yep!) but I do enjoy playing around with species and races. My players are free to react as they will which results in a few interesting surprises and fun times.

One of the things that got to me was, as I played Warcraft I noticed that some of the RPers are far too afraid to be, shall we say, racist. I don’t mean something like calling blood elves gay (that’s not racism at all, that’s being more ignorant), I mean if you play a blood elf, you actually snub other races. You, as a blood elf, are okay with the Forsaken but other races, maybe not so much. Maybe if you play Alliance as a human you mistrust night elves (as most of the younger races do). Perhaps it is this that might bring a bit of flavor into RP.

Now I’m not saying you should alienate new players, but perhaps new players are looking at WoWWiki and seeing these race articles and are putting them to the test. Trust is something earned in real life and perhaps even in-game life. Honestly speaking, when I played (even if my own characters were quite flawed and didn’t exactly follow lore) I played a blood elf who was trying to bond more with the Horde (though most of our group was blood elven) and try to get used to his newfound allies. When I played alliance as a Night elf, I played a druid who was mistrusting of some of the younger races, particularly when it came to magic users, and a little bit daunted by the outsider draenei.

Almost every race in WoW is known for something, and there may be a few “special snowflakes” that are trying new things to garner different reactions. Maybe some of the more experienced players could try this in some city or something.

It’s just a couple of thoughts there. I welcome anyone who’s got some interesting experiences with their characters and racism in RP to post a comment. I’d love to hear about how interesting things went.

Permalink