Do You RP Men or Women?

[Philip]

Right that's it, I'm going to take a Human female face char and then seven dwarves to follow her around.

This could be epic.

[mark hill]

ha! cute idea .. in a NWN mod I once met an NPC party of 7 dwarves, was put together by a jap kid, they were very japanese dwarvwes Think that sounds weird, but you shoulda seen his custom monsters! I wasnt even sure if the undead were undead lol

most annoyingly, between most encounters were these 2 glowy star things he had floating in midair, and when you walked between em you autosaved (!) I dont think this kid had ever seen tabletop D+D, he was basing his stuff on jap console RPGs I guess .. certainly was a different D+D game

the feel was like a Kurosawa film but fantasy, if you can imagine that

[Gaear]

mark, please review the Co8 forum rules: http://www.co8.org/forum/announcement.php?f=9. (Scroll down to the second announcement after donations.) We don't use or tolerate any slurs here.

[mark hill]

Im not sure what youy mean by "slurs" .. this kid is a friend of mine, we swap NWN scripts and such .. Tim Nakayama hes called, you can find his stuff at NWN Vault .. its not a slur to say he has very odd ideas about D+D is it?

Im startin to think I cant really put a foot right at this site for some reason

[Mouldyrye]

I generally mix it up with females and males in party based cRPGs. In single character RPGs with a difference in plot development I'll do a runthrough with one of each. In PnP I would usually only take a female as a caster. Race becomes an issue only where statistics are involved.

In ToEE I had a fortunate chance combination that is pretty cool. Human Female Monk. Max height with the corset from the tailor in Hommlet. Nothing but long legs and a huge rack squashing things with her stripper pole. She has a mohawk to boot.


@mark: I think the slur he is referring to is "Jap". Which, while mildly insensitive, pales compared to the reference to the "negroid witch" in Rocktoy's post. Also, I never considered the ranger in BG2 to be a Samoan. That random racial assignment speaks a bit to the world view of the poster.

I really hope the moderators have some sense of context and don't ban me for the re-using of those phrases. I just got here a couple days ago.

[Rocktoy]

Originally Posted by Mouldyrye

Which, while mildly insensitive, pales compared to the reference to the "negroid witch" in Rocktoy's post. Also, I never considered the ranger in BG2 to be a Samoan.

Dynaheir has dark skin and she is a spellcaster. A female caster is called a “witch”, isn’t it? At least her bodyguard (“Minsc”, my favorite btw.) in the game, and/or in the sequel, constantly refers to her as his witch. “Negroid” was a word I used because the lack of any better alternative. The other N words as the word “black” are nowadays politically non-correct (aren’t they?) and a word like “American – Rashemen” would have been utterly ridiculous.

Valygar Corthala on the other hand does look like archetypical Samoan, perhaps that was something the artist was thinking while he/she draw the picture. Or I have seen too many movies starring the Rock.

Originally Posted by Mouldyrye

That random racial assignment speaks a bit to the world view of the poster.

No… But… Ok, I give up. You are correct and I cannot deny it. Whenever I see a human face, I always try to find a proper racial category to associate it with, as I do try to find a cultural sphere to associate any cultural phenomenon with. Perhaps I picture the world by such categorizations because I learned the way in my anthropology classes, or I chose to study anthropology because it too categorizes people and cultural phenomena as I do.

Originally Posted by Philip

ToEE allows you to play one of 9 party Alignments yet the one that is easiest to play is Neutral Good.

Niinpä. I meant to say that I have only played with a party aligned with one of the good fractions, never with any of the other six alignments. I always RPG with some alter ego, I just do not have the skill to empathize with a group doing evil/murderous decisions.

Originally Posted by Philip

It does seem very heavily biased towards Good.

It is.

Originally Posted by Philip

Most of the enemies are Chaotic Evil so a Lawful Good Party seems the way to go, but many players prefer taking a chaotic good character along for the ride just so that they can use the answering swords.

Since I RPG alter ego I would prefer to use LG but I always sink down to CG, erratic as I am. Although, I have never used the answering swords, since crafted reach weapons are sooo much better. And I use single alignment; everyone in my group share the same alignment and worship the same deity.

Originally Posted by Philip

I tried an Evil party once, but I couldn't really play it very well. You can't slaughter Hommlet and you can't really ally with Lareth etc. So what do you do? Playing an Evil party doesn't really work properly.

I guess it really doesn’t work, unlike in Fallout 2 and such unbiased games. ToEE is a great game, actually the vanilla is pure crap, in comparison what the Co8 have made it to be, but it is still biased towards good fractions.

[Mouldyrye]

@ Rocktoy: I guess in the circles I travel in "negroid" would be considered a more offensive term than black. Sort of harkens back to turn of the 20th century anthropology rather than modern anthropology. Any student of the last century's history is probably aware of the attempts of the "civilized" cultures of the world to justify their colonization and exploitation of indigenous people on all continents. Categorizations like "negroid" tend to be found in laughable texts of an ignorant age, or deliberate attempts at dehumanizing particular groups of people. On the other hand, I'm an American I guess it's possible that there are some cultural differences that only become apparent in a situation where a person is attempting to describe a person of a different ethnic origin. I'm not trying to start a debate or anything because it is just a matter of opinion. I guess as a public service I would like to inform anybody that was not previously aware; calling somebody a "negroid" in America will probably not be looked upon as an innocently poor choice of adjectives.

As far as the Samoan thing goes I guess I was just piling on. It did just seem kinda random. He could be native to one of many Pacific Islands, or from the West Indies, or just a dark skinned person with no hint of a country of origin at all.

I do have to ask though; if you knew her name was Dynahier(sp) then why didn't you just type that?

[grinner666]

In ToEE I'm about evenly split between male and female. My lead character is generally a human, because my lead character is generally a fighter or paladin and I prefer to have the bonus feat humans get for those classes.

Face-to-face, I generally prefer males just because most of the people I've played with look at me funny if I play a female character. I'm far more likely to play another race in those cases, however; I'm particularly fond of dwarves and elves.

Not really. Ive read a few vanity published childrens books, and they were all wretched--and seriously needed an editor.

However, from a library standpoint Ill say this: the public library where I work does not buy self-published books, nor do we accept them as donations. We have to be picky about what we spend out budget on, so we generally try to get a well rounded collection-but even then our choices have to be somewhat justifiable. Our collections people spend a lot of time reading book reviews and watching Amazon to see what it is that people are reading or wanting to read--and you cant usually find information on self-published work.

Were in the middle of organizing an authors blitz authors come to speak on various aspects of the writing industry, teach workshops, sign books, etc., and we had one or two authors who are self published say they would be interested. However, because we cannot purchase their books for our collection, it makes it more difficult for us to pick them. Also, many of these authors, Im sorry to say, dont really have much experience in the industry aside from getting rejected.

Its a tough call, nowadays. I still honestly think that, if youre good enough, you shouldnt need to resort to vanity publishing. Maybe you cant sign with Scholastic or Harper Collins or whoever, but there are a lot of small publishing companies out there that arent as bombarded with manuscripts, and with work and time, you never know. Its like art: maybe you think youre the cream, but someone with more experience thinks you need improvement. So you either go back to the drawing board and learn some more, and eventually get that big commission or accepted into Epilogue or whatever, OR you whine about it on the forums and go post it up at Elfwood where you can be appreciated for the genius you think you are and never learn or grow.

My two cents, anyway.

[sirchet]

Seriously, did someone forget to take their meds today?

[Runiel]

That is one of the weirdest diatribes I have ever read in this forum and I have read most of Gaear's posts! *kidding, don't ban me*

I actually started to agree with the (person? bot?) due to having read a fair amount of self-published vanity trash, but then I remembered that sometimes I would find a gem or two mixed up with the garbage. Literature and Art are heavily linked to the individuals experiencing them and as an artist myself I have to say that I don't really care that much what people think of my drawings or paintings, it's just a way to express myself, if you "don't get it" fine, move on. Sometimes companies like the mentioned Scholastic or Harper Collins opt for marketability over quality, so a rejection by them don't really translate into trash pile worthiness.

Anyway, on topic with the thread, I have played a couple of female characters in tabletop rpgs, but I rarely play female characters in computer rpgs, due to the fact that most of the available female characters are usually presented in a way that does not portray actual female "prototypes". I mean, really, chain mail bikinis? I'm not 13 years old, if I want pr0n I know where to get it...

[Rocktoy]

Originally Posted by Mouldyrye

@ Rocktoy: I guess in the circles I travel in "negroid" would be considered a more offensive term than black.

And there was I trying to use the most neutral term I was able to think of. But this is an endless swamp of semantics. I must confess that I do not even know what is the proper term used to refer “white” people in English. The direct translation from the word used in my language would be “Indo-European”. Although I have never heard any English speaker use that word, yet words like “Caucasian” or even “Europid” I have heard used (?).

Originally Posted by Mouldyrye

Sort of harkens back to turn of the 20th century anthropology rather than modern anthropology. Any student of the last century's history is probably aware of the attempts of the "civilized" cultures of the world to justify their colonization and exploitation of indigenous people on all continents. Categorizations like "negroid" tend to be found in laughable texts of an ignorant age, or deliberate attempts at dehumanizing particular groups of people.

I must disagree to a point. My anthropology professor never failed to emphasize the prejudice of the racial hierarchy theories of the early scholars and how that no longer reflects the paradigm of current anthropology. We used terms such as “negroid” as neutral scientific terms just like we used Indo-european, Polynesian, Melanesian, American (native American) etc. But this may yet again be a semantic swamp: the Finnish word we used was “negroidi” which translates directly as “negroid” so the mistake may have been in that these two words have very different meanings in different cultural spheres, even inside the academic world. “Lost (or added) in translation”. Just like we used to use the word “Neekeri” in reference to any person with the “negroid” features (i.e. clear African heritage) but our current immigrant population deemed it offensive since it sounded like the English word n**ger, whilst the correct translation with all the derogatory content for the word n**ger would be “Nekru”.

Originally Posted by Mouldyrye

On the other hand, I'm an American I guess it's possible that there are some cultural differences that only become apparent in a situation where a person is attempting to describe a person of a different ethnic origin.

Or while one is communicating with a person from a different culture, words one uses may not be understood like one whishes. For example you use the word “American” I gather you meant to say that you are a Yankee? (Derogatory? If so, what is the short reference to “citizen of the United States of America”?) Or did you meant to say that you are Navajo, Cherokee or perhaps Sioux? Then again in my cultural sphere the word “America” (Amerikka) refers to the entire western hemisphere. An Argentinean is as much American as any Yankee, strictly speaking.

Originally Posted by Mouldyrye

I'm not trying to start a debate or anything because it is just a matter of opinion.

I like good debates and have no objection to them; at best we all can learn from them. Opinions, after all, are the only things we can debate about, facts are just what they are: facts.

Originally Posted by Mouldyrye

I guess as a public service I would like to inform anybody that was not previously aware; calling somebody a "negroid" in America will probably not be looked upon as an innocently poor choice of adjectives.

If you could clarify what “America” is? The both continents with all the nations? Or perhaps the geographically small portion of the North American continent called: The United States of America, or perhaps Canada or both, or?

Originally Posted by Mouldyrye

As far as the Samoan thing goes I guess I was just piling on.

“piling on” ? Care to explain that expression? Something like carried on, perhaps? Adding on to the former because of the provocation, or something? The translation engine gave me some construction site term: putting in pillars as foundation?

Originally Posted by Mouldyrye

I do have to ask though; if you knew her name was Dynahier(sp) then why didn't you just type that?

I did not remember the name when I wrote the first post, I checked it later. Btw. “(sp)” stands for what? I have never encountered that before.

Btw. I let the ranger, Valygar, go in Throne of Bhaal and replaced him with Sarevok. He, after all, is of the same blood as I.

[Hugh Manetee]

sp = spelling mistake.
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