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Lord of the Pit wrote:

FA_Frey_XC wrote:

The comment was honestly directed at ANYONE who isn't an American yet has the audacity to use these forums and bandwidth and electricty, which are provided for FREE to discuss a game which is run on a server FOR FREE, to backtalk the nationality of the people who own it.

Well, I assume YOU dont pay for any of this, funny you are the one ubset.. :roll:

AFAIK that's not right.

Silvarus wrote:

Racism concerns are often baseless in real life, and even more so in role playing games.

how is racism baseless?

the fact you'd even say such a thing and accept it as truth must mean your reason is probably hilarious and rooted in ignorance, so please tell.

I think he meant baseless as in stupid and without any real reason.

Africans are the same as europeans, they look different but if raised the same way they would be equal, pretty much like everyone else. That only theory though because its also based on the abilities of the person, bla, bla. But if two absolutely equally gifted people would be raised in the same environment would the result be equal too.

Fantasy is different though, there the things have a base.
A half orc will always be partially orc, no matter what.
A goblin will always be ugly in the eyes of a human.
A Drow will always be regarded with the stigma of being evil and a backstabber.

I hate to be the dictionary nazi, but Racism means the institutionalization of bigotry, which is already IG. There's a big sign outside Brogenstein that says "Drow Pike Off".

As far as bigotry, which is an individual, generally unfounded/loosely grounded, stereotype based dislike for a particular race, rangers have a favored enemy which is IG bigotry, hard coded as an acceptable social more.

My pc hates kobolds, and their ilk, so she doesn't associate with them. I'm sure there are many players who roleplay such bigotry invisibly as well.

The reason I want racisme and class discrimination in game is because it makes for tension and thus plot and fun. Who would want to watch a movie where everyone likes everyone and there is no plot or tension? We play for entertainment, not for being a part of an utiopia, atleast I dont.

Another reason is immersion: i can relate to racisme and class discrimination as something i see everyday in the real world, and thus makes the experience feel more real. What makes characters real are their flaws, not their perfection.

A completely tolerant society where everyonge cuddles everyone and there are no prejudice is artificial, and feels artificial.

As for racisme in game and real life: I would say that is a flawed argument. I mean, people duel eachother to death in game over petty insults and boredome, does this then reflect that the players behind theese chars would do so RL as well?

There's always stigma. It's human nature to form reference groups such as "people like me" and "people that are different", and you can't tell me that just because a black guy is raised in a 100% western way, he'll be an accepted westerner among the entirety of white people.

This thinking then continues to "my group good" and "your group bad". "I don't know you, so you probably steal children in the night". If you think Racism can just be removed because it's not really there in the first place then it sounds to me like you'd be denying human nature. Every single man can be enlightened, and every group can be a bunch of apes on a hill.

That racism is brought up in a situation is proof alone that it is not baseless, but a strong motivator one way or the other. Whether racism is "truly" happening or is just perceived to happen by either side makes little difference to determine whether it's a real problem, if you catch my drift.

I hate the argument that "well X plays racists because OOCly he is a bigot or has racist thoughts" um no. I play a drow priestess of Lolth. Lualyrr, is sadistic, is a racist, sexist arrogant bitch. IRL, do I treat I slaughter people? do I sacrfice people? No. And that is similar with people that play racists.

Amareth is a big racists, she views everyone who isn't of the fair folk inferior though the degrees of this varies, drow and other foes are hated the most. In fantasy racisim and other hatreds are common thing. Everyone has opinions and thoughts. In fantasy, many races hate each other. Orcs and everyone else, drow and everyone, and so forth. These are not the same thing as a person from china and a person from germany, this is like comparing a wolf and a bear. They are two different creatures.

Also, as far as I understand it, you Americans have it in your Constitution that free speech is imperative. Now this goes both ways, and it certainly includes hearing folks whine about how they don't like America.

I agree with one thing, though. The server is run by an American, so no matter if we think the rating system is reasonable or not, he can run it at his discretion and we have the opportunity, not the right, to play along by his rules.

Oh shut up, the lot of you. Ruin your own topic and get it locked. Buncha clowns... :roll:

Dakotaen wrote:

ainjyll wrote:

@ Dakotaen: That's an antiquated law that's still on the books for some reason. Doesn't mean you can actually get away with that stuff.

Nah, didn't think you would. Those laws are all insanely amusing, though. :lol:

Personally I think the best law I know of is one from chester, a small city where I used to live. If a whelsh person is within the roman walls after midnight you are allowed to shoot him in the heart with a crossbow.

Not that it would stand in court, but hey maybe one day someone will test it to see and save some sheep

Yurell wrote:

AFAIK that's not right.

In that case I have to withdraw that 'assume-ment' then.. :wink:

In any case, the rest stands...

SurreptitiousR wrote:

I hate to be the dictionary nazi, but Racism means the institutionalization of bigotry, which is already IG.

If you want to argue on the grounds of dictionary, you'll have to check definitions for race, which means discovering whether Drow and Dwarves (in your example) can create viable offspring.

Yurell wrote:

SurreptitiousR wrote:

I hate to be the dictionary nazi, but Racism means the institutionalization of bigotry, which is already IG.

If you want to argue on the grounds of dictionary, you'll have to check definitions for race, which means discovering whether Drow and Dwarves (in your example) can create viable offspring.

Hence the specism and racism discussion a while ago.

I think in the case of FR, it's mostly racism, bizarrely enough. Otherwise we wouldn't have all those strange bloodlines in canon lore (not just on Amia).

Then again, RL biology doesn't work in FR, anyway; celestials aren't supposed to be able to mate with devils and demons (afaik), yet both (all?) are able to mate with other races in order to create planetouched folks. In RL terms that'd make them the same species after all, methinks.

Then we got the silly elven biology, which makes no sense in RL terms. But that's the way it is in this realm.

Half-dragons have always puzzled me. Does the physiology of the embryo change according to the physiology of the mother, when she changes form? And does an egg-laying dragon develop a temporary womb for carrying a half-breed embryo, but switch back to pushing out eggs if the children are full-blooded dragons? Or do half-dragons only come from a dragon-father and non-dragon mother? If it's 'magic', how does the magic make it happen?

Be glad I'm not the one asking the questions regarding your special character requests!

Nekhy wrote:

I think in the case of FR, it's mostly racism, bizarrely enough. Otherwise we wouldn't have all those strange bloodlines in canon lore (not just on Amia).

Then again, RL biology doesn't work in FR, anyway; celestials aren't supposed to be able to mate with devils and demons (afaik), yet both (all?) are able to mate with other races in order to create planetouched folks. In RL terms that'd make them the same species after all, methinks.

Or that magic works on that sort of stuff. Whilst you could argue that humans, elves, halflings and orcs are one species, I'm not sure whether that can be extended to dwarves.
Creatures that do it by magic do it by magic, which I suppose you could use toargue against the above-mentioned races being the same species. To test this out we'd need to put the half-breed offspring in an antimagic field and see if they are viable and can procreate.

Nekhy wrote:

I think in the case of FR, it's mostly racism, bizarrely enough. Otherwise we wouldn't have all those strange bloodlines in canon lore (not just on Amia).

Then again, RL biology doesn't work in FR, anyway; celestials aren't supposed to be able to mate with devils and demons (afaik), yet both (all?) are able to mate with other races in order to create planetouched folks. In RL terms that'd make them the same species after all, methinks.

Then we got the silly elven biology, which makes no sense in RL terms. But that's the way it is in this realm.

Half-dragons have always puzzled me. Does the physiology of the embryo change according to the physiology of the mother, when she changes form? And does an egg-laying dragon develop a temporary womb for carrying a half-breed embryo, but switch back to pushing out eggs if the children are full-blooded dragons? Or do half-dragons only come from a dragon-father and non-dragon mother? If it's 'magic', how does the magic make it happen?

Be glad I'm not the one asking the questions regarding your special character requests!

There are various beings which can mate with almost anything, meaning dragons and fiends/celestials with a sexuality. Then there are those circumstances where mating is not required, for instance a pregnat woman going to the abyss could produce a tiefling due to the sheer abyssal influence on the child with being present there.

Last you only have a few races which are somehow close enough to eachother to create offsprings. Horses and donkeys:

elves - halflings / humans - elves / humans - orks / orks - ogres

and I believe thats about it, with mabey six or seven more exceptions. Dwarfes and goblins are more like different species though (not in the FR sense), as they are like lions and bunnies.

Last edited by Nekhy on Mon, Aug 10 2009, 7:32 AM, edited 2 times in total.

But if it's magic, it still makes the usage of 'different species' odd. 'Species' is simply a term for categorising organisms that a) share similar characteristics and b) are usually able to mate together. In this realm, magic happens to be a valid natural cause for almost anything, so it doesn't matter if it's mating by magic or not. Both a) and b) are valid for most sentient beings in FR. Or sentient 'animals', anyway, there's sentient plants as well, and I don't think those can mate with anything else.

What FR would need, is a wholly new word for this all. RL terms just don't work, because the meaning is so different.

The major difference, and the thing that makes it hard to use RL terms is, that RL terms assume magic = supernatural, and only natural explanations are acceptable. In FR, magic = natural.

Phearnun wrote:

Last you only have a few races which are somehow close enough to eachother to create offsprings. Horses and donkeys:

elves - halflings / humans - elves / humans - orks / orks - ogres

That's not horse and donkey - all those combination produce viable offspring that are in themselves capable of breeding, whilst a horse and donkey.

Phearnun wrote:

and I believe thats about it, with mabey six or seven more exceptions. Dwarfes and goblins are more like different species though (not in the FR sense), as they are like lions and bunnies.

Poor bunny

Nekhy wrote:

But if it's magic, it still makes the usage of 'different species' odd. 'Species' is simply a term for categorising organisms that a) share similar characteristics and b) are usually able to mate together. In this realm, magic happens to be a valid natural cause for almost anything, so it doesn't matter if it's mating by magic or not. Both a) and b) are valid for most sentient beings in FR. Or sentient 'animals', anyway, there's sentient plants as well, and I don't think those can mate with anything else.

What FR would need, is a wholly new word for this all. RL terms just don't work, because the meaning is so different.

There's nothing wrong with the word 'species' so long as it is reserved for mundane crosses, rather than ones with magic involved.

Last edited by Nekhy on Mon, Aug 10 2009, 7:47 AM, edited 1 time in total.

Yurell wrote:

There's nothing wrong with the word 'species' so long as it is reserved for mundane crosses, rather than ones with magic involved.

But magic = mundane, too. It's not supernatural, despite being strong and 'special'. It's common and everywhere, just in different concentrations. I'd compare it to musical talent, for example. It's common, everybody knows of it, but people possess it in varying degrees. It's part of everyone's daily life, nonetheless, be it via the village herbalist or a metropolis archmage. Or a simple farmer's or sailor's prayer in the form of donation at a temple. It's all magic. The world was created by magic for a fact, magic which is very unlike to what we call 'natural or mundane causes' IRL.

Nekhy wrote:

Yurell wrote:

There's nothing wrong with the word 'species' so long as it is reserved for mundane crosses, rather than ones with magic involved.

But magic = mundane, too. It's not supernatural, despite being strong and 'special'. It's common and everywhere, just in different concentrations. I'd compare it to musical talent, for example. It's common, everybody knows of it, but people possess it in varying degrees. It's part of everyone's daily life, nonetheless, be it via the village herbalist or a metropolis archmage. Or a simple farmer's or sailor's prayer in the form of donation at a temple. It's all magic.

Except it seem reasonable to conclude that the ability of an outsider or dragon to breed with anything that moves is the result of magic - this is evidenced by the fact that they can create viable offspring with numerous species that can't do so with each other.

EDIT:

I'll give an example of what I mean. Please note that I'm not a biologist, so when I use 'viable' I am meaning that the offspring produced is fertile as well, I don't know what biol people call that distinction.

Creature A mates with Creature B - Produce viable offspring.
Creature A mates with Creature C - Produce viable offspring.
Creature B mates with Creature C - Does not produce viable offspring.

Since AB works, A and B could be the same species, AC works, A and C could be the same species, but BC doesn't, and this isn't a big-dog x little-dog problem (i.e. Tab B won't fit in Slot C) meaning that hey are likely different species.

So we have two options - putting A in its own category "can mate with anything that moves" and keep the traditional definitions, or ditch a large amount of words we already have and make up new ones just for this setting.

Are you guys for real?

We like suspension of disbelief, and we find this stuff interesting.

But my point is, that with magic any combo is theoretically possible. Dragons are not the only race capable of magical procreation, though their magic is innate. Nothing stops another race from using magic to procreate in unusual ways, to produce offspring capable of procreating using magic to produce offspring capable of... Well, nothing but the DMs of a campaign stop it, but DMs are the supernatural agent in the Realms. What happens by magic is natural, and since the terms 'species' and 'race' are classifications for natural phenomena with very special definitions, they don't work without exceptions and exceptions in FR. And classifications with exceptions of exceptions of exceptions are pointless.

Then you could, of course, make the division to creatures with innate magical abilities to procreate in unusual ways and creatures without innate magical abilities to procreate in unusual ways. But that's a bit like the difference between fertilisation by mating and in-vitro fertilisation.

Mr Mago wrote:

Are you guys for real?

Very. My real point is demonstrating how silly (although tempting) it is to apply and argue about natural and RL terms and causes regarding FR, because we understand RL terms in such different contexts they become unmanageable and redundant in this setting, in the end. It's impossible to apply biology to FR without either using the words all wrong, or making up new natural rules for this realm.

It is, of course, very entertaining to try. Makes you wonder what Ed was tripping on when writing this stuff, and where can I get some?

Perhaps I'm just simple, but... from my perspective, the conclusion in regards of theoretical abnormalities in the Faerûn setting, is pretty far out on the geeky scale of useless knowing and anal arguing over what is insignificant.

Huzzah, we agree! But I disagree about the uselessness and insignificance. It's the little bizarre things, such as arguing about bollocks, in life that make it amusing. And amusement is a value in itself.

Nekhy wrote:

It's impossible to apply biology to FR without either using the words all wrong, or making up new natural rules for this realm.

It makes sense to retain the words we already have and add a category for creatures that don't fill it, rather than completely remove everything. There are objects in D&D that ignore laws of physics - should we discard all our physical terms also?

The simple answer is to continue using our current terminology and have a separate category for those that routinely break physical laws. We can call this category 'magic'.

Mr Mago wrote:

Perhaps I'm just simple, but... from my perspective, the conclusion in regards of theoretical abnormalities in the Faerûn setting, is pretty far out on the geeky scale of useless knowing and anal arguing over what is insignificant.

Some people enjoy watching other people cause intense physical damage to eachother (e.g. the UFC thread), others enjoy debates.

Quote:

Some people enjoy watching other people cause intense physical damage to eachother (e.g. the UFC thread), others enjoy debates.

Some people like both.

DarkAngelGirl wrote:

Quote:

Some people enjoy watching other people cause intense physical damage to eachother (e.g. the UFC thread), others enjoy debates.

Some people like both.

And they're free to do so. I'm not saying that they're mutually exclusive sets, just hat different people enjoy different things.

Nah, all UFC fans are lunatics who like to watch people suffer. Well, atleast I am *cough* Err, what?

DarkAngelGirl wrote:

Quote:

Some people enjoy watching other people cause intense physical damage to eachother (e.g. the UFC thread), others enjoy debates.

Some people like both.

And some laugh hysterically at how far out any thread can go. :lol:

Err.. sorry for going off topic like that, I needed sleep badly.

Sure you can play a psychopath, as long as you leave rape and overly graphic things out of it. You can pretty much play anything, but the question is how it will work out in the long run, how much fun it'll be to people you play with, and whether it's worth being a relative loner. I have a character or two who don't make many friends, and it pretty much sucks. I played myself into a corner with them, and have even mellowed down the nasty side quite a bit. Being a mean solitary psycho in a trenchcoat may look way cool, but consider giving her redeeming qualities.

Two things.

I believe the word 'syngameon' is relevant to this discussion, at least in the Creationist sense of the word...

Dragons can procreate with humanoids because they can take humanoid form. There is at least one dragon known to be quite fond of taking the form of dogs and cats so presumably he could also mate with them.

Sokar Rostau wrote:

Two things.

I believe the word 'syngameon' is relevant to this discussion, at least in the Creationist sense of the word...

Dragons can procreate with humanoids because they can take humanoid form. There is at least one dragon known to be quite fond of taking the form of dogs and cats so presumably he could also mate with them.

Half-dragon sheep is also an often encountered case and the bane of wolves and shepherds anywhere.

Gives an odd image of Sheep (CENSORED)

Sheep originated, I believe, a little over a year ago in the Underdark. There were sheep and half-sheep all over the place.

"Stay on Target!"

"What happened to you Zeus? You used to be cool..."

Yurell wrote:

ability of an outsider or dragon to breed with anything that moves.

"there's a dragon mating with my Airship!"
or,
"Wagons with horns and a tail that move using there own legs."
maybe even,
"that Ice fiends dating a glacier!?"
oh! how about,
"a Holy Dung cart that rolls itself around"

Yossarin wrote:

Sheep originated, I believe, a little over a year ago in the Underdark. There were sheep and half-sheep all over the place.

Ah, yes, I remember.

The buggers would breed like bunnies.

Speaking of evil...

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