POTW: From The Outside

[Diana]

Last week I featured an Institute Exercise, this week I'm featuring one in the Guild of Worldbuilding!

In our roleplays RACE AND FOREIGN RELATIONS should occasionally come up in the plot, right? Especially if your setting is located somewhere that has really high tensions with a neighboring country. This can happen in a modern roleplay just as easily as a fantasy or scifi roleplay. (Imagine a setting in the middle east right now when things are so tense. Just like in a fantasy roleplay where to kingdoms are at war or a scifi where a species is trying to invade!)

How often does the subject of race or foreigner relations come in to your roleplays? Have you ever had a character have to deal with racism as a victim or as the offender?

And if you're the roleplay designing type, try out the exercise!

 

[Ms.Wrong]

O 3 O
IM BLACK AND IM PROUD!
YOU DONT LIKE ME DRAGGIN THAT INTO RPS?
TOO. DAMN. BAD.

That is all!

 

[Cerulean]

YOU DON'T EVEN RP!

 

[Ms.Wrong]

SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSH. that still doesnt mean i cant be black and proud!

 

[Fluffy]

I love to extend my horizons, so a lot of times I will play a not-white person. :p Whatever's appropriate for the plot. I also enjoy stories where there are issues with racism. I've actually played prejudice jerks before who either became worse, or better people. All depends on how the story goes. :3 (I also just like making asshole characters.)

 

[Zen]

In the Dragon Lance game my friend was running, my character - who was a n orphan - greatly detested nobility because of how much misery they gave her. If she found out you were of noble blood, she'd spit on you.

I don't normally focus on racial/foreign tensions with my characters though, unless the roleplay specially calls for that sort of tension.

 

[Synthetic Seraph]

My racism usually concerns "Us vs humans", but yes, my characters have dislikes that are fun to exploit.
World of Warcraft began my first actively racist character... a druid (lover of nature and life) whose skin crawled around Forsaken and Death Knights (sentient undead).

Human vs human prejudices? Seems petty by comparison, eh?

 

[Ms.Wrong]

I love to extend my horizons, so a lot of times I will play a not-white person. :p Whatever's appropriate for the plot. I also enjoy stories where there are issues with racism. I've actually played prejudice jerks before who either became worse, or better people. All depends on how the story goes. :3 (I also just like making asshole characters.)

You have experience with this, Ne?~ >:I
why dont you... step into my office...

 

[Villamvihar]

So far, not a single one of my roleplays involved issues between races or species, though I do have a fondness for exploring just how different cultures are from each other. However, most of this exploration is dealt with in a peaceful way, amongst characters who understand what it is like to come from a completely different culture, so I do not tend to focus on the hatecrimes. I rather focus on the integration, as I find that the most interesting topic to approach. How would one deal with a completely different culture? That is what seems to be the driving force of my plots that involve different cultures.

Now that I write this down, I may have to create a roleplay based on cultural adaption just to see how it would turn out.

 

[Aleksander]

There have been a number of occasions in which the character that I portray, is a demigod, or something along the lines of one celestial being. And the counterpart was typically a character whose origin was either that of a human, or even a succubus. Rarely did my characters ever match the species that others portrayed. Even when I took the time to practice role-playing as an anthropomorphic being, I often times found myself rivaling against creatures like foxes, whereas I was a werewolf. Things of that nature. But it is good practice, to acknowledge the diversity therein.

 

[Astaroth]

*Snags this thread for the Institute as well*

I definitely deal with this when it's thematically or plot-wise appropriate, but I don't often go out of my way to work it into my stories. You have to be careful not to come off heavy-handed when working political messages into your plot. It's better to let it creep up on the reader, because when they do get the message, it will be an "aha!" moment and have more impact. Beating your reader over the head with a message will just take them out of your narrative even if they agree with what you're trying to say.

On the other hand, conflict is good. Delicious, delicious conflict. Racial or political tension is one tried and true method for implementing conflict.

 

[Zorilla]

For me it is classic to deal with cultural differences down tot he wire. How that cultures dresses, acts, eats, smells you name it!

I think this principle is what makes most of my rp's the fun, and it is defiantly this principle that makes my partners characters the most unique and memorable to me! I find htis to be the most important part.

 

[Minibit]

race/country relations can make for all kinds of funky situations and plot devices, so I like to use them

The downside is of course, the clichés; one can only read so many 'outcast race' and 'hatfield/mccoy' racial relations before they become tired and predictable.

If there is a dynamic and interesting racial relation, then it can be more fun than simply having a 'normal'/'superior' race and a 'abnormal'/'outcast' race.