Feral Heart

Game & Forum Discussion => Game Discussion => Topic started by: peete on November 08, 2013, 03:42:41 am

Title: Racial diversity in human Rps
Post by: peete on November 08, 2013, 03:42:41 am: This is in no means trying to be racist or offensive to anybody. I tried to use terms that wouldn't offend anyone.

So you know when players make human characters and you see a few of them Rping. So far so good right?

Of course...being African American irl, I am very curious on topics like this, but I have noticed that a MAJORITY of racial diversity in FH is (very) rare. It's like every time I see a group of humans Rping, it's like they always consist of white or "light-skinned" characters if you will. I'm not saying there's never been a different race character, it's just that I've never seen one.

Now don't get me wrong, I see nothing wrong with a group being the same race together. But it just doesn't seem right when I see the same white characters online, and there being a little bit of diversity. I actually totally understand this.

Imagine someone actually making an African American, Hispanic, or mixed person, and then going ingame. Make them too dark, too light, or something like that and that person would probably get chewed out for being "racist", especially if they put their actual race/ethnicity in their name or bio. Not to mention modern stereotypes being thrown at you and stuff. This is just a theory, but I am kind of concerned on whether something like this would actually happen online; reason being is because I remember back when General Chat was still up, I would randomly say "fried chicken" and everyone would nag me about being racist and crap even though I never even mentioned black people! Plus, if I'm black, how the heck would that be racist?!

This is just something that came to mind on the racial diversity of human characters.

So what do you guys think?
Title: Re: Racial diversity a minority or what?
Post by: darkknight on November 08, 2013, 04:33:07 am: I find this quite the coincidence because I had a short discussion about this subject earlier. Also, I do think there is a lack of human diversity in role-play. Not just on Feral Heart, but other platforms also. Usually, in my opinion, taking to playing a diverse character is all about being your character and telling the story. For example, if you play an African American character, don't just simply use bad grammar or be a Mexican and put "o" at the end of every word you say. That would be stereotypical and some people could find it offensive. Yes, it's for play, but some people may take it the wrong way.

Though I'm classified as an African American, myself in terms of real-life, don't simply take into the idea of diversity for that alone. I take to the idea of diversity because humans are very diverse themselves, like dogs and the other animals we like to play everyday. If the animals can be diverse when role-playing, why not human characters?
Title: Re: Racial diversity a minority or what?
Post by: ZombieKitteh on November 08, 2013, 04:40:05 am: You have a point and I agree with everything stated above. I've never roleplayed a human in FH before, but if I would I feel.. don' t take this offensive at all. I'm not trying to be. I wouldn't wish to roleplay a race/ethnicity that I'm not. Not for the fact it'd be different, but because I'd be too self conscious of doing something wrong or offending someone. Because being a mixed Caucasian myself- I don't know much about other races or anything. Like I wouldn't trust myself not to stray to sterotypes because I simply jsut wouldn't know how to roleplay that out. Ofcourse I could roleplay someone and say they knew nothing of their culture or were raised somewhere else, like in America. That could work out, but to roleplay someone born and raised in like Mexico or- Germany I'd feel odd because I wouldn't know a thing about that culture or language to roleplay properly.

So I suppose it's own self-consciousness and paranoia of offending someone I guess.
Title: Re: Racial diversity a minority or what?
Post by: Silhouette on November 08, 2013, 02:57:30 pm: Yeah, I have to agree its probably the paranoia of offending someone that puts people off. It doesn't affect me too much though.

My human character Taylor is loosely based on myself so she is likewise, Caucasian. Hailey, on the other hand, is a little more golden but I never really established where she's supposed to be from. There is a side character in a story I'm writing who is Spanish but again, I haven't decided exactly from what country he's from either. One of my good friends has a character who's Japanese though from what part, I don't know. He doesn't seem to cater to any particular stereotype either that I can tell.

My family has a rather diverse background regardless of what branch you look at so I'm neither one to offend or to be offended I guess you could say. People are just people to me and I think that's the way it should be. (:
Title: Re: Racial diversity a minority or what?
Post by: TheFourLinks on November 08, 2013, 07:06:43 pm: It's funny. The only 'diverse' human rps I see are Hetalia RPs.
Title: Re: Racial diversity a minority or what?
Post by: peete on November 08, 2013, 09:40:18 pm: Quote from: TheFourLinks on November 08, 2013, 07:06:43 pm
It's funny. The only 'diverse' human rps I see are Hetalia RPs.

Eh, there's that too. I never really see many Hetalia Rps, so that never came to mind.
Title: Re: Racial diversity in human Rps
Post by: Jango_Fett on November 09, 2013, 11:36:53 pm: The Word 'Racist', is being oh so ove used.
Saying 'Fried Chicken' is not Racist.
These people are obviously over sensitive or just plain not paying attention to what you are saying.
I have a Hispanic/White Looking char, and no one calls ME out for racist, because she has lighter Skin tone that a normal Hispanic Looking Person? Goodness Sakes People! Use your Heads!
Title: Re: Racial diversity in human Rps
Post by: DrLecter on November 10, 2013, 04:52:26 am: I was just thinking about this today, what a coincidence.

I've never encountered any other humans in-game which are other than Caucasian. The closest I have to a human character would be my werewolf Lester, but he is olive-skinned and of a mixed background.

I agree that it is probably the fear of being assumed a racist restricts people from creating human characters which are something other than Caucasian, even if the fear itself is highly unlikely to actually happen.

Anyways, I hope that in the future human characters do end up becoming much more diverse.
Title: Re: Racial diversity in human Rps
Post by: Killian on November 10, 2013, 09:06:15 am: I think all it is really is that the white skin is clearly not an animal colour. If I wanted to play an Asian character and made a very light brown wolf, people wouldn't know I was a human right away.
Title: Re: Racial diversity in human Rps
Post by: Jango_Fett on November 10, 2013, 06:24:30 pm: Quote from: TheCuteMonster on November 10, 2013, 09:06:15 am
I think all it is really is that the white skin is clearly not an animal colour. If I wanted to play an Asian character and made a very light brown wolf, people wouldn't know I was a human right away.

Tou Che my Friend.
Title: Re: Racial diversity in human Rps
Post by: BlackLuna06 on November 16, 2013, 07:26:49 am: In all fairness, there aren't a lot of human RPs in FH, full stop. To have diversity (which, in RP forums, adds so much more to the RP - just as a sidenote) amoungst humans you need to have a reasonable amount of humans first ;-;

The models of canine and feline aren't that easy to humanize or make human-like, so most just grab the most popular RPs at the time instead of attempting it.

The closest we get to humans Rps is werewolf ones (which are also fairly thin on the ground) and then the people don't really have a 'race' so much as a similarity to their wolf forms. Human RP just ain't the FH hotspot, and therefore can't have a huge amount of racial diversity due to lack of numbers.