(no subject)
zia_narratora asked some questions about race and roleplaying. I'm answering these in my own journal, 'cause the comment would've been way too long. For reference, I've never played in a fandom-related game with canon characters as PCs, and I've only really played in one online game.
EDIT: My ethnic background is multiracial. I am white (French-Canadian), Black, and Native American (various tribes, but I am a member of the Meherrin tribe.)
--Are you from a very ethnically diverse place, or a more homogeneous place? (That is, do you see a lot of people who all look ethnically very different on a daily basis?) Vermont is 98% white. That's really all that needs to be said about that, lol.
--Do you gravitate toward playing characters who look like you or look like the people you see every day? I don't particularly make characters that look like me all the time. In LARP, I find it easier to make characters that at least look similar to me, but I don't exclusively make white characters in tabletop games.
--If you play in canon games with canonical characters of color, do you notice any trends in terms of how quickly or slowly those characters are picked up, or how they are played compared to the white characters? N/A
--If you play in games that allow original characters in settings that allow for a diverse cast, do you notice any trends in characters creation in terms of people playing different ethnicities? Most people I know play mainly white characters.
--Have you ever played in a game that included human or human-like characters in a game setting that absolutely left no freedom to play a character who was not white and of European or European-like descent? Absolutely no freedom? None of the games that I recall had total restrictions like that. There are some that I've been in where being a race other than white would've been really hard to deal with to the point of perhaps making it too bothersome to try (England in the Dark Ages, for example.)
--Have you ever had a character application turned down because the character was not white? No.
--Have you ever felt like people wanted to play with you less, or treated you or your character differently because your character was a person of color? No. But I am gaming with friends, or at least friendly acquaintances. Since I don't do online roleplay, there is the face-to-face aspect of things. No matter what race I say my character is, I am sitting there doing the talking.
If you are a person of color, or a white person who considers yourself part of an underrepresented or poorly represented ethnic minority:
--Do you see people who look like you in roleplaying games where the setting allows it? (I mean ethnically, not in a Mary Sue type way) I look white, even though I'm not completely white, so I would say yes. I do not see many people of any of my non-white ethnic backgrounds, however.
--Do you frequently find that playing someone who looks like you is not possible in a game setting? I don't feel that, but there's the real-life gaming aspect of things that I talked about. I know my friends ultimately don't care.
--Have you ever felt like people wanted to play with you less, or treated you or your character differently because your character looked like you? No
--Have you ever been upset or frustrated by someone else's portrayal of a character from your ethnicity? Once. A friend's girlfriend wanted to play in the Werewolf game he was participating in. The concept that she pitched was a "Native American ecoterrorist." The details that I heard were so stereotypical that it made me angry just to hear the concept. Luckily, she did not make it into that game, because I would not have handled her portrayal of Natives well at all.
--If you were to give advice to someone not of your ethnicity thinking about playing someone of your ethnicity, what would it be? ("Don't do it" is an acceptable answer) Make them a person, not a bunch of jumbled stereotypes. Don't even think of their race until it absolutely needs to factor in somehow (upbringing, physical description). If your concept includes their race, you're doing it wrong.
EDIT: My ethnic background is multiracial. I am white (French-Canadian), Black, and Native American (various tribes, but I am a member of the Meherrin tribe.)
--Are you from a very ethnically diverse place, or a more homogeneous place? (That is, do you see a lot of people who all look ethnically very different on a daily basis?) Vermont is 98% white. That's really all that needs to be said about that, lol.
--Do you gravitate toward playing characters who look like you or look like the people you see every day? I don't particularly make characters that look like me all the time. In LARP, I find it easier to make characters that at least look similar to me, but I don't exclusively make white characters in tabletop games.
--If you play in canon games with canonical characters of color, do you notice any trends in terms of how quickly or slowly those characters are picked up, or how they are played compared to the white characters? N/A
--If you play in games that allow original characters in settings that allow for a diverse cast, do you notice any trends in characters creation in terms of people playing different ethnicities? Most people I know play mainly white characters.
--Have you ever played in a game that included human or human-like characters in a game setting that absolutely left no freedom to play a character who was not white and of European or European-like descent? Absolutely no freedom? None of the games that I recall had total restrictions like that. There are some that I've been in where being a race other than white would've been really hard to deal with to the point of perhaps making it too bothersome to try (England in the Dark Ages, for example.)
--Have you ever had a character application turned down because the character was not white? No.
--Have you ever felt like people wanted to play with you less, or treated you or your character differently because your character was a person of color? No. But I am gaming with friends, or at least friendly acquaintances. Since I don't do online roleplay, there is the face-to-face aspect of things. No matter what race I say my character is, I am sitting there doing the talking.
If you are a person of color, or a white person who considers yourself part of an underrepresented or poorly represented ethnic minority:
--Do you see people who look like you in roleplaying games where the setting allows it? (I mean ethnically, not in a Mary Sue type way) I look white, even though I'm not completely white, so I would say yes. I do not see many people of any of my non-white ethnic backgrounds, however.
--Do you frequently find that playing someone who looks like you is not possible in a game setting? I don't feel that, but there's the real-life gaming aspect of things that I talked about. I know my friends ultimately don't care.
--Have you ever felt like people wanted to play with you less, or treated you or your character differently because your character looked like you? No
--Have you ever been upset or frustrated by someone else's portrayal of a character from your ethnicity? Once. A friend's girlfriend wanted to play in the Werewolf game he was participating in. The concept that she pitched was a "Native American ecoterrorist." The details that I heard were so stereotypical that it made me angry just to hear the concept. Luckily, she did not make it into that game, because I would not have handled her portrayal of Natives well at all.
--If you were to give advice to someone not of your ethnicity thinking about playing someone of your ethnicity, what would it be? ("Don't do it" is an acceptable answer) Make them a person, not a bunch of jumbled stereotypes. Don't even think of their race until it absolutely needs to factor in somehow (upbringing, physical description). If your concept includes their race, you're doing it wrong.