Before people get too worked up about its implications please realize this course is taught by two researchers. The syllabus quotes Arthur C. Clarke, Rowling, and Tom Waits. I wouldn't interpret this as MIT being overtaken by pseudo, feel-good social science.
Assignment: Creating a D&D Character
21–30 of 63 posts
Re: Assignment: Creating a D&D Character
#22Rolling new D&D characters was one of the first non-trivial programs I ever wrote. It was on a VAX-VMS in basic, but hey that still counts as programming, no?
Re: Assignment: Creating a D&D Character
#23I'm not sure if the author of this page understands what "race" means in D&D terms. It's basically species. Dwarves aren't just little people. They're literally not inter-fertile with humans. Now, fair enough, much of the "race" difference manifests itself as differences in cultural background - cultural norms, language, etc. But it's not the same way people use the term "race" in the real world.
It's somewhat ambiguous though, has you can half-elves (human/elf). Actually, it also looks like you can half-dwarves (http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Half-Dwarf_%283.5e_Race%29) too.
Re: Assignment: Creating a D&D Character
#24>Next comes one of the worst and one of the best parts of D&D’s character system. D&D’s Race system is, frankly, kind of gross. The idea that a person’s race tells you something about their character is a sign of the racist elements in the fantasy tradition before and around D&D. ...Really? This type of thought coming from MIT makes me question my sanity.
If one is examining D&D and fantasy tropes in the context of society's attitudes towards race at large, as well as Tolkien's cultural milieu > If you read Tolkein, it’s difficult to escape the conclusion that the tall pale people from the north are good and the dark ugly people from the south are bad. This reproduces the attitudes of the colonial era in which Tolkein came of age and its one of the worst aspects of hi…
Apart from the point where Sam muses about that specific point - expecting Heroic fantasy to be the same as a modern day booker prize novel is not helpful.
Just as a lot of the tropes of classical Athenian Theatre are alien to us nowadays doesn't mean its not great art.
Re: Assignment: Creating a D&D Character
#25>Next comes one of the worst and one of the best parts of D&D’s character system. D&D’s Race system is, frankly, kind of gross. The idea that a person’s race tells you something about their character is a sign of the racist elements in the fantasy tradition before and around D&D. ...Really? This type of thought coming from MIT makes me question my sanity.
wait until he realizes the inherit classicism that exists between wizards and fighters.
Re: Assignment: Creating a D&D Character
#26I'm not sure if the author of this page understands what "race" means in D&D terms. It's basically species. Dwarves aren't just little people. They're literally not inter-fertile with humans. Now, fair enough, much of the "race" difference manifests itself as differences in cultural background - cultural norms, language, etc. But it's not the same way people use the term "race" in the real world.
It's somewhat ambiguous though, has you can half-elves (human/elf). Actually, it also looks like you can half-dwarves ( http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Half-Dwarf_%283.5e_Race%29 ) too.
I reject 3.5e as non-canonical. Ha!
Re: Assignment: Creating a D&D Character
#27Unfortunate they use D&D with its simple and rigid class system.
A classless system like Runequest is much better to express the wide range of possible fantasy trope characters (trope=young boy knows nothing, explorers the world, becomes famous, has powerful enemies, and saves the world by defeating them)
Even more interesting would be a career based system like Traveller, with the restriction of maximum homeworld techlevel 8. So you could start promising with good education and social standing, go to a medical school, but decide to become criminal after school, go into jail to learn even more skills, and start your role playing at career at best age of 29 or 33. Or you can even continue pre game careers, and start as an old wise man, who knows a lot, but where age already took its toll to strength, constitution and agility.
Some games offer much wider ranges of tropes for characters then D&D.
Re: Assignment: Creating a D&D Character
#28Earlier quoted context omitted.
If one is examining D&D and fantasy tropes in the context of society's attitudes towards race at large, as well as Tolkien's cultural milieu > If you read Tolkein, it’s difficult to escape the conclusion that the tall pale people from the north are good and the dark ugly people from the south are bad. This reproduces the attitudes of the colonial era in which Tolkein came of age and its one of the worst aspects of hi…
Apart from the point where Sam muses about that specific point - expecting Heroic fantasy to be the same as a modern day booker prize novel is not helpful. Just as a lot of the tropes of classical Athenian Theatre are alien to us nowadays doesn't mean its not great art.
I'm not disputing that the works of Tolkien are classics immemorial. I'm just saying that it's always good to take note of the biases of any creator- and they needn't be biases that run counter to "political correctness", either.
Specifically to race in fantasy, I agree that LoTR wasn't really the place for that. However, D&D is actually the perfect place- RPG sourcebooks are expected to worldbuild, and describe fantasy worlds in detail. So it's a useful thing to think of when exploring an RPG.
Re: Assignment: Creating a D&D Character
#29Unfortunate they use D&D with its simple and rigid class system. A classless system like Runequest is much better to express the wide range of possible fantasy trope characters (trope=young boy knows nothing, explorers the world, becomes famous, has powerful enemies, and saves the world by defeating them) Even more interesting would be a career based system like Traveller, with the restriction of maximum homeworld te…
Traveller's system had the odd effect of making the best characters (those with the most skills) also really old. It was odd as a teenager roleplaying a 48 year-old military veteran. My main thought was always "why am I out adventuring instead of just getting some rest?"
Re: Assignment: Creating a D&D Character
#30> Dwarves are good at building things not because of some essential genetic racial qualities, but because they are raised in a culture that values building and passes on a certain set of traditional practices around it. Really? Let's say that the DM chose to run a game with mermaids in it. Would anyone question the (theoretically) superior swimming ability of mermaids? Let's see how a similar statement reads: Mermaid…
Congratulations you removed all the context and qualifiers ("if you approach it from a very generous mindset,... You can soften the racism of deriving personality traits directly from a character’s race") in his statement and made an absurd analogy.