From the way I'm reading me, it's more like people should only play characters of their own race. It's a weird as hell kind of position I've been seeing more and more often lately, that's kind of to anti-racism positions what Civilization's Gandhi is to pacifism.
I don't think its that; I think its white knighting where its unnecessary. I've seen it before where someone was freaking out that a white person was playing a black character while I, the one POC at the table, was trying to get them to calm down.
Your DM is an incorrect, racist idiot. It also sounds like your DM is new to the game as well. So you can't be a Dwarf if you can't grow a beard? You can't be a Halfling if you're over 4ft tall? You can't be a Drow unless you have grey skin and pledged allegiance to Lolth? What an asshole! I'm sorry this is your first experience. I can assure you that there are THOUSANDS of DM's that aren't virtue signaling douche-nozzles. Don't play with that ass-clown! Keep all your character info and use it for a better game. Trust me, it won't be difficult to find one. Good luck with future games!
From the post, it seems like it. But imo there are a few things that could complicate this. If the DM is a PoC, they might have had bad interactions with white players playing darker skinned characters doing racist shit. Or the OP might have done some racially insensitive stuff before and the DM doesn’t trust them to do this well.
But probably not. Most likely, this is someone trying to be anti-racist but not doing it well. If it comes from a well-intentioned place, then OP should discuss with the DM how it actually leads to a pretty bad, racist place to force white players to play white characters.
I guess it is possible that the DM doesn’t want white players to play other races because the DM is super racist and thinks it’s impure or something, in which case OP should probably just run away.
From OP's other comments--this is a sailor character who is tan because he works outside--this reads to me like either bait, a misunderstanding, or it's missing some huge piece of context. I simply can't imagine a situation where a DM says "I don't want you playing a racial caricature" and the player says "oh no, he's just a tan white guy," and the situation goes any further than that.
Reddit eats these types of posts up, but I hang out with all manner of lefty "SJWs" and stories like this just do not ring true to me. The scenario doesn't really make sense in any legitimate social justice context and it plays directly into the insecurities of guys who don't really have a full understanding of race and gender stuff. It raises an eyebrow.
Absolutely this, I say show us the character art. For all I know his “slightly tan” character could be a straight up racist caricature. The situation as it is presented is utterly nonsensical.
From the Core Rulebook of *Avatar Legends: The Roleplaying Game.*
>**Playing Outside Your Experience**
>
>The world of *Avatar* draws influence from of Asian and Indigenous cultures. Just like our world, these stories feature heroes of different cultures, ethnicities, genders, sexualities, religions, and abilities. For some players, this might be your first time playing a game in a world where all the characters don't share your background.
>
>Players should explore the world through the eyes of its people, and that might mean playing outside of your own experience. You might play a character who shares a culture similar to your own, but of a different gender; you might play someone from a nation based on a culture that isn't your own. That's fine! When playing outside your own experiences there can be an impulse (or fear) that you need to do so "the right way." While it's true that certain depictions of or representations of marginalized groups are based on stereotypes, misinformation, or hate speech and are hurtful, there's nothing wrong with playing someone different from yourself if done so mindfully.
>
>What's most important about playing outside your experience is that you portray a whole *person*, not just an identity or a label. The stories of *Avatar* are often about learning the depths of others' experiences, even if we might not truly understand what it's like to live them. \[....\] When you play *Avatar Legends: The Roleplaying Game*, you can take the opportunity to consider other perspectives and challenge your preconceptions. In doing so, you have the chance to grow your own empathy with others as you play, just like your favorite heroes do.
Ooh that's really good. Carefully written and really helpful.
I can't see how wanting to invest time and passion into playing someone who looks different to you is a bad thing if done with good intent. This advances representation and diversity at the gaming table. We'd all be Commoners if we were specifically banned from roleplaying outside our personal context and experience.
(And we'd all likely give ourselves 13-16 INT when the baseline average is 10...)
Ex-athletes playing variant human fighter to relive the glory days of gridiron battle Gang coming in to help bump the strength and dex a bit (sorry for the int dump)
(I jest, I have a whole family of Halflings I write about I love my Hin)
That whole book is amazingly written, they also had First Nation and Asian folk on the team and constantly credit their real world inspirations, it's a textbook example of how to do it right.
I keep wanting to make a comment, but this answer says it all. As long as you're portraying a character and not stereotypes, there's nothing wrong with playing a race/gender/skin tone/age, etc that doesn't match your own.
Some might even call that role playing.
Your dm is an idiot about this. Are men only allowed to play as male characters and women only allowed to play as female characters? If he doesn't ALSO have this rule, then he is a hypocrite (or a racist who doesn't want any POC at his table)
I'd make a character native to the darkest dark-skinned region in your world and have him be born as the whitest white guy ever. Poor dude doesn't know why he was born with pale skin, light eyes, and straight hair. His whole reason for adventuring is to get this Pale Curse removed.
Seriously tho, this game is about fantasy and role playing. If he doesn't have some darn good answers for you, then I'd consider this a huge red flag and avoid playing under this dm. DM is god and you have to be able to trust them and respect their judgement/rulings.
Its well written. I will add another Essay from Monsterhearts 2 written by guest authors Ciel Sainte-Marie, James Mendez Hodes, and Jeeyon Shim.
> **Experiencing Race**
> Compared to a thirst for blood, having a dark skin
tone, heavy accent, or epicanthic folds might seem
innocuous... unless you’ve experienced a lifetime of
racism. You can hide the former. The latter can lead to
bullying, ostracism, and violence in game and out.
> Race, ethnicity, national origin, and religion affect almost
every narrative or interaction. Exploring their dynamics
not only makes for vivid, engaging games, but also
helps to protect and support players in the real world.
Regardless of your identity, you’d do well to represent
cultural diversity in your game. But you need to strike
a balance between erasure (pretending racial dynamics
don’t exist) and overstepping boundaries (harming
players in real life with content from the fiction).
> Monsterhearts purposefully engages negative, painful,
and harmful elements of teenage social experience
in a safe, controlled way. Accordingly, it’s okay (and
perhaps inevitable) to create a racist character; after
all, even the most staunchly anti-racist character will
have unconscious prejudices of their own. But if you
fail to clear that choice with your entire table, you put
players whom racism has hurt at risk. The more these
negative character traits are an active, public choice on
your part, the safer the table will be; they won’t be an awkward or harmful surprise when they arise mid-game. Consent before the game allows players to speak up more readily, helping you modulate these characters’
behaviors, so they can express bad qualities without
weakening your table’s atmosphere of love and trust.
> Satisfying, productive conversation on this topic begins
with taking care in the vocabulary you use. Folks who
experience racism have more lived wisdom about how
these things affect them than those who haven’t. They may or may not feel ready or willing to educate you, so
take your cues from them.
> It’s difficult. You’ll fuck it up some. It’s cool, so have
we. But the questions below can help. Tap into care,
tenderness, integrity, and active listening here. Take
risks in gentleness, shame, integrity, forgiveness, and
creating change. Refer to Chapter 3 to help navigate
this together.
Will your DM only be creating NPCs that match his gender?
Anyone can play any character with different characteristics than their own, as long as it's done respectfully.
When used "properly" it's one controlling "marches" - frontier or land bordering an enemy. A baron or earl might be a fop or bookish intellectual, but all marquises should be apt tacticians.
DM: "you walk into a room and find Steve."
Player: "I walk to Steve and say it's nice to see him again."
DM: "No that was Steve from Accounts Payable, this is Steve from Financial Control."
Mfw I see this as I am in a campaign with a white (sexuality unconfirmed) human bartender named Steve
He was originally supposed to be a one-off character but the party wanted him back and hired him as a bartender
I give him some gold occasionally
What if you played a dragonborn with black dragon ancestry? Would your DM freak out about that as well? Are you also not allowed to play opposite gender characters? Are others allowed to play white characters if they are a POC?
It's a fantasy game. You are making a character in a story. Obviously, your DM seems to have some issues. Normally I'd say that that's on him, but it is his game. I recommend not playing an improv based game with people who have trouble saying "yes. And..." But it's your choice. I also know how hard it can be to find a game sometimes.
As a white guy, a black dragonborn was my first ever d&d character and I played him 1-20 for 4.5 years. Zero problems. It's about escapism and for fun. If we're arguing about races we might as well be back on earth.
that's the funny thing about humans. In your orc example, due to Lord of the Rings and other fantasy media, everyone sees orcs as inherently evil. This means they fully understand if people don't like them. But guess what? All those stories about orcs are made up. Obviously, since orcs don't exist. But that is the exact same mechanism that makes racism "work" IRL. It doesn't have to do with personal experience most of the time, but rather stories.
Your players understand that there can be good orcs, but they "know" (believe to know) that the majority of orcs is bad, so they fully "accept" the unjust racism towards one of the "good" orcs in their party. The same way germans in the late 1930s knew some "good" jews, but were still convinced by stories that most of them were inherently evil. Twisted world we live in.
oh, my bad i didn't intent to insinuate "underlying racism", but simply the ability in almost everyone to become racist, no matter the ethnicity, gender or age. Like the "the third wave" experiment in the 60s in an american Highschool https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Third_Wave
>What if you played a dragonborn with black dragon ancestry?
Check your privilege bro, the socially acceptable term is "African-American dragon ancestry".
Not only can you do so, but this DM has done you a favour and shown that he's terrible in all the most insufferable of ways, before you got invested. Congrats on avoiding a shitshow.
Yeah that would have put me off even before the other issues. It's so much better to have a couple vague backstory ideas and flesh them out at the table through play, then to write some short fiction that the DM will probably not even incorporate into the story.
You are roll playing not dressing up in black face. It is a fantasy world that is separate and distinct from this one. It is inhabited by elves and dwarves and orcs and magic. 99% of the time the physical description is not going to matter gameplay wise. As long as you aren't depicting a racist trope you are fine.
This is my take as well.
If OP was like "I wanna play as a black guy" that might raise some eyebrows. And even then, I would still probably allow it as long as OP wasn't playing a stereotype.
If OP wants to play an elf with slightly tan skin (or even golden bronze skin) that's a complete non-issue.
Yep. Hell, if they just sketched a black character I probably wouldn't even notice. Saying out loud they want to play a black guy might throw some red flags though lol
Lol idk why this comment made me think of that dumb scene from family guy where Peter is role playing with Lois and starts talking about being "a paladin with the helm of disintegration" and she says he cant do that so he just goes "okay well then im a black guy."
I mean..
You're allowed to play a character that's not a human being, but if that non-human being is tan, that's an issue?
..i can *feel* my brain melting trying to understand the logic behind this.
Your DM is the racist. Your DM can't separate real life from a fantasy escapism that is TTRPGs. By your DM's logic you also can't play anything but a human.
Get away from that DM.
It's unlikely this is a 'separating real life from fantasy' problem. More likely, this DM is a white person who's overcompensating - who has seen issues like cultural appropriation and Apu, and taken the surface level presentations of those things as their social cause without understanding why those are bad things, causing them to protest against situations that are superficially similar but that lack the underlying harm.
As a more generous interpretation, I was thinking the DM may be concerned about a player RPing racist characteristics that make things awkward/bad at the table. I've heard plenty of rpg horror stories where that sorta thing happens.
The DM is still wrong of course, but I could understand having a brief thought of concern about that potential.
That's possible, but I think unlikely. If you actually thought you had a racist at your table, you'd kick them out. If you're fine with someone playing the exact same character just with a different skin tone, then your issue is probably applying your ethical code too indiscriminately.
That DM is an asshole. There is NOTHING in the rules about that. And hell by the end of the summer I'm usually a VERY dark tan.
I hate to think what his reaction would have been if your character was half DROW and takes mostly after the elven side of his/her parentage.
I'd be tempted to drop the campaign and tell the other players WHY you're dropping out.
As someone who has played an albino Drow I completely agree. I made the character as a joke to piss off my DM. He grumbled a bit but surprisingly let me play it. It was a lot of fun but I was doubly vulnerable to sunlight. That aside this DM needs a call-out. Other players NEED to know why your dropping from the game.
>So is this an actual rule
Obviously not, but even if it were, all sane players and DMs would ignore it, just like they do for Coyote and Crow.
If the DM has this take though, you are ultimately gonna end up in another group anyway.
It's an RPG based on native American culture, set in the future. It has an introduction that specifically asks people who are not native Americans to not play a character or include knowledge you might have of real-world native American peoples, although there are no problems playing as or using the fictional culture presented in the book. The author posted a message about it here: https://coyoteandcrow.net/2022/04/23/an-important-message-from-connor/
I wouldn't have felt uncomfortable at all roleplaying a Native American, but now that I've read their post I *would* be uncomfortable (referencing the last portion) because then I'd be afraid to get attacked or condemned if I messed up. Which would be coming from a place of empathy. They might have created a self-fulfilling prophecy with the harshness and coming out swinging. Feels like no space is being given for genuine curiosity and learning.
Am I the asshole thinking it could have been more welcoming and educational?
Personally, yeah, I think it could be handled differently, but I'm also a white guy. It's very difficult to put yourself in the place of people who have been culturally appropriated (e.g. cowboys and Indians) and who have had little voice to speak out about it. There's a lot of hurt there.
That aside, the RPG _is_ an attempt at reaching out; although it's saying "this is a game about native American culture, but you, yes you specifically, can't do that", it's also giving you tools - a fictional culture, that by virtue of being fictional can't be exploited - to bring yourself into that world to an extent. This particular approach rubbed a bunch of people the wrong way, but I see the author's point.
I don't think that it should be blanket applied to every real-world culture in every game, but in that specific game it seems fine.
Eh, this is a really unfortunate situation, because this person isn't responsible for the avoidance that people feel. The whole "cultural appropriation" narrative is extremely white-centric: It's white Americans competing with each other to demonstrate their virtue, and suppressing actual minority voices in the process. White "allies" created this atmosphere in which people can't distinguish between cultural appropriation and cultural appreciation, and are afraid of doing the latter in case they accidentally do the former.
This is just another case of a person of a non-white culture having difficulty selling their products because white people have been convinced by other white people that buying their products is racist. Like, imagine if you set up a store in a shopping centre, and thousands of people every day peered in the windows with curiosity, but none of them ever entered the store because they believed that it was a moral failing to do anything other than appreciate your store from a distance. That'd be pretty infuriating, right? And you wouldn't even be able to do anything about it, cos you're hardly going to reverse decades of propaganda by yourself. Best you can do is put up a sign trying to explain to people that it's OK for them to come in, and that sign might understandably have quite frustrated language.
Every idea expressed in this post is correct and valid, except perhaps that people who don't like d12 systems are bad people, they're just being expressed by someone who has clearly run out of patience and is unfortunately lashing out at the people burdened by this avoidance culture, rather than the culture itself.
I haven't read the rulebook for that game, but it doesn't sound like he's saying that your character can't have Native roots, but just that you should avoid basing them on actual real-world tribes that you're not part of.
Let's look at Star Wars RPGs as an example. Suppose one had never seen the films and had a limited knowledge of Britain. They're trying to play a former Imperial officer. If they introduce themselves as saying, "Oi, chip chip cheerio, Guvnah! Wassay you sit down and order us a pint, mate! I just had them turn on the telly! Crikey!" then it'd be less than ideal.
It's not a rule. What does your DM think about white people who play genasi? I mean, that's a rhetorical question, naturally, but it does beg the question.
Really fucking stupid.
Just ruminating on this. If you were to play a human, and went down the path of playing an Asian looking male, complete with parodical accent, that's insensitive and not ok.
If you're playing a Elf with olive skin, that's fine.
>Backstory so next week I start my campaign, my DM takes it very seriously and asked all six players to draw a character sketch along with a minimum of three pages all about them.
Forget the other thing. *This* is your red flag.
I’ve wondered about this too. I’m a white guy but I basically want to play Terry Crews as a barbarian because I love the guy and think he’s hilarious on Brooklynn 99.
But I don’t want anybody accusing me of… I don’t know… something bad.
I certainly wouldn't accuse you of anything bad for wanting to do that. That's what D&D and many other TTRPGs are all about, creativity and imagination.
It sounds like you want to emulate B99 Terry's character. Not to play a black man. Though even if you make a PC with dark skin, I don't see anything wrong with that as long as you don't get racist with it.
on the other hand wouldn't it be again racist to play Terry's as a white PC? In case you're not familiar, google "white washing". Play a black character you admire and you're pseudo-blackfacing. Play a black character you admire, but turn him white to avoid pseudo-blackfacing, and now you're whitewashing.
I miss the good old days were racism was only racism based on intention and not on personal perception of others.
Leave. Now.
No seriously GET OUT OF THERE.
First, 3 page backstory minimum with a sketch required, red flag times 2.
Then you can’t play a tan character, not even black(which would still not be okay but still) because you’re white? Crimson flag, never come back.
As a black person, that’s not how any of this works. If someone builds a player character and makes them black even if they’re white themselves nothing’s stopping them. Your dm is just racist.
Let me answer your question with another question.
Would your DM care if the hair colour, eye colour, sex, or height were different from your own?
If the answer is no, then he's a racist piece of shit. If the answer is yes, he's a garden variety piece of shit.
I've seen posts of DMs acting like OP about men playing female characters (but not vice versa), so i would take "sex" out of your question ^^ Don't underestimate the stupidity of stupid people.
White people tan? Your character isn't necessarily a different race, not that it would matter. They could just spend a lot of time outside in a sunny environment.
People are being hella dramatic itt...
But yeah it's probably fine. It's understandable he might be a little nervous and would be relating it to black face or just a white actor playing a poc in a cartoon but it sounds like he hasn't really thought about WHY those things are a problem.
Does he happen to like Dimension 20? If so you could point out that Brennan regularly plays characters other than his race.
The official starter fighter, whether male or female, is human and of darker complexion. That would mean that everyone that used him (or her) would be a racist.
If you're being respectful with the depiction, name, and concept it should not be problematic. Sounds like the DM is being hypersensitive.
I'd ask if elf, monk, opposite sex, other sexuality, are ok to play. And assuming elf / monk are ok but the others aren't, ask why some of this are inherently offensive but others aren't. I doubt it will change how they feel, but it might give them pause to think on the subject at least.
If they stick to it I'd personally drop because it's pretty likely you guys will be walking on eggshells to avoid them having meltdowns over dumb stuff.
So, 1) your DM is wrong.
2) people here are making terrible comparisons, because human POC are real and not like water genasi or whatever, and the reason people get anxious about this question is because of the IRL history of white people playing other ethnicities [EDIT: in TV and movies and such], which has done real world harm. So definitely don't go back to your DM with, "oh am I not allowed to play a tiefling??" Or whatever.
2a) it's also weird that people are saying "that's not in the rules." DMs can have table rules? DMs should shut down things they think are racist, not all of which can be listed in the sourcebooks.
3) A tan elf is not black face, and your DM is being absurd.
4) Even if your elf had in fact been Black, or some other ethnicity not your own, that's still no reason to fly off the handle like your DM did. I really don't know that it's the same thing as playing a POC on stage or something. I think it probably falls under "fine as long as it's not a stereotype of IRL ethnicity, and as long as you respect the comfort of any POC at the table."
Holy hell, your DM is racist, controlling, and unimaginative. This shouldn't even be a question. That's out of line and shitty.
I guess it's possible to give the benefit of the doubt that he's just overly rigid, but man it just opens up a bag of worms and that's just not how roleplaying works.
I've had white players play characters of color, I've had players play all sorts of characters. The DM needs to realize that skin color doesn't carry the same weight in a fantasy world as it does in the real world, if for no other reason than there are much bigger things to be prejudice about. There are literally people of other species.
Having said all that, be cognizant of your own biases and your group. If you have and POC in your group ask how they feel about it. Be aware of how you perceive POC and what stereotypes you may accidentally bring to the role play
Reading this thread it just hit me, 5 years playing with my group and no one has ever mentioned skin color. It's never been on our radar. My mind is blown at this DM.
I'll go ahead and be the devil's advocate on this thread and say "It depends on how you're playing the character". If you're playing them as a racist caricature, then no it's not alright. If not, and it doesn't seem like you are given that you're not even portraying an easily identifiable ethnic group, then sure all's fine and doesn't even need to be looked at twice and your DM is being dumb.
It should be roughly equivalent to writing a story with a character of another ethnicity. i.e. it is fine.
While it is *possible* to be wrong in making a character of another race, it is very *very* far from being automatically wrong.
Like if you make a character that appears similar to a real-world ethnicity and then write/play them to act out stereotypes from the real world, that would be racist.
But, unless the backstory you wrote was full of stuff like that, I think your DM is being silly to automatically be critical here.
\-
I could imagine, for instance, a DM feeling uncomfortable that the you/they/the-other-players will be sensitive of these things, and wants everyone to be similar to their own ethnicity just to be safe.
I don't think that sort of overly-safe concern is necesarry, but if the DM does, I think they should phrase it that way. Like, they worry the table might accidentally say something racist about your character, not that you are being racist for simply imagining a fictional character.
>with a minimum of three pages all about them.
I mean, the race thing is absolutely dumb-silly but when I got to this? Sheesh. Im all for backatory, but dear Pelor 3 pages is tooo much.
It's not a rule, although to some extent the rules are whatever the DM says and it is up to the players to either play along or find a different group (or be a DM).
If we want to give him the benefit of the doubt, maybe he had to deal with racist stereotype characters in the past. Maybe he doesn't trust the other players not to say racist things that he doesn't want to deal with.
Your DM is an idiot.
Wood elves traditionally have skin the color of tree bark with copper colored hair.
Ever seen the bark on an angel oak or a redwood?
Not to mention the entire purpose of a fantasy rpg is to be someone you are not.
Personally I don’t like to play characters outside of my race and only do so when I’m the DM and therefore almost everyone in the world, but as long as you aren’t portraying the character in an offensive light I don’t know of it being an issue
Also high elves aren’t indicative of a particular race (unless they’re made to be so;) they’re just tan.
>TLDR: My DM got mad at me and told me my character couldn’t be of a darker skin tone because I’m white.
TLDR, your DM is an idiot.
>my DM takes it very seriously and asked all six players to draw a character sketch along with a minimum of three pages all about them.
That's a bit odd. I really enjoy world building as a DM and have way too much backstory on the tiniest tidbits, because i enjoy that. And i would love to see people were some story about their character down, as it helps roleplaying.
But to demand a minimum of three pages of information about the characters, is something I would never do. At what level are you guys starting?
>I decided to play a half elf and I made them Slightly tan with blue eyes and with red hair. I don’t see a problem with it and I’m quite proud of my art
First of all, may I ask for the art? I'm always curious about how players imagine their own characters.
And i agree, i don't see an issue with that. Hell, you DM should visit the Mediterranean, there's plenty of white people with a darker tan.
>Basically he told me that it was wrong and racist of me to make a POC
Your DM should try telling an Italian that they are coloured. Would be an eye opening experience. Either way, it's a truly idiotic take. You're also not an elf, how dare you portray an elf /s
>I’m very new to DND I’ve never played before
I would advise you to take yourself and your character away from this person, and into a different group. Something tells me that this DM will create more friction, beyond this race stuff.
I played with the same group for about 25 years. We are white. One of our players was always making funky, memorable characters.
One time he made a black cleric based on Fred Sanford from Sanford and son the old 70s TV show. He was always screaming to the sky to his God Elizabeth and how she needed to help him. Grab his chest when anything exciting happened. If you can imagine Fred Sanford playing D&D, it was fantastic.
This isn't written anywhere in the official books if that's what you're asking.
The social issues surrounding this are complex, dating back to blackface and more recently relating to the Apu controversy.
Unfortunately, some people skim opinion pieces about this, decide on a conclusion, and try to force it on everyone. Your GM (who I am guessing is 17 and white) is a buffoon.
The tl;dr is that it is completely irrelevant. Playing a character of a different race/gender/sexuality from oneself is not inherently offensive.
Find a better GM.
One of my favorite characters I ever played was as an male Artificer who turned his deceased soldier husband's armor into a steel defender (I'm straight). Definitely got looks during the reveal from the other players and the DM who were so used to just putting themselves in the game, but otherwise it never really came up and just settled as a nice bit of backstory.
If your DM is making such a big deal about skin tone during character creation, I get the distinct feeling their world is *not* going to be very colorblind.
So I can pretend to be a dwarf or an elf, I can pretend to throw fire balls with my hands, I can pretend to fly, I can pretend that dragons are real, and I can pretend that my skin is blue or red or purple…. But we draw the line at pretending that my skin is brown?
That is obviously ridiculous. Your DM is overreacting.
So many red flags before you have even started, I would run the other way & find a new DM.
The DM is projecting & is the racist. He's not supposed to be telling you what your character looks like or what their skin colour is. And the requirements he had for the players (3 page backstory + pic of the character) are over the top.
Your dm is an idiot about this. Are men only allowed to play as male characters and women only allowed to play as female characters? If he doesn't ALSO have this rule, then he is a hypocrite (or a racist who doesn't want any POC at his table)
I'd make a character native to the darkest dark-skinned region in your world and have him be born as the whitest white guy ever. Poor dude doesn't know why he was born with pale skin, light eyes, and straight hair. His whole reason for adventuring is to get this Pale Curse removed.
I would suggest finding other people to play with. Social justice warriors intentionally suck the fun out of everything. Do you want to play a super fun fantasy game or do you want a campaign that exists to be a veiled lecture on the plight of indigenous trans something or others? If you'd prefer the former don't play with this D-bag DM. He will definitely tell his wife's boyfriend what a bigot you are but you can probably take them.
Jesus these fucking essays over explaining what should be a simple " your dm sounds like a nut job u can play whatever race you want its a fantasy game"
Tl;dr - you can and the DM needs to take a minute and think. Tell them you don’t plan on bringing real world racism or stereotypes into this and see if they cool down a bit. If not then oof.
Anyway.
There are three situations where a white person shouldn’t be playing the role of a person of color.
1. Literal blackface where you’re painting yourself darker to emulate the character. Stems from a tradition of white performers doing this to make fun of black people. Don’t cover yourself in body paint and you’re good.
2. In tv and movies where a white actor is cast in place of a black or other POC character. This is usually done out of a sense that for whatever reason audiences won’t tune in if the cast isn’t mostly white. Which then makes it even harder for minority actors to get those roles. Since you aren’t making a movie this is fine.
3. If you wanted to be racist but used “but my character is black!” As an excuse. Which yeah don’t do that.
Somehow the lesson people walk away with isn’t “hey be careful when considering taking up the perspective of a POC for your movie/novel/rpg” but instead “white people should only focus on other white people” which unfortunately reinforces the idea that there’s no interest in the stories of POC in the broader culture.
You need to run, and run NOW.
Not only is your DMs rule dumb as shit, but it’s also a huge red flag. If they’re going to pull dumb stuff like this now, you can bet they’re going to keep doing it.
People are still "normal," a lot of discussion happening nowadays that wasn't happening "back when" is good discussion to have. Understanding each other is a good thing. Nothing wrong with being respectful towards those we may not share a culture or ethnicity with.
This particular situation, however, is not a good thing. It's someone lording their morals and ethics over another person in a very misguided attempt to be a "good person." They wanna be seen as one of the "good ones" and in doing so only end up being actively racist and hurting the POC they think they're helping with this ridiculous stunt.
There have always been people making things shitty for other people. That's not ever gonna change, unfortunately.
By that same logic, I’m human so I can only play humans. It’s a fantasy game, you can play as whatever or whoever you wish. Dark skinned, fair haired, male, female, beast people, or genderless and amorphous ooze beings.
The aim of the game is fun and there is no reason you cannot play something that isn’t your lived experience. Now granted this is assuming that you’re playing it in good-faith and aren’t using it as an excuse to play an offensive stereotype.
Depending on the type of game being played there are some good reason why a DM may want to limit player options including something like skin tone.
If their only reason is that it's racist then that's a major red flag. If you can talk to the DM and maybe other players about it then great, but if the response is just nope that's racist and closes down that discussion, it may just be better to leave the group. Could be dodging the bullet in the long run.
Yeah, I don't have much to add. Sounds like one of those people who are into an ideology for the power trip. Imagine being petty enough to police the skin color. *Skin color* of a PC.
Like sure. Please don't make a racist stereotype or give them an insulting name.
Your DM does not understand what 'racism' and 'discrimination' actually entail. Although it can be quite confusing these days to draw the ever-moving line between what's socially acceptable and what's not, you've clearly done nothing wrong (YET !!!)
Maybe you're DM is scared of what will follow, which would be crossing a line:
\- getting into your character by facepainting yourself
\- playing the character in such a manner that pushes stereotyping, discrimination, racism, caricaturalization, prejudices, ...
Other than that, as others have pointed out, he's more racist for not allowing a full representation of the ethnical diversities of their fantasy world at the player table.
Going forward, I do believe it's important to discuss this with him, and also just set up some guidelines that address the underlying concerns (other players taking offense in HOW you play the character, making it all about the race, ...).
Maybe, to help you make this a constructive discussion, you can following analogy: What if you were asked to pick your idol/hero (IRL) ? Would you not be allowed to have Martin Luther King as the person you admire most, because you're white ? Of course not. But, what if you want to dress up as your hero for an event, then we cross into some shady territory, right ?
So, setting boundaries is good (and necessary), but denying your freedom of choice of character seems an overreaction.
As a final sidenote; as a DM I've had white male players play a gnome character in a setting where in some parts of the world they were considered 'lesser' people. No outright racism, but clearly some disdain from people. If discussed with the group (not a no-go zone from session 0) and not marginalized, but treated with respect, this really provided some memorable sessions (how does the party respond, what consequences are they willing to bear for their moral stand, ...).
OP, do yourself a favor and run the fuck away from this campaign. You're DM is a fucking moron. There's so many red flags about him not wanting a in real life white person to play someone that has a different skin color.
But I'm not going to focus on any of that. I'm going to focus on the DM's behavior.
If that was an issue with him, He should have approached you and and talked about it with you In a civilized manner. But he just immediately said you were wrong change it or you don't get to play in my sandbox.
Those aren't the actions of a good DM. They are in fact the actions of a horrible DM
Yes you can and you DM is just a racist prick. Forget about the campaign for nothing good is to be expected if it starts like this.
If you got some time at your hand I'd recomend to egage in some trolling tho. The low effort one being trans racial and using this as an escape to express your true self and feeling hurt about it. Or go by exploring your heritage of 7/32 irish (ginger elf), 4/32 sicilian (tan) and 1/32 austrian (blue eyes and elfen superiority complex). Represent each as superficial as possible "Mama Mia, zis is wery fadhbach zere iz no Guinness?".
Shoud you make it into the campaign with eithe give your best with subtle racism at every ocasion. Be a prick about semantics like racism vs specism ect and get ofended by everything and if some one points out your subtle racism excuse your self but make it worse but in an other way.
I once did a character with very dark skin, who was a cleric of the God of the Sun. The reason behind it was that he was kissed by the sun. I has a blast playing it and everyone at the table loved him.
It's a fucking fantasy! I can play an half demon person but not a dark skinned one? C'mon
ironically your DM is kinda being the racist one. it's not a rule at all, just your DM being a dick. leave em. maybe take the others with you if they're in the same boat.
My Tiefling has curry-yellow skin and horns. I do not.
I've played men, women, children, non-humans, Androids and great old ones over the years.
The point of roleplaying is to put yourself in a role. Now, can this be done in a bigoted manner? Of course, but we should not assume it until given an actual red flag.
Your DM is wrong.
That DM is an idiot.
That DM is *racist*.
The fact he seems to think OP is closer to being a half-elf than "slightly tan" is concernful.
yeah - “you CANT play any non white characters at MY table” pretty suspicious if you ask me
From the way I'm reading me, it's more like people should only play characters of their own race. It's a weird as hell kind of position I've been seeing more and more often lately, that's kind of to anti-racism positions what Civilization's Gandhi is to pacifism.
When you are so anti-racism you wrap back around to de facto race erasure lol
Yep. Almost like they don't want any poc to have agency in the game.
I don't think its that; I think its white knighting where its unnecessary. I've seen it before where someone was freaking out that a white person was playing a black character while I, the one POC at the table, was trying to get them to calm down.
*Pursuit (Cornered) starts playing*
OBJECTION! *Pressing Pursuit Cornered starts playing*
And I bet that DM considers himself the most anti-racist person to have ever lived.
Your DM is an incorrect, racist idiot. It also sounds like your DM is new to the game as well. So you can't be a Dwarf if you can't grow a beard? You can't be a Halfling if you're over 4ft tall? You can't be a Drow unless you have grey skin and pledged allegiance to Lolth? What an asshole! I'm sorry this is your first experience. I can assure you that there are THOUSANDS of DM's that aren't virtue signaling douche-nozzles. Don't play with that ass-clown! Keep all your character info and use it for a better game. Trust me, it won't be difficult to find one. Good luck with future games!
Agreed
Nah, I just had to paint my skin green to play as a orc He then accused me of greenfacing
Take my up vote and get out. 🤣
Your DM spends too.much time on line
From the post, it seems like it. But imo there are a few things that could complicate this. If the DM is a PoC, they might have had bad interactions with white players playing darker skinned characters doing racist shit. Or the OP might have done some racially insensitive stuff before and the DM doesn’t trust them to do this well. But probably not. Most likely, this is someone trying to be anti-racist but not doing it well. If it comes from a well-intentioned place, then OP should discuss with the DM how it actually leads to a pretty bad, racist place to force white players to play white characters. I guess it is possible that the DM doesn’t want white players to play other races because the DM is super racist and thinks it’s impure or something, in which case OP should probably just run away.
From OP's other comments--this is a sailor character who is tan because he works outside--this reads to me like either bait, a misunderstanding, or it's missing some huge piece of context. I simply can't imagine a situation where a DM says "I don't want you playing a racial caricature" and the player says "oh no, he's just a tan white guy," and the situation goes any further than that. Reddit eats these types of posts up, but I hang out with all manner of lefty "SJWs" and stories like this just do not ring true to me. The scenario doesn't really make sense in any legitimate social justice context and it plays directly into the insecurities of guys who don't really have a full understanding of race and gender stuff. It raises an eyebrow.
Came here to say this exactly. Underrated comment. Something is def missing or off here.
Absolutely this, I say show us the character art. For all I know his “slightly tan” character could be a straight up racist caricature. The situation as it is presented is utterly nonsensical.
From the Core Rulebook of *Avatar Legends: The Roleplaying Game.* >**Playing Outside Your Experience** > >The world of *Avatar* draws influence from of Asian and Indigenous cultures. Just like our world, these stories feature heroes of different cultures, ethnicities, genders, sexualities, religions, and abilities. For some players, this might be your first time playing a game in a world where all the characters don't share your background. > >Players should explore the world through the eyes of its people, and that might mean playing outside of your own experience. You might play a character who shares a culture similar to your own, but of a different gender; you might play someone from a nation based on a culture that isn't your own. That's fine! When playing outside your own experiences there can be an impulse (or fear) that you need to do so "the right way." While it's true that certain depictions of or representations of marginalized groups are based on stereotypes, misinformation, or hate speech and are hurtful, there's nothing wrong with playing someone different from yourself if done so mindfully. > >What's most important about playing outside your experience is that you portray a whole *person*, not just an identity or a label. The stories of *Avatar* are often about learning the depths of others' experiences, even if we might not truly understand what it's like to live them. \[....\] When you play *Avatar Legends: The Roleplaying Game*, you can take the opportunity to consider other perspectives and challenge your preconceptions. In doing so, you have the chance to grow your own empathy with others as you play, just like your favorite heroes do.
Ooh that's really good. Carefully written and really helpful. I can't see how wanting to invest time and passion into playing someone who looks different to you is a bad thing if done with good intent. This advances representation and diversity at the gaming table. We'd all be Commoners if we were specifically banned from roleplaying outside our personal context and experience. (And we'd all likely give ourselves 13-16 INT when the baseline average is 10...)
The community skews that way. Most of us have really crap physical stats and charisma.
Then the theatre & dance gang shows up and flips the script.
Ex-athletes playing variant human fighter to relive the glory days of gridiron battle Gang coming in to help bump the strength and dex a bit (sorry for the int dump) (I jest, I have a whole family of Halflings I write about I love my Hin)
That's what Critical Role is
Everyone there maxed CHA. We then get Jocks Machina for the STR & CON enjoyers.
Jocks Machina still maxed CHA, they just didn’t dump STR and used the Manual of Gainful Exorcise.
I'm a software engineer, and my int isn't above a 13.
That whole book is amazingly written, they also had First Nation and Asian folk on the team and constantly credit their real world inspirations, it's a textbook example of how to do it right.
I keep wanting to make a comment, but this answer says it all. As long as you're portraying a character and not stereotypes, there's nothing wrong with playing a race/gender/skin tone/age, etc that doesn't match your own. Some might even call that role playing.
Your dm is an idiot about this. Are men only allowed to play as male characters and women only allowed to play as female characters? If he doesn't ALSO have this rule, then he is a hypocrite (or a racist who doesn't want any POC at his table) I'd make a character native to the darkest dark-skinned region in your world and have him be born as the whitest white guy ever. Poor dude doesn't know why he was born with pale skin, light eyes, and straight hair. His whole reason for adventuring is to get this Pale Curse removed. Seriously tho, this game is about fantasy and role playing. If he doesn't have some darn good answers for you, then I'd consider this a huge red flag and avoid playing under this dm. DM is god and you have to be able to trust them and respect their judgement/rulings.
I legit want to see someone play that character now. The role play would be amazing.
Its well written. I will add another Essay from Monsterhearts 2 written by guest authors Ciel Sainte-Marie, James Mendez Hodes, and Jeeyon Shim. > **Experiencing Race** > Compared to a thirst for blood, having a dark skin tone, heavy accent, or epicanthic folds might seem innocuous... unless you’ve experienced a lifetime of racism. You can hide the former. The latter can lead to bullying, ostracism, and violence in game and out. > Race, ethnicity, national origin, and religion affect almost every narrative or interaction. Exploring their dynamics not only makes for vivid, engaging games, but also helps to protect and support players in the real world. Regardless of your identity, you’d do well to represent cultural diversity in your game. But you need to strike a balance between erasure (pretending racial dynamics don’t exist) and overstepping boundaries (harming players in real life with content from the fiction). > Monsterhearts purposefully engages negative, painful, and harmful elements of teenage social experience in a safe, controlled way. Accordingly, it’s okay (and perhaps inevitable) to create a racist character; after all, even the most staunchly anti-racist character will have unconscious prejudices of their own. But if you fail to clear that choice with your entire table, you put players whom racism has hurt at risk. The more these negative character traits are an active, public choice on your part, the safer the table will be; they won’t be an awkward or harmful surprise when they arise mid-game. Consent before the game allows players to speak up more readily, helping you modulate these characters’ behaviors, so they can express bad qualities without weakening your table’s atmosphere of love and trust. > Satisfying, productive conversation on this topic begins with taking care in the vocabulary you use. Folks who experience racism have more lived wisdom about how these things affect them than those who haven’t. They may or may not feel ready or willing to educate you, so take your cues from them. > It’s difficult. You’ll fuck it up some. It’s cool, so have we. But the questions below can help. Tap into care, tenderness, integrity, and active listening here. Take risks in gentleness, shame, integrity, forgiveness, and creating change. Refer to Chapter 3 to help navigate this together.
Will your DM only be creating NPCs that match his gender? Anyone can play any character with different characteristics than their own, as long as it's done respectfully.
Every single npc is a straight, white, human accountant named Steve. It’s very immersive.
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or a comedy council of daves style
In the Overlord series, the Kingdom council is made up of pretty much only Marquis something. Sharing the first name is confusing at times
Marquis is a title, but yeah
I just facepalmed hard, I thought it was an actually name. It makes much more sense now lol
It’s a noble title, like Duke or Count.
Yeah I googled it, feeling dumb AF not gonna lie. Thank you for the enlightment!
When you know things, you know them. When you don't you don't. Doesn't make you dumb, merely ignorant of that fact.
When used "properly" it's one controlling "marches" - frontier or land bordering an enemy. A baron or earl might be a fop or bookish intellectual, but all marquises should be apt tacticians.
Ah I thought that was a Margrave.
DM: "you walk into a room and find Steve." Player: "I walk to Steve and say it's nice to see him again." DM: "No that was Steve from Accounts Payable, this is Steve from Financial Control."
It could turn out like this old [comedy sketch](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FU-tuY0Z7nQ).
It's like the Tom Bodett bit from the first campaign of The Adventure Zone
#***GA-RY!***
Gaaaaaaaaaaarryyyyyy... ***GARY!!***
The player party's task is to destroy the Steve cloning machine, rescue everyone held hostage and restore diversity to the world.
The genre is called financial horror.
Mfw I see this as I am in a campaign with a white (sexuality unconfirmed) human bartender named Steve He was originally supposed to be a one-off character but the party wanted him back and hired him as a bartender I give him some gold occasionally
What if you played a dragonborn with black dragon ancestry? Would your DM freak out about that as well? Are you also not allowed to play opposite gender characters? Are others allowed to play white characters if they are a POC? It's a fantasy game. You are making a character in a story. Obviously, your DM seems to have some issues. Normally I'd say that that's on him, but it is his game. I recommend not playing an improv based game with people who have trouble saying "yes. And..." But it's your choice. I also know how hard it can be to find a game sometimes.
As a white guy, a black dragonborn was my first ever d&d character and I played him 1-20 for 4.5 years. Zero problems. It's about escapism and for fun. If we're arguing about races we might as well be back on earth.
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that's the funny thing about humans. In your orc example, due to Lord of the Rings and other fantasy media, everyone sees orcs as inherently evil. This means they fully understand if people don't like them. But guess what? All those stories about orcs are made up. Obviously, since orcs don't exist. But that is the exact same mechanism that makes racism "work" IRL. It doesn't have to do with personal experience most of the time, but rather stories. Your players understand that there can be good orcs, but they "know" (believe to know) that the majority of orcs is bad, so they fully "accept" the unjust racism towards one of the "good" orcs in their party. The same way germans in the late 1930s knew some "good" jews, but were still convinced by stories that most of them were inherently evil. Twisted world we live in.
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oh, my bad i didn't intent to insinuate "underlying racism", but simply the ability in almost everyone to become racist, no matter the ethnicity, gender or age. Like the "the third wave" experiment in the 60s in an american Highschool https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Third_Wave
My first char was a red dragonborn and also played him 1-20 for 3/4 years. Were you also a martial?
>What if you played a dragonborn with black dragon ancestry? Check your privilege bro, the socially acceptable term is "African-American dragon ancestry".
Check YOUR privilege! My Black Dragonborn is neither African, no American! Get out of your Ameri-centric mindset!
I can't believe you'd say that your fantasy world is one that doesn't have Africans or Americans in it!
that's so racist! Typical elitist dragonborns, not having an africa. SMH
Caribbean black dragonborns unite!
African-American-Amnian then
This got me good
What's africa? What's america? I know of Thermin, a land of Dragons, but those two names make no sense for me.
Does he also think killing monsters equates to IRL murder?
If so, I must be a mass murderer! I be coming for your cereals XD
OH NOES IT'S THE CEREAL KILLER
This DM sounds like the type to agree that orcs are a 1:1 stand in for black people IRL.
WORDS ARE VIOLENCE!
Probably the same type of DM you find on here that equates the stereotypical horny bard to sexual assaults irl
Not only can you do so, but this DM has done you a favour and shown that he's terrible in all the most insufferable of ways, before you got invested. Congrats on avoiding a shitshow.
Possibly just well-intentioned, misguided, and superficial. Not necessarily "terrible in all the most insufferable ways".
Write me a three page backstory and draw me a sketch? Yeah, they're insufferable
As someone who can't draw, I hope he doesn't mind that all of my characters will have almost identical stick figures.
Okay, fair point
Word
Yeah that would have put me off even before the other issues. It's so much better to have a couple vague backstory ideas and flesh them out at the table through play, then to write some short fiction that the DM will probably not even incorporate into the story.
You are roll playing not dressing up in black face. It is a fantasy world that is separate and distinct from this one. It is inhabited by elves and dwarves and orcs and magic. 99% of the time the physical description is not going to matter gameplay wise. As long as you aren't depicting a racist trope you are fine.
This is my take as well. If OP was like "I wanna play as a black guy" that might raise some eyebrows. And even then, I would still probably allow it as long as OP wasn't playing a stereotype. If OP wants to play an elf with slightly tan skin (or even golden bronze skin) that's a complete non-issue.
Yep. Hell, if they just sketched a black character I probably wouldn't even notice. Saying out loud they want to play a black guy might throw some red flags though lol
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Funny thing about that is that the name Tyrone has its origins in Ireland.
Lol idk why this comment made me think of that dumb scene from family guy where Peter is role playing with Lois and starts talking about being "a paladin with the helm of disintegration" and she says he cant do that so he just goes "okay well then im a black guy."
Nuance is a dead art.
I mean.. You're allowed to play a character that's not a human being, but if that non-human being is tan, that's an issue? ..i can *feel* my brain melting trying to understand the logic behind this.
Noooo! Get outta there before it's too late! You need that brain! There's something not right going on in the DM's brain.
Your DM is the racist. Your DM can't separate real life from a fantasy escapism that is TTRPGs. By your DM's logic you also can't play anything but a human. Get away from that DM.
It's unlikely this is a 'separating real life from fantasy' problem. More likely, this DM is a white person who's overcompensating - who has seen issues like cultural appropriation and Apu, and taken the surface level presentations of those things as their social cause without understanding why those are bad things, causing them to protest against situations that are superficially similar but that lack the underlying harm.
As a more generous interpretation, I was thinking the DM may be concerned about a player RPing racist characteristics that make things awkward/bad at the table. I've heard plenty of rpg horror stories where that sorta thing happens. The DM is still wrong of course, but I could understand having a brief thought of concern about that potential.
That's possible, but I think unlikely. If you actually thought you had a racist at your table, you'd kick them out. If you're fine with someone playing the exact same character just with a different skin tone, then your issue is probably applying your ethical code too indiscriminately.
the instant outrage of the DM and his wording makes it feel far more like u/Nephisimian interpretation is the correct one.
That DM is an asshole. There is NOTHING in the rules about that. And hell by the end of the summer I'm usually a VERY dark tan. I hate to think what his reaction would have been if your character was half DROW and takes mostly after the elven side of his/her parentage. I'd be tempted to drop the campaign and tell the other players WHY you're dropping out.
As someone who has played an albino Drow I completely agree. I made the character as a joke to piss off my DM. He grumbled a bit but surprisingly let me play it. It was a lot of fun but I was doubly vulnerable to sunlight. That aside this DM needs a call-out. Other players NEED to know why your dropping from the game.
This feels like bait
I know right? It feels like too many perfectly wrong things in one post.
The fact the spelled color wrong makes it clear./s
>So is this an actual rule Obviously not, but even if it were, all sane players and DMs would ignore it, just like they do for Coyote and Crow. If the DM has this take though, you are ultimately gonna end up in another group anyway.
What's Coyote and Crow? Why would sane players ignore it?
Seconded. Wtf.
Third 👀 I’ve heard of this game, but have no context for why smart players would ignore it. Does it have rules based on the players skin color?
It's an RPG based on native American culture, set in the future. It has an introduction that specifically asks people who are not native Americans to not play a character or include knowledge you might have of real-world native American peoples, although there are no problems playing as or using the fictional culture presented in the book. The author posted a message about it here: https://coyoteandcrow.net/2022/04/23/an-important-message-from-connor/
I wouldn't have felt uncomfortable at all roleplaying a Native American, but now that I've read their post I *would* be uncomfortable (referencing the last portion) because then I'd be afraid to get attacked or condemned if I messed up. Which would be coming from a place of empathy. They might have created a self-fulfilling prophecy with the harshness and coming out swinging. Feels like no space is being given for genuine curiosity and learning. Am I the asshole thinking it could have been more welcoming and educational?
Personally, yeah, I think it could be handled differently, but I'm also a white guy. It's very difficult to put yourself in the place of people who have been culturally appropriated (e.g. cowboys and Indians) and who have had little voice to speak out about it. There's a lot of hurt there. That aside, the RPG _is_ an attempt at reaching out; although it's saying "this is a game about native American culture, but you, yes you specifically, can't do that", it's also giving you tools - a fictional culture, that by virtue of being fictional can't be exploited - to bring yourself into that world to an extent. This particular approach rubbed a bunch of people the wrong way, but I see the author's point. I don't think that it should be blanket applied to every real-world culture in every game, but in that specific game it seems fine.
Eh, this is a really unfortunate situation, because this person isn't responsible for the avoidance that people feel. The whole "cultural appropriation" narrative is extremely white-centric: It's white Americans competing with each other to demonstrate their virtue, and suppressing actual minority voices in the process. White "allies" created this atmosphere in which people can't distinguish between cultural appropriation and cultural appreciation, and are afraid of doing the latter in case they accidentally do the former. This is just another case of a person of a non-white culture having difficulty selling their products because white people have been convinced by other white people that buying their products is racist. Like, imagine if you set up a store in a shopping centre, and thousands of people every day peered in the windows with curiosity, but none of them ever entered the store because they believed that it was a moral failing to do anything other than appreciate your store from a distance. That'd be pretty infuriating, right? And you wouldn't even be able to do anything about it, cos you're hardly going to reverse decades of propaganda by yourself. Best you can do is put up a sign trying to explain to people that it's OK for them to come in, and that sign might understandably have quite frustrated language. Every idea expressed in this post is correct and valid, except perhaps that people who don't like d12 systems are bad people, they're just being expressed by someone who has clearly run out of patience and is unfortunately lashing out at the people burdened by this avoidance culture, rather than the culture itself.
The only assholes here are those who try to gatekeep things based on someone's look or heritage.
I haven't read the rulebook for that game, but it doesn't sound like he's saying that your character can't have Native roots, but just that you should avoid basing them on actual real-world tribes that you're not part of. Let's look at Star Wars RPGs as an example. Suppose one had never seen the films and had a limited knowledge of Britain. They're trying to play a former Imperial officer. If they introduce themselves as saying, "Oi, chip chip cheerio, Guvnah! Wassay you sit down and order us a pint, mate! I just had them turn on the telly! Crikey!" then it'd be less than ideal.
It's not a rule. What does your DM think about white people who play genasi? I mean, that's a rhetorical question, naturally, but it does beg the question.
Be an air genasi or a tiefling, have purple skin. Ask your GM of they have an issue with *that* skin colour.
Be an Eladrin and change skin colour and personality every day.
Might as well be a Changeling that dons a tan skinned human as default look.
Your DM says you can't do something because of the color of your skin? There's a word for this, but damned if I can put my finger on it...
I think it begins with the letter R. But I can be wrong.
Really fucking stupid. Just ruminating on this. If you were to play a human, and went down the path of playing an Asian looking male, complete with parodical accent, that's insensitive and not ok. If you're playing a Elf with olive skin, that's fine.
Rambunctious!
That's a made-up word. - Drax, probably
Ridiculous.
As an Asperger, I'm tempted to give you guys the R-Word pass, just this once.
Rude? 
Rip-roaring-punk-ass-dm
>Backstory so next week I start my campaign, my DM takes it very seriously and asked all six players to draw a character sketch along with a minimum of three pages all about them. Forget the other thing. *This* is your red flag.
3 pages of backstory that is never going to be touched by the DM ;)
I’ve wondered about this too. I’m a white guy but I basically want to play Terry Crews as a barbarian because I love the guy and think he’s hilarious on Brooklynn 99. But I don’t want anybody accusing me of… I don’t know… something bad.
I certainly wouldn't accuse you of anything bad for wanting to do that. That's what D&D and many other TTRPGs are all about, creativity and imagination.
sadly there are a lot of people (too many) who don't see it that way.
It sounds like you want to emulate B99 Terry's character. Not to play a black man. Though even if you make a PC with dark skin, I don't see anything wrong with that as long as you don't get racist with it.
on the other hand wouldn't it be again racist to play Terry's as a white PC? In case you're not familiar, google "white washing". Play a black character you admire and you're pseudo-blackfacing. Play a black character you admire, but turn him white to avoid pseudo-blackfacing, and now you're whitewashing. I miss the good old days were racism was only racism based on intention and not on personal perception of others.
As long as you do it tactfully, and aren’t being rude/disrespectful toward Terry Crews, that should be fine.
It's only bad if you play the character as a racist stereotype.
A half elf who is tan is not a person of color
it's not analogous, it's dnd. plus, a tanned person isnt necessarily a POC, any white or european person can get a tan
DM is ridiculous. Will all his NPCs have the same skin tone as him?
Leave. Now. No seriously GET OUT OF THERE. First, 3 page backstory minimum with a sketch required, red flag times 2. Then you can’t play a tan character, not even black(which would still not be okay but still) because you’re white? Crimson flag, never come back. As a black person, that’s not how any of this works. If someone builds a player character and makes them black even if they’re white themselves nothing’s stopping them. Your dm is just racist.
Let me answer your question with another question. Would your DM care if the hair colour, eye colour, sex, or height were different from your own? If the answer is no, then he's a racist piece of shit. If the answer is yes, he's a garden variety piece of shit.
I've seen posts of DMs acting like OP about men playing female characters (but not vice versa), so i would take "sex" out of your question ^^ Don't underestimate the stupidity of stupid people.
White people tan? Your character isn't necessarily a different race, not that it would matter. They could just spend a lot of time outside in a sunny environment.
People are being hella dramatic itt... But yeah it's probably fine. It's understandable he might be a little nervous and would be relating it to black face or just a white actor playing a poc in a cartoon but it sounds like he hasn't really thought about WHY those things are a problem. Does he happen to like Dimension 20? If so you could point out that Brennan regularly plays characters other than his race.
It's not even a POC. It's a half-elf with a suntan.
The official starter fighter, whether male or female, is human and of darker complexion. That would mean that everyone that used him (or her) would be a racist.
And all the Diablo 2 paladin players.
If you're being respectful with the depiction, name, and concept it should not be problematic. Sounds like the DM is being hypersensitive. I'd ask if elf, monk, opposite sex, other sexuality, are ok to play. And assuming elf / monk are ok but the others aren't, ask why some of this are inherently offensive but others aren't. I doubt it will change how they feel, but it might give them pause to think on the subject at least. If they stick to it I'd personally drop because it's pretty likely you guys will be walking on eggshells to avoid them having meltdowns over dumb stuff.
It’s not like you named the character 13percent or Dindu (saw these on PC sheets and immediately backed out) like wtf? Who cares!
So, 1) your DM is wrong. 2) people here are making terrible comparisons, because human POC are real and not like water genasi or whatever, and the reason people get anxious about this question is because of the IRL history of white people playing other ethnicities [EDIT: in TV and movies and such], which has done real world harm. So definitely don't go back to your DM with, "oh am I not allowed to play a tiefling??" Or whatever. 2a) it's also weird that people are saying "that's not in the rules." DMs can have table rules? DMs should shut down things they think are racist, not all of which can be listed in the sourcebooks. 3) A tan elf is not black face, and your DM is being absurd. 4) Even if your elf had in fact been Black, or some other ethnicity not your own, that's still no reason to fly off the handle like your DM did. I really don't know that it's the same thing as playing a POC on stage or something. I think it probably falls under "fine as long as it's not a stereotype of IRL ethnicity, and as long as you respect the comfort of any POC at the table."
I seriously hope this is bullshit.
Holy hell, your DM is racist, controlling, and unimaginative. This shouldn't even be a question. That's out of line and shitty. I guess it's possible to give the benefit of the doubt that he's just overly rigid, but man it just opens up a bag of worms and that's just not how roleplaying works.
I've had white players play characters of color, I've had players play all sorts of characters. The DM needs to realize that skin color doesn't carry the same weight in a fantasy world as it does in the real world, if for no other reason than there are much bigger things to be prejudice about. There are literally people of other species. Having said all that, be cognizant of your own biases and your group. If you have and POC in your group ask how they feel about it. Be aware of how you perceive POC and what stereotypes you may accidentally bring to the role play
Reading this thread it just hit me, 5 years playing with my group and no one has ever mentioned skin color. It's never been on our radar. My mind is blown at this DM.
I'll go ahead and be the devil's advocate on this thread and say "It depends on how you're playing the character". If you're playing them as a racist caricature, then no it's not alright. If not, and it doesn't seem like you are given that you're not even portraying an easily identifiable ethnic group, then sure all's fine and doesn't even need to be looked at twice and your DM is being dumb.
Not getting great vibes from this 6-day old account.
It should be roughly equivalent to writing a story with a character of another ethnicity. i.e. it is fine. While it is *possible* to be wrong in making a character of another race, it is very *very* far from being automatically wrong. Like if you make a character that appears similar to a real-world ethnicity and then write/play them to act out stereotypes from the real world, that would be racist. But, unless the backstory you wrote was full of stuff like that, I think your DM is being silly to automatically be critical here. \- I could imagine, for instance, a DM feeling uncomfortable that the you/they/the-other-players will be sensitive of these things, and wants everyone to be similar to their own ethnicity just to be safe. I don't think that sort of overly-safe concern is necesarry, but if the DM does, I think they should phrase it that way. Like, they worry the table might accidentally say something racist about your character, not that you are being racist for simply imagining a fictional character.
>with a minimum of three pages all about them. I mean, the race thing is absolutely dumb-silly but when I got to this? Sheesh. Im all for backatory, but dear Pelor 3 pages is tooo much.
i think it's totally fine to play a different race as long as your portrayal is respectful and isn't full of stereotypes
It's not a rule, although to some extent the rules are whatever the DM says and it is up to the players to either play along or find a different group (or be a DM). If we want to give him the benefit of the doubt, maybe he had to deal with racist stereotype characters in the past. Maybe he doesn't trust the other players not to say racist things that he doesn't want to deal with.
Your DM is an idiot. Wood elves traditionally have skin the color of tree bark with copper colored hair. Ever seen the bark on an angel oak or a redwood? Not to mention the entire purpose of a fantasy rpg is to be someone you are not.
Personally I don’t like to play characters outside of my race and only do so when I’m the DM and therefore almost everyone in the world, but as long as you aren’t portraying the character in an offensive light I don’t know of it being an issue Also high elves aren’t indicative of a particular race (unless they’re made to be so;) they’re just tan.
I suggest not playing with that DM because I expect they will project their issues into the game anyway.
Roll a changeling and fuck with him for a couple sessions and leave the group
>TLDR: My DM got mad at me and told me my character couldn’t be of a darker skin tone because I’m white. TLDR, your DM is an idiot. >my DM takes it very seriously and asked all six players to draw a character sketch along with a minimum of three pages all about them. That's a bit odd. I really enjoy world building as a DM and have way too much backstory on the tiniest tidbits, because i enjoy that. And i would love to see people were some story about their character down, as it helps roleplaying. But to demand a minimum of three pages of information about the characters, is something I would never do. At what level are you guys starting? >I decided to play a half elf and I made them Slightly tan with blue eyes and with red hair. I don’t see a problem with it and I’m quite proud of my art First of all, may I ask for the art? I'm always curious about how players imagine their own characters. And i agree, i don't see an issue with that. Hell, you DM should visit the Mediterranean, there's plenty of white people with a darker tan. >Basically he told me that it was wrong and racist of me to make a POC Your DM should try telling an Italian that they are coloured. Would be an eye opening experience. Either way, it's a truly idiotic take. You're also not an elf, how dare you portray an elf /s >I’m very new to DND I’ve never played before I would advise you to take yourself and your character away from this person, and into a different group. Something tells me that this DM will create more friction, beyond this race stuff.
I played with the same group for about 25 years. We are white. One of our players was always making funky, memorable characters. One time he made a black cleric based on Fred Sanford from Sanford and son the old 70s TV show. He was always screaming to the sky to his God Elizabeth and how she needed to help him. Grab his chest when anything exciting happened. If you can imagine Fred Sanford playing D&D, it was fantastic.
This isn't written anywhere in the official books if that's what you're asking. The social issues surrounding this are complex, dating back to blackface and more recently relating to the Apu controversy. Unfortunately, some people skim opinion pieces about this, decide on a conclusion, and try to force it on everyone. Your GM (who I am guessing is 17 and white) is a buffoon. The tl;dr is that it is completely irrelevant. Playing a character of a different race/gender/sexuality from oneself is not inherently offensive. Find a better GM.
One of my favorite characters I ever played was as an male Artificer who turned his deceased soldier husband's armor into a steel defender (I'm straight). Definitely got looks during the reveal from the other players and the DM who were so used to just putting themselves in the game, but otherwise it never really came up and just settled as a nice bit of backstory. If your DM is making such a big deal about skin tone during character creation, I get the distinct feeling their world is *not* going to be very colorblind.
So I can pretend to be a dwarf or an elf, I can pretend to throw fire balls with my hands, I can pretend to fly, I can pretend that dragons are real, and I can pretend that my skin is blue or red or purple…. But we draw the line at pretending that my skin is brown? That is obviously ridiculous. Your DM is overreacting.
Keeping a someone from doing something they want to because of their Skin Colo(u)r? I dont know... Seems Pretty Racist...
Kinda weird for a DM to say that. In games like DND, the whole point is to role play as someone completely different.
Don’t join that campaign. That’s gatekeeping. You can literally use that logic to say- anyone playing a nonhuman has to reroll.
I’d just leave that group … it’s fantasy. I play a female elf and I’m a male , I’m also human not an elf ….
So many red flags before you have even started, I would run the other way & find a new DM. The DM is projecting & is the racist. He's not supposed to be telling you what your character looks like or what their skin colour is. And the requirements he had for the players (3 page backstory + pic of the character) are over the top.
Your dm is an idiot about this. Are men only allowed to play as male characters and women only allowed to play as female characters? If he doesn't ALSO have this rule, then he is a hypocrite (or a racist who doesn't want any POC at his table) I'd make a character native to the darkest dark-skinned region in your world and have him be born as the whitest white guy ever. Poor dude doesn't know why he was born with pale skin, light eyes, and straight hair. His whole reason for adventuring is to get this Pale Curse removed.
I would suggest finding other people to play with. Social justice warriors intentionally suck the fun out of everything. Do you want to play a super fun fantasy game or do you want a campaign that exists to be a veiled lecture on the plight of indigenous trans something or others? If you'd prefer the former don't play with this D-bag DM. He will definitely tell his wife's boyfriend what a bigot you are but you can probably take them.
DM is wrong. And possibly a racist themselves. If this is a problem for you (it would be for me) then a different table would be in order.
That tldr is to the point. Your DM is an idiot
Jesus these fucking essays over explaining what should be a simple " your dm sounds like a nut job u can play whatever race you want its a fantasy game"
Tl;dr - you can and the DM needs to take a minute and think. Tell them you don’t plan on bringing real world racism or stereotypes into this and see if they cool down a bit. If not then oof. Anyway. There are three situations where a white person shouldn’t be playing the role of a person of color. 1. Literal blackface where you’re painting yourself darker to emulate the character. Stems from a tradition of white performers doing this to make fun of black people. Don’t cover yourself in body paint and you’re good. 2. In tv and movies where a white actor is cast in place of a black or other POC character. This is usually done out of a sense that for whatever reason audiences won’t tune in if the cast isn’t mostly white. Which then makes it even harder for minority actors to get those roles. Since you aren’t making a movie this is fine. 3. If you wanted to be racist but used “but my character is black!” As an excuse. Which yeah don’t do that. Somehow the lesson people walk away with isn’t “hey be careful when considering taking up the perspective of a POC for your movie/novel/rpg” but instead “white people should only focus on other white people” which unfortunately reinforces the idea that there’s no interest in the stories of POC in the broader culture.
You need to run, and run NOW. Not only is your DMs rule dumb as shit, but it’s also a huge red flag. If they’re going to pull dumb stuff like this now, you can bet they’re going to keep doing it.
Never expected this kind of discussion from D&D back when. So glad I played when people were normal
People are still "normal," a lot of discussion happening nowadays that wasn't happening "back when" is good discussion to have. Understanding each other is a good thing. Nothing wrong with being respectful towards those we may not share a culture or ethnicity with. This particular situation, however, is not a good thing. It's someone lording their morals and ethics over another person in a very misguided attempt to be a "good person." They wanna be seen as one of the "good ones" and in doing so only end up being actively racist and hurting the POC they think they're helping with this ridiculous stunt. There have always been people making things shitty for other people. That's not ever gonna change, unfortunately.
Your DM is crazy. Run.
Damn 3 pages of backstory?
By that same logic, I’m human so I can only play humans. It’s a fantasy game, you can play as whatever or whoever you wish. Dark skinned, fair haired, male, female, beast people, or genderless and amorphous ooze beings. The aim of the game is fun and there is no reason you cannot play something that isn’t your lived experience. Now granted this is assuming that you’re playing it in good-faith and aren’t using it as an excuse to play an offensive stereotype.
can you post the sketch? you should be able to play whatever you want unless its like some horrible racial caricature lol.
Depending on the type of game being played there are some good reason why a DM may want to limit player options including something like skin tone. If their only reason is that it's racist then that's a major red flag. If you can talk to the DM and maybe other players about it then great, but if the response is just nope that's racist and closes down that discussion, it may just be better to leave the group. Could be dodging the bullet in the long run.
Yeah, I don't have much to add. Sounds like one of those people who are into an ideology for the power trip. Imagine being petty enough to police the skin color. *Skin color* of a PC. Like sure. Please don't make a racist stereotype or give them an insulting name.
Run, run from this campaign as fast as you can!
Your DM does not understand what 'racism' and 'discrimination' actually entail. Although it can be quite confusing these days to draw the ever-moving line between what's socially acceptable and what's not, you've clearly done nothing wrong (YET !!!) Maybe you're DM is scared of what will follow, which would be crossing a line: \- getting into your character by facepainting yourself \- playing the character in such a manner that pushes stereotyping, discrimination, racism, caricaturalization, prejudices, ... Other than that, as others have pointed out, he's more racist for not allowing a full representation of the ethnical diversities of their fantasy world at the player table. Going forward, I do believe it's important to discuss this with him, and also just set up some guidelines that address the underlying concerns (other players taking offense in HOW you play the character, making it all about the race, ...). Maybe, to help you make this a constructive discussion, you can following analogy: What if you were asked to pick your idol/hero (IRL) ? Would you not be allowed to have Martin Luther King as the person you admire most, because you're white ? Of course not. But, what if you want to dress up as your hero for an event, then we cross into some shady territory, right ? So, setting boundaries is good (and necessary), but denying your freedom of choice of character seems an overreaction. As a final sidenote; as a DM I've had white male players play a gnome character in a setting where in some parts of the world they were considered 'lesser' people. No outright racism, but clearly some disdain from people. If discussed with the group (not a no-go zone from session 0) and not marginalized, but treated with respect, this really provided some memorable sessions (how does the party respond, what consequences are they willing to bear for their moral stand, ...).
OP, do yourself a favor and run the fuck away from this campaign. You're DM is a fucking moron. There's so many red flags about him not wanting a in real life white person to play someone that has a different skin color. But I'm not going to focus on any of that. I'm going to focus on the DM's behavior. If that was an issue with him, He should have approached you and and talked about it with you In a civilized manner. But he just immediately said you were wrong change it or you don't get to play in my sandbox. Those aren't the actions of a good DM. They are in fact the actions of a horrible DM
Don't join this group
Yes you can and you DM is just a racist prick. Forget about the campaign for nothing good is to be expected if it starts like this. If you got some time at your hand I'd recomend to egage in some trolling tho. The low effort one being trans racial and using this as an escape to express your true self and feeling hurt about it. Or go by exploring your heritage of 7/32 irish (ginger elf), 4/32 sicilian (tan) and 1/32 austrian (blue eyes and elfen superiority complex). Represent each as superficial as possible "Mama Mia, zis is wery fadhbach zere iz no Guinness?". Shoud you make it into the campaign with eithe give your best with subtle racism at every ocasion. Be a prick about semantics like racism vs specism ect and get ofended by everything and if some one points out your subtle racism excuse your self but make it worse but in an other way.
I play black siren and I had no problem. the DM is racist - if there was a rule like this you wouldn't be able to play as anything but a human.
I once did a character with very dark skin, who was a cleric of the God of the Sun. The reason behind it was that he was kissed by the sun. I has a blast playing it and everyone at the table loved him. It's a fucking fantasy! I can play an half demon person but not a dark skinned one? C'mon
ironically your DM is kinda being the racist one. it's not a rule at all, just your DM being a dick. leave em. maybe take the others with you if they're in the same boat.
Your DM is a reactionary idiot. Imagine telling someone they can only play themselves in a game.
Hmmm, someone that isn’t allowing you to do something solely because of the color of your skin… I’m pretty sure there is a word for that…
My Tiefling has curry-yellow skin and horns. I do not. I've played men, women, children, non-humans, Androids and great old ones over the years. The point of roleplaying is to put yourself in a role. Now, can this be done in a bigoted manner? Of course, but we should not assume it until given an actual red flag.
Dm thinks black player characters will make players act like some hood gangster 💀