Final Fantasy 16

BrawlMan

Lover of beat'em ups.
Legacy
Mar 10, 2016
29,419
12,246
118
Detroit, Michigan
Country
United States of America
Gender
Male
I don't think the sort of realism they have in mind is "how are you gonna fit 99 potions into your backpack, 6 is about right", which granted the game also does. But no, the realism they have in mind is more aptly put as "believability". Basically, the iconic thing everyone imagines when they are asked to picture an orthodox fantasy setting, and aren't purposefully being activist in their interpretation of that request by trying it to re-imagine it a preferable to them way but just imagine it honestly. That's the sort of thing they were going for. And newsflash, but that did not stop with the look of the cast. The plot itself is basically FF1 tier orthodox. If you've played any Jrpg ever before, you've likely played a more complex plot.
It's still stupid and bullshit. It doesn't matter if it's "realism" or "believability", if they don't want to have black people or dark skinned characters in their fantasy story about people with supernatural bloodlines, and gods punching each other, than fucking say it. Don't come out and say "realism", because it's a bullshit excuse and everyone knows it. All it does is make things worse, and the person and corpos involved comes off as even more insincere, insensitive, and uncaring.
Also I know you said you haven't played the game but there is an entire nation of persian-type folk too, so not quite sub saharan, think more Aladin, and it's odd that people always somehow forget that an entire nation exists in their criticism lol.
Doesn't matter. The point remains the same. Plus, they're not focused much any way. Also, I watched a playthrough, so I remember enough. Stop trying invalidate people's point(s) when they have one.

Maybe they were not quite dark enough or something? Though persians can be pretty pale too.
Precisely. Most barely had what you would call a tan, so Square and Yoshida can fuck off twice as hard. Like I said before, black people actually dodged a bullet on this one, and we don't need an FF game like XVI to represent us. Especially if you fuck up a story about slavery and racism this hard. Though I find it hilarious Square didn't have any problems with dark-skin or black human, humanoid, or bestial characters as NPCs or create-a-character in FFXIV. Yeah, it's an MMO, but no one was complaining about "lack of realism" in that game, so their excuse is Grade-S bullshit. My word is final and won't hear any more other pathetic excuses.

 
Last edited:

CriticalGaming

Elite Member
Legacy
Dec 28, 2017
11,230
5,682
118
Also I know you said you haven't played the game but there is an entire nation of persian-type folk too, so not quite sub saharan, think more Aladin, and it's odd that people always somehow forget that an entire nation exists in their criticism lol. Maybe they were not quite dark enough or something? Though persians can be pretty pale too.
People of color only matter when they sre the right color. So then toasted marshmallow people dont count.
 

Dreiko

Elite Member
Legacy
May 1, 2020
2,931
995
118
CT
Country
usa
Gender
male, pronouns: your majesty/my lord/daddy
Btw I loved Sazh in XIII, so the notion that FF in general is incapable of doing a black char right is dumb. Also he was voiced by veteran VA Shigeru Chiba who has done anime roles since like the 70s, who ad-libbed a lot of his lines. Easily my fav performance in the game. Though most people missed out on it cause XIII didn't have dual audio in the western ver.
 

BrawlMan

Lover of beat'em ups.
Legacy
Mar 10, 2016
29,419
12,246
118
Detroit, Michigan
Country
United States of America
Gender
Male
People of color only matter when they are the right color. So then toasted marshmallow people dont count.
That is not the main issue nor point the article is going for. Plus in the fantasy Arab Nation's case, the people there look light enough to pass for "white", so some people with bigoted or prejudice views will see it as a non issue. The developers saw it as a non-issue. Unfortunately that is true in life. There are people in Arab Nations or of Arab descent (that do or don't have any Anglo-Saxon in their blood or DNA) that see themselves as "white". So they think they'll get the same or the best treatment as white people in America, Western European countries, or or certain Asian countries such as China, when that dependably varies heavily. They might be higher on the totem pole, but the racists will treat them just the same or worse, when it's convenient and they're no longer needed, or if something happens and it's a non-white person doing a horrible crime or act of killing. Because some people have literally learned nothing from the war terror and how Arabs faced heavy prejudice during that time frame. Just like with people of Asian or Chinese descent got hit with heavy prejudice and racism when covid hit.
Btw I loved Sazh in XIII, so the notion that FF in general is incapable of doing a black char right is dumb. Also he was voiced by veteran VA Shigeru Chiba who has done anime roles since like the 70s, who ad-libbed a lot of his lines. Easily my fav performance in the game. Though most people missed out on it cause XIII didn't have dual audio in the western ver.
Which only proves further that FF16's excuse of "realism" is even heavier bullshit. I didn't like FF13 either, but he was fine as far as I remembered, but I never completed the game. I later watched everything on YouTube at one point.
 
Last edited:

RhombusHatesYou

Surreal Estate Agent
Mar 21, 2010
7,595
1,914
118
Between There and There.
Country
The Wide, Brown One.
There are people in Arab Nations or of Arab descent (that do or don't have any Anglo-Saxon in their blood or DNA) that see themselves as "white".
That's nice for them... have they asked any white racists what they think about it?

Of course, I'm old enough to remember when in the Anglosphere 'white' meant north-west european ancestry only.
 
  • Like
Reactions: BrawlMan

BrawlMan

Lover of beat'em ups.
Legacy
Mar 10, 2016
29,419
12,246
118
Detroit, Michigan
Country
United States of America
Gender
Male
That's nice for them... have they asked any white racists what they think about it?
That's the best part, they usually don't. They assume that they'll be treated fairly and squarely or so long as they treat those a darker skin as second class citizen or without humanity. It's only when they start getting their asses kicked or the people that they are sucking up towards them don't need them anymore, that they start getting upset or realize that they've been played the entire time. Some of them already know this, and is just wishful thinking on their part.
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: RhombusHatesYou

sXeth

Elite Member
Legacy
Nov 15, 2012
3,301
676
118
On the one hand, yes it would be easy enough for them to vary the skin tones up. On the other end, the "fantasy" Final Fantasies have always kind of pastiched together fantasy tropes from the genre as a whole. And any kind of Afrikaan/Native American/Maori etc is in itself not well represented in fantasy settings by prettymuch anyone. At best you get a loose nod towards Persian abd Babylonian stuff and the various other southeast Asia's mostly just get their shit stolen and used out of context (such as FF's Shiva)

tl;dr I'm prettysure whatever representation they could come up would get them equally coal raked.
 

BrawlMan

Lover of beat'em ups.
Legacy
Mar 10, 2016
29,419
12,246
118
Detroit, Michigan
Country
United States of America
Gender
Male
tl;dr I'm prettysure whatever representation they could come up would get them equally coal raked.
Which they can easily solve or avoid, if they bother to do the research and hire consultants to make sure everything goes right. If Sucker Punch can do it with Ghost Of Tsushima, then Square can do it. Hell, Capcom has gotten this right before even with their missteps of RE5. They got it right with Street Fighter 3, 4, 5, and now especially 6. Even Namco gets this right.

If Square didn't want to bother, then they should have just said so from the start. Instead of the whole crappy realism excuse. I would have more respect for them in this case. I hate it when companies or other people try to insult others intelligence by doing these little white lies and partial truths. Just be upfront. Yeah it hurts, but I rather have the full honesty, then whatever crap they're pulling out of their asses, to squeeze out of the byline they themselves created.
 
Last edited:

CriticalGaming

Elite Member
Legacy
Dec 28, 2017
11,230
5,682
118
Which they can easily solve or avoid, if they bother to do the research and hire consultants to make sure everything goes right. If Sucker Punch can do it with Ghost Of Tsushima, then Square can do it. Hell, Capcom has gotten this right before even with their missteps of RE5. They got it right with Street Fighter 3, 4, 5, and now especially 6. Even Namco gets this right.
The difference is that Ghosts of Tsushima and even Capcom's real world locations for the RE series are trying to have a grounding in reality. Meanwhile we are talking about fantasy worlds in which every race can have a completely made up bullshit origin. It's just people trying to apply racist intend where there is none, the same way that Tolken's and D&D's Orcish races are somehow directly correlated to black folks, and saying Orc with a hard C is the same as saying the n-word with a hard R. (Yes that was a real argument brought up about it).

If you want to see racism in things then you can apply that lens everywhere. I don't see the reason or logic behind needing what racial consultants in order to make a fantasy game about giant monsters and magic. Hiring someone with knowledge of the setting and people makes sense in Ghosts because it was trying to be a realistic Japanese film taking place in real (if exaggerated) history. But wizards and warlocks? Nah come on.
 

BrawlMan

Lover of beat'em ups.
Legacy
Mar 10, 2016
29,419
12,246
118
Detroit, Michigan
Country
United States of America
Gender
Male
The difference is that Ghosts of Tsushima and even Capcom's real world locations for the RE series are trying to have a grounding in reality. Meanwhile we are talking about fantasy worlds in which every race can have a completely made up bullshit origin. It's just people trying to apply racist intend where there is none, the same way that Tolken's and D&D's Orcish races are somehow directly correlated to black folks, and saying Orc with a hard C is the same as saying the n-word with a hard R. (Yes that was a real argument brought up about it).
And this is what I was talking about when it comes to the obvious suspects. The fact that Capcom and Sucker Punch have real world locations, which only shows how screwed up Square's argument is even further. Thank you for playing yourself and proving my point. It doesn't matter if there's fantasy races or not. I'm talking about strictly human characters. If you can have humans that are based off of Anglo-Saxons and Arab people in your fantasy game, then you can have black people in your fantasy game with little to no trouble. A consultant is important, if you don't know all the culture aspects or need a reference for professional. The developers at Tsushima had no problem doing this, then Square should not have a problem either. Once again, FF14 is a fantasy game and they have plenty of dark-skinned or black characters that are human or humanoid. So they're full of crap. I'm not all saying that Square is racist, but there is a line you're not seeing and you never choose to see even when the evidence is right in front of you. You've done this more times than you care to count and you know it. The same thing applies about Forspoken when you get overly defensive when somebody has a point or you try to shut them out because it's somebody with an alternate perspective that's not white or sometimes Japanese/Asian. Isn't that right Mr. change your thread to the work thread, cuz you had nothing else otherwise and threw a fit because somebody was complaining about an all white developer? I'll bring that up as many times as I need to prove the point and the hypocrisy on your end.

If you want to see racism in things then you can apply that lens everywhere.
Once again, obvious suspect I was talking about and completely missing the point. You never ever want to get the point or want to act that oblivious.

I don't see the reason or logic behind needing what racial consultants in order to make a fantasy game about giant monsters and magic.
That's a you problem. It doesn't matter if you're doing a Fantasy version of a real world race or culture, if you need a consultant to make sure things are accurate enough or don't go into the stereotypical or (accidental) racist territory, then go ahead and get a cultural or racial consultant. Nobody sane and reasonable is going to hate on them for doing that. There have been developers that did fantasy counterparts to real world races and still did the research. It didn't matter if it was movies, tv, or games. Hell, Avatar: Last Airbender they did their research and got multiple consultants for Asian cultures of all varieties and fighting styles from many aspects of that same culture. So Square has no excuse, nor other companies at this point.

.Hiring someone with knowledge of the setting and people makes sense in Ghosts because it was trying to be a realistic Japanese film taking place in real (if exaggerated) history. But wizards and warlocks? Nah come on.
And you just answered your own question and blew off my answer at the same time. For the third time, you're one of the usual suspects and I'm not surprised by your response. You never want to get it and that's your problem. Learn to think about someone other than yourself or only your point of view. Sometimes you try but half the other time if you don't. I've already made my case in point. Not my fault you choose to ignore others views or only see partial information and get overly defensive when the other side has actual strong points.

Before you start with another response, I ain't listening, because it's all the same bull I've heard before time and time again. You can be fair with certain things but you have your issues when it comes to the social and racial issues, and you never try to see much compromise with the other side much or get overly defensive. I'm not doing his constant back and forth. What I say on this is final If you don't like it; tough cookies for you. Go and cry to Square Enix about it.
 
Last edited:

Silvanus

Elite Member
Legacy
Jan 15, 2013
12,102
6,381
118
Country
United Kingdom
The difference is that Ghosts of Tsushima and even Capcom's real world locations for the RE series are trying to have a grounding in reality. Meanwhile we are talking about fantasy worlds in which every race can have a completely made up bullshit origin.
OK, but then this argument is at odds with the "realism" explanation put forward by the publishers themselves.

You can say 1) They're going for pure fantasy, so they don't need consultants on real-world elements; or you can say 2) XYZ would detract from the 'realism' we're going for. You can't really say both at the same time.
 
  • Like
Reactions: BrawlMan

CriticalGaming

Elite Member
Legacy
Dec 28, 2017
11,230
5,682
118
OK, but then this argument is at odds with the "realism" explanation put forward by the publishers themselves.

You can say 1) They're going for pure fantasy, so they don't need consultants on real-world elements; or you can say 2) XYZ would detract from the 'realism' we're going for. You can't really say both at the same time.
There is a problem with using the term realism in context to fantasy, and I think it might be a mistranslation error with the intent of what they actually mean. I think they mean believability. There are rules to constructing even a world of fantasy in which you have to piece things together and create rules of how it all works in order to make the fantasy world seem "real" to the audience. That world building allows the suspension of disbelief and let's you get transported to the fantasyland without much friction in your mind disconnecting you from the story or the characters.

This is why a lot of fantasy things use abstract locations to begin with. Either with a medieval world or with a sci-fi one. Modern fantasy is the hardest fantasy to pull off because we associate too much of the modern world with what we see in day to day life. So by teleporting the audience to a different land or era, you already have a head start in creating a new bridge to a new world in the audience's mind, and thus makes whatever other bullshit you're going to make up fit into place easier.

Either way realism really isn't the right word for it, even in the case of FF16, which is why I think it might be a mistranslation or misinterpretation of what they actually meant. Hard to say.
 

BrawlMan

Lover of beat'em ups.
Legacy
Mar 10, 2016
29,419
12,246
118
Detroit, Michigan
Country
United States of America
Gender
Male
OK, but then this argument is at odds with the "realism" explanation put forward by the publishers themselves.

You can say 1) They're going for pure fantasy, so they don't need consultants on real-world elements; or you can say 2) XYZ would detract from the 'realism' we're going for. You can't really say both at the same time.
Thank you.

On the next subject at hand, I highly doubt it was a translation issue. Until Yoshida comes out and actually set the record straight, we're going by what was said in the IGN articles. "Realism" or "believability" doesn't work in either case. Fantasy setting or not. And I'm not talking about orcs or goblins or whatever. I'm talking about people that are genuine humans that happen to have magical powers or not.
 

Silvanus

Elite Member
Legacy
Jan 15, 2013
12,102
6,381
118
Country
United Kingdom
There is a problem with using the term realism in context to fantasy, and I think it might be a mistranslation error with the intent of what they actually mean. I think they mean believability. There are rules to constructing even a world of fantasy in which you have to piece things together and create rules of how it all works in order to make the fantasy world seem "real" to the audience. That world building allows the suspension of disbelief and let's you get transported to the fantasyland without much friction in your mind disconnecting you from the story or the characters.

This is why a lot of fantasy things use abstract locations to begin with. Either with a medieval world or with a sci-fi one. Modern fantasy is the hardest fantasy to pull off because we associate too much of the modern world with what we see in day to day life. So by teleporting the audience to a different land or era, you already have a head start in creating a new bridge to a new world in the audience's mind, and thus makes whatever other bullshit you're going to make up fit into place easier.

Either way realism really isn't the right word for it, even in the case of FF16, which is why I think it might be a mistranslation or misinterpretation of what they actually meant. Hard to say.
When you say a 'different land or era', I assume you're referring to how many fantasy worlds take real-world settings as a kind of 'template' and iterate on them. Such as how medieval Europe served as the 'template' for D&D, LOTR, and a hundred others, in an extremely broad sense.

But in these cases, you cannot really tie "believability" to the real-world analogue, unless you want it to be specifically authentic to that analogue. And if you /do/ want that-- if you /do/ want your setting to be authentic to its analogue-- then that justifies referring to consultants, and you can't then fall back on the "it's all pure fantasy" explanation.
 
  • Like
Reactions: BrawlMan

sXeth

Elite Member
Legacy
Nov 15, 2012
3,301
676
118
Fantasy generally operates on "this is our world but with X (or XYZ)" (in whichever time period, but usually medieval or renaissance before you start sticking additional stuff in front of the fantasy.

So when you yank out whatever they called summons this time and the magic, we've got a bunch of medieval/feudal european esque castle nations having constant wars with each other. A hyper nationalistic wartime period that does not generally extend itself to embracing other cultures.

You can handwave and just mix anyone in, whether they be white, black, blue, purple, lionmen, steampunk robot people, or whatever and just say "well everyone here was here before these particular nations and borders existed" but that will generally ring hollow by itself. We know that broadly speaking, different skin tones come from different physical environments and long term backgrounds, and that folks all in one general geographic regio, before centuries of international travel and cross-border relations exist. will usually reflect a common set of traits. (Unless its playing the "people fell back to this after the great calamity" or "this was some sort of colony from the original planet")

Conversely, in Baldurs Gate, for instance. Its using a more renaissance era template. Where much of the world is settled, large scale wars are a rarity, and most of the crazy nationalist racism in Forgotten Realms is shoved off in the east half where no one ever sets campaigns (and where the caricature esque versions of Japan, China, and Egypt are). There is a much more established methods of internetional and long distrance travel and free flowing people, so you wouldn't bat an eye at most human characters having various ethnic traits.
 

CriticalGaming

Elite Member
Legacy
Dec 28, 2017
11,230
5,682
118
When you say a 'different land or era', I assume you're referring to how many fantasy worlds take real-world settings as a kind of 'template' and iterate on them. Such as how medieval Europe served as the 'template' for D&D, LOTR, and a hundred others, in an extremely broad sense.
Basically yes, the modern person is so disconnected from what medieval times was really like that there is a sort of magical whimsy about that era in general. Which allows the world building to include magic and monsters without too much difficulty because the setting is already such a fantasy that monsters and magic don't feel out of place. The opposite of that is the sci-fi world either through Cyberpunk-like settings or full on space fantasy like Star Wars. Wizards, cyborgs, and technology that otherwise is basically magic still fits within the audience's mind because it's already such an unfamiliar setting that including that content isn't jarring.

Believability, immersion, realism, however you want to apply the description of a "world that makes sense" to the viewer is up to you. But that's essentially what I think the intent behind it was, in having a world based in such a way that the content within it and the lore behind it would make logical sense to the player. It's not attempting at being any sort of realistic interpretations of cultures in real life. In fact I'd say that FF16 goes through quite great lengths to sort of hide the cultures of the people contained within.

There are cities and towns and differences in building structure, but culture and belief systems are really left out of it, maybe to avoid pointless real-world comparisons or simply not wanting to take the extra effort in writing something most players don't give a fuck about. The story gives you just enough clues and tidbits to allow the player to sort of fill in the blanks on their own and allows them to make their own assumptions on the people and their ways of life should the player choose. But it's never outright laid out to you, even in the encyclopedia behind the scenes they keep it very generalized.

But in these cases, you cannot really tie "believability" to the real-world analogue, unless you want it to be specifically authentic to that analogue. And if you /do/ want that-- if you /do/ want your setting to be authentic to its analogue-- then that justifies referring to consultants, and you can't then fall back on the "it's all pure fantasy" explanation.
You can never truly avoid some real world comparisons to be made, it's how people relate to a purely fictional story. So that is unavoidable to a degree, however that also doesn't mean you can always infer racist intent on magical people. The reason this happens is less about the artistic intent behind the setting and it's people and more a problem with the nature of the human mind.

The human mind has been programed to find patterns, and to connect dots with those patterns as part of our higher functioning intellectual capability. Just this past weekend Southern California got hit with a Hurricane (downgraded to a tropical storm by the time it reached inland) for the first time in 90 years. At the same time part of the Ventura basin got hit with an Earthquake for the first time in 90 years as well. So naturally the news and people where all over twitter (X) asking seismologists if there was a connection between Hurricane and Earthquake (no btw), because people try to make connections and make patterns fit and all that. Hell patterns are why Music Theory works so well, it's patterns.

So people tend to use that same line of thinking when looking at events in a fantasy game, or movie, which they then try to label as problematic because if you are already of that negative mindset of thinking everything is Anita Sarkeesian, then of course your brain is going to rationalize an explanation for why something is a social problem. Ignoring the coincidence of it, as writing tends to have tropes and creature types that fit story telling devices. This makes these kinds of jumps easy for people.

A good example is present in Harry Potter, where a group of people already where biasly determined to shit on the game because of their feelings towards JK Rowling. So what did they do, they looked all over the game (which they insisted they wouldn't buy or support) to find things they could use as "proof" JK and the devs are nothing but pieces of shit. So they accused the Goblins of being stand ins for Jewish people, and also found a horn used in Goblin raids that tangentally they linked to a horn some nazi used to raid Jewish village's....or something along those lines. Goblins have been based around the same monster stereotype for decades, if they have stereotypical traits based of a cartoonishly exaggerated real culture that doesn't make them racist or a problem. It just means that creators have built this monster around a certain inspiration that is then parodied and exaggerated to go from something real to something that's fake.

No matter how you slice it though, fictional creatures, settings, characters, all of that comes from some basis in reality, but in so doing it does not also mean a racist intent was behind or continues to their continued use throughout various works.
 

CriticalGaming

Elite Member
Legacy
Dec 28, 2017
11,230
5,682
118
You can handwave and just mix anyone in, whether they be white, black, blue, purple, lionmen, steampunk robot people, or whatever and just say "well everyone here was here before these particular nations and borders existed" but that will generally ring hollow by itself. We know that broadly speaking, different skin tones come from different physical environments and long term backgrounds, and that folks all in one general geographic regio, before centuries of international travel and cross-border relations exist. will usually reflect a common set of traits. (Unless its playing the "people fell back to this after the great calamity" or "this was some sort of colony from the original planet")
Even then there are usually racial traits, beliefs, and behaviors slapped onto these different races or even species of people. From Dragonborn to Tabaxi, they all are written to have specific things based on their race. And because authors have to associate behaviors and cultures to make the different people interesting, those come as spin-off or modifications of real life a lot of the time. This doesn't mean you should interpret a specific people in a fantasy setting to a specific people in the real world, because the similarities are more likely than not, coincidental.

Except H.P. Lovecraft but that's deliberate and obvious, and you could even use him as an example of how other fantasy races and settings are not racial in any real malicious way.
 

sXeth

Elite Member
Legacy
Nov 15, 2012
3,301
676
118
Even then there are usually racial traits, beliefs, and behaviors slapped onto these different races or even species of people. From Dragonborn to Tabaxi, they all are written to have specific things based on their race. And because authors have to associate behaviors and cultures to make the different people interesting, those come as spin-off or modifications of real life a lot of the time. This doesn't mean you should interpret a specific people in a fantasy setting to a specific people in the real world, because the similarities are more likely than not, coincidental.

Except H.P. Lovecraft but that's deliberate and obvious, and you could even use him as an example of how other fantasy races and settings are not racial in any real malicious way.
Yeah, and while sure, you can 50/20/30 white/black/asian folk into a medieval esque fantasy city. Its usually going to indicate that theres some form of multiple "tribes" (for lack of a better term) having relatively recently aligned and come together.

And you can stick any background on them, but if you have your black characters acting like french aristocrats and your asians acting like irishmen, its gonna raise a few eyebrows in itself. And Square's depiction even of Japanese culture-expies in FF is a little uh.... stereotypical? Probably not offensive, but heavily leaning on tropes, and you do not want to lean on the tropes that fantasy has set for marginilized ethnicites (I forget what I was watching where they mentioned that Wakka from FFX for instance, probably would get more then a little side eye nowadays)
 

CriticalGaming

Elite Member
Legacy
Dec 28, 2017
11,230
5,682
118
Yeah, and while sure, you can 50/20/30 white/black/asian folk into a medieval esque fantasy city. Its usually going to indicate that theres some form of multiple "tribes" (for lack of a better term) having relatively recently aligned and come together.

And you can stick any background on them, but if you have your black characters acting like french aristocrats and your asians acting like irishmen, its gonna raise a few eyebrows in itself. And Square's depiction even of Japanese culture-expies in FF is a little uh.... stereotypical? Probably not offensive, but heavily leaning on tropes, and you do not want to lean on the tropes that fantasy has set for marginilized ethnicites (I forget what I was watching where they mentioned that Wakka from FFX for instance, probably would get more then a little side eye nowadays)
And don't forget the fact that creating a whole fictional world with a whole fictional history and a bunch of fiction people, factions, tribes, etc....if really fucking hard. Like there is nobody anywhere ever in the world that could create an entire universe without some real world relationships and something to sort of leap frog off of to twist and become it's own.

Yeah you can just randomize the races and their racial traits but I don't think that would really work because of the unavoidable attachment people have with real life (for the most part), especially if the randomized things are too real themselves. At the same time like most cultures have negatives about them, it is what it is. People are people and we are nowhere close to a perfect species. Those flaws are in some ways what makes humans so interesting in the first place, there is sometimes a raw animalistic brutality to it. That's why the Romans, ancient Egyptians are so brimming with story potential. I don't remember ever seeing a movie about the roman's brutality being accused of racial stereotypes.

I think these things are just unavoidable byproducts of an age where outrageous scrutiny is rampant.
 

sXeth

Elite Member
Legacy
Nov 15, 2012
3,301
676
118
And don't forget the fact that creating a whole fictional world with a whole fictional history and a bunch of fiction people, factions, tribes, etc....if really fucking hard. Like there is nobody anywhere ever in the world that could create an entire universe without some real world relationships and something to sort of leap frog off of to twist and become it's own.

Yeah you can just randomize the races and their racial traits but I don't think that would really work because of the unavoidable attachment people have with real life (for the most part), especially if the randomized things are too real themselves. At the same time like most cultures have negatives about them, it is what it is. People are people and we are nowhere close to a perfect species. Those flaws are in some ways what makes humans so interesting in the first place, there is sometimes a raw animalistic brutality to it. That's why the Romans, ancient Egyptians are so brimming with story potential. I don't remember ever seeing a movie about the roman's brutality being accused of racial stereotypes.

I think these things are just unavoidable byproducts of an age where outrageous scrutiny is rampant.
Yeah, in my own setting, used for tabletop. The "humans" (who are, in universe, engineered by a magic dragon from another dimension, their only real reason for being the default stats and more widespread being hat their particular magic dragon died where several other races equivalents did not) are just kind of there. They exist in 3-4 general regions. I've had at least one player decide a very carribean flavored pirate character should come from the place thats based on Germany if we go by where I took most of the influence from lol.