Avoiding Eurocentrism in the non-human races (and fixing Tom Bombadil's skin colour)

[Lestache]

The acid test is whether it would offend a reasonable person. That handily leaves out those who'll take offence at almost anything.

With apologies for taking everything that you wrote and snipping it down to just this one bit, thank you (sincerely) for reminding us of the "reasonable person" standard. That poor human is too often forgotten.

Well my take-away of this thread is:

If you want to play a dark-skinned character, try another game.

Correct?

Not exactly, no.

My dwarf is fairly dark-skinned, and my Captain is straight-up black. Not Wesley Snipes black, but very dark-skinned (with blue eyes, and a blonde white female herald named Shaniqua - take that, societal expectations!).

I honestly don't know how dark you can make hobbits or elves, although I do believe others have covered that topic already.

[Beleg-Of-Doriath]

Well my take-away of this thread is:

If you want to play a dark-skinned character, try another game.

Correct?

If by dark-skinned you mean of a different ethnicity then yes. Currently the game already goes too far with the allowed colours of hobbits, dwarves and men.

[Elryn]

Well my take-away of this thread is:

If you want to play a dark-skinned character, try another game.

Correct?

I think my take-away is that race and the integrity of racial characteristics are *incredibly* important values to many players.

One challenges that value at their peril.

[Fledermaus]

With apologies for taking everything that you wrote and snipping it down to just this one bit, thank you (sincerely) for reminding us of the "reasonable person" standard. That poor human is too often forgotten.



Not exactly, no.

My dwarf is fairly dark-skinned, and my Captain is straight-up black. Not Wesley Snipes black, but very dark-skinned (with blue eyes, and a blonde white female herald named Shaniqua - take that, societal expectations!).

I honestly don't know how dark you can make hobbits or elves, although I do believe others have covered that topic already.

Yes, you are right there. After I posted that, I remembered I do have a dark-skinned Dwarvish character who is a Rune-Keeper. He is a dark-skinned because I associate him with lava underground. There is a Dwarvish hair style too that looks remarkably close to dreadlocks, though dreads are more cultural than ethnic.

I've got to say this debate has been pretty civil. The worst comments I've seen have been accusations of being too PC or a university student!

I was reading the SWTOR boards about the same-sex romance option, and man, some of it was pretty vile. There were comments to the effect that if there were gay NPC's, players should be able to kill them. This makes you appreciate Lotro all the more.

[Celestrata]

As it seems we've kind of hit an end to the discussion, I'll leave it here. Wonderful discussion everyone.