My 2c: IC racism or bias is both plausible and isn’t inherently bad.
The trouble is the vast majority I’ve seen do it take it to a near comical extreme, like the attempts to lynch void elves when the NPCs comment that they’ve been “cautiously welcomed” overall, just because one priest NPC voiced discomfort.
It also has a tendency to be a bleed over from… let’s say very controversial OOC opinions and fantasies. I’ve seen the exact same arguments from the exact same crowds over the years with each new race added to the Alliance.
Draenei? Plausible, they were initially mistaken for Eredar. Some might distrust them. But pretty quick it’s apparent these guys do the Light even harder than humans do, which would dispel a lot of concerns pretty quick.
Worgen? Also plausible, since they’re walking beasts and all. I had no issue with this even in more extreme cases. Even today it’s only been a few years, and seeing a giant wolfman might make a lot of people uncomfortable and I’m actually a bit disappointed this wasn’t explored more in the story.
Pandaren? Uh… now this is where it started getting very weird. Yeah, people were xenophobic towards pandaren becaaaaause… I never did get a reasonable IC justification tbh. Just “i dun liek 'em” and I couldn’t help but feel it was driven by OOC dislike of the race rather than IC.
Then we come to void elves. I’m willing to believe some/a lot might distrust them. But there’s muttered remarks or bias, then there’s trying to shank one in broad daylight while shouting Trump quotes IC. In my experience I’ve seen far more of the latter tomfoolery. As I mentioned, NPCs literally say they were welcomed, even if cautiously, not one mention of any void elves being burned at the stake or lynched in Stormwind. Or even being openly assaulted.
Which ultimately is what gives the ‘racist RP’ theme a bad taste for most people, because to be frank I very rarely see it done in any tasteful or reasonable way. And from what I’ve observed these same kinds of characters have a bit of a trend, running down a list of stuff they don’t like until they hit rock bottom. Usually when they start throwing racial slurs at darker skinned humans… which afaik has zero basis in lore and is 300% yikes. Just because they couldn’t find any void elves, worgen, draenei or pandaren to unleash their slightly concerning RP themes on out of the blue.
Being distrustful, bias or making snide remarks? That’s kewl, plausible and has a basis in lore. It can drive IC conflict and could lead to either side undergoing some kind of development. I had a guildie who distrusted worgen immeasurably until Dari here saved his life during an event, he developed from that and it was pretty memorable. Some guys dig their heels in and become obvious antagonists, which is okay.
But straight up trying to murder people, obvious OOC influence or using quotes or “nicknames” that are dangerously close to RL racial slurs? Pretty worrying and many will no doubt find that outright uncomfortable, regardless of the race in question tbh. I have no doubt that many who roll a controversial race, such as void elves, expect some amount of adversary or opposition. But when you’ve been assaulted for the fifth time in an evening, it probably gets a bit droll, or you might just not find it fun to the point of making you uncomfortable on an OOC level.
Everybody RPs for fun (Or should do, at any rate), and abruptly getting surrounded by a lynch mob doesn’t sound like my idea of a fun evening tbh. if the crowd was divided, sure maybe some interesting drama can come from that. But if they’re determined to get my character killed and are ignoring my efforts to avoid that, to the point of basically godmoting…
Yeah no, I’ll just log off. They can use an NPC if they want to do that sort of thing, I’m not sacrificing my free time, my mood and seemingly my RP character just to appease other people going “It’s just what my character would do”.
That’s not me wanting Slice-of-Life or Second Life RP to not be disturbed (Which frankly I find horribly dull anyway and is something I never understood the appeal of), that’s me wanting to ensure I’m enjoying myself while RPing. And I don’t enjoy the extreme end of IC prejudice that gets excessively violent and tends to result in me having zero actual control of my character. It makes me outright uncomfortable OOC, particularly when certain parallels can be easily drawn between what is happening and RL hate crimes. Sue me.
Now when it comes to the coming patch and all the Old God stuff kicks off? I fully expect an uptick in anti-VElf behaviour, and I do hope Blizzard actually chooses to address that in the narrative. I just hope that people who choose to go aggro on VElves remember that there’s a player behind that character too, and while they may be fine with some controversy, they can get uncomfortable if things go extreme. The same way other very mature themes (Sexual, gore, etc) might make people uncomfortable.
