I mean, even besides the obvious inappropriateness in the IC-to-OOC context.
Even just as traits for an intentionally unlikeable character, things like homophobia, misogyny or racism are LAZY. There are so many cool and villainous things an evil character can do and be, and you’re stopping at “well my character says slurs a lot”. It’s massively tiresome when you reliably expect every interaction with a typical “unlikeable character” begin with some stereotype/slur flung at your character. Give me cooler villains please.
In my opinion, there’s even things to say about tone-deafness in how some people portray the “allowed”, warcraft-trademark inter-species/inter-faction racism, but that’s more subjective.
I really liked the part where someone says “yeah well some people just like playing scum of the earth characters, don’t make me a homophobe” and then “like some people in guard guilds like humping each other” really wierd thing to say, especially given it comes off as a diss.
Yeah IC doesn’t necessarily reflect who we are OOC but our OOC self consciously decides which elements to inject and if our OOC self is continually choosing homophobia as their weapon of choice, it probably means our OOC self isn’t as uncomfortable with the notion than we tell ourselves.
I mean I’m not really partial to excessive gore. Surprisingly my characters rarely if ever invoke stuff that involves it, because I don’t like it. If I don’t like homophobia and find it distasteful, it seems wierd to engage in it as a roleplay tool, assuming one actually does dislike it.
Sure - I think the previous guild in question do none of that though and instead RP out lowlives/scum of the earth or something, but even then there’s still plenty of reasons for hating somebody, not bringing in OOC hatred.
And resorting to slurs is among many other reasons wrong because it does not exist in Azeroth. Haven’t seen anyone F-bomb ppl yet.
IMO, if someone starts using homophobic language in RP, despite thinking ‘oh they’re different I must hate them’, it’s already more or less homophobia coming in from OOC attitudes, despite how much they want to say they’re just RPing out the character.
I try to avoid it as much as possible myself because I start gagging really quickly at the sight of gore. Watching Game of Thrones back when it was still good was a tough ride because of the amount of throats they insist on cutting in that show, and throw/wrist injuries are a particular dislike of mine that makes me feel really uncomfortable.
Even in instances where some gore would realistically happen (chopping off a head as a proof of kill as we so often see in quests), I never describe the gore. Let’s just get it over with and move on.
How can I be a homophobe/racist/misogynist? I have gay/black/female friends! Maybe you’re the -ist for questioning my weird comments (obvious /s)
Graphic violence is a big no-no too, yeah. Your character can cut someone’s head off and describe it in simple, aloof terms. It doesn’t have to describe the uncomfortable specifics of what that would entail. Bad guy is dead, carry on.
If people really want gritty, violence stories as part of their character/story, then keep the explicit language to external websites or story-content where such is better/allowed like AA or something.
But there is no need to write it out in-game where there’s even rules against such language.
I don’t know if AA would permit it if it was too graphic either. It’s an external website but it still relates to a game/community that’s home to a lot of underage players.
They’ve removed graphic violence in artwork before if I remember rightly – and rightly so.
From my experience, the roleplayers who depict excessively violent imagery are often also the players whose characters will feature bigotry like homophobia.
Edginess of all kinds goes hand-in-hand, unsurprisingly.
It’s needles and injections for me. Just can’t look.
I admit, I quite like gory action scenes in general, but for me it just doesn’t fit in Warcraft tone-wise (maybe when it’s non-humanoid, harder-to-relate-to stuff on the receiving end, like bugs or void beasts or something).
Plus, you can actually write pretty action-intense, weighty scenes without detailing all the viscera (which, in written form, often tends to distract more than accentuate the scene anyway).
This exactly. We can detach ourselves from a character thrusting his sword through the carapace of an Aqir, because we don’t have giant hive-mind insects in the real world.
What we do have in the real world is bigotry and homophobia; these are things that we can relate to, particularly if we’re LGBT, and that is what can make it so uncomfortable and so inappropriate for it to be played out on an open, public sandbox.
Yeah, I mean I’m not really adverse to visual gore. I can watch very gory material (for example I’m watching the Hannibal series ATM) and it doesn’t bother me at all. It’s the premise of inflicting that one someone else that makes me uncomfortable, or the implications of pain they’d receive. I find watching torturous scenes where people are alive more difficult (ie stuff like blinding people or smashing their hands with a mallet). Thus I don’t really involve it in my roleplay because even though I can technically witness, I don’t want to be part of causing it, even if a representation.
Same for homophobia I’d assume for most. So why be part of causing a representation of something you find hienous? I assume most people would find the idea of RPing a scene where they dismember a child alive distasteful for example, because IRL it’s horrific. Why does homophobia get a wierd free pass on this “when it’s pretend?” Emotional and psychological damage is still damage. if you claim to find it distasteful IRL, then why would you do so in RP?
And before anyone says “lol you RP killing tho” the context is quite different. We’re heroes, facing monsters and villains in an everlasting war with continued threats to our existence. That is far removed from most people’s experience. Slurring a gay individual just because they’re gay is a lot closer to home, even if that individual is a wolf man or an orc.
There have been cases of misogyny in warcraft ( Remka being sent to die cause women can’t be in the army, Magni and Moira). But when WoW came around Blizzard has also explicitly gone out of their way to show that that is not a thing in modern Azeroth anymore, seeing human female soldiers and commanders everywhere, Thrall’s reforms in the Horde allowing women to be commanders etc, Magni turning over a new leaf and accepting women into his royal guard.
So yeah, I think we can safely say that while it may have -been- there, it is not so anymore.
To go one step further, I would wager that if Blizzard could retcon those situations, that they would. I’ll not go so far as to say that Blizzard will take those scenarios back, but I would put money on those situations never being directly mentioned by Blizzard again.
Then again, it’s as many people here have already said. There’s already so many things you can do to roleplay an evil character, to then choose things like homophobia or misogyny feels a bit creatively bankrupt and as if you chose it on purpose.
Pretty much. As someone who plays a Dark Iron that’s looney, merciless and quite cruel - I don’t have him going ''gays bad! women belong in the kitchen!" etc.
Feels very uncreative, edgy and inappropriate regardless of whether it’s OOC or IC.
If you’re playing a scum of the earth, bandit/outlaw type of character and you need make him homophobic, racist, or whatever in order to feel ‘‘evil’’ then perhaps you’re just not playing them right? Regarding race, I can see why certain humans would have a very critical viewpoint on e.g. Orcs and Forsaken, but I see literally zero reason why anyone would want to play a downright homophobic and/or misogynist character.
There is one potential arguement to be made that the suggestions of evil character actions put in this thread are all in a high-fantasy setting, and not everyone roleplays a high-fantasy style guild. To that end, I’d still say there’s plenty of choices, between someone poor having a vendetta against the rich, or against those who placed them in that situation, be that the monarchy if your character is one of the sotnemasons, or the undead if you were Gilnean, or the Horde as a whole if you resided in Darnassus.
And a clear difference between all of those is that there is a reason for a character to feel that way. You used to be happy, but now you aren’t, and these people are the reason as to why that is. From there, you can have a character learning to forgive, or doubling-down on their disdain, both are valid options.
Conversley with homophobia, without the big picture idea of repopulating Silvermoon or a character believing that bloodline is more important than the heart’s affairs, there’s really not much to go on. It’s not really something you can explore as much and develop upon. And being honest, I don’t think many of the people roleplaying homophobic characters have any intention on developing that part of their character. It’s just always going to be a negative mark on that character never to fade or vanish.
so if i get more or equal amount of likes where i state that racism is a-ok then it becomes a universal standard, right? Even if someone who has been subjected to it on a daily basis starts posting that its not ok because they were the victims of said racist attitudes and actions?
(obvious /s)