Hacker News Reader

Comment by spoiler | Hacker News Reader

I don't know how I feel about that analysis. Just because something is inspired by historic events (slavery in this case), doesn't mean it's advocating those events as good.

Is it dark? Yes, and I think it's meant to be.

If anything, I think it's actually great that they're doing this because I believe RPG games are a great and safe mediums to acquaint people with these difficult subjects. I can't be the only person with this opinion?

Are people calling Marvel racists or anti-Semitic because Hydra was inspires by some parts of the Nazi military being obsessed with the supernatural?

I think calling these racists (or xist) is a failure of imagination; kinda weird to see it come from the RPG community, too

View on HN

The tone of the spelljammer setting is not dark. It is more marketed towards kids in its latest iteration.

I think people just don't want to deal with slavery and race bullshit in their fantasy setting, which I understand.

So it's just annoying and tone deaf and doesn't add anything, plus the fact they are simian and transported on tall ships and auctioned off as slaves.

If you can't see why someone would would say "wow, a slave monkey race transported on ships. That sucks." Then you aren't arguing in good faith. It is not that much of a stretch to see it as a little demeaning.

Depictions od people of color as animalistic is undeniably a thing people used to do to be demeaning to them.

So I would argue you are having a failing of imagination.

Lol I think you spend too much time reading social media...

I honestly doubt someone wrote this because they want to degraded black people using a far fetched analogy. It feels to me like a small group of people really wants this to be perceived as racist for some reason.

Like, don't get me wrong. I'm familiar with racist rednecks calling black people "monkeys," but I see no reason we need to give so much power to some small part of American culture and let it transfer into a fantasy world. What's infuriating is that those racist reprobates are probably not even aware of this situation, and we gave them so much influence.

Anyway, I wanted to write a more extensive reply initially, but then I felt like you've probably already painted me as a witch/heretic/racist in your head, and don't care about what I have to say. So, let's just agree to disagree and move on with our lives.

The analogy says black people were subhuman until they were magically uplifted. That's the offensive part.

Contrast that with the gith, another slave race that broke their bonds. Just as gritty, but not racist.

The analogy itself is the problem. If I wanted to assign a racism value to the creation of a fantasy race with certain characteristics and the resulting analogy by some to black people in this instance, the analogy would always have a higher racism value.

Yeah, that's why its a gross trope that needs to die.

But, I don't think the analogy to black slavery is meant to be there. It seems to me that some people just want (or need) it to be there.

Also, at the risk of being painted a heretic/racists/whatever. I'm not sure why the focus is so much on just black slavery; is it because it was most recent, or is it because of the current zeitgeist? Is it an American thing? Is it the "monkey" part and because some racist rednecks call black people monkeys? I find it mortifying we're giving those people so much influence over a fantasy world they're probably not even aware of.

> Is it the "monkey" part and because some racist rednecks call black people monkeys?

Ding! You hit the nail on the head! To be succinct, if you hear monkey and think black people, then you are a racist regardless of any good intentions you may or may not have.

But why are we letting those people control our games? That's what's insane to me in this whole discussion.

It reminds me of the ok hand emoji kerfuffle; where it was briefly racist/taboo to use it.

I think it's total madness to let people I disagree with influence my fantasy world games. Why give them that power? Maybe I don't get it because I'm not American and this is a cultural issue specific to the US (and the majority of people here, I assume, are American).

Reply on news.ycombinator.com