ext_20323 ([identity profile] digitalsidhe.livejournal.com) wrote in [personal profile] roseembolism 2012-08-01 07:00 pm (UTC)

Shadowrun did a pretty good job of presenting stereotypes as just that: stereotypes. They did a whole lot of items 2, 3, and particularly 5. The initial/main rulebook had the the Elven decker, making fun of the "hippie-dippie magick-user" stereotype of Elves. Then came the Street Sam sourcebook, definitely one of the first 3 released (and possibly the first) with the Orc street sam — he spoke in polite, cultured tones with sophisticated vocabulary, then lampshaded it at the end by saying, "Fine howzabout if I talk like dis? Dere, does dat sound more 'Orkish' to ya now?". Glorious.

But they even got away with not doing number 4 — I'm almost positive Orks had a minus to intelligence, and I know they had a minus to charisma. But the rulebooks explicitly called this out as bias on the part of society: People are taught to consider Orks ugly, if not fearsome or disgusting; you don't see Ork models on the covers of magazines; is it any wonder, then, that people don't react as well? If there was an intelligence penalty, it was because of poor educational opportunities.

In other words, they just went ahead and said, "Yes, racism does exist in our game universe. The people inside it are racist." But then the examples of anti-stereotypical characters added the point that "Just because the people are racist doesn't mean the reality of things is."


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