A reminder on racial roleplay re: Half Elves...

[Dakota]

I'm going to post this here... From the Docs...

As a bastard offspring of conflicting cultures, it is extremely difficult, if not impossible, for a half-elf to be accepted anywhere.

Once more in bold...

As a bastard offspring of conflicting cultures, it is extremely difficult, if not impossible, for a half-elf to be accepted anywhere.

I think that sums up all I need to say here.

edit: For all the (good and well-done and properly represented) roleplay hate vs elves... that does not and shouldn't mean half-elves are one step above since they can join Houses and Clans... They are -lower- than Elves in the regard to both human and elven cultures.

[HavokBlue]

This sounds like a complaint about something specific, in which case I would suggest, as always, using the request tool to file a Player Complaint instead of vaguebooking about the way other people are playing their PCs on the GDB.

[Dakota]

This sounds like a complaint about something specific, in which case I would suggest, as always, using the request tool to file a Player Complaint instead of vaguebooking about the way other people are playing their PCs on the GDB.

It's not at all actually. It's just a reminder to the PC population. Furthermore I'd be interested to know if anyone sees otherwise and if they do to discuss it here.

[HavokBlue]

dit: For all the (good and well-done and properly represented) roleplay hate vs elves... that does not and shouldn't mean half-elves are one step above since they can join Houses and Clans... They are -lower- than Elves in the regard to both human and elven cultures.

This is a generalization you need to be careful with and it comes across somewhat misleading.

Most clans that will hire half-elves will also hire elves, albeit reluctantly. Amos the Human might prefer Talia the Breed to Malik the Elf because Talia is only half-necker. Malik might prefer Talia to Amos because Talia is only half-roundear. On the other hand, both might despise the breed even more than the a wholeblooded individual of the opposite race because of what the breed represents. You as a player can make this decision for your PC.

[Nyr]

This sounds like a complaint about something specific, in which case I would suggest, as always, using the request tool to file a Player Complaint instead of vaguebooking about the way other people are playing their PCs on the GDB.

It's not at all actually. It's just a reminder to the PC population. Furthermore I'd be interested to know if anyone sees otherwise and if they do to discuss it here.

HavokBlue is in the right of it here.  If you are bringing up something this specific, it looks like you are complaining about someone's roleplay, specifically, which should be done via player complaint and not on the GDB.  If you have more to say apart from offering this sage warning, you probably should, because otherwise it is going to look like you are complaining about specific behavior in-game.

[Desertman]

I think it's important for people to remember when this comes up that the players of the PC's you see are almost always extreme exceptions to the rule when it comes to comparing them to the VNPC and even NPC populations.

This goes triple when you get into long-lived PC's.

It is extremely rare in Zalanthas, for example, to see a human man go out and hack down three raptor at once. It is not common. That PC has risen above the masses. He is the extreme exception in skill and ability, and thus most likely, respect he has garnered and receives.

There are long-lived PC elves that have risen to be Sergeant's and leaders in Houses. This is not typical for an elf in any way in the NPC and VNPC population. This an extreme exception. They have earned most likely what would be almost unheard of (statistically) amounts of respect and trust for an elf.

Half-elves that live a long time as PC's and become really successful etc....probably can be expected to be treated a lot better than your typical dirt-poor "documentation-outlined-typical" NPC and VNPC half-elves that make up the vast majority of half-elves in Zalanthas.

Remember, most PC's you see aren't held to the exact same standards as the NPC and VNPC population because they are "better", especially in the cases of long-lived PC's that are actually successful.

I do really love playing new half-elves though. When you are a new half-elf who hasn't earned any respect or clout through your IC deeds and accomplishments? Those are the good times.   But there is also something to be said for playing a long-lived successful half-elf that has earned a lot of respect and favors from people over the years. There's a little turning point in their existence and you can feel it when it you go from "Shitty fucking breed.", to, "That breed nobody fucks with even if they are thinking bad shit about them.". Hehe, it's beautiful.

(I went many years playing almost nothing but half-elves, and I still love playing them.)

[Barzalene]

This sounds like a complaint about something specific, in which case I would suggest, as always, using the request tool to file a Player Complaint instead of vaguebooking about the way other people are playing their PCs on the GDB.

It's not at all actually. It's just a reminder to the PC population. Furthermore I'd be interested to know if anyone sees otherwise and if they do to discuss it here.

HavokBlue is in the right of it here.  If you are bringing up something this specific, it looks like you are complaining about someone's roleplay, specifically, which should be done via player complaint and not on the GDB.  If you have more to say apart from offering this sage warning, you probably should, because otherwise it is going to look like you are complaining about specific behavior in-game.

Its good to have this come up though, because this is a place where we as a player base fall down on the job regularly. I promise I'm not referring to a specific event or player. This comes up constantly.

[Delirium]

Maybe it comes up often enough in different scenarios that it's worth a general reminder instead of trying to list out complaints?

Or yeah - what Barz said.

[slvrmoontiger]

The thing that I take issue with is OP took one sentence out of a lengthy page and tried to state that this one sentence is the end all be all and didn't seem to read the rest of the document. The document also says:

Code Select Expand

...half-elves typically try to gain acceptance by elves or humans and will go out of their way toward that end.
This is also stated:

Code Select Expand

If their audience (or society in general) accepts the half-elf, respects their deeds, or otherwise welcomes them, this may be perceived as an insult to his independence. NOTE: The two letter word IF. This means that it has the possibility to happen and is not as far and few between as you may think it is. It also indicates that most acceptance is done by great feats or great accomplishments. Becoming a Sergeant or a Life Sworn (Both do happen in clans and are not unheard of) in a clan is acceptances for a certain reason and also makes that breed someone that should be considered more "worthy" of acceptance than your run of the mill filthy breed that is uncultured and has no accomplishments to speak of.

[Barzalene]

Accomplishment isn't the issue. Its the humanizing. That is a problem. I mean service dogs can become segeants. And people love their service dogs. But they don't let them date their daughters or use their toothbrushes. And dogs are cuter than breeds.

[Aruven]

This is an interesting conversation to have, that I imagine will ultimately die out because we are humans.

Example: Lets face it, pretty much every one of us plays the 'upper-crust' echelons of whatever population we pick. We aren't that guy standing on the street in the same spot everyday. We don't play the game to do that. Even if you play a rinther, or a bynner, you're automatically from day 1 better than 70% of the game world around you and less expendable just because you are a PC and you will respond immediately (normally) upon being interacted with.

So I immediately reduce my prejudice, with this fact alone. Also, Longevity normally gets a good player into a comfortable position and routine. I've seen plenty of half-elves achieve this... to where its almost socially akward to be picking fights with them and their larger than life crew.

If the piece of poo is going to make my shoo stinky i'd rather not acknowledge its existence at all and avoid it than clean it up myself.

[KankWhisperer]

Accomplishment isn't the issue. Its the humanizing. That is a problem. I mean service dogs can become segeants. And people love their service dogs. But they don't let them date their daughters or use their toothbrushes. And dogs are cuter than breeds.

They do let them sleep in their beds, bury them, trust them to take care of kids, risk their lives to save them and so on. And kick someone's loyal dog and see what happens.

[whitt]

Begging for this not to turn into cElf derail #1838, but...

I think the glaring difference is between social scale for elves, breeds, and magickers.

The cause is simple.  The bias against breeds is purely a documentation issue.  Same problem with the bias against gemmed.  The bias against elves is because of impact to actual play experience.

Given that Murder.  Corruption.  Betrayal.  is always a risk regardless of the race of any PC you associate with...

Chum around with a breed or a gemmed and nothing will codedly happen to your PC.  There may be RP consequences from folks asking why you'd ever associate with such scum, but you never have to look over your shoulder wondering if the "things" you've worked so hard on for your character are likely to go missing just because you chose to engage with another PC.  

Elves on the other hand *will* lie, cheat, and steal if those players are playing to docs.  It's a very fair bet that if someone that isn't fresh out of the box and is playing an elf, they're doing it to play by the docs.  So chum around with an Elf and you're playing with fire.  Sure you might get a juicy mekillot burger out of it, but chances are better that you get a scrap of burnt meat -and- your stuff is gone.

Add to this the fact that (noobs excepted again) breed players are also very likely looking to play by the documents and want a roleplay challenge.  So there is a good chance that long-lived breed PC is a lot of OOC fun to be around.  That's hard to pass up because the documentation says so.  Week after week.

Basically, it's a human nature thing.  We can make excuses for ourselves and our characters to "get over" discriminatory bias pretty easily when there is no enforced negative for making that decision and a big IC negative for choosing to continue to discriminate.    When someone discriminates against a breed, it's often the person refusing to accept the breed that is rejected.  Not the breed.

[whitt]

They do let them sleep in their beds, bury them, trust them to take care of kids, risk their lives to save them and so on. And kick someone's loyal dog and see what happens.

In the West.  Sure.  I figure treatment of breeds more closely follows islamic treatment of dogs.

Let me clarify a few myths and make a few points:

1. It is NOT haraam to own a dog, though it is not hygienic to keep a dog in the house.

2. It is NOT haraam to touch a dog or any other animal. If the saliva of a dog touches you or any part of your clothing, then it is required of you to wash the body part touched and the item of clothing touched by the dog's mouth or snout.

3. It is incumbent upon all Muslims who own animals, whether for farming or work purposes or as pets, to provide adequate shelter, food, water, and, when needed, veterinary care for their animals. Arrangements must be made, if one is going to be away from home, to have one's animals taken care of as well.

4. It is haraam to keep a dog or any other animal on a short lead for long periods without food, water, and shelter. Dogs need exercise and are social creatures who form organized "family" structures in nature. Dog owners therefore need to spend time daily with their dogs.

5. It is cruel, and therefore haraam, to keep any animal in a cage so small that it cannot behave in a natural way.

6. Fireworks cause untold suffering to most domestic animals because of their acute sense of hearing.

7. It is haraam to participate in any blood "sport," like dog fighting and trophy hunting.

That's reviling a beast, but being as humane as possible if they must be around at all.  Now imagine the revulsion of a believer of the above watching a dog-owner in Jersey rolling around with their pet pooch, letting it lick all over their face, giving it kisses and/or treating it like a miniature person. 

From here: http://www.islamicconcern.com/dogs.asp

[Patuk]

I'm not really sure how any half-elf is going to be extremely good friends with anyone who doesn't possess saintly patience in the first place.

Whitt isn't wrong in saying that celves are likely more dangerous to strangers than breeds are, but celves can get over that, if the stranger proves useful/trustworthy. A half-elf does not stop being a person who will go 'I'm a strong independent breed who don't need no human/elf' in varying grades of extremity. The only people I see being friends with half-elves are those who aren't human or elven at all, and even then it's doubtful the breed is going to be interested in such a friendship.

[Barzalene]

Accomplishment isn't the issue. Its the humanizing. That is a problem. I mean service dogs can become segeants. And people love their service dogs. But they don't let them date their daughters or use their toothbrushes. And dogs are cuter than breeds.

They do let them sleep in their beds, bury them, trust them to take care of kids, risk their lives to save them and so on. And kick someone's loyal dog and see what happens.

Yep. But most people are really clear, they're a different species.  They don't need people to remind them to be clear on that.

And they're dogs. They're not the misbegotten product of their creepy neighbor molesting an afghan with a pretty coat.

[KankWhisperer]

They do let them sleep in their beds, bury them, trust them to take care of kids, risk their lives to save them and so on. And kick someone's loyal dog and see what happens.

In the West.  Sure.  I figure treatment of breeds more closely follows islamic treatment of dogs.

Let me clarify a few myths and make a few points:

1. It is NOT haraam to own a dog, though it is not hygienic to keep a dog in the house.

2. It is NOT haraam to touch a dog or any other animal. If the saliva of a dog touches you or any part of your clothing, then it is required of you to wash the body part touched and the item of clothing touched by the dog's mouth or snout.

3. It is incumbent upon all Muslims who own animals, whether for farming or work purposes or as pets, to provide adequate shelter, food, water, and, when needed, veterinary care for their animals. Arrangements must be made, if one is going to be away from home, to have one's animals taken care of as well.

4. It is haraam to keep a dog or any other animal on a short lead for long periods without food, water, and shelter. Dogs need exercise and are social creatures who form organized "family" structures in nature. Dog owners therefore need to spend time daily with their dogs.

5. It is cruel, and therefore haraam, to keep any animal in a cage so small that it cannot behave in a natural way.

6. Fireworks cause untold suffering to most domestic animals because of their acute sense of hearing.

7. It is haraam to participate in any blood "sport," like dog fighting and trophy hunting.

That's reviling a beast, but being as humane as possible if they must be around at all.  Now imagine the revulsion of a believer of the above watching a dog-owner in Jersey rolling around with their pet pooch, letting it lick all over their face, giving it kisses and/or treating it like a miniature person. 

From here: http://www.islamicconcern.com/dogs.asp

That is still fairly humane. And I still imagine you better not be kicking their dog.

[valeria]

I think this is the kind of thing easy to misjudge if you're just looking at it from without.  For instance, an elf (or human) might go out of their way to befriend breeds, viewing them as an easy mark.  And a breed might accept that because it's the best they're likely to get... our be suspicious of the underlying motivations because they know they're unlovable... or both.  Maybe at the same time. The human might have legitimate reasons to advance the breed's interests while disdaining them.  Unless you have access to the player's thoughts, motivations, bios, and reports, you're only going on the visible RP. Which means you may be judging the situation on less than the full picture.

[Saellyn]

You all seem to have missed the topics that were happening elsewhere that some people were mentioning half-elves were considered slgihtly better than elves because they were half human.

This is not the case. Half-elves are fucking gross.

[Cind]

Half-elves have a dependence issue for at least some of the people they interact with that gickers and elves do not... therefore more likely to work closely with humans, and working closely with the humans for a while destroys some barriers once they find out you're a breed or a gicker, destroyed barriers that people do not seem to mind and that don't shatter IC expectations. I forgot where I was going with this.

I think when the barriers get too worn down is what people are having problems with... when half-elves act and are treated basically like low-class humans, but like someone said a couple weeks back they are useful, and usefulness beats discrimination most of the time.

[CodeMaster]

It's not 'just' that people don't accept half-elves.  It's also that half-elves don't accept people.  This is their internal dynamic and, IMO, the thing that makes them hard to play.

You don't get to play out this linear trajectory, where your character joins a group, becomes accepted, makes friends, "feels" accepted, and then just starts acting like a human.

No, that's when the game gets challenging.  Because eventually, that internal pendulum is going to start swinging the other way.  Enjoy having that crew while it lasts, because soon your half-elf is going to want independence, in the extreme.  And now you, the player, have to be prepared to throw your character's relationships away and undertake a massive change in trajectory.  And it's going to be lonely.

At least, that's how I see it.  That's why the role strikes me as exceptionally challenging.  But
I think everyone is going to read the half-elf docs and interpret them through their own filter.

[Barzalene]

In my opinion the place where things break down is every time we say, "Stinky's alright for a breed."
We can find him tolerable, we can owe Stinky a debt, we can like how he follows us around. Its ok if Stinky is alright for a breed as long as we still view him as a breed. The problem is when that sentence elevates Stinky to something more than a breed.

[Jihelu]

I've never thought about this and think this would be a good place to ask but when a Half-elf has his independence hurt, would they lash out per say?
In multiple ways I assume.
Something like, leaving like stated, even something physical.
That'd be a good reason to not talk to Half-elves.
"Hey, don't talk to that Breed, bound to blow up and run off some point" etc.

[Patuk]

Maybe. Depends on the breed.

[Saellyn]

And that right there is the issue. "Depends on the breed".

Breeds should never, ever, ever be treated better than humans unless that human is real scum of the earth. Your average human should be more important than ANY breed. Ever.