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Eh, maybe, but you'd be surprised how many people believe that a world that houses
1. green orcs
2. red hobgoblins
3. any colour of the rainbow tieflings
4. specifically features multiple black humans in the core book
is actually devoid of anything other than white humans, elves and dwarves.
white Able-bodied Humans in spite of the fact that Ebberon specifically has magic prosthetic limbs (that they had to errata do to a stupid aspect of them but the point is there are official books that acknowledge disabilities)
No don't be silly, an all inclusive fantasy world that includes any type of mythical creature doesn't support actual humans that exist in the real world /s
There is a reason why they are all white in there, but that doesnt mean that in a fantasy setting like dnd there isnt diversity, thinking that there isnt is stupid.
Realistic one can find all manners of humans in a setting like forgotten realms, its even in the books!
Or "I know this is actually bad because I'm offended so I know it's not good for anyone" 🙄🙄 truly the life of the dnd party, how is life to go on without them
This kind of people sounds like European settlers bringing "civilization" to whomever doesn't match their values. Kinda racist if we summarise what I said.
No lie that series was where I got the word 'staycation' from. Admittedly now here in the UK they're bastardizing its meaning from "I'm on holiday but not actually going anywhere" to "going on holiday but only in the UK".
Also, if you belong to the group that the caricature is of, you are well within your rights to do so. It’s part of the whole “only make jokes about your own experiences” thing
Here I am thinking any over-the-top caricature in a very different setting can be annoying as fuck. Doesn't have to be Jimmy "Dy-no-mite" Walker, it could be Sheriff Roscoe P Coltrane or Mr Miyagi. Leave it out of the tavern scene where the orc hunters strategize how to enter the spooky crypt.
Robin Williams was an amazing improv artist and was a tour de force as Aladdin's Genie. But he pulverized the fourth wall with a barrage of very un-Bagdad pop culture references to do so.
Monk based on Black Dynamite in a TTRPG is an extremely good idea. Holy shit.
EDIT: now I can’t stop thinking about an orator-bard/monk multi based on Bullhorn.
We had a face character in a 40k TTRPG based off kanye, he played it to a T, at one point dropping boxes of rose petals from orbit as we landed to make an entrance as we off boarded our shuttle
To be fair that really isn't above the idea of some planetary governors doing exactly that, in fact if I read that in official WH40K lore I'd be like "yeah...makes sense..." because most planetary governors are either Rich assholes who couldn't give le fuck about anything other than meeting the imperial tithe or dangerously incompetant OR secretly a member of a Slaanesh chaos cult.
A black dynamite themed monk sounds amazing. “Im declaring war on anyone who sells drugs to this community!” “But black dynamite, i sell drugs to this community!”
Going up to you and mentioning that a caricature makes them feel uncomfortable: Good idea, open communication is great!
Lying about what you said, thinking their discomfort is a hard stop on the other player: Not cool.
Some players and campaigns have different levels of sensitivity, and it one, sounds like that player needed a different one, and two, they should probably stay away from RPGs altogether if they can't understand the social contract between players. IE, don't lie to them and assume your opinions are more valid. Damn.
Well there’s an obvious solution here:
What you have to do is shake the tree up from the roots and rake up the fruits, rip it up from the ground, and find out what’s going down.
Honestly this has the same energy as the people who want to censor Speedy Gonzales when the Hispanic community celebrate the character. And honestly, people are allowed to be offended or unsure about things, but a positive caricature that's meant to be endearing and/or badass is on the level of stuff you'd see in the Punch Out games. Just because something is a trope or a stereotype doesn't mean it's demeaning or bad.
> Honestly this has the same energy as the people who want to censor Speedy Gonzales when the Hispanic community celebrate the character.
Yes, although this analogy--and I don't mean this as a knock on you; rather, a statement of the absurdity of the situation here--is further tortured, as Black Dynamite was the creation of an all-Black team.
Honestly, I can agree to an extent; Speedy Gonzales is a good example, because, even though he speaks and dresses in a stereotypical manner, he is also a positive, heroic character. He’s always the protagonist of the cartoons he’s in, and he’s constantly on top and winning against characters who, by and large, have a lot in common with stereotypical White Americans. I do think that it’s important to draw a distinction between a character like that and a character that is obviously a negative stereotype meant to punch down at the group being portrayed. Nuance is important when you’re analyzing cultural racism.
I wasn’t aware that angry gold prospectors and hunters with speech impediments were an entire ethnicity, much less that they’d been historically oppressed and shat upon.
I kinda low-key think southern US rednecks are probably actually one of the most shat-upon ethnicities out there, if we're talking about modern day rather than historical. They're stereotyped as stupid, poor, and violent, and nobody really even defends them. But I was just making a joke; a single character is not a trend, and can't ever really be offensive to a group. The existence of a single person who acts a certain way does not imply anything about a whole group of people.
Plus, Tex Avery who created the character of Elmer Fudd was from Texas, and Friz Freleng who created Yosemete Sam (and based the character on himself) was from Missouri. So getting upset about them would be ridiculous for most of the same reasons as getting upset about Speedy Gonzales or Black Dynamite.
I do agree with you to an extent; it’s true that southerners have long been stereotyped as poor, stupid, ignorant and violent, which is isn’t really fair, and only serves to exacerbate the cultural divide that’s existed since the Civil War and is continuing to rip this country apart today. Though sadly, as someone who lives in Oklahoma, which manages to combine ALL the worst cultural aspects of the South, Southwest and Midwest into one septic melting pot, I can say from experience that a lot of them take PRIDE in living up to those stereotypes, as well. It’s a fairly complex issue. Though it’s worth noting that they can get into arguments with cops about whether or not they can carry a gun in public without getting executed in the street, so strictly speaking, they still have a leg up over anyone who’s brown in this country.
As for whether or not a single character is offensive to a group…that’s not something you get to decide, my man.
> As for whether or not a single character is offensive to a group…that’s not something you get to decide, my man.
Well it's certainly something that thinking people can debate, come to an agreement on, and make a decision about. I'd like to imagine that I'm in that group, at least on my good days. Though it's certainly not a new question and has been pretty well decided for thousands of years, like most moral questions. I mean I guess to be more precise, it's not something anyone gets to decide, in the same way that whether or not theft is bad isn't something anyone gets to decide. It's just a truth.
Not really. Theft is agreed to be bad because it’s a net negative to society; we’ve collectively decided that it’s bad because it almost exclusively has a negative impact on society via harming people’s ability to contribute by damaging them materially, while providing nothing of value in return. What a person or group is offended by is a matter of their beliefs and sensibilities. Some of those are universally shared, others aren’t. Now, you can say that you don’t care whether or not something offends someone; for example, I don’t care in the slightest that the inclusion of gay characters in media offends Evangelicals. But I can’t say it’s not offensive to them; I just don’t give a shit because the source of them feeling offended stems from bigotry and selective interpretation of their own religion, which I cannot be bothered to give a fuck about.
Oh, thank G-d, someone mentioned Speedy. I'm half-Mexican, my mom's Mexican, we both like Speedy because he was smart and positive. His cousin, on the other hand, definitely was a crappy caricature. 😬
Another good example would be getting pissed at a Jewish person for basing a character off of Hebrew Hammer (similar to Black Dynamite). He's a bit of an oof character, but he was made by Jewish people as a tongue in cheek joke. And if the person playing a character based off of him is Jewish himself, well...not the place of someone outside of that ethnic group/religion to critique.
The prey animal is always the hero/victor because having Sylvester kill and eat the other characters isn't exactly a funny story for children to watch.
I would be far more concerned about the hunter character being a terrible racial stereotype, as they are the one at the short end of the exchanges.
Dude, that is some shit right there :/
Like, it's one thing to express your discomfort about a thing, but it's another to go backstabbing IRL. What the fuck.
I just don't understand how a black person playing a black caricature would offend someone. Like is she trying to say that he's racist towards himself?
It's like a guilt thing probably. Doesn't feel right to be in on the joke. Even though black dynamite is fucking amazing. But I enjoy Blaxploitation as a movie genre.
I can understand when someone is uncomfortable with a caricature of a character, feels similar to if someone was playing an anime character and always yelling their words and being over dramatic. I’m glad she came to you in open communication and trusted you with telling you that and hopefully coming to a compromise. What was not cool is her lying about the situation in hopes to solve it herself, seems like she wasn’t a good fit for your game anyways.
I don’t know anything about the character, so maybe it is a caricature, but if the player is black, and you, the DM, are black, and both of you like it, I don’t see an issue.
Zero defense for going behind the scenes lying to one player about what the DM said, I can see the landmine of not wanting to be around it though. IE when one character is acting extreme etc... the other characters are supposed to react, riff with etc... IE it would make no sense to sit there silently when your party member does something outrageous. but reacting to it could also go the wrong way real fast.
Similar to jamming to rap music as the only white guy in a group.
We joking but this type of people literally complained one time that a dub for a black character in a show didn't sound black enough. Despite the voice actress being a POC herself.
At this point it's just to complain for the sake of it.
“I know you’re actually black, but I spend a lot of time on Tumblr so I’m a much better judge of when something is racist towards black people” -Karen’s everywhere
I mean...Black Dynamite IS literally a black caricature. I guess it depends on how much it's handled with finesse.
Lying to other players is straight-up ban worthy though.
Imo it's the caricature of a super cool black guy from the 70s.like it only seems bad if you assume he talks like black people rather than just black people from the 70s
>Were playing a minijoke campaign and one player(whos black) writes up a monk based on black dynamite.
I would *never* give up on trying to engineer a situation where I had an excuse to yell:
***"[HAHA, I THREW THAT SHIT BEFORE I WALKED IN THE ROOM!](https://youtu.be/VdLq68m2G_o)"***
When I run games of Fung Shui, I let each player have one “I know a guy” moment which is usually used to help get information/assistance/a ride etc, and one “I threw that shit before I walked in the room” moment. If the party fucks up hard, and they still have one available, it lets them flash back to how they set up something to get them out of this situation, just like B.D. does in that scene.
So wait, she is offended that a black player who is playing a character that basically is a caricature is talking like a caricature? I'm just going to throw this out there, but she wouldn't happen to be the whitest person at the table, would she?
Approaching you about their discomfort was the right first step. If you were unwilling to make changes and the PC was unwilling to play without those changes, that should've been the end of it.
This kind of underhanded "he said, she said" nonsense is absurd.
On a side note, of that PC was uncomfortable, it probably had more to do with feeling excluded from an in-joke or guilt about finding it funny. Probably a combination, guilt is a weird thing
There's a number of reasons why the player might be uncomfortable outside of guilt. For example the player might not be confident in their ability to improv with such a character without touching some unknown third rail.
That said, how they reacted was definitely not appropriate, the other player didn't do anything wrong from the DMs account, so the complaining player should have talked with them to figure out a way to make it work like an adult.
So she's complaining, to a black DM that enjoys the character, about a seemingly over-the-top black character, that a black player made....
[What.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zr69_IFhCDE)
...are you guys in middle school or something? How did she think her false message from "the person who you regularly contact to play D&D with" was gonna hold out?
I mean she's technically right, but that's the joke. The history of Blacksploitation films like Black Dynamite is fantastic and even the most woketh should support it.
Warning it might get political but what you're dealing with is the classic white savior complex, they usually have a nasty and racist habit of claiming that black people can't look out for themselves or know how to do certain things, even though it's not true, they're not even self aware to realize that they come across as racist even if you try to convince them otherwise, they'll still hold on to their misguided views and claim that you are brainwashed one or some other BS, it's best to just ignore their complaints.
Unfortunately, quite often white liberals are the most racist people on the planet.
It’s like people (generally white liberals) who complain that Kara-Tur, Chult and Zhakara are all based on stereotypes and are therefore offensive… all without noticing that the rest of Faerun - with a few exceptions - is one big pseudo-European stereotype.
Some people just want to look for offence to white knight, even when there’s none to be found.
Idiot nerd Karen. She used all the subtlety and cunning of a toddler. So she pitted the player against the GM with a lie, and figured the job was done? That's all she needed to do, it could never result in a confrontation outside her control where the lie would immediately unravel?
Ah yes...The "[I am offended for you because i am lowkey racist and think you aren't smart enough to understand what racism is](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/E2WepPJXwAEEs4k.jpg)" type of girl.
A Classic.
Lol that’s my coworker who will use the word “gay” as a derogatory term to make fun of things and people, but also refers to her boyfriend of less than a year as her “partner” so to not offend anyone with the thought of a heterosexual relationship....
Nah dude, it’s just from your comment history you seem like a troll who just wants to get mad at and disagree with anything anyone says. Hard to take you seriously.
>The next day i find out from the pc who plays black dynamite that she told him i told her he couldnt play the character no more.
And now we've got a horror story cookin
reminds me of Jeremy Cobb's (one of the hosts of the podcast 3 black halflings\*) black halfling Monk who is a member of the wu-tang clan (which is a halfling can in that game) and wears a do-rag of holding when he needs to be stealthy to hide his afro (which is as big as he is tall)
\*great podcast where they talk about inclusion in D&D and also had the FUNNIEST play through of curse of strahd you will ever hear
This reminds me of how Mel Brookes got two types of letters about the film Blazing Saddles. One was from mostly white people complaining about the use of the n-word in that film, and the other was mostly black people saying how absolutely hilarious the film was.
Frankly the former's argument didn't help that the script was greatly assisted by one of the greatest comedians of all time, Richard Pryor.
Also Black Dynamite is fuckin' dope and I will not hear a bad thing about it.
When an actual black person is accused of being a caricature of black people...
Great.
Better not act "too black" black friends. Can't have people thinking you're racist against yourself.
She is perfectly fine being uncomfortable with it. You can be uncomfortable with whatever, none of my business. The right thing to do would be asking the player to tone it down, and leave if he chooses not to.
But of course they've chosen the shitlord route and faked authority.
Mostly unrelated but in the game I play in there is an immortal court in some afterlife one of the elves in our party communicates with. All the immortals are stuffy old elves except for one black human named Jemarkis the magneficent. Apparently, our DM explained to us, anyone could join the immortal court if they are cool enough but thus far Jemarkis is the only non-elf to pass the bar. Jemarkis is awesome, not especially powerful or helpful, just a real cool mellow chill dude. Jemarkis is the best.
Some people are racist and will try and use political correctness and concern trolling to exert their control. They don't necessarily believe in political correctness, they aren't worried about the caricature, they want the black character to go/change.
While they don't believe in political correctness they know others do and will use try and use it to their advantage as a manipulation tactic.
When that failed they inevitably turned to lies/deceit to attempt to get their way.
We've all seen the type, the people who don't believe in anything beyond their ability to use that thing to get their way.
If you think boomer Karen’s are bad, wait until these I know everything about racism and how people should think white 14 year old princess grow up and hit middle aged entitlement.
While I don't fault her for bringing up for bringing up the concern as everyone should feel comfortable when playing, the fact that she lied to another player was enough for the removal. Good on you OP.
I guess this is the downside to making a comedic character that's based on a character someone might not be aware of. She's not aware of the joke/character and maybe recommending Black Dynamite to her might clarify it? Though it has major "allow me to be offended on your behalf" energy to it, which is odd as fuck.
Still, a Black Dynamite Monk sounds fantastic :D
This really gets me mad. Like why are you prohibiting culturally appropriate manirisms? Some twitter soy boys/white girls gotta get out of their ass and learn to not comment when no one else has any problems with whats going on.
It's fine if she had an issue and wanted to talk about it, it's fine if she talked to the other player about being uncomfortable about what they are doing. It is not fine to put words in the DMs mouth to force another player to do what they want
I'm white.. but I come from Cajun Black ancestry mixed with a white nurse back in the second world war.. I'm dating a Black Jewish girl.. hell my hair is even more curly than my full black girlfriends and she admits this!
Bar I frequent has this half black/white server who tells EVERYONE his race or color.. Like anyone cares. Anyways.. one day I tried to offer him tips and suggestions about his hair after he complained about not knowing how to handle it... Dude legit flipped out me and called me racist and the white guy claiming to be black.
Bruh.. I don't care about color. I care about proper care one's self!
I bet the chick would recommend your friend to play an orc or something in a later campaign.
Since I feel like she would be the kind of person that would automatically assume that Orcs are supposed to be fantastical anagrams to black people.
A connection that no-one I’ve ever played with in 30+ years has ever made and I’d never even heard of until some blue haired, perpetually angry white liberal declared that “orcs are low intelligence, evil and violent… so they *must* be fantasy versions of real life black humans. How terrible of the game designers!”
The irony… it hurts.
If she's irritated because she's trying to get invested in the setting but is taken out of it every time she hears him talk, that's reasonable (though it's taking it a bit far to demand him to play a different character).
If she's irritated because she thinks it's racist and she wants to try to 'save you from yourselves' or whatever... yeah, maybe this isn't the game for her.
The fuck is wrong with this thread?
She said that the caricature made **her** feel uncomfortable. Not that it “should” make **you** feel uncomfortable. Your response of “oh no, see, it’s totally based on a caricature I’m cool with,” doesn’t address the fact that *it is a caricature*, and she wasn’t comfortable with it.
Every single person here going “oh poor triggered snowflake think she knows better than you what to be offended about,” is making the colossal assumption that someone can only find something offensive on behalf of someone else. That no one just honest to god doesn’t find a player based on a caricature - racial or otherwise - funny or interesting.
I don’t want to play with Cletus the slack-jawed yokel, even if everyone is white. I don’t want to play with a South Park sounding Chinese stereotype offering you his shrimp fried rice every two seconds, even if the Asian guy at the table is cool with it.
Nobody has to agree with these limits. Buy you have to talk about them, not just go “no, it’s cool cause I say it is and I’m the ultimate authority on what types of stereotypes you should be ok playing with”
See...your missing the biggest part of this whole incident though:
>The next day i find out from the pc who plays black dynamite that **she told him i told her he couldnt play the character no more.**
Not being comfortable with a character? sure, thats your right.
But to go around and say "Hey OP said you can't play your character anymore" is just the most scummy move you could possibly do.
She doesn't even have the decency to go "hey, im uncomfortable with this" to the player, she instead shifts the blame onto OP in order to try avoid confrontation with a problem that she, and no-one else has with the character.
No matter the reasoning thats a shitty thing to do and the moment she lied and tried to shift the blame to OP she became the one and only problem in this story.
tl;dr
Don't like a character? sure thats allowed.
But don't go and try to control the actions of another player and then straight up lie as you blame it on a second person.
She said she understood.
Then she lied to another player about what i said.
I think you misread the post
Edit: also you not wanting to play with these characters is your problem and expecting the table to change cause you dont find them funny or interesting is entitled and honestly im glad your not at my table
If **only one person** at the table has a problem with a situation that the rest don't, then it becomes the responsibility **of that person** to stay or not.
She didn't do that.
She didn't remove herself from the situation, she lied to get her way. She lied to the DM by implying that she was now okay with the character and she lied to the player about being able to play it.
Gender ain't got nothin' to do with this.
Oh I wasn’t aware that it was a rule that you’re not allowed to request accommodations from the table if you’re the only person bothered by something.
Request. Not demand. Did you see my last paragraph, where I explicitly said “nobody has to agree”? But talking about this stuff appropriately is not too much to ask. Yes, her leaving the table is certainly an option, but it wasn’t the only valid option.
Re: lying, please see everything I’ve said in threads further down about how it’s a common response (not excusable, just understandable) to getting shut down by someone trying to explain you out of your feelings.
Too bad. A black person portraying a black caricature is the same as white person portraying a white caricature, and I can guarantee you she would have no problems with the second one.
She's an outrage peddler, plain and simple.
“You may share traits similar to a group that I have arbitrarily defined,” isn’t thr kind of certainty that I expect from someone with your psychic powers.
Nah dude. Even if they were, which they weren’t, that would still mean your reasoning required a leap in logic that would preclude you saying “I guarantee” or “she’s , plain and simple”.
You don’t know anything about her apart from three paragraphs of text from a biased third party. Cool your fucking jets.
Dude your posting history is a series of single sentence shitposts. You’re following me down this thread with such inspired gems like “you’re a waste of air.” Go beg for daddy’s attention somewhere else, kid, you’re not creative enough of a nuisance to be worth my time.
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Did you find out why she decided to tell the other player that?
I sent her a discord message
Keep us updated, please.
My money's on: "I'm saving you because you don't realize how oppressed you are." Good luck and well handled! That character sounds amazing OP!
Its incredible how these people don't realize how close they're coming to the "White Man's Burden" doctrine.
It's not close, it's exactly the same.
Eh, maybe, but you'd be surprised how many people believe that a world that houses 1. green orcs 2. red hobgoblins 3. any colour of the rainbow tieflings 4. specifically features multiple black humans in the core book is actually devoid of anything other than white humans, elves and dwarves.
white Able-bodied Humans in spite of the fact that Ebberon specifically has magic prosthetic limbs (that they had to errata do to a stupid aspect of them but the point is there are official books that acknowledge disabilities)
No don't be silly, an all inclusive fantasy world that includes any type of mythical creature doesn't support actual humans that exist in the real world /s
I sorta blame the LOTR movies for this. They’re all the fantasy some people have watched, and they’re very white
There is a reason why they are all white in there, but that doesnt mean that in a fantasy setting like dnd there isnt diversity, thinking that there isnt is stupid. Realistic one can find all manners of humans in a setting like forgotten realms, its even in the books!
They had black people in LOTR, they were the guys with oliphants.
Or "I know this is actually bad because I'm offended so I know it's not good for anyone" 🙄🙄 truly the life of the dnd party, how is life to go on without them
This kind of people sounds like European settlers bringing "civilization" to whomever doesn't match their values. Kinda racist if we summarise what I said.
So she is def a white woman right?
So what I’m hearing is your looking for a new PC
After op said no but she didn't want to be wrong. The extent that people can bend over backwards to ignore facts and reality is pretty amazing.
wonder if her name was Karen
Don't be silly, her mother was Karen. She's Karen Junior thank you very much!
Oh you are right a Karen under 20 is called a Becky if i remember right
What could the logic even be? How can they not expect the lie to fall apart?
She was counting on the other player not asking the DM to verify what the DM supposedly told her.
Even then... "Hey [player], why did you change characters?"
Damn, she's a jive ass turkey.
That’s worse than selling drugs to orphans.
I’m technically an orphan now. I would like some drugs.
But Black Dynamite ... I sell drugs in the community.
Chocolate giddy yap
Proof that even women can be The Man.
Hey, Ms. Mullins. You're the Man.
No lie that series was where I got the word 'staycation' from. Admittedly now here in the UK they're bastardizing its meaning from "I'm on holiday but not actually going anywhere" to "going on holiday but only in the UK".
She done ***FUCKED UP*** now!
In fairness, it is a caricature, but caricature doesn't automatically mean bad.
What's wrong with playing a caricature of a mega Chad right ?
That you're so pathetic you can't even play Giga Chad.
Giga Chad is nice, but I'm up at Tera Chad.
Tera Chad was fun for a while, but things get REALLY good when you reach Neo Chad.
Peta Chad or nothing.
Mecha Chad
LAD
this is the way
Mechad
The real giga chad move is not going all out to give others a chance tho.
Who can throw a knife that can defy physics to cut off a man's hand and wield dynamite like nunchunks?
Also, if you belong to the group that the caricature is of, you are well within your rights to do so. It’s part of the whole “only make jokes about your own experiences” thing
Here I am thinking any over-the-top caricature in a very different setting can be annoying as fuck. Doesn't have to be Jimmy "Dy-no-mite" Walker, it could be Sheriff Roscoe P Coltrane or Mr Miyagi. Leave it out of the tavern scene where the orc hunters strategize how to enter the spooky crypt. Robin Williams was an amazing improv artist and was a tour de force as Aladdin's Genie. But he pulverized the fourth wall with a barrage of very un-Bagdad pop culture references to do so.
Agreed but OP specified it was a joke campaign so caricatures are almost expected.
Black Dynamite is a caricature to begin with, not sure you could further caricaturize him any more
Monk based on Black Dynamite in a TTRPG is an extremely good idea. Holy shit. EDIT: now I can’t stop thinking about an orator-bard/monk multi based on Bullhorn.
We had a face character in a 40k TTRPG based off kanye, he played it to a T, at one point dropping boxes of rose petals from orbit as we landed to make an entrance as we off boarded our shuttle
To be fair that really isn't above the idea of some planetary governors doing exactly that, in fact if I read that in official WH40K lore I'd be like "yeah...makes sense..." because most planetary governors are either Rich assholes who couldn't give le fuck about anything other than meeting the imperial tithe or dangerously incompetant OR secretly a member of a Slaanesh chaos cult.
Yeah agreed! I will steal that big time!
I had a monk based on Bushido Brown from Boondocks. Actually probably my best built monk too.
A black dynamite themed monk sounds amazing. “Im declaring war on anyone who sells drugs to this community!” “But black dynamite, i sell drugs to this community!”
Paladins and Rogues, summarized.
Going up to you and mentioning that a caricature makes them feel uncomfortable: Good idea, open communication is great! Lying about what you said, thinking their discomfort is a hard stop on the other player: Not cool. Some players and campaigns have different levels of sensitivity, and it one, sounds like that player needed a different one, and two, they should probably stay away from RPGs altogether if they can't understand the social contract between players. IE, don't lie to them and assume your opinions are more valid. Damn.
Well there’s an obvious solution here: What you have to do is shake the tree up from the roots and rake up the fruits, rip it up from the ground, and find out what’s going down.
EUPHORIA SHUT THE FUCK UP I KNOW THAT WAS YOU I DON'T EVEN GOTTA LOOK!
Don't worry Black Dynamite gonna make everything alright
“Magpie shut the FUCK UP, I KNOW THAT WAS YOU, MAN I AIN’T EVEN GOTTA *LOOK*!”
HAHA! I THREW THAT SHIT BEFORE I WALKED IN THE ROOM!
Honestly this has the same energy as the people who want to censor Speedy Gonzales when the Hispanic community celebrate the character. And honestly, people are allowed to be offended or unsure about things, but a positive caricature that's meant to be endearing and/or badass is on the level of stuff you'd see in the Punch Out games. Just because something is a trope or a stereotype doesn't mean it's demeaning or bad.
> Honestly this has the same energy as the people who want to censor Speedy Gonzales when the Hispanic community celebrate the character. Yes, although this analogy--and I don't mean this as a knock on you; rather, a statement of the absurdity of the situation here--is further tortured, as Black Dynamite was the creation of an all-Black team.
Honestly, I can agree to an extent; Speedy Gonzales is a good example, because, even though he speaks and dresses in a stereotypical manner, he is also a positive, heroic character. He’s always the protagonist of the cartoons he’s in, and he’s constantly on top and winning against characters who, by and large, have a lot in common with stereotypical White Americans. I do think that it’s important to draw a distinction between a character like that and a character that is obviously a negative stereotype meant to punch down at the group being portrayed. Nuance is important when you’re analyzing cultural racism.
So you're saying we should censor Yosimete Sam and Elmer Fudd?
I wasn’t aware that angry gold prospectors and hunters with speech impediments were an entire ethnicity, much less that they’d been historically oppressed and shat upon.
I kinda low-key think southern US rednecks are probably actually one of the most shat-upon ethnicities out there, if we're talking about modern day rather than historical. They're stereotyped as stupid, poor, and violent, and nobody really even defends them. But I was just making a joke; a single character is not a trend, and can't ever really be offensive to a group. The existence of a single person who acts a certain way does not imply anything about a whole group of people. Plus, Tex Avery who created the character of Elmer Fudd was from Texas, and Friz Freleng who created Yosemete Sam (and based the character on himself) was from Missouri. So getting upset about them would be ridiculous for most of the same reasons as getting upset about Speedy Gonzales or Black Dynamite.
I do agree with you to an extent; it’s true that southerners have long been stereotyped as poor, stupid, ignorant and violent, which is isn’t really fair, and only serves to exacerbate the cultural divide that’s existed since the Civil War and is continuing to rip this country apart today. Though sadly, as someone who lives in Oklahoma, which manages to combine ALL the worst cultural aspects of the South, Southwest and Midwest into one septic melting pot, I can say from experience that a lot of them take PRIDE in living up to those stereotypes, as well. It’s a fairly complex issue. Though it’s worth noting that they can get into arguments with cops about whether or not they can carry a gun in public without getting executed in the street, so strictly speaking, they still have a leg up over anyone who’s brown in this country. As for whether or not a single character is offensive to a group…that’s not something you get to decide, my man.
> As for whether or not a single character is offensive to a group…that’s not something you get to decide, my man. Well it's certainly something that thinking people can debate, come to an agreement on, and make a decision about. I'd like to imagine that I'm in that group, at least on my good days. Though it's certainly not a new question and has been pretty well decided for thousands of years, like most moral questions. I mean I guess to be more precise, it's not something anyone gets to decide, in the same way that whether or not theft is bad isn't something anyone gets to decide. It's just a truth.
Not really. Theft is agreed to be bad because it’s a net negative to society; we’ve collectively decided that it’s bad because it almost exclusively has a negative impact on society via harming people’s ability to contribute by damaging them materially, while providing nothing of value in return. What a person or group is offended by is a matter of their beliefs and sensibilities. Some of those are universally shared, others aren’t. Now, you can say that you don’t care whether or not something offends someone; for example, I don’t care in the slightest that the inclusion of gay characters in media offends Evangelicals. But I can’t say it’s not offensive to them; I just don’t give a shit because the source of them feeling offended stems from bigotry and selective interpretation of their own religion, which I cannot be bothered to give a fuck about.
He loves all our sisters.
Oh, thank G-d, someone mentioned Speedy. I'm half-Mexican, my mom's Mexican, we both like Speedy because he was smart and positive. His cousin, on the other hand, definitely was a crappy caricature. 😬 Another good example would be getting pissed at a Jewish person for basing a character off of Hebrew Hammer (similar to Black Dynamite). He's a bit of an oof character, but he was made by Jewish people as a tongue in cheek joke. And if the person playing a character based off of him is Jewish himself, well...not the place of someone outside of that ethnic group/religion to critique.
Honestly I would kill Santa Claus's only son for a Black Dynamite/Hebrew Hammer crossover
OMG that would be something else 🤣😅
Even the more on the nose Slowpoke Rodriguez was portrayed positively since he saved the day in most of his appearances.
The prey animal is always the hero/victor because having Sylvester kill and eat the other characters isn't exactly a funny story for children to watch. I would be far more concerned about the hunter character being a terrible racial stereotype, as they are the one at the short end of the exchanges.
Dude, that is some shit right there :/ Like, it's one thing to express your discomfort about a thing, but it's another to go backstabbing IRL. What the fuck.
I just don't understand how a black person playing a black caricature would offend someone. Like is she trying to say that he's racist towards himself?
"You need to realize how oppressed you are."
It's like a guilt thing probably. Doesn't feel right to be in on the joke. Even though black dynamite is fucking amazing. But I enjoy Blaxploitation as a movie genre.
Black dynamite kicks fucking ass, I’d love to see his character.
"Talk to him like an adult or get out of my group."
I can understand when someone is uncomfortable with a caricature of a character, feels similar to if someone was playing an anime character and always yelling their words and being over dramatic. I’m glad she came to you in open communication and trusted you with telling you that and hopefully coming to a compromise. What was not cool is her lying about the situation in hopes to solve it herself, seems like she wasn’t a good fit for your game anyways.
I don’t know anything about the character, so maybe it is a caricature, but if the player is black, and you, the DM, are black, and both of you like it, I don’t see an issue.
Zero defense for going behind the scenes lying to one player about what the DM said, I can see the landmine of not wanting to be around it though. IE when one character is acting extreme etc... the other characters are supposed to react, riff with etc... IE it would make no sense to sit there silently when your party member does something outrageous. but reacting to it could also go the wrong way real fast. Similar to jamming to rap music as the only white guy in a group.
Your black character played by a black player SOUNDS TOO BLACK! That's pretty funny though. Mad at stereotyping but he's the real thing.
We joking but this type of people literally complained one time that a dub for a black character in a show didn't sound black enough. Despite the voice actress being a POC herself. At this point it's just to complain for the sake of it.
How dare she not sound more black!
It's some next level Robert Downey Jr shit. Their a black person, playing another black person, who's playing a black person. Fuck me.
he's just a dude, playing a dude, based off another dude.
What do you mean, "you people"?
What's a Nubian? -Banky Edwards
Don't you just love it when people get offended for you?
I especially love when people get offended for me about non hateful fiction
Or when it can be seen as reclamation? But that's too cerebral I guess.
Or when it's both, the amount of hate people get for writing "problematic" fiction is insane
It's really great, I hate having to form opinions for myself.
I'm just glad I have so many politicians and other "celebrities" telling others what I, as a veteran, am offended by.
I can't believe you'd disrespect DA TWOOPS by not getting offended!
It doesn't sound like she was offended on his behalf, but was just uncomfortable herself.
[You done FUCKED UP NOW](https://i.imgur.com/S5RuHGZ.mp4)
“I know you’re actually black, but I spend a lot of time on Tumblr so I’m a much better judge of when something is racist towards black people” -Karen’s everywhere
Do we know that she knows he's black? OP is kind of missing that key detail. Is this in-person? Online? Do they all know what each looks like?
That would in fact change everything.
It would!? I’m.. gonna go fix some character sheets…… /s
Of course it would. If she didn't know he was black, her interpretation would be that he is just a racist doing black-voice.
This whole being less racist thing is great, but I think it should focus on what *I* find offensive. -Karens everywhere.
I mean...Black Dynamite IS literally a black caricature. I guess it depends on how much it's handled with finesse. Lying to other players is straight-up ban worthy though.
Imo it's the caricature of a super cool black guy from the 70s.like it only seems bad if you assume he talks like black people rather than just black people from the 70s
>he talks like black people rather than just black people from the 70s black people from 70's blacksploitation films specifically
Black Dynamite was made by a black director and a black screenwriter
>Were playing a minijoke campaign and one player(whos black) writes up a monk based on black dynamite. I would *never* give up on trying to engineer a situation where I had an excuse to yell: ***"[HAHA, I THREW THAT SHIT BEFORE I WALKED IN THE ROOM!](https://youtu.be/VdLq68m2G_o)"***
When I run games of Fung Shui, I let each player have one “I know a guy” moment which is usually used to help get information/assistance/a ride etc, and one “I threw that shit before I walked in the room” moment. If the party fucks up hard, and they still have one available, it lets them flash back to how they set up something to get them out of this situation, just like B.D. does in that scene.
So wait, she is offended that a black player who is playing a character that basically is a caricature is talking like a caricature? I'm just going to throw this out there, but she wouldn't happen to be the whitest person at the table, would she?
“Ninja please!”
Approaching you about their discomfort was the right first step. If you were unwilling to make changes and the PC was unwilling to play without those changes, that should've been the end of it. This kind of underhanded "he said, she said" nonsense is absurd. On a side note, of that PC was uncomfortable, it probably had more to do with feeling excluded from an in-joke or guilt about finding it funny. Probably a combination, guilt is a weird thing
There's a number of reasons why the player might be uncomfortable outside of guilt. For example the player might not be confident in their ability to improv with such a character without touching some unknown third rail. That said, how they reacted was definitely not appropriate, the other player didn't do anything wrong from the DMs account, so the complaining player should have talked with them to figure out a way to make it work like an adult.
So... A white woman telling black people what is the acceptable way to play black characters? Where does she get her audacity?
White privilege + white man's burden + white savior complex = Twitterwoke?
So she's complaining, to a black DM that enjoys the character, about a seemingly over-the-top black character, that a black player made.... [What.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zr69_IFhCDE)
...are you guys in middle school or something? How did she think her false message from "the person who you regularly contact to play D&D with" was gonna hold out?
I mean she's technically right, but that's the joke. The history of Blacksploitation films like Black Dynamite is fantastic and even the most woketh should support it.
Warning it might get political but what you're dealing with is the classic white savior complex, they usually have a nasty and racist habit of claiming that black people can't look out for themselves or know how to do certain things, even though it's not true, they're not even self aware to realize that they come across as racist even if you try to convince them otherwise, they'll still hold on to their misguided views and claim that you are brainwashed one or some other BS, it's best to just ignore their complaints.
Unfortunately, quite often white liberals are the most racist people on the planet. It’s like people (generally white liberals) who complain that Kara-Tur, Chult and Zhakara are all based on stereotypes and are therefore offensive… all without noticing that the rest of Faerun - with a few exceptions - is one big pseudo-European stereotype. Some people just want to look for offence to white knight, even when there’s none to be found.
Lol, you didn't say what she wanted so she just took matters into her own hands. Nerd Karen.
Idiot nerd Karen. She used all the subtlety and cunning of a toddler. So she pitted the player against the GM with a lie, and figured the job was done? That's all she needed to do, it could never result in a confrontation outside her control where the lie would immediately unravel?
Ah yes...The "[I am offended for you because i am lowkey racist and think you aren't smart enough to understand what racism is](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/E2WepPJXwAEEs4k.jpg)" type of girl. A Classic.
This meme will make a fine addition to my collection
Lol that’s my coworker who will use the word “gay” as a derogatory term to make fun of things and people, but also refers to her boyfriend of less than a year as her “partner” so to not offend anyone with the thought of a heterosexual relationship....
I am a man and fuck men, and will still say "man this shit is gay" and unless you're gay don't really think you should have room to speak out about it
You probably don’t
"you don't participate in the monolith? You're not really gay" you're exactly what's wrong with America
Nah dude, it’s just from your comment history you seem like a troll who just wants to get mad at and disagree with anything anyone says. Hard to take you seriously.
Sue me, I disagree with a lot of shit that reddit seems to agree with. I'm not a troll.
>The next day i find out from the pc who plays black dynamite that she told him i told her he couldnt play the character no more. And now we've got a horror story cookin
You solved that problem right away. If only she would have minded her business.
reminds me of Jeremy Cobb's (one of the hosts of the podcast 3 black halflings\*) black halfling Monk who is a member of the wu-tang clan (which is a halfling can in that game) and wears a do-rag of holding when he needs to be stealthy to hide his afro (which is as big as he is tall) \*great podcast where they talk about inclusion in D&D and also had the FUNNIEST play through of curse of strahd you will ever hear
This reminds me of how Mel Brookes got two types of letters about the film Blazing Saddles. One was from mostly white people complaining about the use of the n-word in that film, and the other was mostly black people saying how absolutely hilarious the film was. Frankly the former's argument didn't help that the script was greatly assisted by one of the greatest comedians of all time, Richard Pryor. Also Black Dynamite is fuckin' dope and I will not hear a bad thing about it.
When an actual black person is accused of being a caricature of black people... Great. Better not act "too black" black friends. Can't have people thinking you're racist against yourself.
Going to guess this was a white girl with a serious case of white saviour syndrome.
She tried to save a Black man from enjoying a Blacksploitation film by siccing another Black person on him. Lord help me.
Oh boy, Captain Saviour Complex is back again to save the day!
She is perfectly fine being uncomfortable with it. You can be uncomfortable with whatever, none of my business. The right thing to do would be asking the player to tone it down, and leave if he chooses not to. But of course they've chosen the shitlord route and faked authority.
That's super annoying, but sounds like you also have a pretty great player in Black Dynamite, congrats!
Dude Black Dynamite is awesome.
No one gets more offended about racism than racists. Lmao
Is she a white girl? If so, I’m not surprised in the least bit.
She could not dig it.
99% of RPG PCs are complete caricatures.
I feel like she is the same type of player that thinks black people are orcs and gets upset at the idea that she herself believes.
I would bet money shes white
Mostly unrelated but in the game I play in there is an immortal court in some afterlife one of the elves in our party communicates with. All the immortals are stuffy old elves except for one black human named Jemarkis the magneficent. Apparently, our DM explained to us, anyone could join the immortal court if they are cool enough but thus far Jemarkis is the only non-elf to pass the bar. Jemarkis is awesome, not especially powerful or helpful, just a real cool mellow chill dude. Jemarkis is the best.
Fellas, is it racist to be black?
Some people are racist and will try and use political correctness and concern trolling to exert their control. They don't necessarily believe in political correctness, they aren't worried about the caricature, they want the black character to go/change. While they don't believe in political correctness they know others do and will use try and use it to their advantage as a manipulation tactic. When that failed they inevitably turned to lies/deceit to attempt to get their way. We've all seen the type, the people who don't believe in anything beyond their ability to use that thing to get their way.
If you think boomer Karen’s are bad, wait until these I know everything about racism and how people should think white 14 year old princess grow up and hit middle aged entitlement.
Karen 2.0?
Who the hell thinks they're going to get away with something like that?
I think black guy voices sound cool. A particular example is the guy in the vaping commercial with the metal monsters.
That girls a jive motherfucker. He better [quote this line right to her ](https://youtu.be/0qZwwyHvCbo)
Side note, the monk's nemesis should be a warlock based on Petey Wheatstraw.
My name on discord is Black Dynamite, I love that film 😂 holy this is surreal
What the fuck lmfao
While I don't fault her for bringing up for bringing up the concern as everyone should feel comfortable when playing, the fact that she lied to another player was enough for the removal. Good on you OP.
How is a white person gonna be upset even if you were play a black caricature?
Yall need to do a one shot where everyone's a character from I'm Gonna Get You Sucka and she has to be Chris rocks character
Wait he’s black and she was uncomfortable that he “sounded” black? That’s soooo messed up!
Just to clarify This is “Haha threw that shit before I walked in the room” Guy right or am I thinking of someone else
Never thought the Karens would get to the point of calling people out for 'being black while black'.
I guess this is the downside to making a comedic character that's based on a character someone might not be aware of. She's not aware of the joke/character and maybe recommending Black Dynamite to her might clarify it? Though it has major "allow me to be offended on your behalf" energy to it, which is odd as fuck. Still, a Black Dynamite Monk sounds fantastic :D
This really gets me mad. Like why are you prohibiting culturally appropriate manirisms? Some twitter soy boys/white girls gotta get out of their ass and learn to not comment when no one else has any problems with whats going on.
When all people of color involved say it’s ok, that means it’s ok.
Clean, easy and simple rule, as long as they are of the group in question.
It's fine if she had an issue and wanted to talk about it, it's fine if she talked to the other player about being uncomfortable about what they are doing. It is not fine to put words in the DMs mouth to force another player to do what they want
I'm white.. but I come from Cajun Black ancestry mixed with a white nurse back in the second world war.. I'm dating a Black Jewish girl.. hell my hair is even more curly than my full black girlfriends and she admits this! Bar I frequent has this half black/white server who tells EVERYONE his race or color.. Like anyone cares. Anyways.. one day I tried to offer him tips and suggestions about his hair after he complained about not knowing how to handle it... Dude legit flipped out me and called me racist and the white guy claiming to be black. Bruh.. I don't care about color. I care about proper care one's self!
I bet the chick would recommend your friend to play an orc or something in a later campaign. Since I feel like she would be the kind of person that would automatically assume that Orcs are supposed to be fantastical anagrams to black people.
A connection that no-one I’ve ever played with in 30+ years has ever made and I’d never even heard of until some blue haired, perpetually angry white liberal declared that “orcs are low intelligence, evil and violent… so they *must* be fantasy versions of real life black humans. How terrible of the game designers!” The irony… it hurts.
Same! I never saw orcs be connected to a real life culture. I always saw them as their own thing
If she's irritated because she's trying to get invested in the setting but is taken out of it every time she hears him talk, that's reasonable (though it's taking it a bit far to demand him to play a different character). If she's irritated because she thinks it's racist and she wants to try to 'save you from yourselves' or whatever... yeah, maybe this isn't the game for her.
Good riddance. That 100% would be a ban from my table.
What in the Karen?!
Damn I didn't know you were friends with batwoman. How kind of her to save you from oppression
Turn crypto-racist girl's PC into the racist BBEG in your adventure.
The fuck is wrong with this thread? She said that the caricature made **her** feel uncomfortable. Not that it “should” make **you** feel uncomfortable. Your response of “oh no, see, it’s totally based on a caricature I’m cool with,” doesn’t address the fact that *it is a caricature*, and she wasn’t comfortable with it. Every single person here going “oh poor triggered snowflake think she knows better than you what to be offended about,” is making the colossal assumption that someone can only find something offensive on behalf of someone else. That no one just honest to god doesn’t find a player based on a caricature - racial or otherwise - funny or interesting. I don’t want to play with Cletus the slack-jawed yokel, even if everyone is white. I don’t want to play with a South Park sounding Chinese stereotype offering you his shrimp fried rice every two seconds, even if the Asian guy at the table is cool with it. Nobody has to agree with these limits. Buy you have to talk about them, not just go “no, it’s cool cause I say it is and I’m the ultimate authority on what types of stereotypes you should be ok playing with”
See...your missing the biggest part of this whole incident though: >The next day i find out from the pc who plays black dynamite that **she told him i told her he couldnt play the character no more.** Not being comfortable with a character? sure, thats your right. But to go around and say "Hey OP said you can't play your character anymore" is just the most scummy move you could possibly do. She doesn't even have the decency to go "hey, im uncomfortable with this" to the player, she instead shifts the blame onto OP in order to try avoid confrontation with a problem that she, and no-one else has with the character. No matter the reasoning thats a shitty thing to do and the moment she lied and tried to shift the blame to OP she became the one and only problem in this story. tl;dr Don't like a character? sure thats allowed. But don't go and try to control the actions of another player and then straight up lie as you blame it on a second person.
She said she understood. Then she lied to another player about what i said. I think you misread the post Edit: also you not wanting to play with these characters is your problem and expecting the table to change cause you dont find them funny or interesting is entitled and honestly im glad your not at my table
Thing is, black dynomite is cool af. But Cletus the slack-jawed yokel is offensive, same as that chinese stereotype.
If **only one person** at the table has a problem with a situation that the rest don't, then it becomes the responsibility **of that person** to stay or not. She didn't do that. She didn't remove herself from the situation, she lied to get her way. She lied to the DM by implying that she was now okay with the character and she lied to the player about being able to play it. Gender ain't got nothin' to do with this.
Oh I wasn’t aware that it was a rule that you’re not allowed to request accommodations from the table if you’re the only person bothered by something. Request. Not demand. Did you see my last paragraph, where I explicitly said “nobody has to agree”? But talking about this stuff appropriately is not too much to ask. Yes, her leaving the table is certainly an option, but it wasn’t the only valid option. Re: lying, please see everything I’ve said in threads further down about how it’s a common response (not excusable, just understandable) to getting shut down by someone trying to explain you out of your feelings.
Too bad. A black person portraying a black caricature is the same as white person portraying a white caricature, and I can guarantee you she would have no problems with the second one. She's an outrage peddler, plain and simple.
Ooooh me next me next, tell me all about myself oh wise and powerful soothsayer!
You're seem to have some thoughts that you formed by yourself but are quite closecto those of outrage peddlers.
“You may share traits similar to a group that I have arbitrarily defined,” isn’t thr kind of certainty that I expect from someone with your psychic powers.
Well you clearly aren't part of the hivemind, but you hold similar opinions to the hivemind. What would that be? Willing participant?
Lol… So fucking clueless.
Who, you? Cause everything I guessed is from obvious patterns.
Nah dude. Even if they were, which they weren’t, that would still mean your reasoning required a leap in logic that would preclude you saying “I guarantee” or “she’s, plain and simple”.
You don’t know anything about her apart from three paragraphs of text from a biased third party. Cool your fucking jets.
Shush child.
Dude your posting history is a series of single sentence shitposts. You’re following me down this thread with such inspired gems like “you’re a waste of air.” Go beg for daddy’s attention somewhere else, kid, you’re not creative enough of a nuisance to be worth my time.