[MUD-Dev] Re: Marian's Tailor vs. Psychopaths

[Jo Dillon <emily#thelonious,new.ox.ac.uk>]

Adam Wiggins (adam#angel,com) spake thusly:
> On Fri, 18 Sep 1998, James Wilson wrote:
> > On Fri, 18 Sep 1998, Adam Wiggins wrote:
> > >Anyhow, I wanted to point out that a similar (although not identical) tack
> > >was taken on some of the older whitie vs. darkie muds.  The one I had the
> > 
> > excuse me? "whitie" and "darkie"?!?
> > the connection between RL racism and the traditional fantasy conceit of 
> > 'monstrous' races has never been expressed more clearly.
> 
> Um, if racism bothers you, I'd say you'd best get the hell out of anything
> related to computer games.  I mean: your average fantasy book or mud is
> generally focused largely on warring tribes of varying races that don't
> get along too well.  One of my favorite races on the first mud I played
> was dwarf, because *every* other race *despised* them.  Great fun.  Or
> single player computer games: take your typical strategy game: in Master
> of Orion, the goal of the game was to become Dictator of the Universe
> through a policy of racial genocide.  In Command and Conquer, the
> (arguably) "strongest" side was the Axis, aka the RL Bad Guys(tm).

  Um...you're thinking of the Soviet Union, in fact. And as to whether
the Communists were RL bad guys depends on your perspective. There are
even people who still revere Stalin even though they know what he did.
The point I'm making is that it can make for a much better story background
if you give each side its own motivations rather than saying that they're
an 'evil race' or 'psychotic dictatorship'.


-- 
	Jo

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