You took my comment out of context. There was at least one person claiming that playing fantasy games influences real life behavior. That's what I was specifically responding to. During the Satanic panic, groups claimed that playing D&D would negatively influence real world behavior. For the vast majority of people it didn't.
Playing fantasy games is, itself, a real life behavior. You can't be horrible to real life people playing fantasy games and be excused just because you were doing it within the context of a fantasy game.
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Canto alla vita alla sua bellezza ad ogni sua ferita ogni sua carezza!
I sing to life and to its tragic beauty To pain and to strife, but all that dances through me The rise and the fall, I've lived through it all!
The last few post in this thread about fiction influencing RL reminds me of the Satanic Panic of the 1980's.
There were groups claiming that playing D&D would turn people into Satan worshiping homicidal maniacs.
That didn't happen....
Did you miss the part where I said the lingering effects on people's thoughts is not even the most immediate effect of racially insensitive language, but rather it is the immediate retraumatizing of people who are already hurt? Is that not enough?
I interpreted your post and others to be a blanket statements, meaning "everyone" is effected. If you were referring to some people rather than everyone, then yes, it's enough. I acknowledge their feelings, I just have an issue with people making broad brush statements
Do you really honestly think that the recent changes represent the kind of fear mongering and xenophobia that we saw with the Satanic Panic?
No, The changes made by WoTC are not on the same level as the Satanic panic. My point was limited to fictions influence/impact on behavior.
You took my comment out of context. There was at least one person claiming that playing fantasy games influences real life behavior. That's what I was specifically responding to. During the Satanic panic, groups claimed that playing D&D would negatively influence real world behavior. For the vast majority of people it didn't.
Playing fantasy games is, itself, a real life behavior. You can't be horrible to real life people playing fantasy games and be excused just because you were doing it within the context of a fantasy game.
Playing a game isn't behavior. Behavior is the way in which one acts or conducts oneself, especially toward others. You can engage in behaviors while playing a game, but the act of playing a game is not a behavior in and of itself.
Yes, it's true that people who are jerks in real life are likely to be jerks at the gaming table. But I'm looking at it from the other direction. I think it's unlikely that someone fighting an Orc in D&D is going to carry over in RL to their treatment of people of color.
The last few post in this thread about fiction influencing RL reminds me of the Satanic Panic of the 1980's.
There were groups claiming that playing D&D would turn people into Satan worshiping homicidal maniacs.
That didn't happen....
Fiction does influence real life--countless studies have demonstrated that marginalization of cultures and identities in fiction results in promulgation of those negative stereotypes in the general populace and internalization of negativity by the members of those marginalized groups.
The last few post in this thread about fiction influencing RL reminds me of the Satanic Panic of the 1980's.
There were groups claiming that playing D&D would turn people into Satan worshiping homicidal maniacs.
That didn't happen....
Fiction does influence real life--countless studies have demonstrated that marginalization of cultures and identities in fiction results in promulgation of those negative stereotypes in the general populace and internalization of negativity by the members of those marginalized groups.
Can you post a link to some of those studies?
Dude, there has been so much testimony in this and other threads, I treated the misunderstanding you stated we had in good faith (and there is a confused effort by somes to associate trauma theory, racialized and other, with pull the trigger violence), but we're back at it as these threads always seem to do with someone claiming the experiences laid out before them are invalid and they need to show more peer reviewed studies. This whole discussion, as so many others, was sparked by a grievance from folks who fear game changes, requiring folks to explain to them how said changes does no harm to the game and is actually a good thing in making the game more inviting to other players. Your planting a flag on the position that wants to invalidate the actual feelings expressed and the actual feelings that the game is moving in a right direction, with no actual harm to your game?
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
You took my comment out of context. There was at least one person claiming that playing fantasy games influences real life behavior. That's what I was specifically responding to. During the Satanic panic, groups claimed that playing D&D would negatively influence real world behavior. For the vast majority of people it didn't.
Again, there is a significant difference in that there is zero evidence of anyone being able to cast spells in real life and the vast majority of players did not and do not play Satanists.
On the other hand, there is plenty of evidence of people being racist in real life and plenty of evidence of people playing racists in game. And in this very thread and threads like it of people insisting that systematic racism is necessary in game to facilitate good gameplay.
I never claimed that those groups said that people would play Satanist in D&D. Rather the claim by these groups was that people would become Satanist and murderers in real life after playing D&D.
The last few post in this thread about fiction influencing RL reminds me of the Satanic Panic of the 1980's.
There were groups claiming that playing D&D would turn people into Satan worshiping homicidal maniacs.
That didn't happen....
Fiction does influence real life--countless studies have demonstrated that marginalization of cultures and identities in fiction results in promulgation of those negative stereotypes in the general populace and internalization of negativity by the members of those marginalized groups.
Can you post a link to some of those studies?
Dude, there has been so much testimony in this and other threads, I treated the misunderstanding you stated we had in good faith (and there is a confused effort by somes to associate trauma theory, racialized and other, with pull the trigger violence), but we're back at it as these threads always seem to do with someone claiming the experiences laid out before them are invalid and they need to show more peer reviewed studies. This whole discussion, as so many others, was sparked by a grievance from folks who fear game changes, requiring folks to explain to them how said changes does no harm to the game and is actually a good thing in making the game more inviting to other players. Your planting a flag on the position that wants to invalidate the actual feelings expressed and the actual feelings that the game is moving in a right direction, with no actual harm to your game?
I am not invalidating other peoples feelings. I acknowledge that there are people who genuinely feel the way they do. The reason why I spoke up again is because it seemed like there were a few people making blanket/broad brush statements about the influence of fantasy on others.
Yes, it's true that people who are jerks in real life are likely to be jerks at the gaming table. But I'm looking at it from the other direction. I think it's unlikely that someone fighting an Orc in D&D is going to carry over in RL to their treatment of people of color.
Why not?
Provide reasoning. Provide science, since you seem fond of it. Provide a reason beyond "that just doesn't seem likely". Because 'that just doesn't seem likely' is nothing but an intuitive gut-feeling argument, and it's a your-word-versus-mine sort of argument that holds no water.
The argument - backed by real science, real scientific testing and analysis - is that media implicitly/tacitly condoning certain forms of behavior such as "this entire kind of people can be written off as Lesser and safely treated as poorly as you like and people will not only never bother to care but even value you more highly because of it" can steer someone towards that behavior in reality. The effect is not pronounced, it is not engineering-level consistent, and it is not guaranteed, but it's absolutely real. "I killed three orcs in the game so I'm going to go murder the N'giris tomorrow" is extremely unlikely, yes. Many years of engaging deeply and heavily with media that portrays it as okey - heroic, even! - to treat any humanoid that is not of your particular, specific species as a lesser being unworthy of empathy or respect has the capacity to amplify endemic biases present in any random person and make it more likely for that person to engage in toxic, harmful behavior. Often, without ever realizing that their behavior is toxic or harmful in the first place.
That is the entire definition of systemic exclusionism - that the system itself encourages and perpetuates these ideals through a fundamentally biased structure designed and developed by people with a poor awareness of exclusionist issues. Furthermore, you are indeed pushing for literal "Systemic Exclusionism" in D&D by demanding that exclusionism be written into the system, i.e. "all orcs are always evil forever unless the DM decides to go out of their way to make non-evil orcs for whatever dumb reason someone might want non-evil orcs." How is that okay, again? You can protest "they're not people so they don't matter!" all you like, and we'll keep telling you.
Those are the exact same words people have been using for hundreds and hundreds of years to justify things history calls "atrocities" today. Do you really want to go there?
Yes, it's true that people who are jerks in real life are likely to be jerks at the gaming table. But I'm looking at it from the other direction. I think it's unlikely that someone fighting an Orc in D&D is going to carry over in RL to their treatment of people of color.
Why not?
Provide reasoning. Provide science, since you seem fond of it. Provide a reason beyond "that just doesn't seem likely". Because 'that just doesn't seem likely' is nothing but an intuitive gut-feeling argument, and it's a your-word-versus-mine sort of argument that holds no water.
A lot of people have been using personal testimony as if it were a universal truth, so why can't I? Statistically valid surveys and academic studies are superior to personal testimony, but people tossing links to each other usually just results in people critiquing the source rather than discussing the issue at hand. However, when someone claims "countless studies", it's not unreasonable to ask for a link.
But orcs aren't people and they derive from mythology, demon gods of hell, and cannibal and baby eater and violent brutes from fables, and if you change it you erase the culture that they represent, and that's bad.
I posted a longer post explaining everything but for some reason didn't work so I have to redo everything from beginning
The last few post in this thread about fiction influencing RL reminds me of the Satanic Panic of the 1980's.
There were groups claiming that playing D&D would turn people into Satan worshiping homicidal maniacs.
That didn't happen....
Fiction does influence real life--countless studies have demonstrated that marginalization of cultures and identities in fiction results in promulgation of those negative stereotypes in the general populace and internalization of negativity by the members of those marginalized groups.
Can you post a link to some of those studies?
Unfortunately most of the current research is locked behind paywalls. That said, a simple google search was able to come up with a number of studies that were not locked behind a paywall--if you actually wanted to educate yourself, I am sure you could find the same with relative ease.
That said, I generally assume that people are willing to change their minds if confronted with conflicting information, but they generally are unwilling to seek out that information that might disrupt their closely held worldview, even if that information is just a few keystrokes away. Here are some quotes from articles--you will have to pardon me for being too lazy to properly Blue Book the citations.
Relating to how removing stereotypes and characters that do not conform to those stereotypes might influence children's view on marginalized groups: "Results showed that extended exposure to a multi-chapter story about a counter-stereotypical protagonist could reduce children’s endorsement of gender stereotypes; this effect was particularly strong in male children exposed to an atypical male protagonist. These findings support the importance of children’s literature about protagonists who move beyond stereotypes." Examining the impact of fiction literature on children’s gender stereotypes, Ellen E. Kneeskern & Patricia A. Reeder, Current Psychology (2020).
Noting that individuals tend to internalize negative stereotypes and act on that internalization, even if they know the stereotype is fictitious: "men were equally harsh in the wake of a stereotypic female portrayal regardless of whether they believed it to be factual or fictitious." The Impact of Factual Versus Fictional Media Portrayals on Cultural Stereotypes, SHEILA T. MURPHY, The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science (1998).
NPR did a recent article about how the Matrix films, made by two transgendered women, is important to the trans community not only because they have representation in the directors, but because the themes of the stories resonate with them and make them feel like their life story is being understood.
Here is an article that shows how majority groups seem to benefit from watching media infused with stereotyping, while minority groups have lower self-esteem.
"Researchers have found that prolonged television exposure predicts a decrease in self-esteem for all girls and for black boys, but an increase in self-esteem for white boys. These differences correlate with the racial and gender practices in Hollywood, which predominantly casts white men as heroes, while erasing or subordinating other groups as villains, sidekicks, and sexual objects. Studies also show how media images of Native American mascots lower the self-esteem and affect the moods of Native American adolescents and young adults (who suffer from high suicide rates)."
I could go on, but that provides a decent start. As I said, there is a LOT of research on this topic, all which points in the same direction.
The last few post in this thread about fiction influencing RL reminds me of the Satanic Panic of the 1980's.
There were groups claiming that playing D&D would turn people into Satan worshiping homicidal maniacs.
That didn't happen....
Fiction does influence real life--countless studies have demonstrated that marginalization of cultures and identities in fiction results in promulgation of those negative stereotypes in the general populace and internalization of negativity by the members of those marginalized groups.
Can you post a link to some of those studies?
Unfortunately most of the current research is locked behind paywalls. That said, a simple google search was able to come up with a number of studies that were not locked behind a paywall--if you actually wanted to educate yourself, I am sure you could find the same with relative ease.
That said, I generally assume that people are willing to change their minds if confronted with conflicting information, but they generally are unwilling to seek out that information that might disrupt their closely held worldview, even if that information is just a few keystrokes away. Here are some quotes from articles--you will have to pardon me for being too lazy to properly Blue Book the citations.
Relating to how removing stereotypes and characters that do not conform to those stereotypes might influence children's view on marginalized groups: "Results showed that extended exposure to a multi-chapter story about a counter-stereotypical protagonist could reduce children’s endorsement of gender stereotypes; this effect was particularly strong in male children exposed to an atypical male protagonist. These findings support the importance of children’s literature about protagonists who move beyond stereotypes." Examining the impact of fiction literature on children’s gender stereotypes, Ellen E. Kneeskern & Patricia A. Reeder, Current Psychology (2020).
Noting that individuals tend to internalize negative stereotypes and act on that internalization, even if they know the stereotype is fictitious: "men were equally harsh in the wake of a stereotypic female portrayal regardless of whether they believed it to be factual or fictitious." The Impact of Factual Versus Fictional Media Portrayals on Cultural Stereotypes, SHEILA T. MURPHY, The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science (1998).
NPR did a recent article about how the Matrix films, made by two transgendered women, is important to the trans community not only because they have representation in the directors, but because the themes of the stories resonate with them and make them feel like their life story is being understood.
Here is an article that shows how majority groups seem to benefit from watching media infused with stereotyping, while minority groups have lower self-esteem.
"Researchers have found that prolonged television exposure predicts a decrease in self-esteem for all girls and for black boys, but an increase in self-esteem for white boys. These differences correlate with the racial and gender practices in Hollywood, which predominantly casts white men as heroes, while erasing or subordinating other groups as villains, sidekicks, and sexual objects. Studies also show how media images of Native American mascots lower the self-esteem and affect the moods of Native American adolescents and young adults (who suffer from high suicide rates)."
I could go on, but that provides a decent start. As I said, there is a LOT of research on this topic, all which points in the same direction.
Playing fantasy games is, itself, a real life behavior. You can't be horrible to real life people playing fantasy games and be excused just because you were doing it within the context of a fantasy game.
Playing a game isn't behavior. Behavior is the way in which one acts or conducts oneself, especially toward others. You can engage in behaviors while playing a game, but the act of playing a game is not a behavior in and of itself.
Yes, it's true that people who are jerks in real life are likely to be jerks at the gaming table. But I'm looking at it from the other direction. I think it's unlikely that someone fighting an Orc in D&D is going to carry over in RL to their treatment of people of color.
1) I disagree with your use of the word "behavior." Playing a game is absolutely a behavior and your arguing that it isn't really just sounds like you're arguing for the sake of arguing, or trolling.
2) I'm not talking about people roleplaying one way and acting differently away from the gaming table, I'm talking about racially insensitive language in the game constituting the author being a jerk to the players and thus removing or changing the language is what a responsible author does. And that people who use harmful language in their gaming are literally being jerks to their fellow players, which is the behavior I'm talking about.
But orcs aren't people and they derive from mythology, demon gods of hell, and cannibal and baby eater and violent brutes from fables, and if you change it you erase the culture that they represent, and that's bad.
I posted a longer post explaining everything but for some reason didn't work so I have to redo everything from beginning
This was already discussed in-depth a few pages back, so I will not repeat everything, but the simple reality is that this belief is a common misconception, not a reality.
Orcs in the sense we think of them were created by Tolkien in the 20th Century. The word Orc seemed to have been a generic catch-all with forms used in various sources like Beowulf and Spencer, but not describing anything specific until Tolkien gave them their particular shape. Tolkien's orcs were created for a very specific purpose--they were there to represent the corruption of the youth (the eternally young elves with their culture and love of the land) into something horrific and dedicated to the industry and war. They were basically an allegory for an entire generation's experience with World War I.
Gygax took the general framework, deleted out the allegory, and filled in the gaps with stereotypes about tribal societies.
There was next-to-nothing of "mythology" when Tolkien got a hold of them--really just etymology--and Gygax took that "next to nothing" and reduced that even further, diluting any traces of Tolkien with his stereotyping. As such, there is no "culture" being "erased" with these changes--just a perception of culture by people who do not actually know the historical roots of the D&D race.
The last few post in this thread about fiction influencing RL reminds me of the Satanic Panic of the 1980's.
There were groups claiming that playing D&D would turn people into Satan worshiping homicidal maniacs.
That didn't happen....
Fiction does influence real life--countless studies have demonstrated that marginalization of cultures and identities in fiction results in promulgation of those negative stereotypes in the general populace and internalization of negativity by the members of those marginalized groups.
Gilbert, D. T. (1991). How mental systems believe. American Psychologist, 46, 107-119.
Gilbert, D. T., Tafarodi, R. W., & Malone, P. S. (1993). You can’t not believe everything you read. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 65, 221-233.
Prentice, D. A., Gerrig, R. J., & Bailis, D. S. (1997). What readers bring to the processing of fictional texts. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 4, 416-420.
Prentice, D. A., & Gerrig, R. J. (1999). Exploring the boundary between fiction and reality. In S. Chaiken & Y. Trope (Eds.), Dual-process theories in social psychology (pp. 529–546). The Guilford Press.
Playing fantasy games is, itself, a real life behavior. You can't be horrible to real life people playing fantasy games and be excused just because you were doing it within the context of a fantasy game.
Playing a game isn't behavior. Behavior is the way in which one acts or conducts oneself, especially toward others. You can engage in behaviors while playing a game, but the act of playing a game is not a behavior in and of itself.
Yes, it's true that people who are jerks in real life are likely to be jerks at the gaming table. But I'm looking at it from the other direction. I think it's unlikely that someone fighting an Orc in D&D is going to carry over in RL to their treatment of people of color.
1) I disagree with your us of the word "behavior." Playing a game is absolutely a behavior and your arguing that it isn't really just sounds like you're arguing for the sake of arguing, or trolling.
2) I'm not talking about people roleplaying one way and acting differently away from the gaming table, I'm talking about racially insensitive language in the game constituting the author being a jerk to the players and thus removing or changing the language is what a responsible author does. And that people who use harmful language in their gaming are literally being jerks to their fellow players, which is the behavior I'm talking about.
1. I'm not trolling. That is the definition of behavior.
be·hav·ior
the way in which one acts or conducts oneself, especially toward others.
"his insulting behavior toward me"
The way in which an animal or person acts in response to a particular situation or stimulus.
plural noun: behaviours; plural noun: behaviors
"the feeding behavior of predators"
the way in which a natural phenomenon or a machine works or functions.
"the erratic behavior of the old car
2. Fair enough. I think most of that is unintentional, and can usually be resolved by talking with the DM (or other players) and expressing you feelings.
The last few post in this thread about fiction influencing RL reminds me of the Satanic Panic of the 1980's.
There were groups claiming that playing D&D would turn people into Satan worshiping homicidal maniacs.
That didn't happen....
Fiction does influence real life--countless studies have demonstrated that marginalization of cultures and identities in fiction results in promulgation of those negative stereotypes in the general populace and internalization of negativity by the members of those marginalized groups.
Just to check: what is the purpose of this link? What opinion are you using it to support?
On a brief check-over, it's an article seeking to debunk the scientific process in general by picking at statistical error and the issue of spurious false positives in experimentation. I presume, then, that you're accusing every single one of Erriku's provided library of studies of being suprious, unfounded, or otherwise simply false?
Do you have evidence to support this claim? Or are you simply seeking to seed doubt and sour the arguments of other posters so as to continue to defend systemic exclusionism in D&D 5e and continue supporting the marginalization and exclusion of non-white non-male people from the hobby?
What really gets me is that the article closes out by stating that only constant vigilance and awareness of the sorts of statistical pitfalls and human-error mantraps the article lays out can combat the damaging effects of such aberrations in the process over the long term and aid in weeding out Bad Science from Good Science. Which is, note, the exact same argument people make of measures such as Wizards' recent errata - only constant vigilance and awareness of the sorts of systemic biases and institutional exclusionism that pervade much of modern society can combat the damaging effects of such aberrations in society over the long term and aid in weeding out Bad Opinions from Good Opinions.
Using a scientific article to try and instill doubt in other scientific articles to continue defending systemic exclusionism is really just kind of a wowzers.
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Playing fantasy games is, itself, a real life behavior. You can't be horrible to real life people playing fantasy games and be excused just because you were doing it within the context of a fantasy game.
Canto alla vita
alla sua bellezza
ad ogni sua ferita
ogni sua carezza!
I sing to life and to its tragic beauty
To pain and to strife, but all that dances through me
The rise and the fall, I've lived through it all!
No, The changes made by WoTC are not on the same level as the Satanic panic. My point was limited to fictions influence/impact on behavior.
Playing a game isn't behavior. Behavior is the way in which one acts or conducts oneself, especially toward others. You can engage in behaviors while playing a game, but the act of playing a game is not a behavior in and of itself.
Yes, it's true that people who are jerks in real life are likely to be jerks at the gaming table. But I'm looking at it from the other direction. I think it's unlikely that someone fighting an Orc in D&D is going to carry over in RL to their treatment of people of color.
Can you post a link to some of those studies?
Racism doesn't have to influence others so they become (more) racist in order to be hurtful. Racist ideas are hurtful period.
Want to start playing but don't have anyone to play with? You can try these options: [link].
Dude, there has been so much testimony in this and other threads, I treated the misunderstanding you stated we had in good faith (and there is a confused effort by somes to associate trauma theory, racialized and other, with pull the trigger violence), but we're back at it as these threads always seem to do with someone claiming the experiences laid out before them are invalid and they need to show more peer reviewed studies. This whole discussion, as so many others, was sparked by a grievance from folks who fear game changes, requiring folks to explain to them how said changes does no harm to the game and is actually a good thing in making the game more inviting to other players. Your planting a flag on the position that wants to invalidate the actual feelings expressed and the actual feelings that the game is moving in a right direction, with no actual harm to your game?
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
I never claimed that those groups said that people would play Satanist in D&D. Rather the claim by these groups was that people would become Satanist and murderers in real life after playing D&D.
We seem to be stepping a “keep on truckin,” stride’s length beyond a discussion of perceived lore changes..
I mean, I think Tom Hanks is cool too… but Mazes and Monsters is irl lore… heh.
I am not invalidating other peoples feelings. I acknowledge that there are people who genuinely feel the way they do. The reason why I spoke up again is because it seemed like there were a few people making blanket/broad brush statements about the influence of fantasy on others.
Why not?
Provide reasoning. Provide science, since you seem fond of it. Provide a reason beyond "that just doesn't seem likely". Because 'that just doesn't seem likely' is nothing but an intuitive gut-feeling argument, and it's a your-word-versus-mine sort of argument that holds no water.
The argument - backed by real science, real scientific testing and analysis - is that media implicitly/tacitly condoning certain forms of behavior such as "this entire kind of people can be written off as Lesser and safely treated as poorly as you like and people will not only never bother to care but even value you more highly because of it" can steer someone towards that behavior in reality. The effect is not pronounced, it is not engineering-level consistent, and it is not guaranteed, but it's absolutely real. "I killed three orcs in the game so I'm going to go murder the N'giris tomorrow" is extremely unlikely, yes. Many years of engaging deeply and heavily with media that portrays it as okey - heroic, even! - to treat any humanoid that is not of your particular, specific species as a lesser being unworthy of empathy or respect has the capacity to amplify endemic biases present in any random person and make it more likely for that person to engage in toxic, harmful behavior. Often, without ever realizing that their behavior is toxic or harmful in the first place.
That is the entire definition of systemic exclusionism - that the system itself encourages and perpetuates these ideals through a fundamentally biased structure designed and developed by people with a poor awareness of exclusionist issues. Furthermore, you are indeed pushing for literal "Systemic Exclusionism" in D&D by demanding that exclusionism be written into the system, i.e. "all orcs are always evil forever unless the DM decides to go out of their way to make non-evil orcs for whatever dumb reason someone might want non-evil orcs." How is that okay, again? You can protest "they're not people so they don't matter!" all you like, and we'll keep telling you.
Those are the exact same words people have been using for hundreds and hundreds of years to justify things history calls "atrocities" today. Do you really want to go there?
Please do not contact or message me.
A lot of people have been using personal testimony as if it were a universal truth, so why can't I? Statistically valid surveys and academic studies are superior to personal testimony, but people tossing links to each other usually just results in people critiquing the source rather than discussing the issue at hand. However, when someone claims "countless studies", it's not unreasonable to ask for a link.
But orcs aren't people and they derive from mythology, demon gods of hell, and cannibal and baby eater and violent brutes from fables, and if you change it you erase the culture that they represent, and that's bad.
I posted a longer post explaining everything but for some reason didn't work so I have to redo everything from beginning
Unfortunately most of the current research is locked behind paywalls. That said, a simple google search was able to come up with a number of studies that were not locked behind a paywall--if you actually wanted to educate yourself, I am sure you could find the same with relative ease.
That said, I generally assume that people are willing to change their minds if confronted with conflicting information, but they generally are unwilling to seek out that information that might disrupt their closely held worldview, even if that information is just a few keystrokes away. Here are some quotes from articles--you will have to pardon me for being too lazy to properly Blue Book the citations.
Relating to how removing stereotypes and characters that do not conform to those stereotypes might influence children's view on marginalized groups: "Results showed that extended exposure to a multi-chapter story about a counter-stereotypical protagonist could reduce children’s endorsement of gender stereotypes; this effect was particularly strong in male children exposed to an atypical male protagonist. These findings support the importance of children’s literature about protagonists who move beyond stereotypes." Examining the impact of fiction literature on children’s gender stereotypes, Ellen E. Kneeskern & Patricia A. Reeder, Current Psychology (2020).
Noting that individuals tend to internalize negative stereotypes and act on that internalization, even if they know the stereotype is fictitious: "men were equally harsh in the wake of a stereotypic female portrayal regardless of whether they believed it to be factual or fictitious." The Impact of Factual Versus Fictional Media Portrayals on Cultural Stereotypes, SHEILA T. MURPHY, The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science (1998).
NPR did a recent article about how the Matrix films, made by two transgendered women, is important to the trans community not only because they have representation in the directors, but because the themes of the stories resonate with them and make them feel like their life story is being understood.
Here is an article that shows how majority groups seem to benefit from watching media infused with stereotyping, while minority groups have lower self-esteem.
"Researchers have found that prolonged television exposure predicts a decrease in self-esteem for all girls and for black boys, but an increase in self-esteem for white boys. These differences correlate with the racial and gender practices in Hollywood, which predominantly casts white men as heroes, while erasing or subordinating other groups as villains, sidekicks, and sexual objects. Studies also show how media images of Native American mascots lower the self-esteem and affect the moods of Native American adolescents and young adults (who suffer from high suicide rates)."
I could go on, but that provides a decent start. As I said, there is a LOT of research on this topic, all which points in the same direction.
Thank you for the links!
1) I disagree with your use of the word "behavior." Playing a game is absolutely a behavior and your arguing that it isn't really just sounds like you're arguing for the sake of arguing, or trolling.
2) I'm not talking about people roleplaying one way and acting differently away from the gaming table, I'm talking about racially insensitive language in the game constituting the author being a jerk to the players and thus removing or changing the language is what a responsible author does. And that people who use harmful language in their gaming are literally being jerks to their fellow players, which is the behavior I'm talking about.
Canto alla vita
alla sua bellezza
ad ogni sua ferita
ogni sua carezza!
I sing to life and to its tragic beauty
To pain and to strife, but all that dances through me
The rise and the fall, I've lived through it all!
This was already discussed in-depth a few pages back, so I will not repeat everything, but the simple reality is that this belief is a common misconception, not a reality.
Orcs in the sense we think of them were created by Tolkien in the 20th Century. The word Orc seemed to have been a generic catch-all with forms used in various sources like Beowulf and Spencer, but not describing anything specific until Tolkien gave them their particular shape. Tolkien's orcs were created for a very specific purpose--they were there to represent the corruption of the youth (the eternally young elves with their culture and love of the land) into something horrific and dedicated to the industry and war. They were basically an allegory for an entire generation's experience with World War I.
Gygax took the general framework, deleted out the allegory, and filled in the gaps with stereotypes about tribal societies.
There was next-to-nothing of "mythology" when Tolkien got a hold of them--really just etymology--and Gygax took that "next to nothing" and reduced that even further, diluting any traces of Tolkien with his stereotyping. As such, there is no "culture" being "erased" with these changes--just a perception of culture by people who do not actually know the historical roots of the D&D race.
Alduy, C. (2010) ‘Engaging Reality Through Fiction’, Arcade, May 15. Available at: https://arcade.stanford.edu/blogs/engaging-reality-through-fiction
Castañeda∗ H. (2002) ‘Fiction and reality: Their fundamental connections: An essay on the ontology of total experience’, Science Direct, July 4. Available at: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/0304422X79900147
Gerrig, R. J. & Rapp, D. N. (2004). Psychological Processes Underlying Literary Impact. Poetics Today, 25(2):265-281. http://dx.doi.org/10.1215/03335372-25-2-265
Gilbert, D. T. (1991). How mental systems believe. American Psychologist, 46, 107-119.
Gilbert, D. T., Tafarodi, R. W., & Malone, P. S. (1993). You can’t not believe everything you read. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 65, 221-233.
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Prentice, D. A., Gerrig, R. J., & Bailis, D. S. (1997). What readers bring to the processing of fictional texts. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 4, 416-420.
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Roth, D. (2015) ‘Social Change in Fiction and Reality’, A. Daniel Roth - All These Days, September 8. Available at: https://www.allthesedays.org/writing/-social-change-in-fiction-and-reality
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TED-ed. (2012). ‘How fiction can change reality - Jessica Wise’, August 23. Available at: https://ed.ted.com/lessons/jessica-wise-how-fiction-can-change-reality
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1. I'm not trolling. That is the definition of behavior.
2. Fair enough. I think most of that is unintentional, and can usually be resolved by talking with the DM (or other players) and expressing you feelings.
Thank you!
Just to check: what is the purpose of this link? What opinion are you using it to support?
On a brief check-over, it's an article seeking to debunk the scientific process in general by picking at statistical error and the issue of spurious false positives in experimentation. I presume, then, that you're accusing every single one of Erriku's provided library of studies of being suprious, unfounded, or otherwise simply false?
Do you have evidence to support this claim? Or are you simply seeking to seed doubt and sour the arguments of other posters so as to continue to defend systemic exclusionism in D&D 5e and continue supporting the marginalization and exclusion of non-white non-male people from the hobby?
What really gets me is that the article closes out by stating that only constant vigilance and awareness of the sorts of statistical pitfalls and human-error mantraps the article lays out can combat the damaging effects of such aberrations in the process over the long term and aid in weeding out Bad Science from Good Science. Which is, note, the exact same argument people make of measures such as Wizards' recent errata - only constant vigilance and awareness of the sorts of systemic biases and institutional exclusionism that pervade much of modern society can combat the damaging effects of such aberrations in society over the long term and aid in weeding out Bad Opinions from Good Opinions.
Using a scientific article to try and instill doubt in other scientific articles to continue defending systemic exclusionism is really just kind of a wowzers.
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