Roleplayers of Color

FAQ
If you are a person of color who roleplays on any platform (MMORPG, Journaling, Message Boards, Twitter, Chat Rooms, Tabletop, anything) or maybe you’re a white person who plays a character of color and wants to make sure it’s not coming off as racist or maybe you’re a white person who just wants to learn more about ethnicity and race in roleplaying: basically if you want to examine/discuss racial and ethnic issues in your hobby, you belong here.

June 19, 2012 5:28 pm
Who should be following/participating in this project? Um…everyone? Seriously. If you are a person of color who roleplays on any platform (MMORPG, Journaling, Message Boards, Twitter, Chat Rooms, Tabletop, anything) or maybe you’re a white person who plays a character of color and wants to make sure it’s not coming off as racist or maybe you’re a white person who just wants to learn more about ethnicity and race in roleplaying. Basically if you want to examine/discuss racial and ethnic issues in your hobby, you belong here.  What is the goal of this project? We have a few goals that are subject to change and transformation. The first is we want to provide a space for people who play characters of color to show off their characters. So please submit profiles or links or anything so we can celebrate your character. Second, this is to serve as a community for roleplayers of color to have a safe space, not to only find other people of color who game but also, as a minority within a minority, to have a place where they are in charge. Third, we want to serve as kind of a Want Ads hub so that games that want characters of color or gamers of color can have one central location to target advertise roles. Lastly, this project will serve a social justice role in calling out those racist roleplayers and sites (for example: whitewashing). Many players see racist portrayals or storylines but don’t feel comfortable saying anything. That is what we are here for.  How do I participate? It depends on the kind of person you are. You can follow us here on Tumblr or on Twitter. You can like posts, reblog, retweet and favorite. You can signal boost and tell your followers about us. If you are more active, then submit your character profile to be shown off. Drop us an ask. Or if you really are mad as hell and not going to take it anymore, submit an example of racist roleplay.  Why didn’t you publish my ask/submission? It could be a number of things. First, we didn’t get it. Tumblr is notorious for losing things so please, wait 24 hours and then redo it. Second, it was anon hate. We won’t be giving power to the types of racist close-minded individuals who have nothing better to do than troll spaces like this. Those get deleted upon sight. Third, it was a profile that had issues. We take an intersectional approach here and as such we won’t publish profiles that are homophobic, racist, sexist, cissexist, ableist, etc unless it is part of the character’s characterization. For instance, there is a difference between a bad guy who hates women and a profile that is littered with sexist language.  Will you follow me back? We wish that we could but this is a sideblog off our main blogs and therefore, we can’t follow you. However, if you have a roleplaying Tumblr that is either run by a roleplayer of color or is a character of color, submit to us and we will promote you!  I want to submit a story but I want to stay anonymous. How can I do that? We have the settings so that author photos are not published with posts. Feel free to submit and leave us a note in the title that you don’t want your username attached. We will edit the request out before we publish. If that isn’t anonymous for you, feel free to send asks and we will copy/paste them into one post. If you don’t tell us on your submission, we will add “by username” to the end of your title as well as tag the post with your username.  We reserve the right to edit, in any way, shape, or form this FAQ at any time. 

Who should be following/participating in this project?

Um…everyone? Seriously. If you are a person of color who roleplays on any platform (MMORPG, Journaling, Message Boards, Twitter, Chat Rooms, Tabletop, anything) or maybe you’re a white person who plays a character of color and wants to make sure it’s not coming off as racist or maybe you’re a white person who just wants to learn more about ethnicity and race in roleplaying. Basically if you want to examine/discuss racial and ethnic issues in your hobby, you belong here. 

What is the goal of this project?

We have a few goals that are subject to change and transformation. The first is we want to provide a space for people who play characters of color to show off their characters. So please submit profiles or links or anything so we can celebrate your character. Second, this is to serve as a community for roleplayers of color to have a safe space, not to only find other people of color who game but also, as a minority within a minority, to have a place where they are in charge. Third, we want to serve as kind of a Want Ads hub so that games that want characters of color or gamers of color can have one central location to target advertise roles. Lastly, this project will serve a social justice role in calling out those racist roleplayers and sites (for example: whitewashing). Many players see racist portrayals or storylines but don’t feel comfortable saying anything. That is what we are here for. 

How do I participate?

It depends on the kind of person you are. You can follow us here on Tumblr or on Twitter. You can like posts, reblog, retweet and favorite. You can signal boost and tell your followers about us. If you are more active, then submit your character profile to be shown off. Drop us an ask. Or if you really are mad as hell and not going to take it anymore, submit an example of racist roleplay. 

Why didn’t you publish my ask/submission?

It could be a number of things. First, we didn’t get it. Tumblr is notorious for losing things so please, wait 24 hours and then redo it. Second, it was anon hate. We won’t be giving power to the types of racist close-minded individuals who have nothing better to do than troll spaces like this. Those get deleted upon sight. Third, it was a profile that had issues. We take an intersectional approach here and as such we won’t publish profiles that are homophobic, racist, sexist, cissexist, ableist, etc unless it is part of the character’s characterization. For instance, there is a difference between a bad guy who hates women and a profile that is littered with sexist language. 

Will you follow me back?

We wish that we could but this is a sideblog off our main blogs and therefore, we can’t follow you. However, if you have a roleplaying Tumblr that is either run by a roleplayer of color or is a character of color, submit to us and we will promote you! 

I want to submit a story but I want to stay anonymous. How can I do that?

We have the settings so that author photos are not published with posts. Feel free to submit and leave us a note in the title that you don’t want your username attached. We will edit the request out before we publish. If that isn’t anonymous for you, feel free to send asks and we will copy/paste them into one post. If you don’t tell us on your submission, we will add “by username” to the end of your title as well as tag the post with your username. 

We reserve the right to edit, in any way, shape, or form this FAQ at any time.