Cultures in D&D/roleplaying: damned if you do, damned if you don't

Hello

I'm a fan of pseudo-historical settings and novels. I ran a huge 3-year long campaign set in 1150 (half in Anatiolia, ie Turkey, half following the silk roads). There is a long history of this - look at Guy Gavriel Kay's module. Even the dwarves in Tolkien were based, in part, on the history of the Jewish people.

Yet it's become obvious to me that there are a lot of pitfalls associated with this. It's easy to have the culture depicted as a lazy caricature instead of a more faithful depiction. It's certainly not ok to make culture X as a one dimensional villain (there was a somewhat heated discussion about the Mongol replaced by Orcs a few weeks ago...), but even a positive depiction could be problematic - see the "Noble Savage" and all the baggage that has...

A potential cure to that is, well, effort. Do your research. If the Turks are an adversary in your game, have a nuanced depiction of them. But the problem is... how much effort is enough? It's very hard to depict a culture accurately, and in some cases information is scant - or wrong. WotC tried in Tomb of Annihilation and those efforts were not well received by some.

So then a solution might be to not do it. Just avoid the entire issue! Buuuut then that becomes an act of erasure! And that's not cool either

So what's the solution?

Don't run games set in the real world, or settings that are only one step away from it.

Honestly, how much work is required depends on how much you want to show. Is the party going to glance at a civilization from a distance? Is the party going to stop in town for a moment and then leave? Is the party going to need to hang around for days? Months? Years? Will their entire adventure take place in this locale? The more you want players to see, the more work you're going to have to do. That's just really all there is to it. It doesn't matter if its a completely made up culture, a mildly-inspired-by culture, or a nearly-reality culture. The more you want players to see of it, the more work you're going to have to do.

"Fair" is a subjective definition. Some Turks may tell you you haven't done enough work. Some may say you've done too much. Some may say you've completely misrepresented them and everything you did is horrible badwrongfun. That's just life.

I would absolutely advise against doing no research.

There will never be one sure-fire solution that a DM or writer can use as a shield from criticism. But the shield of "I tried my best to cover the bases." is usually a pretty good one. Few people will fault you for putting in your best effort, so I guess what it really comes down to is this:

Did you put in your best effort?

The only people I would worry about are those at your table. Don't offend their sensabilities and you'll be fine. The more work you do, the more verisimilitude you can bring to the setting. Do the work for that reason.

As long as you're not publishing, don't sweat it too much. The only people who'd be experiencing your campaign are your players and you and they should know each other well enough to know if you're putting in a good-faith effort to portray a culture in the game without denigrating its real-world analog. As far as I'm concerned, that's the only metric that really matters in a home game.

For publishing, obviously, more effort needs to be invested to portray a culture with due respect and show that you've done your research to support your interpretation. But not for a home game.

Depends on your audience.

If this is for your home game, then go with what your players would want.

For a public game, I’d talk to the players ahead of time and gage how they seem about such content.

For publication...well, do both of the above extensively and then do your best and know that no matter what, some folks will criticize what you’ve done.

Ancalagon said:

So what's the solution?

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I agree with the material suggested above. Especially a good-faith research project.

When you receive complaints, do some research on the source.
If a complainer makes a living searching for things to be offended about and mass-mailing fundraising letters to "help my organization stand against XYZ!", don't worry about making them happy: it will never work. (Like how McDonalds cannot please the Healthy Food people who would never be caught dead eating McDonalds food.)

Do address legitimate concerns, such as from people who are playing the game. Especially if they offer you more research sources.

"How much" should you research? In proportion to how long you will be working with that group. If the only interaction with Tahiti will be a stop for clean water, all you need is a brief description of what the PCs see / hear / other senses; no need to worry about getting into the NPCs' heads, culture, traditions, history, &c.

My audience is my players - friends I've been gaming with for a long time.

Buuuuuut... at the same time, the argument "oh if it's for in private it doesn't really matter" bothers me. While it' 99% sure I'll never publish, if my game isn't "fit for public use" then... part of me feels like there is something wrong with it.

I have a fictional country in my homebrew setting called Kturgia, that is notorious because of all the ruthless Kturgian pirates. The Kturgians are loosely based on Turkish pirates, and yes they are the baddies. But I think as long as it is a fictional race that is only loosely based on an actual group of people, I think its fine.

Ancalagon said:

My audience is my players - friends I've been gaming with for a long time.

Buuuuuut... at the same time, the argument "oh if it's for in private it doesn't really matter" bothers me. While it' 99% sure I'll never publish, if my game isn't "fit for public use" then... part of me feels like there is something wrong with it.

Click to expand...

It's all about the audience. You don't have to establish your bona fides with your regular group - if they believe you when you say you aren't trying to stereotype a culture, they'll accept that even if your research could go farther. But with a general public audience, you have to establish your bona fides anew and constantly and, undoubtedly, with people who are going to have tougher standards (some, even impossible standards - those you should rightfully ignore).

The fact is, in today's climate, it will be literally impossible to please everyone with your efforts because there are people who will treat incorporating a culture into a campaign as cultural appropriation if you are not from that culture or descended from that culture no matter how much you research it and no matter how hard you try to give it appropriate gravitas. And while I don't agree that not making a particular cultural analog in your campaign constitutes erasure (you can't erase something that isn't there), today's climate also presses for inclusion - giving characters (and their players) something culturally relevant to them to engage them in the hobby. This is why this is an impossible standard. You can't faithfully serve both ideals to the fullest - so you have to compromise and you are justified in doing so. Don't let anxieties keep you from trying your best at producing a good campaign setting where each culture you incorporate is represented with good faith effort and dignity.

I am Spanish and I can allow myself using Otoman pirates like antagonists. Why not? We won Lepanto battle.

If I try to avoid unnecessary offenses, it isn't to be politically correct but because my opinion is doing that is a bad strategy. How to explain better? if you want deactivate an explosive bomb, you don't hammer like a crazy bersekers but you analyze and search the cable to be cut. If the new youngest generations from Turkey, Iran or Morocco want to be free and living like western citizens, then we have to send the message we want to help them against radical takfirism ( = when some Muslims accuse their coreligionists to be not good believers). We must say to hate and xenophobe are wrong or they will think they have to choose between supporter anti-Western radical or suffering our stupy hate and prejudices. I don't like islamophobia because this really helps jihadism and we don't notice about that. Better saying the true believer is who defends the respect for human dignity.

About being politically correct, why do you think the action-live movie of Assasin's Creed isn't wrong when the Christians are the bad guys, and the Muslims the "victims"? Does that film the Granada war was started by Muslim king Muley Hacen? Christians were the attacked ones. What if the teleserie "the maid's tale" wasn't set in a "ultra-Christian" dystopian, but in a communist dictatorship or a taliban feud, wouldn't we listen complains?

Listen me: reporting machismo (male chauvinism), racism, islamophobia, xenophobia or homophobia isn't enough. The true key is obeying the natural law and defending the respect for the human dignity. Without this, in the name of the freedom and the revolution more innocent people were killed than war for the middle age, and the fall of a tyrant is replaced with a new one, sometimes worse than the previous one.

Why can't I tell a version (with happy end) of the Washinton Irving's legend "the rose of the Alhambra" about daughters of a Muslim king who escape to marry with their Christians boyfriends? but is pollitically correct a love story among a Muslim boy and a Christian girl, isn't it double standard?

A solution could be to use a fictional world, for example 7th Sea 1868, but anytime it isn't enough (let's imagine the Game Master is Spanish-speaker, and then in his version of 7th Sea rpg Castillians are the coolest guys from Teath, and Avalon is ruled by mason lodges controlled by vampire clans who want to destroy Vatican church because the religious faith is their Aquiles' Talon).

Can I create for a RPG a cyberpunk dystopia set in Russia or China where the evil corporations are ruled by former politicians who took advantage of "revolving doors"? (capitalist nightmare? No, nightmare because corporatisms don't allow true free market) Can't I create a background for a (post-)cyberpunk RPG to explain the reason because Keynes' ideas about economy are wrong, and Ayn Rand, Friedich Hayek, Tomas Sowell and Milton Freedman are right? But a new fiction work like Robocop with anti-capitalist propaganda is right, isn't it?

Why worrying about being polite with any communities but not with others?