Best Ethnicity-Inclusive D&D or D&D-esque campaign settings

[redrick]

I posted a separate discussion here looking for specific help with a Mystara campaign that I'm running, but I was interested in the broader question:

What's your favorite D&D-style fantasy setting that is explicitly ethnically inclusive? I'm interested in a setting where anybody could sit down at the table and have at least a couple cultural options as to a character who looks like them and has a good, believable reason to be in the campaign's starting location. (ie not the only person of said culture for the rest of the adventurer.) A creatively imagined setting where the various cultures feel authentic and integral, instead of a couple of brown-skinned cultures shoe-horned into a European setting. (Which is what I'm trying to do with my Known World campaign.) The cultures don't have to have real-world analogues. If anything, it's probably better for them to be imagined in their own right. And you certainly don't need one fantasy-world culture for every real-world culture.

Is there any setting that even approaches this? Just skimming the PHB makes me think Forgotten Realms actually comes the closest, though I have little experience with that setting outside of the Baldur's Gate video game.

 

[KirayaTiDrekan]

My experience has been that the best way to achieve that level of inclusivity is to throw several settings together.

For example, take 2nd Edition FR as a starting point (with Kara-Tur, Maztica, and Al-Qadim), then add on Nyambe (Atlas Games' 3rd edition African setting) as another continent and Green Ronin's Freeport as a melting pot city. There are still going to be some gaps but no fantasy setting is going to be able to encompass all of Earth's diversity.

 

[redrick]

My experience has been that the best way to achieve that level of inclusivity is to throw several settings together.

For example, take 2nd Edition FR as a starting point (with Kara-Tur, Maztica, and Al-Qadim), then add on Nyambe (Atlas Games' 3rd edition African setting) as another continent and Green Ronin's Freeport as a melting pot city. There are still going to be some gaps but no fantasy setting is going to be able to encompass all of Earth's diversity.

Yeah, I figured cobbling together was probably the only way to make it work. The example you give seems workable.

I mentioned N.K. Jemisin's 100,000 Kingdoms in the other post, because I feel like the setting of that book does a really good job at creating ethnically diverse cultures that don't feel like they match back to direct real-world analogues, but includes a lot of unique peoples with diverse features. I love the idea of a setting where any player can sit down with a collection of portraits, see several and say, "yes! somebody looking like me could be from there! tell me about these 3 or 4 cultures and I'll pick the one that seems the most fun."

Players, of course, have every right to play characters who don't look like them, but a lot of players don't want to! I sat down at a store the other day, and at the beginning of the game, the DM went around and asked all the players to describe their characters. A black man's turn came up and he said, "well, he looks like me," and the DM got a little flustered trying to figure out how he would fit in the game world. He started to ask him if he meant a drow, but then stopped himself... (Great DM who, ultimately, I don't think had any ill intentions. Just the classic reality of getting thrown a curve ball in a setting where everybody just assumes that characters will be, well, white. Not that having a black man sit down to your table should be a curve ball, but that's the nature of so much of the fantasy literature our genre is grounded in.)

I don't know if I should add that I'm a white man with a European background. It's hugely important to me to have my campaign world represent something broader than dudes of my ancestry, but it can take a lot of extra work, because my own experience is so linked to eastern Europe, and, of course, the classic works I was raised on that mostly crib from western and northern Europe for inspiration.

 

[Mishihari Lord]

I like my own. I know that's not much help, sorry. I'll do two things to make my campaign worlds ethnically diverse.

First, I'll map out wide swaths and designate the dominant group in each.

Second, I like to create ethnic groups by combining several real and/or fictional ethnic groups. There are a couple of advantages to this approach.

First, I like making up cultures. It's fun and a setting feels more fantastic to me with cultures not actually found on Earth.

Second, you get a very broad range of source material to draw from.

Third, you avoid the possible problem of having one of your players more knowledgeable about a real culture than you are. If that happens, the player can have a verisimilitude issue, or you may end up doing a lot of extra work so that he doesn't have an issue.

Fourth, there's always some twit looking to get offended about a depiction of a culture in fiction. Making a culture fictional and only drawing some elements from real culture helps avoid this. Maybe no one at you table is like that, but I find it best to avoid the issue.

I'll give my longest-running campaign as an example. The primary campaign area was a mix of Several European cultures. The two major world powers had territories along the edge of the campaign area; one was a mix of Viking, Tongan, Maori, and Andre Norton's Sulcar, the other was a mix of Aztec and David Eddings' Nyissans. Other cultures they encountered included a mix of Ancient Arab culture and Frank Herbert's Fremen, a mix of Filipinos and sub-Sharan African, and a mix of Mongol and Ancient Greek.

 

[pemerton]

What's your favorite D&D-style fantasy setting that is explicitly ethnically inclusive? I'm interested in a setting where anybody could sit down at the table and have at least a couple cultural options as to a character who looks like them and has a good, believable reason to be in the campaign's starting location.

<snip>

Is there any setting that even approaches this?

The setting I've used that is closest to this doesn't quite match your requirements - it's still pretty Eurocentric in its basic framing - but does accommodate multiple ethnicities fairly naturally in its starting locations.

The setting I have in mind is Greyhawk, and especially the southern Great Kingdom: Europeans from the north and cenra part of the maps, Arabs from the west, Black Africans from Hepmonaland, MesoAmericans from the Amedio region, and East Asians from the Scarlet Brotherhood. The latter requires departing from canon - but the idea of Suel martial artists has always struck me as silly, and while the basic premise of the Scarlet Brotherhood appeals to pulp-fiction stereotypes (a sinister Oriental conspiracy) it has provided the basis, in Greyhawk games I've run, for making East Asian characters part of the mainstream.

 

[Scrivener of Doom]

The Shining South in the Forgotten Realms covers a wide range of ethnicities.

 

[Voadam]

So how many ethnic bases do you want to cover: europeans, africans, arabs, east asians, native americans?

Parsantium is a fantasy Constantinople style city with specifically european, african, arab, and east asian cultures mixing and present. It is for the pathfinder system. Probably the best I can think of for having the ethnicities show up consistently in one place.

Conan's Hyboria works fairly well, only the americas get short shrift and in some of the non Howard works Conan meets some. There is a lot of mediterranean meeting of cultures and continents feel to a lot of Conan stuff. There is a fairly well done d20 Conan RPG with a ton of sourcebooks by Mongoose publishing.

AEG's Swashbuckling-Adventures has a lot of that covered, with the exception of the americas again. Africa is light but the crescent empire covers arabic and north african analogues and there is a whole Cathay for fantasy china/asia. They are part of the world but it would be odd to have asians in most of the setting. It is d20 based but uses different magic and certain different base classes.

Mystara as noted has arabs, mongols, and native americans in in its gazetteers plus a ton in supplementary stuff.

Greyhawk has arabs and europeans mixed in the main setting along with Flan ethnic group being copper skinned nomads, and the meso americans and africa from southern jungles.

Forgotten realms has lots of real world analogues including arabs, east asians, mongols, meso americans on a far continent and a little bit of africans.

Krynn has basically europeans and blacks on the main continent of Ansalon with some other stuff on the other continent of Taladas (mongols? I forget).

Not sure ethnically for Eberron, although it is designed to hold anything in D&D.

Kalamar has serious ethnicity and geography stuff but all I'm sure of off the top of my head is European and african stuff.

Golarion for Pathfinder has lots of euopean, african, and arab in the main setting with asian Indian and east asians being not unheard of rarities, though not really native. Pretty much everything except american indian style people.

Atlantis currently for the non D&D Omni system is a huge analogue setting with all the real world ethnicities you want from multiple continents. I have the old version from the 80s when it was published bard games and the setting one was stats free. The only problem would be having the multiple ethnicities show up repeatedly if the game is not set near their specific homelands.

Those are the big kitchen sink and ethnic melting pot type areas that jump to mind.

 

[redrick]

So how many ethnic bases do you want to cover: europeans, africans, arabs, east asians, native americans?

Parsantium is a fantasy Constantinople style city with specifically european, african, arab, and east asian cultures mixing and present. It is for the pathfinder system.

Conan's Hyboria works fairly well, only the americas get short shrift and in some of the non Howard works Conan meets some. There is a lot of mediterranean meeting of cultures and continents feel to a lot of Conan stuff. There is a fairly well done d20 Conan RPG with a ton of sourcebooks by Mongoose publishing.

AEG's Swashbuckling-Adventures has a lot of that covered, with the exception of the americas again. Africa is light but the crescent empire covers arabic and north african analogues and there is a whole Cathay for fantasy china/asia. They are part of the world but it would be odd to have asians in most of the setting. It is d20 based but

Mystara as noted has arabs, mongols, and native americans in in its gazetteers plus a ton in supplementary stuff.

Greyhawk has arabs and europeans mixed in the main setting along with Flan ethnic group being copper skinned nomads, and the meso americans and africa from southern jungles.

Forgotten realms has lots of real world analogues including arabs, east asians, mongols, meso americans on a far continent and a little bit of africans.

Krynn has basically europeans and blacks on the main continent of Ansalon with some other stuff on the other continent of Taladas (mongols? I forget).

Not sure ethnically for Eberron, although it is designed to hold anything in D&D.

Kalamar has serious ethnicity and geography stuff but all I'm sure of off the top of my head is European and african stuff.

Golarion for Pathfinder has lots of euopean, african, and arab in the main setting with asian Indian and east asians being not unheard of rarities, though not really native. Pretty much everything except american indian style people.

Those are the big kitchen sink and ethnic melting pot type areas that jump to mind.

Ha, ideally, all the bases, but not necessarily in great detail. As in, I don't need a fantasy setting that provides a separate culture for for every people originating in Southeast Asia anymore than I need a fantasy setting that provides a separate culture for every people originating in eastern Europe. And I'm certainly happy to settle with the best I can get and go from there.

But, as I think I said above, the word "ethnic" might mislead a little, because I'm actually fairly wary of the fantasy cultures which feel too directly ripped from historical counterparts, especially when they've been ripped by people who aren't of that culture. This is why I definitely agree with [MENTION=10496]Misha[/MENTION]ri Lord's suggestion to deliberately composite real-world ethnicities and try to create something that isn't entirely recognizable, but also features some inspiration from real-World counterparts. What I would really, really love to see, is a fantasy setting that encompasses the same range of cultures, customs and appearances as the real world does, but does so with unique cultures that don't say, "Oh, the Ethengari are clearly the Mystara equivalent of the Mongolian empire." Or, "these people are clearly the white game designer's equivalent of the Aztecs after spending 20 minutes on Wikipedia and filtering that through a lifetime of cultural bias." (Because that's what I'd give you.) Mystara's the only non-homebrew setting I've ever run a campaign in, and I find its descriptions of non-European cultures to be a little out of line with my sensibility. That being said, I've only scratched the surface of what's available on the setting.

So, since I'm sure what I really, really want doesn't exist in the way I'd like it to, as is always the case for all of us, maybe the best question is — out of all these settings, which has the least racist representation of various people with different appearances, skin color and customs than medieval Europeans, and is already the most integrated? (As in, the setting is written for at least a large number of these people to have interacted and migrated historically.)

Thank you all for your responses. They have been helpful in how I think about what it is I'm looking for in the first place.

 

[Voadam]

I'd go with Golarion for those purposes. Definitely designed to have white, black, and arab in the main areas with a reasonable basis for East asian and Asian Indian ethnicity people as part of the story. The africanish continent is based in part on pulp tropes including an evil white nation (Cheliax) that colonized into part of the continent and they have a country there dealing with colonial issues (Sargava), but if you find any element racist or not to your liking most areas are fairly self contained and easy to change, exclude, or even lift and place in a different world.

Ethnic, gender, and sexual orientation diversity and inclusiveness were design goals for the setting and a specific cause for the company. This is showcased in their art, storylines, and NPCs in their material.

 

[redrick]

I'd go with Golarion for those purposes. Definitely designed to have white, black, and arab in the main areas with a reasonable basis for East asian and Asian Indian ethnicity people as part of the story. The africanish continent is based in part on pulp tropes including an evil white nation (Cheliax) that colonized into part of the continent and they have a country there dealing with colonial issues (Sargava), but if you find any element racist or not to your liking most areas are fairly self contained and easy to change, exclude, or lift and place in a different world.

Ethnic, gender, and sexual orientation diversity and inclusiveness were design goals for the setting and a specific cause for the company. This is showcased in their art, storylines, and NPCs in their material.

Awesome. Thank you. Golarion is the setting you'd listed that I have the least direct experience with. I'll definitely purchase a PDF and check it out. I find gender and sexual orientation diversity easier to impose on a setting on the fly — I've started rolling for gender and orientation for almost every NPC I use (even from published adventures). That guarantees a representative breakdown, and keeps me from overthinking things too much. Cultures take a bit more work than that, though, and just rolling for skin color without any thought into what cultural background might or might not come with that ends up pretty meaningless.