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

[Shasarak]

See I thought they were Mongol-inspired too. But as I haven't read the books, I don't know if this is true... and I don't know if it was a lazy caricature either. Maybe it was, maybe it wasn't.

If we have to accuse someone of being lazy then the least we should do is to accuse them of ripping off the correct culture. Unless there were hordes of horse-riding not-Turks rampaging around not-China of course.

 

[Eltab]

recently I’ve been toying with early Iron Age Canaan, but even finding an historical consensus on this period is close to impossible.

If you haven't found it already, Testament by Green Ronin looks at placing a D&D campaign in a Biblical setting.

 

[Sepulchrave II]

* Is political correct to can use Indian pantheon for a fantasy worlds? Hinduism is a real religions with millions of followers.

I would argue that it's problematic. As someone who has counted Shaivites and Kali devotees amongst his friends since the early 1990s, portrayals of Hindu deities in prior iterations of D&D are embarrassing. This is part of the historical Orientalism which I think has pervaded the game.

I think we're also incredibly selective about what we choose to be offended by. In another thread, Celebrim alluded to the fact that demons and devils somehow get a free pass. But I've no doubt that the inclusion of these monsters in the game still presents an insurmountable barrier to millions of practicing Christians who might otherwise be amenable to giving D&D a try.

I'm not advocating a Satanic panic or a return to a recast fiend, à la 2e; merely observing that we do not apply our "criteria of offense" consistently.

If we have to accuse someone of being lazy then the least we should do is to accuse them of ripping off the correct culture. Unless there were hordes of horse-riding not-Turks rampaging around not-China of course.

I believe that many Turkic tribes (e.g. Uyghurs) were implicated in the Mongol expansion, and the ethnic boundaries were (and in some cases, remain) very blurred, so I'd give that a pass.

If you haven't found it already, Testament by Green Ronin looks at placing a D&D campaign in a Biblical setting.

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Thanks - I know of it. Testament draws on the Deuteronomistic history as presented in the Tanakh or Christian Old Testament. I'm more interested in the actual historical Iron I Canaan.

I'll stop now before I get into trouble.

 

[Aldarc]

But these time periods and cultures are well-known to me, and well within my comfort zone; recently I’ve been toying with early Iron Age Canaan, but even finding an historical consensus on this period is close to impossible.

Still easier than Late Bronze Age Canaan. If consensus is difficult, then go with one of the prevailing models for the time period. The Bible Unearthed by Finkelstein and Silberman provides a good historical overview and reconstruction. The historical reconstruction is skeptical of a United Davidic Monarchy, seeing it as Judean historigraphy from the 7th-8th century BCE. In general, Israel and Judah were considered cultural backwaters, with the Levant under the alternative sway of Assyria and Egypt, and with the coastal Phoenician and Philistine city-states being of primary economic importance for the region.

 

[Calithorne]

Anyone who gets offended by how cultures are represented in a D&D game must have all their real problems in life solved already.