How faithful should a culture be adapted in an RPG?

[MGibster]

I don't think our games are history classes. They are not places to learn what really happened in history, and should make no bones about that.

No, but there are valid criticisms regarding how the past is depicted in our entertainment. And I'm going to have to stress the following: There's a big difference between a game set Little Rock, Arkansas circa 1927 and and a 19th ceturny pastiche of the American Old West that inclues ogre gunslingers and elf bartenders. I don't think a game with ogre cowboys needs to give much thought into portraying anything with any degree of accuracy, whereas a game specifically set in Little Rock circa 1927 has some responsibility.

 

[MGibster]

You can acknowledge that RPGs are not history lessons and still heavily dislike the historic revisionism and whitewashing of say the Confederacy in Deadlands.

And the sequel game, Hell on Earth, had Robert E. Lee as one of the saints for the Templar organization. As a long time Deadlands fan, I don't feel as though the situation between the CSA and the USA really added anything to the game. It rarely ever came up in any campaign I ever played, and it was a good idea when they decided to revise the setting and have the CSA lose the war.

 

[grankless]

Representation and authenticity is more important than trying to simulate a culture 1:1, which is not something I've ever seen happen. Nor should some historical things be expected; it's one thing to say, well these people over here in this fantasy gaming setting are misogynist because that's part of the palette of the real world inspiration for this medieval fantasy, but another to say, "well people in medieval times were misogynists, so there should be Good deities who promote misogyny because it was authentic to the time period". That would just be absurd to try and do unless it was like, a campaign about restructuring gender roles and expectations, which is not really something that the elf combat game is suited for.

 

[Ixal]

Representation and authenticity is more important than trying to simulate a culture 1:1, which is not something I've ever seen happen. Nor should some historical things be expected; it's one thing to say, well these people over here in this fantasy gaming setting are misogynist because that's part of the palette of the real world inspiration for this medieval fantasy, but another to say, "well people in medieval times were misogynists, so there should be Good deities who promote misogyny because it was authentic to the time period". That would just be absurd to try and do unless it was like, a campaign about restructuring gender roles and expectations, which is not really something that the elf combat game is suited for.

How authentic can a culture be when you leave out large parts of it?

Also people seem the randomly switch between culture and history when it suits their argument (not you, in general). But they are far more intertwined and can't be neatly seperated). You can't just say "we have a good representation of culture X but leave out those parts of history because D&D is not a simulator...). Those things often happened in history because they were part of the culture.

 

[pemerton]

And yet people demand that real world cultures get adopted into D&D, be it a culture from Africa or a not Chinese or Japanese culture when the discussion is about old source material and so on.
And when you specifically add real world cultures to a game, even with the names filed off, then you should add all aspects of said culture and not cherry pick the ones you like.

This isn't obvious to me.

A lot of D&D settings seem to adapt a romanticised version of mediaeval European cultural tropes and social structures. Why isn't the same approach reasonable when it comes to, say, China or Japan or Mali?

 

[Ixal]

This isn't obvious to me.

A lot of D&D settings seem to adapt a romanticised version of mediaeval European cultural tropes and social structures. Why isn't the same approach reasonable when it comes to, say, China or Japan or Mali?

Because, so my impression, you are in danger of being called not respectful enough (when you mix non European cultures the same way we mix European ones) or orientalist (when you only take story tropes).

Also, European cultures should also be used accurately with all the bad sides, too. Although from what I see there is less demand or calls to accurately represent a European culture and it is more accepted to have a generic mix of all things European while doing the same for cultures from other parts of the world is disrespectful.
But I feel there also is less pressure to only show the nice parts of European culture. Religious intolerance with the inquisition or witch burnings are often mentioned in some form. As is colonization.

 

[MGibster]

How authentic can a culture be when you leave out large parts of it?

I can't help but be reminded about authenticity as it applies to foods. What's authentic Mexican food? Most Americans don't think of seafood, but Mexico has two coasts and plenty of fisherman and they eat fish, squid, and shellfish, but if you walk into a Mexican restaurant here in the United States, the only seafood you'll usually see are fish tacos and sometimes a shrimp dish. At the end of the meal, I don't care whether my burrito, fajitas, or overall dining experience was authentic. I care whether it was good or not.

I don't think many RPG settings influenced by real life cultures have managed to be authentic. At least not if we're going by the standard where we can't leave large parts of it out. But, again, what is authentic? If I write an RPG based on modern America, well, I'm just one guy, I can give a fairly accurate representation of things as I see it, but I'm going to miss something that other people might notice. Does that make my representation less authentic?

A lot of D&D settings seem to adapt a romanticised version of mediaeval European cultural tropes and social structures. Why isn't the same approach reasonable when it comes to, say, China or Japan or Mali?

I was under the impression that this was already the case with non-European inspired D&D settings. The problems have come from how those places are represented, and, let's not forget, who wrote those works.

 

[pemerton]

A lot of D&D settings seem to adapt a romanticised version of mediaeval European cultural tropes and social structures. Why isn't the same approach reasonable when it comes to, say, China or Japan or Mali?

Because, so my impression, you are in danger of being called not respectful enough (when you mix non European cultures the same way we mix European ones) or orientalist (when you only take story tropes).

I was under the impression that this was already the case with non-European inspired D&D settings. The problems have come from how those places are represented, and, let's not forget, who wrote those works.

I would expect a FRPG that deals with knights, castles, bishops etc to be closer to something Arthurian or LotR-ish in tone (yes, I know the latter doesn't have bishops - it has Elrond instead) than to a history textbook.

I would expect a FRPG that deals with martial arts heroes and emperors and "swordsmen" to be closer to Ashes of Time or Hero in tone, than to a history textbook. Whether those films are in some fashion Orientalist (here's an article on Hero that discusses the topic) seems a complex question. Any Chinese or Japanese -produced RPG might raise the same question, especially if it aspire to be taken up by "international" (which in this context would largely mean American, English speaking and reading) RPGers. How one would identify the relationship of an RPG that came from (say) Mali to imperialism would also seem pretty complicated: the fact that RPGs might be played at all in Mali seems hard to explain without reference to the export, including via colonial or post-colonial trajectories, of American culture to the rest of the world.

But I still don't see why I would expect FRPGs dealing with non-European cultural tropes to be more historically bound than their European-themed counterparts.

 

[aramis erak]

My personal preference? Either adopt it wholesale, warts and all, or make any such derivation made by blending two (or more) non-adjacent¹ cultures.

-=-=-=-=-
1: non-adjacent in time and/or space. As in, don't blend Danish and Viking Dane, nor Swede and Norwegian.

 

[bloodtide]

For my own personal games, being a history buff myself, I keep everything...warts and all. My game is Rated R and Not for Everyone. I like historical accuracy, complicated things and dark things.

Outside of pure history type games, like say I want a Empire of Minotaurs "based" off Rome, they won't be 100% historically accurate. But I don't just remove the 'bad stuff'.

For a published something, well the best you can hope for is a vague lite sort of adaptation with all the bad stuff removed. So it will never be "true", but publishers need to stay in the vague "E for Everyone" area....unless they really want to make a sealed dark book "for mature audiences only".