American RPGs

[Silverblade The Ench]

By the way, there's an important note you have to understand about the "2nd amendment and D&D", that is, the commonality of weaponry.
Unlike our world, in D&D monsters really DO lurk in the shadows of cities, etc, so having an armed populace or at least a militia, adventurers etc, is a necessity!

edit for typos, sigh

 

[Morrus]

Tell someone one square equals five feet, and they'll shrug and say "how far is that?" You get that reaction from some Brits as well.

I'm not sure you would - I've not met anyone who doesn't measure their height in feet and inches. Maybe the kids do their height in metric these days?

Most people think in terms of "he's over six feet tall!"

 

[CharlesRyan]

May be a "kids these days" thing, perhaps, but I've definitely run into a Brit or two who have stared at me blankly when I used feet to describe distance.

 

[delericho]

May be a "kids these days" thing, perhaps, but I've definitely run into a Brit or two who have stared at me blankly when I used feet to describe distance.

My understanding is that, in Scotland at least, education policy is now that Imperial measures are not to be taught to schoolkids - metric only from now on.

 

[Celebrim]

The Midnight World has nearly none of these ... that's why I like it so much

No, it has virtually all of those, just inverted.

Did you see the gamism where I said, "Destitution and poverty are rare, except for when they show up like 'bad weather' to signify the presence of the BBEG." It's a typical trope of fantasy that when the BBEG is on the rise, the weather goes bad, disease spreads, there is a famine, etc.

Well, in Midnight the bad guys won, so it doesn't have those gamism precisely to show that the bad guys have won. Even in a standard fantasy game world, you can tell you've walked off into Evilandia because suddenly the gamisms go away.

It kinda reminds me of the Goth subculture. The Goth subculture is virtually identical to the Cheerleader subculture, it just inverts some of the superficial aspects of it (dark hair is good: blond hair is not, black is good: colors are not, sarcasm is good: cheerfulness is not). But fundamentally, it's the same thing.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

No, it has virtually all of those, just inverted.

Did you see the gamism where I said, "Destitution and poverty are rare, except for when they show up like 'bad weather' to signify the presence of the BBEG." It's a typical trope of fantasy that when the BBEG is on the rise, the weather goes bad, disease spreads, there is a famine, etc.

Well, in Midnight the bad guys won, so it doesn't have those gamism precisely to show that the bad guys have won. Even in a standard fantasy game world, you can tell you've walked off into Evilandia because suddenly the gamisms go away.

It kinda reminds me of the Goth subculture. The Goth subculture is virtually identical to the Cheerleader subculture, it just inverts some of the superficial aspects of it (dark hair is good: blond hair is not, black is good: colors are not, sarcasm is good: cheerfulness is not). But fundamentally, it's the same thing.

I am not sure what your point really is here.

Is black the same as white?
"You see, white is just the presence of all colors with high intensity. Black is just the absence of all colors! See, it's all the same".

Your example specifically - yes, they are the "same" in the sense that it's about defining subcultures. But the Goth subculture is not defined by being "anti-Cheerleader", and the one could exist without the other.

It certainly matters for practical terms whether you wear blond or black hair, or whether few can read in a setting or many can read. Maybe it is still a "gamism" (a world where evil has won must have rules like "no common literacy", "bad weather", "metric units" ), but it is still very different.

 

[pawsplay]

I'm not sure you would - I've not met anyone who doesn't measure their height in feet and inches. Maybe the kids do their height in metric these days?

Most people think in terms of "he's over six feet tall!"

Americans understand liters of soda pop. Maybe height is kind of like that. I'm curious.

 

[Umbran]

It kinda reminds me of the Goth subculture. The Goth subculture is virtually identical to the Cheerleader subculture, it just inverts some of the superficial aspects of it (dark hair is good: blond hair is not, black is good: colors are not, sarcasm is good: cheerfulness is not). But fundamentally, it's the same thing.

You know how many goths and cheerleaders you probably just insulted?

 

[Morrus]

Americans understand liters of soda pop. Maybe height is kind of like that. I'm curious.

Well, folks understand both most places (or at least, folks can understand both most places).

I've never heard anyone say "I'm 170cm tall" in all my 35 years of life. Equally, I've never heard anyone outside the medical profession say "I weight 70kg." Sure, I know what those are, but it's feet/inches for height and stone/pounds for weight. Miles for distance, MPH for speed, MPG for fuel efficiency.

Other things are metric - generally food, but there are other things.

 

[OhGodtheRats]

Oh man, this has been an interesting read. As an American who's been gaming in Berlin for the past 6 years (various games) I can say that it really does vary. I think the time the bias comes to the forefront is when you get "City" books written by American about a foreign city. There are still folks royally pissed about the WW's "Berlin by Night" because, as far as I understand it, they pretty much said Nazi Vampires rule everything. I paraphrase, but really it offended the huge vampire base here in Germany. I think this is a bit of a tangent, but I figured it'd be an interesting thing to share. In fantasy games it's less a big deal but it does come to the forefront when Americans write for cities that play the core game but aren't in America.
It might be the same with the whole "Gypsy" presence in RPG's...somehow.
:ends goofy rambling: