Doctor Futurity
Hero
First, I am pleasantly surprised to skip to page 81 of this and discover it is not threadlocked.
Second, I would be really interested in what the OP has to say about the Atruaghin Clans, a book which was 100% indisputably about representing Amerinds in D&D through five caricatures of culture and society. From a historical perspective this stuff is really interesting, but as an example with Orcs of Thar (which I never owned back in the 80's) one can see what is today identified as racist intonation, but the really concerning question I might have is whether, when intending to specifically bring actual Native American culture and belief in some form into D&D, did they succeed, fail, catastrophically fail, or fall in somewhere between? Maztica and Cities of Gold are two other products that come to mind.
EDIT: I have some opinions on these books, of course, but only have my studied background in anthropology and that is aging a bit. I did use City of Gold as a resource for running my own Chaco Canyon cultural campaign at one point, which was fun, but I am not Native American myself, and would not presume to reflect one's opinion on the subject. I can say I really thought these books, in total, reflected a lot of missed opportunity in terms of their content, blending real-world cultural and religious representations with fictional analogues in to the Forgotten Realms or Mystara was less interesting to me than if they had tried to do an historically accurate book....but at least for the time I assumed my interest was in a minority on that (barring GURPS and its historical setting books). Today I think there's an unfortunate shift away from using RPGs as a basis for experiencing historical content of any meaningful variety, which is unfortunate. It could be a valuable tool to teach in a fun way, and could help greatly to sensitize people to cultural differences and experiences if done well. The problem being, of course, everyone would disagree on what doing it well means and how to do it.
Second, I would be really interested in what the OP has to say about the Atruaghin Clans, a book which was 100% indisputably about representing Amerinds in D&D through five caricatures of culture and society. From a historical perspective this stuff is really interesting, but as an example with Orcs of Thar (which I never owned back in the 80's) one can see what is today identified as racist intonation, but the really concerning question I might have is whether, when intending to specifically bring actual Native American culture and belief in some form into D&D, did they succeed, fail, catastrophically fail, or fall in somewhere between? Maztica and Cities of Gold are two other products that come to mind.
EDIT: I have some opinions on these books, of course, but only have my studied background in anthropology and that is aging a bit. I did use City of Gold as a resource for running my own Chaco Canyon cultural campaign at one point, which was fun, but I am not Native American myself, and would not presume to reflect one's opinion on the subject. I can say I really thought these books, in total, reflected a lot of missed opportunity in terms of their content, blending real-world cultural and religious representations with fictional analogues in to the Forgotten Realms or Mystara was less interesting to me than if they had tried to do an historically accurate book....but at least for the time I assumed my interest was in a minority on that (barring GURPS and its historical setting books). Today I think there's an unfortunate shift away from using RPGs as a basis for experiencing historical content of any meaningful variety, which is unfortunate. It could be a valuable tool to teach in a fun way, and could help greatly to sensitize people to cultural differences and experiences if done well. The problem being, of course, everyone would disagree on what doing it well means and how to do it.
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