How faithful should a culture be adapted in an RPG?

[Fenris-77]

I think you should be as faithful as you want or need to be. That said, you should still avoid bad stereotyping and whatnot, but no one is under any pressure (or shouldn't be) to try for 1-1 representation. It kind of takes the point out of fiction IMO.

 

[Ixal]

Our RPGs are not history courses. We are not bound to be "faithful" in the sense of matching every cultural detail. The overwhelming majority of the folks at home don't have the educational background to be completely faithful. Faithfulness is not a goal we can generally meet in practice.

We are, I think, more bound to being respectful in our depictions, which is not the same as faithful.

How can you be respectful to a culture when you divide it into good and bad parts based on your personal and own cultural preferences and then hide the things you do not agree with?

 

[Fenris-77]

How can you be respectful to a culture when you divide it into good and bad parts based on your personal and own cultural preferences and then hide the things you do not agree with?

What if the parts aren't 'good' and 'bad', which aren't terms that appear in the post you quote, but rather just parts. You know, the parts I want to write/design/run/play the game I want to. There's nothing inherently divisive or judgmental going on. There's no heuristic in play whereby things are being ranked, or compared in terms of value in any kind of absolute way.

 

[Blue Orange]

Well I did publish the Kaidan setting of Japanese Horror (PFRPG), with the goal of more authenticity than previously published Japan analogs. But my development of the setting focused on specific cultural aspects and taking a deep dive into each subject, shooting for verisimilitude. At the same time, I didn't shoot for every aspect of Japanese society. Completionist was not the goal, rather a focus on the aspects I've chosen and only those. So there were lots of aspects of Japan that aren't included, as I felt they were unnecessary, and if I were to be faithful to every aspect of Japan, done with the nuanced detail I achieved, instead of a 240 page Gamemaster's Guide, it would have been a 30 volume set. So you can be true to a given culture, and not require covering every possible thing - only the things that matter enough to convey the intended theme. I've been told that I did Kaidan well, by more than a few...

Also as a horror setting people are expecting disturbing things.

 

[Blue Orange]

How can you be respectful to a culture when you divide it into good and bad parts based on your personal and own cultural preferences and then hide the things you do not agree with?

I mean, it's a game. Real history is full of slavery, rape, torture, human sacrifice, genocide, ethnic cleansing, religious wars, and just about every awful thing in the book. I can definitely see people not wanting to deal with every awful aspect of every culture they're playing in. Even in the standard D&D setting, they've removed most of the gender roles associated with medieval Europe, not to mention the religious intolerance and the quasi-slavery of serfdom. (And the plague.)

 

[Larnievc]

In recent times there has been a increase (as far as I can tell) of having or at least demanding faithful adaptations of cultures into RPGs.
But most of the time those adaptations leave out parts of the culture people find distasteful or evil (and are thus only used for dedicated BBEG cultures). Things like slavery, human sacrifices, ect.

But I wonder how faithful a adaptation of a culture is in the end when you leave out, sometimes quite significant, parts of it. You can't simply remove slavery from ancient Rome and still have a faithful representation of it. Slavery was a central part of how their society worked. Same for human sacrifices and the Aztecs.

What is your stance on this? Do you think a adaptations which leaves out all of the bad aspects are still faithful? Or would you prefer to have both the good and the bad paths when content is supposed to adapt and represent a real world culture?

Not very. It’s supposed to be another world after all.

 

[aco175]

About as real as AC and armor being historically accurate, HP depicting how much damage you can take and refresh by taking a nap, and how 6 attributes go to define who you are fully. Throw in magic that can do anything and you are now drifting far away from historical.

 

[beancounter]

I guess the big question is where do you draw the line between respectful and not respectful?

The "line" can be fuzzy depending on the audience.

For example, if you "dress" your fantasy culture in the traditional clothing (or similar clothing) of a RL culture, is that honoring the culture, is it disrespecting the culture, or is it cultural appropriation?

 

[Voadam]

What is your stance on this? Do you think a adaptations which leaves out all of the bad aspects are still faithful? Or would you prefer to have both the good and the bad paths when content is supposed to adapt and represent a real world culture?

I feel there is no real obligation to portray cultures any particular way. Peoples' tastes vary and what they like or are offended by in an RPG culture portrayal (whether to include or exclude slavery, cultural trope portrayals, religious portrayals, etc.) vary as well. I pretty much tune out demands to do something one way or to not do something one way. I mostly do not care about being super faithful adaptations. I prefer to focus on my games being fun experiences for me and my players, not on maximizing faithfulness to the source material.

I run fantasy D&D in a homebrew mashup setting with a lot of adapted setting elements and a bunch of fantasy analogues to real world stuff. I adapt it all for my game. Even though I use Ptolus and the Holy Lothian Empire as a big element of my game I have pretty much dropped the slavery element of the Empire and the trapped cosmology element. Neither is something I care to deal with as an issue or an element of my gaming so I don't. I am fine with my Norse viking types being more Marvel comics adventurers in portrayal focus than slave trading raider-merchants. I am fine with my fantasy Greeks being more Disney Hercules. For my gaming entertainment I generally prefer my bad guys to be more pulp Cthulhu than oppressive societal issues.

I have bought a lot of fairly faithful sourcebook stuff, GURPS sourcebooks come to mind, and I use a bunch, but my goal is generally prioritizing cool fantasy game experiences and portrayals I find fun over prioritizing historical or cultural simulation.

I am also fine with others going different directions and including slavery or making it a big focus issue in their game or going more full on faithful cultural portrayal than I prefer.

I like having different cultural portrayals out there. I think a diversity of options is a good thing. Some want more faithful adaptations or inclusion or exclusion of specific elements in their gaming. That's fine by me for individual products even if it is not something that appeals to my tastes. I am against advocating that all things be one way or another though.

 

[Hand of Evil]

It is all about the gods. You have to remove them and replace them or at least change the dogma of the religion and that would change the culture. I keep things in and let the players play in a "realistic" setting. Soapbox; define good, evil, neutral for the setting.

Once had a barbarian setting where the only evil was, killing family and breaking your oath. Everything else was handle by cash or quest.