D&D General Al-Qadim, Campaign Guide: Zakhara, and Cultural Sensitivity

[Faolyn]

I'm jumping back into this thread after missing out on a few pages. Without context, this statement could apply to so many things that are currently accepted as industry standards for RPGs. Gun violence, animal abuse, parental death, etc.

I think I would much rather rely on a trigger warning system (with Session 0, etc) than expect companies that mass market games to create a universally safe space. I'm all for anti-slavery, pro-feminist versions of settings where that's historically inaccurate. But I also feel like it's important to recognize how fast our cultural definitions of what is acceptable (in games, in media, etc) can change. Attempting to report what content is in a game and letting players decide what they're comfortable with is, IMNSHO, the best way to deal with that rapid evolution. Anything else is just trying to hit a moving target.

That's true; I was being vague here.

But I will say that, for any game that has a combat system, violence should obviously be an expected part of the game. It's also generally accepted that, in most fantasy games, you're "supposed" to be fighting against people who are actively attacking you or have committed actions you know to be evil. There aren't many published adventures that say "Your party comes across a peaceful village. You can see the villagers going about their normal, everyday lives. Now roll initiative, because your party is going to slaughter them all."

Sure, there are plenty of parties who would choose to murder an entire village for no immediately obvious reason, but I doubt that's part of most adventures. Certainly none that I've read. It's not a core assumption of the game. That's a thing for individual tables to decide.

So yes, a trigger warning system--and more games including such safety tools in their core books--is a very good thing. But it's easier for a game to say "this city relies heavily on agriculture" and let individual DMs decide if those farms are manned by slaves, serfs, large families, hired help, farm-golems, or something else.

 

[Faolyn]

Need not, but why are harems considered orientalism and the lack of harems is praised when they were part of the culture in Istanbul till the 20th century?

Well, I don't think most people are praising the lack of harems. But to the western belief, harems are very much an "exotic" thing used only by "savage heathens"--as opposed to a "good, old-fashioned properly religiously-sanctified heterosexual, two-person marriage" (heavy sarcasm here). And exotic, savage heathen things are typically seen as either beautiful, mysterious, and scary, or barbaric, ugly, and scary.

Also, on another note, harems imply one guy with a bunch of women (and sometimes underage boys and girls). "Reverse" harems where it's one woman with a bunch of guys is pretty rare. This is both pretty sexist and it strongly implies that the members of the harem didn't really give their consent to being there.

 

[Ixal]

Well, I don't think most people are praising the lack of harems. But to the western belief, harems are very much an "exotic" thing used only by "savage heathens"--as opposed to a "good, old-fashioned properly religiously-sanctified heterosexual, two-person marriage" (heavy sarcasm here). And exotic, savage heathen things are typically seen as either beautiful, mysterious, and scary, or barbaric, ugly, and scary.

Also, on another note, harems imply one guy with a bunch of women (and sometimes underage boys and girls). "Reverse" harems where it's one woman with a bunch of guys is pretty rare. This is both pretty sexist and it strongly implies that the members of the harem didn't really give their consent to being there.

So basically to be respectful to arabic culture you must remove everything from it we westerners consider exotic?

 

[bedir than]

So basically to be respectful to arabic culture you must remove everything from it we westerners consider exotic?

As an outsider when creating a culture inspired by one with which you have little to no experience beyond Western pop culture and Wikipedia it is more important to be respectful than faithful, as the outsider will likely not know enough to be faithful. Attempts at faithful often wind harmful because of the lack of experience and education.

Even as someone who has lived, worked, and studied the Near East I stay away from much beyond inspiration. My D&D world doesn't need an Ottoman harem or King David's harem (I think it was him).
But my D&D world does need coffeehouses, tea, caravanserai, architecture designed for dry heat.

 

[Malmuria]

So basically to be respectful to arabic culture you must remove everything from it we westerners consider exotic?

Orientalist artists in the 19th c. never saw harems themselves. Many never even visited Ottoman Turkey (which, btw, is not an arabic culture). Their idea of the harem was pure fantasy, a male gaze that invented and desired 'oriental' others.

At the very same time, politically the repression of women in non-European parts of the world, including slavery, was used as justification for European colonialism and "civilizing mission." Of course, women were also repressed in Europe, and colonization also involved force labor and other violences; the irony was lost on those imperial powers.

So the question of fantasy is whose fantasy. The tropes and conventions of fantasy medieval England were largely constructed by Anglo-American authors. However, the tropes and conventions of the fantasy orient were also constructed by Anglo-American and European (especially French) authors.

IIRC correctly, the 2e descriptions of Zakhara and Chuult are actually quite explicit about this distinction. The Al Qadim introduction says it is based more on 1001 nights (also a largely-European construction) than any historical accuracy. The dragon magazine article introducing Chuult cites the 19thc adventure fantasy of H. Ridger Haggard among others as primary influence, above any historical ones. The problem is, the way that otherness is depicted in a lot of that fiction (e.g. Haggard's "lost world" fiction or the various versions of Alladin which were written by orientalist Europeans) is firmly of its time, so using those as inspiration for fantasy replicates, or carries the risk of replicating, a racist world view.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

The point? The point was that it's okay to have a part of the world hinge on humans acting stupidly. Humans as a species are stupid and in history have done similar nonsensical things.

The name we use in D&D for “humans acting stupidly” is ….

Elves.

 

[Malmuria]

The name we use in D&D for “humans acting stupidly” is ….

Elves.

no no, elves have an ALIEN mentality, not a human one. Or at least they did when they got a +1 to their int. /s

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

no no, elves have an ALIEN mentality, not a human one. Or at least they did when they got a +1 to their int. /s

 

[Faolyn]

So basically to be respectful to arabic culture you must remove everything from it we westerners consider exotic?

No. But treat things as they actually are, not as exotic. If you want to have a haram, show an actual haram, warts and all. Don't just have beautiful and lusty women in gauzy pants lounging around languidly eating grapes around a fountain while being fanned by slaves using palm leaves, just waiting for the virile male adventurers to appear, a la the typical sexy fantasy image.

So yes. For actual, published material, remove the exotic stuff, since most of it was actually made up by western Europeans--or Hollywood--in the first place. For your own home game, I don't care.

 

[DrunkonDuty]

The name we use in D&D for “humans acting stupidly” is ….

Elves.

I was really expecting this to end with "bards."