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

[Blue Orange]

So basically ancient greece?

Oh, they had their own issues by modern standards.

Spoiler: somewhat explicit details

Masculinity was lost by taking the passive role, not by having a male partner, so it was OK to be bi (still had to make kids for the city-state), as long as you penetrated a slave or a younger boy--with all the consent issues that implies. As for lesbian relationships, that's much less well-described, though Sappho described female lovers and was well-regarded as a poet.

 

[Blue Orange]

Because it is severly underrepresented and deserves a proper representation and not a whitewashed one. (But that applies to all cultures, but in todays climate not many people call for authentic european culture representation. Most demands is for authentic representation of African and Asian cultures. And as I said before imo for authentic or even just respectful representation you need to show everything, not only the disney version of said cultures).

Also, this is a Al-Quadim thread, so no surprise I talk about Islamic and Arabic culture.

So--how about cultural appropriation of Japanese culture?

Japanese companies at least make good money exporting their popular culture (though there are serious issues with anime creators being underpaid by Japanese animation studios). Japan is a first-world country, with the third-highest market capitalization in the world. Japan's own creations were heavily influenced by their own borrowings from American culture like anime (look at the influence of Disney on Osamu Tezuka), though I doubt anyone would deny they have made it very much their own, specifically Japanese, thing at this point, to the point where American animation is influenced by anime nowadays, bringing the exchange full circle. The super sentai shows that became Power Rangers over here were inspired by the Japanese Spider-Man and his giant robot (Google it, it is one of the most wonderfully bananas things I have ever seen).

Technically the US is the dominant partner in the military alliance, but that's also true of most European countries--there are a couple of superpowers in the world, and the USA is one of them for the moment.

 

[gamerprinter]

Well, regarding one of my upcoming projects, is to remake my Kaidan setting of Japanese Horror (PFRPG) to 2000 years later as the Kaidan Star Empire (Starfinder), consider that I'm appropriating from my published original of the feudal Japan analog, updating it's history to having something comparable to Japan now, still an empire, but a democratically run/corporate industrial society, which is an appropriation of the west - it's technologies, entertainments, government administration, but then undergoing a dystopian future as included in the back story for my Kronusverse interstellar setting, then fitting it to a Starfinder world of starships, mecha, laser and plasma weapons. In a way, I'm appropriately some aspects of current Japan, but then having some kind of political revolution and returning to a Shogunate/Imperial government, a return to traditional social castes, with samurai and all the feudal roles filled.

Reflecting modern Japan, for example, many of the large corporations today: Honda, Toshiba, etc. were the great samurai houses of the feudal period, thus the large corporations are all owned by samurai houses, each maintaining it's own "samurai" security force, but very much like a modern corporation otherwise.

So Kaidan appropriately feudal Japan in it's making. Now I'm appropriating current Japan with it's own a cultural appropriations of the West, and appropriately common sci-fi themes, and in a way appropriating the original Kaidan into a Starfinderized version, right now - how appropriate.

 

[Ixal]

So--how about cultural appropriation of Japanese culture?

I do not believe in the concept of cultural appropriation, especially in its current form.
Cultures have influenced each other since forever, often for the positive.
And currently cultural appropriation is mainly a twitter term where the only thing counts is ethnicity and/or skin color but neither how knowledgable that person is nor the quality of the product. Its completely idiotic.

 

[occam]

The one main element from the new setting book that I (tentatively) prefer not to adopt is its broad cosmopolitanism, where racism hardly exists in Zakhara. Especially if these myths and legends are taken from a deeply tribal set of histories, I have trouble seeing how the tribal biases and hostilities that stem from them can be so easily avoided. Mind you, this is not to say that I do not find their avoidance morally desirable in real life--I do. It's just that if I'm going to work with a setting that is ordered around very tightly-knit tribes, then I figure the warts of tribalism ought to be in there, too.

But the absence of racism, even fantasy racism, was an element of the original setting. It was one of the interesting points that set Zakhara apart from other settings, even elsewhere in the Forgotten Realms. Quoting from Arabian Adventures (1992):

Despite their small numbers, nonhumans suffer almost none of the prejudices found in most "Western" AD&D campaigns. In comparison, Zakhara is an egalitarian society. Here the standard "racial hatreds" of the AD&D game—such as the antipathy between dwarf and elf, or hatred between gnome and goblin—no longer exist. Zakharan elves deal with orcs and dwarves as easily as they deal with humans (though it's true that many elves ultimately prefer to deal with other elves). Hatred may arise between individuals, families, or nations—but not at the level of racial hatreds detailed in the core AD&D rules.

There was also a note that even normally feared/despised races such as orcs, goblins, gnolls, and ogres were welcome in Zakharan cities. Tribalism is certainly present in Zakhara, but it's based on actual tribal affiliation, not race.

 

[Faolyn]

I do not believe in the concept of cultural appropriation, especially in its current form.
Cultures have influenced each other since forever, often for the positive.
And currently cultural appropriation is mainly a twitter term where the only thing counts is ethnicity and/or skin color but neither how knowledgable that person is nor the quality of the product. Its completely idiotic.

I think you don't understand what cultural appropriation is.

Because it's not just using something invented by another culture. It's misusing something of importance to a another culture. It's little non-Native American kids running around wearing "Indian headdresses" and going "woo woo woo." It's putting a statue of Ganesh in your living room solely because you think it's looks nice with your decor, not because you have respect for for that god or religion. It's tattooing yourself with Maori tattoos without any care about what those tattoos actually mean.

 

[Neonchameleon]

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?

Because, as mentioned, it's a board game. Unless there is a specific need to include them because it makes for a better game there is no specific need to include them. And given just how badly the historical role of the harem is misunderstood by people with very limited understandings there is no need to force harems down peoples' throats, gavage style, just because they happened to exist and because they existed and people had never been there wrote lurid fantasies about them that have escaped into Western popular culture. There are plenty of other things that were part of the culture that get no mention. So why force harems in there when they aren't relevant and the default Western conception of them is ahistorical?

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

So why force harems in there when they aren't relevant and the default Western conception of them is ahistorical?

I can answer that for you in one word: Exoticism.

That's literally the only reason. Not historical accuracy, because @Ixal dismissed the historical inaccuracies of the Forgotten Realms.

 

[Guest 7034872]

But the absence of racism, even fantasy racism, was an element of the original setting. It was one of the interesting points that set Zakhara apart from other settings, even elsewhere in the Forgotten Realms. Quoting from Arabian Adventures (1992):

There was also a note that even normally feared/despised races such as orcs, goblins, gnolls, and ogres were welcome in Zakharan cities. Tribalism is certainly present in Zakhara, but it's based on actual tribal affiliation, not race.

Ohhh--thank you! I hadn't gotten far enough in my reading of the original Al-Qadim materials, so I hadn't caught that. I mean, I "read it through once," (cough) but at a pace that I knew would not do it justice. I'm going to go back through it after finishing Zakhara.

Really, race is not a concern for me in this setting anyway: tribalism is, and the way I see it, tribalism always brings a cost in terms of in-group/out-group mentality, so that's one thing I will have in my adaptation of the setting. How much of it there will be, though, I haven't begun to decide. Maybe the Al-Hadhar/Al-Badia distinction will be enough for that, but I doubt it. I'll likely have the various tribes and nation states exhibit hostility and power struggles of the familiar sort.

UNRELATED TANGENT: I do have one slowly-growing quarrel with the editors of the Zakhara book: they need better copyeditors. Too many typos.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I would say that Eberron with its mystery about the true nature of the gods and allowing any alignment to be a follower of any god is closer to a model of realism and historical accuracy than Forgotten Realms active materially manifesting gods with (depending on edition) strong alignment restrictions for religions.

Religions doing enough evil would not be good in D&D alignment terms, the fact that they are worshiping neutral or good gods would not turn the evil actions not actually evil.

Doing some evil but significantly more good might be enough to still be good, but that is a judgment call.

FR seems to be a model of including historical inquisition type evil in a fantasy D&D western analogue.

Though I have personally taken an Eberron-like approach* (and that setting was absolutely one of my inspirations for doing so), it's completely possible to have legitimately good religions worshipping legitimately good entities which still, nonetheless, go wrong and do evil things.

4e had some truly excellent work on this front. I'm specifically thinking of a 4e era Dragon article that spoke of Bahamut. It goes into depth on how even Bahamut's clear, concise, straightforward doctrines could be twisted into something evil if misunderstood or misapplied, and that because he isn't omniscient and isn't omnipresent, he cannot always be perfectly policing the behavior of every sect or branch of his church. He tries to pick good people, but the church is made of mortals with fallible judgment, and even Bahamut himself is not totally free from error. As Gandalf said to Frodo, “Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgement. For even the very wise cannot see all ends.” Bahamut IS very wise, but he's not necessarily wise enough to see all ends.

That doctrine, by the way, is as follows:

• Uphold the highest ideals of honor and justice.
• Be constantly vigilant against evil and oppose it on all fronts.
• Protect the weak, liberate the oppressed, and defend just order.

Sounds pretty good, right? How could you mess up those? Answer: much more easily than one might think. "Uphold the highest ideals of honor and justice" can very quickly become "punish all crimes or even minor misdeeds with unremitting harshness, for only the absolutely pure and untainted can truly uphold the  highest ideals of honor and justice" (ignoring Bahamut's merciful nature and becoming a Lawful Stupid Moral Policeman). "Be constantly vigilant against evil and oppose it on all fronts" sounds lovely until you remember that that exact thing is what drove the IRL Inquisition and the witch hunts despite it being explicitly official Catholic doctrine that witches didn't exist and believing they did was heresy. Constant vigilance is always at risk of becoming inescapable paranoia. And that last three-way command is chock full of abusable phrases. "Protect the weak" can become "force the strong to convert, and destroy them if they refuse, because you cannot trust the strong not to prey on the weak unless they follow Bahamut." "Liberate the oppressed" depends pretty heavily on how you define what "oppressed" means (and the article gives an example of some Bahamut-following knights invading a land ruled by druids because obviously the druids must be oppressing them in order to stay in power!) And "defend just order" can fall down at the very thing it's trying to prevent, namely, people not being able to correctly identify which side (if any) in a conflict is the just one. I believe the example given is the loyal knights of a kingdom obeying the commands of the tyrannical princess because she IS legally the rightful ruler, because they don't know or realize just how bad she's being, and thus treat the resistance against her rule as people trying to destroy "just order."

So...yeah. Even with legitimately good deities who promulgate legitimately good doctrine and who have followers generally desiring to do good to and for others, it is still 100% possible to have branches or sects that go astray and potentially even become outright villains. Human imperfections are like that, sadly.

*In the setting of Jewel of the Desert, it has been established that it is not possible to objectively answer whether the One is truly who They claim to be. Not even They personally can prove it beyond all possible doubt, because no magic or technology that does not come from them can look back to see the truth with absolute, unquestionable clarity, and if the tool used was created by the One, how can one be totally sure that it wasn't created with bias? Ultimately, each person has to decide for themselves what evidence or testimony they believe accurately describes existence. Plus, the One has Their own reasons for being content that true, unequivocal proof of Their divinity is impossible (in brief, They would not want to prove it beyond any doubt even if they could, as that could be coercive, and coercing mortals would defeat the purpose of creation in the first place.) Note that this has NOT prevented the Safiqi priesthood from occasionally doing nasty things. Their moderate wing is the one in power right now, but the hardcore orthodox wing has had control before and has ordered forced conversions and even effectively "holy war" against non-believers in the past. Such things NEVER turn out well though, which results in the hardliners falling out of favor sooner or later. Safiqi magic cannot truly pacify the spirits of the unquiet dead, only Kahina magic can do that. Thus eventually they are forced to turn to the main group they would persecute in order to save their flocks, and that forced eating of humble pie tends to dampen enthusiasm for such rabid dogmatism. But incidents that inflame tensions can always crop up and give new fuel to their fire as well, so the flame never completely goes out.