No worries... and I'm not trying to come off as a jerk but you all seem intent on defending someone who stated some questionable things outside of what we are discussing, took the time to write up nearly a page and dropped it in the thread then disappeared, and who could easily come back and type 2-3 lines clarifying what they meant but have instead chosen not to engage any further. If the context of his/her/their post was different maybe I'd be more willing to interpret it in a more positive light but I didn't read much positivity in that post at all... only some disturbingly outdated ideas.
I haven't replied before now for a couple reasons, firstly, I do have other things to do, and secondly, I was trying to find a way to get my point across with minimal risk of others misinterpreting my words, deliberately or otherwise. I've come to the conclusion that isn't a practical way of communicating when there are so many people talking, so you can look forward to somewhat quicker responses from this point forward
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Thourne correctly understood what I was saying:
Not what they said mate.
They said, "Excising slavery from a setting purely on the basis that it is bad, and claiming that it is a lazy/cheap tool to use when building a world is dismissive of people in the real world that managed to achieve remarkable things despite having been enslaved."
Which by my reading is: Removing slavery from a setting that was created with slavery, on the assertion that it was a cheap/lazy tool to use when it was created is dismissive of people in the real world because they managed to overcome not only everything else that stood in their way but also the incredible burden of slavery.
I think it is all part of the everyone loves the underdog thing. When you remove the slavery part of the story you diminish what they overcame, not what their potential was.
But hey, I could be reading it wrong. Hopefully they chime in.
Thank you, Thourne.
As for your concerns about my thinking black samuria are implausible Imaro, I would find a samuria from anywhere other than Japan, whether it is Fantasy Japan or not, implausible, due to the tremendous distance between Japan and most of the rest of the world. This is part of what makes Yasuke so remarkable, regardless of whether he first arrived in Japan as a slave or not. In all fairness to you, I should have explained my default assumptions about making settings, as that would have clarified a few things.
When I'm building a setting I generally use the real world, or a world geographically similar to it, as my starting point, and unless I specifically say otherwise anything that existed in the real world exists in my world(s), and anything that didn't exist, doesn't. I do this because the real world is the best example (and only example, since we have a sample size of one) of how people behave under various circumstances. Additionally, I don't usually use D&D magic in my settings, and if I do use it, I modify it. I don't care for an abundance of direct damage dealing spells, or spells that trivialize travel.
While you could remove slavery from a Fantasy Rome, or move Fantasy Africa closer to Fantasy Japan, this would have a variety of knock-on effects that would ultimately make your Fantasy Rome, Fantasy Africa, and Fantasy Japan, and indeed the entire setting, completely different, and potentially lose things that make Rome, Rome. Moving Fantasy Africa and Fantasy Japan closer together geographically would necessitate drastic changes in climate and the makeup of the populations of those parts of the world, as it would change what groups lived there. Additionally, moving Fantasy Africa would have the greatest impact on the world, since humans are believed to have originated in Africa, and if it were any different, humans may not have evolved. While you could say "the gods made humans!", I like to keep that sort of thing to a minimum. I don't like having to use magic as an excuse for a lot of things, and I would prefer to spend my "magic budget" on things like dragons, vampires, fairies, demons, undead, ect. I also like to have fairly small amount of fantastical elements in my settings, as I believe having a large amount of fantastical elements reduces their impact.
If you, or anyone else has any further questions, I would be happy to answer them at my earliest convenience.
