D&D 5E (2024) Greyhawk 2024: comparing Oerth and Earth

[Paul Farquhar]

What is Adn and Zeif?

Near Mouton-Geoff.

 

[Emerikol]

It is preferable for reallife cultures to be able to see themselves within the worlds of D&D.

It is problematic to have non-insiders depict inspirations from a reallife culture. But it is probably worse to erase reallife cultures from an earthlike world.

Not to interrupt your otherwise good work but this seems a bit over the top for me. Why are DMs required to limit themselves to representing cultures of this world in their world in the exact same way? I'd think it would be better to just pick and choose bits from a variety of cultures and make them your own. This would then run no danger of offending any culture because it is not there culture. It is a culture that stole one thing and stole other things from other cultures.

 

[Yaarel]

Not to interrupt your otherwise good work but this seems a bit over the top for me. Why are DMs required to limit themselves to representing cultures of this world in their world in the exact same way? I'd think it would be better to just pick and choose bits from a variety of cultures and make them your own. This would then run no danger of offending any culture because it is not there culture. It is a culture that stole one thing and stole other things from other cultures.

As you say, even when inventing a new culture, one is still drawing inspiration from reallife cultures − and probably relying on the stereotypes about those cultures, many of them negative. People from those cultures will recognize and feel this.

Also, when creating a setting or writing any story, the author does best when being knowledgeable about the subject matter. Being knowledgeable about the cultures one is borrowing from will help form a deeper and less stereotypical fantasy culture with more verisimilitude.

 

[Yaarel]

Heh, mixing cultures can lead to situations like using Japanese characteristics to represent a Chinese concept, or vice versa. Or using German characteristics to represent Nordic concepts. Alot can go wrong. One needs to make sure the presentation is positive and sensitive when presenting any fantasy culture. A fantasy amalgam doesnt grant immunity.

When taking liberties with a reallife culture, it helps to have space elsewhere to represent the actual culture more fairly. Then there is a distinction between the culture itself, versus the whatever the liberties entail. It is clear that playful reinvention doesnt actually represent the reallife culture.

 

[Yaarel]

The roleplaying game Coyote & Crow presents fantasy versions of Indigenous Americans (and some Indigenous Canadians and Indigenous Mexicans). Mainly reallife Indigenous (largely Cherokee) created this setting. It presents a what-if pan-Indigenous perspective. The premise is, the migrations of Europeans into the Americas never happened. Instead, the various tribes evolved autonomously, admixing and reforming, while developing technologies organically from within the Indigenous experiences and sensibilities. Thus there are new fantasy tribal peoples and new tribal confederations.

The game instructs, if the reallife player is non-Indigenous, then use the fantasy cultures of the game as-is. For ones own character, be otherwise ones self. The character can do what one oneself would do in that situation. If the DM or player happens to be of an Indigenous tribe oneself, then one should add reallife Indigenous names, words, places, and customs from ones culture to enrich the Coyote & Crow setting, adding depth and verisimilitude, as well as personal resonance. However if the player isnt Indigenous, one must not do these things, must not imitate a reallife tribe, because they are "almost certainly negative stereotypes of Native Americans". Again, whatever the players identity, when roleplaying a character, one can be oneself within the setting context.

The Greyhawk setting is mainly a reallife culture with a twist. Gygax designed his cultures by taking something familiar from reallife, then adding something unfamiliar to it. Cultural sensitivity applies. The 2024 Greyhawk often needs to ensure sensitivity when the past occasionally took missteps.

 

[Yaarel]

It is ok for a DM or a player to play a villain. But what one is doing is thinking about what one oneself would do if being villainous in that context. The perspective is quite different from pretending to be a negative stereotype.

 

[Parmandur]

The Greyhawk setting is mainly a reallife culture with a twist. Gygax designed his cultures by taking something familiar from reallife, then adding something unfamiliar to it.

Weeeeell...no, not really. The method was more pulp fiction genre focused, not real world analog focused. That is more Mystara's thing.

 

[Yaarel]

Weeeeell...no, not really. The method was more pulp fiction genre focused, not real world analog focused. That is more Mystara's thing.

Pulp fiction is even moreso a reallife culture with a twist, except immersing in negative stereotypes.

 

[Parmandur]

Pulp fiction is even moreso a reallife culture with a twist, except immersing in negative stereotypes.

Often, true. But Greyhawk is not really the "exact paralell" type of Setting, by and large. There are some broad cultural groupings srt in deep history, but it isn't like Keoland is supposed to be a specific European culture and Furondy another.

 

[Yaarel]

This is how Gygax creates a culture: consider his invention of the Drow.

Gygax borrows the concept of Light Elf versus Dark Elf from reallife Norse folkbelief. He misunderstands it as if referring to American skin-color racism. The Norse terms refer to hair color, but apply to literal luminosity verses dwelling in darkness, and moreso to the mindful intentions. Then as a twist, he throws in Greek Arachnea. Then he calls this amalgam from reallife sources by the Scottish word "drow" (which actually derives from the Norse term trǫll).

Gygax creates all of the human cultures in the same way, a reallife reference with a twist. For example, the "North" "Barbarians" are plainly a Norse culture, especially Norwegian. In reallife, I have more than one relative named "Ingrid". It is almost entirely negative stereotypes made deeply worse by fusing it with the assumptions N*zi German racism and cultural appropriation and misrepresentation. N*zis are enemies. My family fought in the underground against the N*zis. Some family had to escape to Sweden. To Germanize and N*zify my heritage feels horrifying.


In any case, the point is, even when creating a fictional culture, sensitivity.