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

[doctorbadwolf]

Since when did the actions of humans and nature spirits make sense? Humans are extremely territorial and often choose violence instead of basic diplomacy. And Treants are shown to be extremely overprotective of their forests, because they can slowly convert them into more Treants.

Nothing I said relies on the assumption of anyone’s actions always making sense.

But humans aren’t inherently extremely foolish, and tend to compromise even very closely held values in favor of practicality, over time.

And we know from decades of fantasy media that Treants don’t attack elves for making things from wood. Why would they try to stop elves and Druids and dryads from growing trees into structures for humans?

Or more salient, why would they be so strongly inclined to do so that we need to assume that they would.

Because no one is arguing that such interactions would always go well, every time, in every world. Simply that it’s perfectly reasonable to say, “in this world humans don’t clear cut forests, and treants are pretty cool about responsible and sustainable harvesting.”

 

[J.Quondam]

(Twist: The game world's preeminent toothpick guild is run by shady treants.)

 

[beancounter]

(Twist #2: the treants are just colonies of ants disguised as trees.

 

[Faolyn]

Why wouldn’t they just grow lumber for the humans, and why wouldn’t the humans expand and develop differently from RL history?

I can very easily see elves setting aside portions of forest for humans to harvest--even going so far as to use magic so as to make the wood grow faster. But there could also be some complications there. For instance, humans reproduce rapidly and elves don't, so elves might not understand why that dozen acres (or however much) of wood they set aside for humans each year isn't enough anymore--it was a perfectly fine amount of wood just a few hundred years ago! I could also see some humans being willing to pay big money for off-limits furniture or sculptures made out of protected "elf wood," which isn't for sale. And, of course, there will be humans who don't like having to pay elves just to get some dead trees, and elves who don't like the idea of trading their precious trees to mere humans.

All of these possibilities have some good game usage.

 

[Reynard]

But humans aren’t inherently extremely foolish, and tend to compromise even very closely held values in favor of practicality, over time.

::climate change enters the chat::

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I can very easily see elves setting aside portions of forest for humans to harvest--even going so far as to use magic so as to make the wood grow faster. But there could also be some complications there. For instance, humans reproduce rapidly and elves don't, so elves might not understand why that dozen acres (or however much) of wood they set aside for humans each year isn't enough anymore--it was a perfectly fine amount of wood just a few hundred years ago! I could also see some humans being willing to pay big money for off-limits furniture or sculptures made out of protected "elf wood," which isn't for sale. And, of course, there will be humans who don't like having to pay elves just to get some dead trees, and elves who don't like the idea of trading their precious trees to mere humans.

All of these possibilities have some good game usage.

Sure, all possible in the same world, even.

::climate change enters the chat::

Climate change isn’t the result of individual humans all being idiots, it’s the result of stratification of power favoring the foolish and selfish rise to power and the masses having little ability to do anything about it, combined with at least a century of devestating pollution that the average person didn’t know what dangerous to the planet, and many generations of people growing up in a world where disasterous behavior is normalized.

None of that has anything to do with the kind of foolishness displayed when a hypothetical human says “screw it, let’s suicide run the entire forest because we don’t want to compromise with the current inhabitants.”

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

None of that has anything to do with the kind of foolishness displayed when a hypothetical human says “screw it, let’s suicide run the entire forest because we don’t want to compromise with the current inhabitants.”

Every single Crusade failed at its intended mission. Starting wars for basically no good reason is ingrained in human nature.

And why are you even arguing against this? Would you do this at a table where it's a plot hook for a campaign? Argue against the minutia of why this conflict is happening in the first place?

 

[Blue Orange]

Every single Crusade failed at its intended mission. Starting wars for basically no good reason is ingrained in human nature.

Starting wars for basically no good reason, but there are plenty of lawful and evil ones...

Religious wars and greed are quite common. And there's no reason nonhumans couldn't get into the game, and probably would.

 

[Blue Orange]

::climate change enters the chat::

Oh, absolutely! Look at Dark Sun! That was an apocalypse that made the world too hot started by overuse of fossil fuels...er, magic.

Wonder if the authors were inspired by that? It was less of a popular issue back in the 90s but it was certainly known.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Oh, absolutely! Look at Dark Sun! That was an apocalypse that made the world too hot started by overuse of fossil fuels...er, magic.

Wonder if the authors were inspired by that? It was less of a popular issue back in the 90s but it was certainly known.

I thought that was halflings that time.