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

[bedir than]

Hollywood produce several movies based in "1001 nights" decades ago before Disney's Aladdin or Dreamworks' Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas. I don't remember complains about these to be politically incorrect for the current standars

You are correct, people in the 80s didn't really concern themselves with treating others with respect.
Now we do.

 

[Faolyn]

There are many european inspired settings that feature the inquisition, witch burnings, ect.

Which D&D setting has this?

I can think of one: Ravenloft, back in 2e/3x, and then limited mostly to the domains of Tepest and Nova Vaasa where such things were thematically appropriate (well, it was less witches and more "people who have been accused of consorting with the fey," but same difference). Have there been other D&D settings with inquisitions and witch burnings?

But Islamic slavery for example? Why doesn't it create the same amount of criticism as when European slavery gets removed? And considering how ingrained slavery was in islamic culture, can you even make a authentic representation without it, especially for the Mamluk countries? The same way you can't have an authentic USA/Confederacy without slavery?

How many people are complaining when Islamic/Middle Eastern (the two are not the same thing, you know) slavery is removed? I mean, seriously?

Zakhara/Al Qidam is not the Middle East any more than the Sword Coast is western Europe. Inspired by (the myths and legends, at least), definitely; supposed to be a direct match to, no. The fact that there are a ton of gods that are all accepted there should give you a clue that it's not entirely accurate to Islam.

Deadlands, however, is supposed to take place in 19th-century America, which makes removing slavery an entirely different thing.

 

[Faolyn]

And even if something is present in a setting, the presentation makes a big difference. Exalted, for example, has always had grim and unpleasant elements, such as slavery, war crimes, demons with alien morality, etc. When some books in second edition went into.....rather too much detail about rape camps, the treatment of slaves, ghostly body horror, both dealing and taking sexual abuse being mandatory to one PC type, etc, that prompted a backlash.

Unless the setting is explicitly about being super-gritty or outright horrific, it's usually wiser to leave it up to each GM how much they want to focus on the darker elements.

Agreed. And even in a super-gritty setting, it might not really be necessary to go into that much detail. It's not like this is a book where you need to spell out everything for the reader. It's a game supplement designed to give the reader the tools needed to make a character or run a game. You want to have slavery, and you want to say the slaves are treated horribly, that's fine, but, well, I don't know how much detail Exalted gave, but they probably gave much more detail than is necessary to be inspiration for a game.

I'll go back to D&D for a sec. Throughout all of the editions (maybe not in 4e, since IIRC they were kind of tree-monsters, but I don't know), dryads have had the ability to charm people. Back in 1e it specified they charmed men, although by 2e the ability was more equal-opportunity. They never said what would happen to the charmed targets, but c'mon, it's sex--or rather, rape, since the victim was being mind-controlled (even if I doubt that Gygax thought of it that way). But the various MMs put out over the decades didn't feel a need to spell that out. If you, the DM, wanted to go that far and say that dryads are rapists, you can. If you wanted to say that the charmed victims are merely guards and servants because dryads won't have sex with their charmed targets, you can do that as well. But if the MMs flat-out said "dryads have sex with their charmed targets," then that actually takes away some of your ability to use dryads however you wish.

 

[Voadam]

Which D&D setting has this?

I can think of one: Ravenloft, back in 2e/3x, and then limited mostly to the domains of Tepest and Nova Vaasa where such things were thematically appropriate (well, it was less witches and more "people who have been accused of consorting with the fey," but same difference). Have there been other D&D settings with inquisitions and witch burnings?

A couple come to mind.

Eberron's theocratic kingdom of Thrane had a significant inquisition against lycanthropes which is a big issue in shifter cultural history.

Ptolus had a recent theocratic empire wide arcane caster inquisition/witch burning history.

Freeport's city watch has a God Squad unit to hunt down cults.

I'd have to think on Golarion.

 

[Voadam]

Oh wait, politically powerful church persecuting schismatics and heretics with torture and horrific execution? Forgotten Realms says that is a bad guy organization thing so the Zhentarim, Bane, and Cyric internal machinations are worth checking out in the heart of Western European fantasy realms.

For the most on the nose fantasy European Inquisition I would go with d20 Swarshbuckling Adventures where the monotheistic politically powerful church in the very fantasy analogue age of exploration Europe has the Inquisition as a big organization and metaplot issue.

 

[Faolyn]

A couple come to mind.

Eberron's theocratic kingdom of Thrane had a significant inquisition against lycanthropes which is a big issue in shifter cultural history.

Ptolus had a recent theocratic empire wide arcane caster inquisition/witch burning history.

Freeport's city watch has a God Squad unit to hunt down cults.

I'd have to think on Golarion.

Two of those aren't D&D settings (I did specify). Freeport is system-agnostic (I have a version of it for Fate; I think it's the same setting as the one you linked), and Ptolus is 3pp. And Thrane's inquisition happened 200 years before game start. I'd also suggest that none of these settings are truly European-based, as Ixal stated. I haven't actually read any Ptolus, but it's a ginormous city, right? And not supposed to be a pseudo-medieval European country.

Oh wait, politically powerful church persecuting schismatics and heretics with torture and horrific execution? Forgotten Realms says that is a bad guy organization thing so the Zhentarim, Bane, and Cyric internal machinations are worth checking out in the heart of Western European fantasy realms.

I'll grant you this--but in all of those cases, those are evil groups, doing evil things probably just so PCs have an enemy. It's not being shown as being part of regular culture. AFAIK, there's no Inquisition of Tyr or Lathander or Helm. So this is still very different from Ixal's statement about how... I can't even really tell. How we should include Hollywood-style harems and stuff in Middle Eastern-inspired settings because otherwise we would only be showing the bad side of the culture? Something like that.

 

[Ixal]

How we should include Hollywood-style harems and stuff in Middle Eastern-inspired settings because otherwise we would only be showing the bad side of the culture? Something like that.

Don't start with strawmens.
Nowhere did I call for Hollywood harems. But harems were part of ottoman culture so it should not be praised that they are completely missing. What would be praise worthy would be having accurate harems.

 

[bedir than]

Don't start with strawmens.
Nowhere did I call for Hollywood harems. But harems were part of ottoman culture so it should not be praised that they are completely missing. What would be praise worthy would be having accurate harems.

Does your game regularly deal with forced child marriage like Western Europe in the era? Probably not.
Then why insist on only harming others?

 

[Ixal]

Does your game regularly deal with forced child marriage like Western Europe in the era? Probably not.
Then why insist on only harming others?

It does come up from time to time among nobility.
Your point?

The "princess being forced to marry someone for political reasons" trope is not all that rare.

 

[bedir than]

It does come up from time to time among nobility.
Your point?

You seem to be placing a higher emphasis on Islamic/Arab/Turkic evils than you do any other.