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

[Neonchameleon]

Do you actually read what is written?
Its not about the game requiring harem, its that they absence is specifically praised even though they were part of the local culture.
According to this expert its better to falsely represent the culture there than to present it accurately.

I read what was written, then pointed out why it wasn't worth the pixels used to write it.

Harems existed. But the harem as presented in popular Western culture has almost nothing to do with historical accuracy of and almost everything to do with authors who had never been there and never seen one doing what we would now call "typing one handed" even if they actually used pens.

And it is far more historically accurate as well as being less insulting to consider something few people took part in not relevant enough to be worth including than it is to force in something which has its popular understand based on nineteenth century fetish porn written by people who neither knew nor cared about the actual situation.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

And yet to me it seems silly that people demand a respectful representation of specific real world cultures, but their idea of respectful is a whitewashed, by western standards, disney version of said culture which has hardly anything in common with the real one.
To me this is the new version of orientalism and shows exactly 0 respect for foreign cultures as its obvious that the culture itself is of no interest to the people demanding them to be represented.

If being anything less than 100% perfectly historically accurate means disrespect, then it is not possible to not be disrespectful.

You have set a standard that cannot, even in principle, be met. Because the only way to meet it would be to dryly recount the exact historical facts of those historical cultures and never do even the smallest amount of hypothesizing, expanding, trimming, condensing, or in any other way modifying anything. Adding anything fantastical would, by definition, be disrespectful because fantastical things didn't happen in those cultures.

 

[Ixal]

I read what was written, then pointed out why it wasn't worth the pixels used to write it.

Harems existed. But the harem as presented in popular Western culture has almost nothing to do with historical accuracy of and almost everything to do with authors who had never been there and never seen one doing what we would now call "typing one handed" even if they actually used pens.

And it is far more historically accurate as well as being less insulting to consider something few people took part in not relevant enough to be worth including than it is to force in something which has its popular understand based on nineteenth century fetish porn written by people who neither knew nor cared about the actual situation.

So then praise it when harems are done right, but not when they are left out. Leaving them out should not cause any comment at all.

But that is not what happened. Here it was specifically praised when cultural attributes are not shown.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

So then praise it when harems are done right, but not when they are left out. Leaving them out should not cause any comment at all.

But that is not what happened. Here it was specifically praised when cultural attributes are not shown.

You have left out a critical possibility.

That is, the possibility that the only way to do them right is to leave them out.

Edit: And if you want an example of that actually happening, with a real-world culture, which explicitly would very much NOT want anyone else to even TRY to implement a cultural thing that's important to them, look up "skinwalker." A lot of authors, who know nothing about Navajo culture, simply use it as a local (or, worse, exotic) variation on the term "shapeshifter." But "skinwalker" is not something Navajo people discuss with non-Navajo. Literally, actually, the ONLY acceptable way to portray "skinwalker" stories as a non-Navajo is to refrain. Don't use the term, don't tell stories about them, do not use them, period. Even if that would, properly speaking, make your depiction of Navajo characters less accurate, do not talk about skinwalkers, because it's not something shared with outsiders.

Hence, accuracy is a tool, not a goal. We must use it wisely. Sometimes, a less-accurate story is, in point of fact, more respectful than a story that is more accurate.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

Maybe "Otaku" can be offensive for somebody, but there is a Spanish magazine about manga with the name "Otaku Bunka", an also an English-languange magazine about manga+anime with the title "Otaku USA".

Japan realises the manga and the anime are very important for the "soft power". Maybe some Japanese people believe we can't understand them, but I guess a foreign living in Japan, speaking Japanese perfectly and even married with a Japanese can realise about certain things of the Japanese thanks because his point of view is different. Some days ago I found in youtube a channel of two Spanishs living in Japan, and telling things about Japanese society, with their virtues and flaws. Have you thought any time if Hasbro and Embracer Group (onwers of Asmodee and Fantasy Flight Games) mergered then "Legend of the Five Rings" could be added oficially to the D&D multiverse?

Hasbro is very interested in the Japanese market, at least as potential source of multimedia franchises. Transformers and Power Rangers are IPs with Japanese roots. When I was a little child I didn't mind at all Mazinger Z and other animes about mechas were from Japan.

Harems sound "exotic" to use a softer word, but in the real History there were the cause of continual civil wars for the succesion, because in the Muslims realms there wasn't the tradition of the firstborn to become the heir. The sultan Mehmed III the execution of his 19 brothers.

Somebody could to writte a fantasy story based in the Copt culture as a homage with the best intentions, but accidently to cause a misenundertanding and somebody would feel unconfortable.

In the same Northamerican citizens from Alaska, Miami, Texas, California and New York aren't identical also there are differences between the regions of Near and Middle Orient.

WotC could publish a new setting inspired in the ancient India but without the caste system.

Zakhara can be more "ideological neutral" if the main political factions are too linked with supernatural forces or sentient monsters, for example the genies, the dragons, the giants and "alien" creatures as the githyankis or the khaasta (planar raiders, reptilians)

 

[Ixal]

You have left out a critical possibility.

That is, the possibility that the only way to do them right is to leave them out.

That I simply do not accept.
When its historical and accurate then the way to do it right is to use them as they existed.
Leaving them out is either, depending on the reason, a capitulation before the orientalist image you think can't be corrected or a disneyfication of a real world culture which imo is not how you implement them respectfully.

Harems sound "exotic" to use a softer word, but in the real History there were the cause of continual civil wars for the succesion, because in the Muslims realms there wasn't the tradition of the firstborn to become the heir. The sultan Mehmed III the execution of his 19 brothers.

Yes that was rather common. Later in the Ottoman Empire that slowly changed to members of the royal family being imprisoned until it was their turn to rule.
Where were they imprisoned? They had a special residence (called cage) in the gasp harem of the Topkapi palace

 

[Neonchameleon]

So then praise it when harems are done right, but not when they are left out. Leaving them out should not cause any comment at all.

But that is not what happened. Here it was specifically praised when cultural attributes are not shown.

In a perfect world that would be the case. Meanwhile in the world we live in the bar is set so low that harems as envisioned through the nineteenth century equivalent of one handed typing by people who had never been within a hundred miles of one are the default. Leaving these ahistorical fetish harems out is a significant improvement over including them.

And it is entirely fair to praise something that is significantly better than the expected norms even where the bar is very low.

 

[Ondath]

In a perfect world that would be the case. Meanwhile in the world we live in the bar is set so low that harems as envisioned through the nineteenth century equivalent of one handed typing by people who had never been within a hundred miles of one are the default. Leaving these ahistorical fetish harems out is a significant improvement over including them.

And it is entirely fair to praise something that is significantly better than the expected norms even where the bar is very low.

I didn't follow the thread in its entirety and I don't have much to say on the topic, but there is one fun fact I'd like to leave about harems in history: The "one handed typing", while grossly exaggerated and orientalist in most details, is... not entirely wrong on some things. The harem did have the main purpose of providing "entertainment" to the sultan, and this did include racy stuff. In fact, there's one sultan (Selim II) who died because he slipped while he was chasing a slave girl in the bath.

Turkish conservatives often try to push these details under the rug to have the history of the harem conform to their modern conservative morals (there's an oft-repeated line about how the harem educated girls more than anything, which... isn't super accurate), and I kind of agree with @Ixal that scrubbing such details out and painting a Disneyified version of oppressed cultures where they were actually super cool and fun all the time with no disturbing details for our modern sensibilities is a different form of bad representation. But when it comes to things like "skinwalkers" where outsiders explicitly cannot know something, it provides a dilemma. I think trying to be accurate (with the good and the bad) as much as you can is ideal (people say "write what you know", but the best part of knowing is that you can always know more!), and actually consulting people of a specific culture when you can't do anymore as an outsider is the only way I can see out of this. I wonder if the Navajo ever explicitly stated how - if at all - they'd like skinwalkers (or things related to them) be represented in fictional works?

EDIT: @EzekielRaiden's quote is pretty much the kind of thing I wanted to see! If that's the case, I think it's perfectly fair to leave that myth out of any work related to Navajo. Surely we can tell good narratives about them where skinwalkers don't come into play.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

That I simply do not accept.
When its historical and accurate then the way to do it right is to use them as they existed.
Leaving them out is either, depending on the reason, a capitulation before the orientalist image you think can't be corrected or a disneyfication of a real world culture which imo is not how you implement them respectfully.

Then take it up with Dr. Adrienne Keene, who is both a Navajo tribe member and very specifically a leading expert in Native American studies. She has, very explicitly, said, "What happens when Rowling pulls this [skinwalker] in, is we as Native people are now opened up to a barrage of questions about these beliefs and traditions (take a look at my twitter mentions if you don’t believe me)–but these are not things that need or should be discussed by outsiders. At all. I’m sorry if that seems “unfair,” but that’s how our cultures survive."

It doesn't matter whether you accept it or not. The Navajo do not want outsiders talking about "skinwalkers." Even though that will, necessarily, be less accurate than a work that does talk about them. Don't. All forms of discussing them will necessarily be disrespectful; even among Navajo themselves, it's a topic that shouldn't be broached casually. The only respectful way for outsiders to talk about skinwalkers is to not talk about them.

There are other cultures with similar situations. Talking about some aspects of them is, simply, going to be viewed as disrespectful--no matter how you try to integrate it. Hence, the only way to be respectful is, sometimes, to simply not talk about that stuff. Games in particular have

 

[Ixal]

Then take it up with Dr. Adrienne Keene, who is both a Navajo tribe member and very specifically a leading expert in Native American studies. She has, very explicitly, said, "What happens when Rowling pulls this [skinwalker] in, is we as Native people are now opened up to a barrage of questions about these beliefs and traditions (take a look at my twitter mentions if you don’t believe me)–but these are not things that need or should be discussed by outsiders. At all. I’m sorry if that seems “unfair,” but that’s how our cultures survive."

It doesn't matter whether you accept it or not. The Navajo do not want outsiders talking about "skinwalkers." Even though that will, necessarily, be less accurate than a work that does talk about them. Don't. All forms of discussing them will necessarily be disrespectful; even among Navajo themselves, it's a topic that shouldn't be broached casually. The only respectful way for outsiders to talk about skinwalkers is to not talk about them.

There are other cultures with similar situations. Talking about some aspects of them is, simply, going to be viewed as disrespectful--no matter how you try to integrate it. Hence, the only way to be respectful is, sometimes, to simply not talk about that stuff. Games in particular have

And what have skinwalkers to do with the discussion?
Do you really want to use such cherry picked examples as an argument why harems, where no such taboo exists, shall not be named? And that it is respectful to proactively remove parts of a culture because some westerners decide that they are now taboo?