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

[bedir than]

Even when using sensitivity readers you do not get a accurate picture. When you hire one of the traditionalists you mentioned before you will get wildly different views on harems than when you hire other people. But who would be in the right? Both technically would speak for their culture. Or rather, neither. Views viewpoint which is of course influenced by their personal morals is the correct one?

Why are you more credible than those who live and study the culture professionally?

You are demanding an unearned authority merely so you can see harems?

 

[EzekielRaiden]

And what have skinwalkers to do with the discussion?

They are an example of an explicitly "do not talk about this if you are an outsider" situation. If I did not give an example, you would almost certainly say that no such thing exists or should exist. By giving it as an example, I have conclusively demonstrated that, yes, some of the time, it is objectively the case that a more-accurate portrayal cannot possibly be respectful, and thus the only respectful portrayal must, necessarily, be less than absolutely perfectly "historically accurate."

There are other arguments I can make as well, though given your responses here, I doubt you are receptive to literally anything at all on that front. Your position is accuracy über alles, so anything which might indicate that accuracy isn't always a virtue must be wrong, axiomatically.

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?

My point was, again, to show that perfect accuracy isn't even what other cultures actually value and care about. Respect is. Accuracy is one of the tools to be used in the pursuit of respect. If an increase in accuracy would cause a decrease in respectful treatment, then it SHOULD be avoided, but only unless and until a decrease in accuracy would likewise cause a decrease in respectful treatment.

But if I was wrong, above, and you are in fact open to considering the possibility that accuracy might not always be desirable: Again, your position indicates an impossible standard. Perfect accuracy would mean absolutely unadorned descriptions of real historical events, without any expanded or elided elements. That would forbid including fantastical things as actually existing stuff in the world. You clearly don't actually believe that we should exclude the fantastical (since you are open to the idea of literal actual magic existing in something like Al-Qadim). Thus, you are open to some changes, some inaccuracies, where they serve a valid purpose. That's the whole of my argument: accuracy is a tool, it should be used wisely, there are lots and lots and LOTS AND LOTS AND LOTS AND LOTS of times where a lack of accuracy is a serious problem. But there can also be times where an excess of accuracy can be a problem. Where it would be wiser, more respectful, more effective, more enjoyable, more productive to be very slightly less accurate, in order to stay focused on the parts that really matter, in order to present a portrayal that is as effective and respectful as it can be.

I consider harems to be one of the things where, hey, this is a very sensitive subject that is EXTREMELY EXCRUCIATINGLY EASY to handle really, REALLY badly. E.g., as many have noted, harems were often nowhere near as central or as important to these societies, in a way similar to how having a formal court mistress was relevant for, y'know, the King of France but really pretty much irrelevant to French culture. Likewise, was slavery a vital and essential aspect of Al-Andalusian culture, or was it an unfortunate failing that could have been avoided? I'm not burying my head in the sand when I choose to make a society partially inspired by Al-Andalus that doesn't engage in slavery. I am very conscious of the flaws and foibles of the period. Instead, I am intentionally choosing to celebrate beautiful aspects of that place and period, and likewise intentionally choosing to cut out something that my players would find deeply upsetting and which would (essentially without fail) become an automatic "alright, we're going to take down the system and destroy it right? Because slavery is wrong, we're going to stop all the slavery, right? Right?" There's literally no world in which "yeah, your whole society is built on the backs of hundreds of thousands of slaves" is going to result in "alright cool, let's have some adventures then." Hence, another aspect of my intentionally choosing not to use this is that it just wouldn't make an effective setting for my group.

Further: Are these products of our artistic labor supposed to be diamond-perfection anthropological analyses of real-world sociocultural and geopolitical periods? Or are they meant to be pieces of entertainment, which single out things worth paying attention to, and ignore other things that aren't really interesting? Is a film about superheroes automatically trash cinema because it doesn't depict the laws of physics with absolute fidelity? Is a book about what the world might be like if dragons existed inherently bad because dragons violate the square-cube law to hell and back? Is Star Trek bad because it posits a future where humans who don't have to do any work choose to better themselves and their world rather than most folks falling into hedonistic leisure?

And if these things aren't academic anthropology papers, if they are instead creative works for creative ends, why on earth should we be beholden to picture-perfect historical accuracy? We're talking about things that emphatically aren't historical! The Tarrakhuna never existed. Al-Rakkah doesn't exist (at least, the one I've described doesn't exist, I believe there are places called "Al-Rakkah," probably spelled differently, out in the Middle East.) Jinnistan is wholly made up. Human beings being ruled over by cruel genie taskmasters is wholly made up. Sultanate city-states with an uneasy detente with their distant cousins, the Nomad Tribes, is completely fictional. Why are all of these inaccuracies acceptable, but good Lord, if you leave out the slavery and the harems, you've Ruined Everything Forever!?

I don't see the inclusion of harems as adding anything to the entertainment value of the product. I don't see the inclusion of pervasive and racialized slavery as being interesting or beneficial. Even if they were handled with extreme care and (somehow) managed to avoid any hint of the European demonization of Middle Eastern and North African culture, what does that actually add to the experience?

 

[Ixal]

Why are you more credible than those who live and study the culture professionally?

You are demanding an unearned authority merely so you can see harems?

What makes you an authority? There are many people who live in Turkey and studied (ancient) cultures there who have different views from you.
You are demanding an unearned authority merely so you can see a disney version of "the orient"?

The best, and most sensible thing you can do is to stick to history and not cut cultures apart because of personal preferences.

Edit: Do I want to see harems? In fact I do. Real harems based on old Islamic culture in a setting that actually displays said culture correctly as a whole and is not an updated version of Disney's Alladin.

 

[bedir than]

You are demanding an unearned authority merely so you can see a disney version of "the orient"?

What's unearned about learning a foreign language and participating in a US competition for language expertise?
What's unearned about teach, in Arabic, while living in Kuwait?
What's unearned about studying Ottoman love poems, early modern architecture in the Muslim works, and such?

I didn't stare at Wikipedia to learn about harems and the Turkic peoples. I studied their literature, their art and their various faiths

 

[Umbran]

Why are you more credible than those who live and study the culture professionally?

You are demanding an unearned authority merely so you can see harems?

What makes you an authority?
...
You are demanding an unearned authority merely so you can see a disney version of "the orient"?

Mod Note:
And both of you are making this discussion personal, which is a great way for it to degrade into ego-based argument. So, please stop.

 

[Ondath]

And if these things aren't academic anthropology papers, if they are instead creative works for creative ends, why on earth should we be beholden to picture-perfect historical accuracy? We're talking about things that emphatically aren't historical! The Tarrakhuna never existed. Al-Rakkah doesn't exist (at least, the one I've described doesn't exist, I believe there are places called "Al-Rakkah," probably spelled differently, out in the Middle East.) Jinnistan is wholly made up. Human beings being ruled over by cruel genie taskmasters is wholly made up. Sultanate city-states with an uneasy detente with their distant cousins, the Nomad Tribes, is completely fictional. Why are all of these inaccuracies acceptable, but good Lord, if you leave out the slavery and the harems, you've Ruined Everything Forever!?

I don't see the inclusion of harems as adding anything to the entertainment value of the product. I don't see the inclusion of pervasive and racialized slavery as being interesting or beneficial. Even if they were handled with extreme care and (somehow) managed to avoid any hint of the European demonization of Middle Eastern and North African culture, what does that actually add to the experience?

I was actually going to add this but the conversation got to other places. We're not really talking about historical fiction set in the Ottoman Empire, we're talking about a fictional place with Middle Eastern aesthetic trappings. Does it really matter that these fictional places, which exist to be played in D&D campaigns, take everything that historically existed in the Middle East?

(I'm hoping this is seen as a separate discussion from the one mentioned in the mod note above)

 

[Ixal]

I was actually going to add this but the conversation got to other places. We're not really talking about historical fiction set in the Ottoman Empire, we're talking about a fictional place with Middle Eastern aesthetic trappings. Does it really matter that these fictional places, which exist to be played in D&D campaigns, take everything that historically existed in the Middle East?

(I'm hoping this is seen as a separate discussion from the one mentioned in the mod note above)

The question is when does this place stop being a representation of middle eastern culture and just become a disney park with orient theme?
You are after all removing religion (Islam, including the interaction with dhimmi), the views on gender (harem, ect.), their economy and social structure (slavery in all its forms), probably the "pecularities" of their government (fraticide or imprisonment of the people in line of the throne. Also slave governments as there are no slaves).
What is left of middle eastern culture? Names, clothing and bazaars?

Yes, I have to admit that when you want to create a "family friendly" RPG (as far as a RPG centred around killing things and taking their stuff can be called family friendly) some things are problematic to include.
But instead of flat out removing them they should be adapted, i.e instead of removing harems also having male/other harems or instead of the complete removal of Islam have 5 gods each representing a pillar ect. And such changes should be kept to a minimum.
That I see as a compromise.

 

[Blue Orange]

The Ottomans also had their own history of empire, being more or less equal to a European nation in power through the 18th century, and most of the caliphates in the time being alluded to got that way by conquering other countries. For that matter, the Manchus subjugated the Han Chinese through the beginning of the 20th century, forming the Qing dynasty, whereas China's invaded Vietnam a couple of times. If you've heard of a culture, it probably oppressed somebody. Omayyad dhimmitude in Spain was an improvement for half of my ancestors and an oppression of the other half (points if you can figure out what I mean).

EDIT: And I should also add that not all Islamic regions are Arabic--Ottomans/Turkey and Persia/Iran maintained their own language and culture.

Messing with religion is another story and I can see why they stayed away from that.

That said I think having people from those cultures (at least at the publication level) at least consulting does improve the book in terms of realism, and as in the case of Ms. Yuan in the other thread may empower people to make a more well-rounded version of the culture. I guess if you were making a whole world it would be unrealistic to have China consultants for fantasy China, Arabic consultants for fantasy Arabia, and so on...unless you've got Hasbro's budget!

 

[Bitbrain]

I was actually going to add this but the conversation got to other places. We're not really talking about historical fiction set in the Ottoman Empire, we're talking about a fictional place with Middle Eastern aesthetic trappings. Does it really matter that these fictional places, which exist to be played in D&D campaigns, take everything that historically existed in the Middle East?

(I'm hoping this is seen as a separate discussion from the one mentioned in the mod note above)

If I am a player and the setting in question is clearly described to me by the DM as taking inspiration from real world history, I won’t have too much of a problem with a region/nation that is clearly supposed to be a discount Ottoman Turkey.

If, on the other hand the setting in question is described to me as NOT being inspired by real world history, and the DM just drops discount Ottoman Turkey into the world, yeah, I’m gonna have a more serious problem.

From my own personal experience, DMs who want to run something other than a generic kitchen sink fantasy tend to look at the world they’ve created with a more critical eye. They try to make sure each society and civilization they’ve incorporated into their world actually works and isn’t just a collection of cliched tropes.

Doesn’t mean they always succeed, but IME they at least make an effort.

 

[Ondath]

The question is when does this place stop being a representation of middle eastern culture and just become a disney park with orient theme?
You are after all removing religion (Islam, including the interaction with dhimmi), the views on gender (harem, ect.), their economy and social structure (slavery), probably the "pecularities" of their government (fraticide or imprisonment of the people in line of the throne. Also slave governments as there are no slaves).
What is left of middle eastern culture? Names, clothing and bazaars?

Yes, I have to admit that when you want to create a "family friendly" RPG (as far as a RPG centred around killing things and taking their stuff can be called family friendly) some things are problematic to include.
But instead of flat out removing them they should be adapted, i.e instead of removing harems also having male/other harems or instead of the complete removal of Islam have 5 gods each representing a pillar ect. And such changes should be kept to a minimum.
That I see as a compromise.

But... why? It's not like the Faerunian Pantheon in the Sword Coast is representative of how Catholic Clergy worked in the Middle Ages. You can clearly have a setting with European Mediaeval aesthetic trappings without referring to the religion there, so why can't you have that in Al Qadim? It seems to me that you are looking at Middle Eastern cultures through an essentialist eye and arguing that anything that has Middle Eastern aesthetic trappings must involve Islamic religion and ideology at least to a certain extent. I don't see why.

This is a different matter than disneyification and pruning less pleasant parts of a culture even though you'd expect them to be there. By which I mean, if they created a setting where there was obviously slavery, but then the story completely ignored the moral wrongness of slavery and treated them as "servants who are happy with their status and look they're treated so well!", that would be a Disneyified version of that culture. But if I'm just using aesthetic trappings, I think I should be able to imagine a society without any of the political institutions in the historic Middle East. It's not like places with European aesthetic trappings have to have serfs or arranged marriages at the age of 12, so why are we forcing this on another culture's representation?

EDIT: I think my first example didn't work that well. Let me give another one: Let's say you design a setting based on Bakufu Japan. If you depicted that culture with absolutely no contact with outsiders, but failed to mention the reason (there being a xenophobic decree limiting all transport to and from the country), that would be Disneyification. But you're certainly free to imagine a setting with Bakufu Japan aesthetics where there is no Sakoku Edict and the people intermingle with others. I think the situation with requiring harems or slavery is no different than this.