Are you saying I'm not allowed to say that I feel a particular type of setting is disingenuous? It's just my opinion, and I've included a number of exceptions, such as making explicit mention of the setting changes and, of course, reading your table and not including material uncomfortable to your players. That's all fine.
If you dont like a setting, play another. No one is forcing anyone to play or like Al-Qadim, or another setting. My point is if you want a different middle eastern setting, and change it a lot, dont call it Al-Qadim because it really isnt anymore.
Fair enough. The DM is a player too. I don't feature rape or child abuse in my games either, because I and my players find them extremely distasteful. The slavery thing is what I'm focusing on. State sponsored slavery has been a part of many cultures around the world for most of recorded history. Just having it not exist (outside of good in-universe reasons like @EzekielRaiden provided) in made-up cultures based on RL cultures where it did breaks immersion for me. Wanting that in the game doesn't make slavery less evil.
Don't try to tell others what to do. It accomplishes nothing.
You aren't the arbiter of what changes are enough to make it "not the same setting."
If I am talking about slavery in fictional worlds based on real worlds, and you replay "if you change the setting a lot it isn't that setting anymore", then yes, it's quite relevant.
At least in my experience, "theme park" is a description of the style of game, not the depth or accuracy of it historical lore. A theme park is an open world full of railroads (rollercoasters).
In the original 1990s Al-Qadim they were, and I consider that one of their two biggest missteps; in this new Zakhara book, I am glad to report, the whole thing has been removed, as have all references to Islam (which never fit into an almost-dizzyingly polytheistic game world anyway). These are two big improvements Zakhara has made.
I didn't, i stated that people have a choice to play and like what they want.
Thats a problem with most "faithful adaptation" of cultures. People only adapt the nice things, leaving all the bad stuff like slavery out. Which makes the result not really faithful.
I've never heard it that way. Fair enough.
The only way this would really matter to any question of honesty, which you have challenged by calling certain types of settings disingenuous, would be if state sponsored were a part of every culture, throughout history, always, and even then only when discussing direct analogues of a real culture, and even then it wouldn't make not featuring that in the fictional world at all, in any way, less honest or genuine. It's a fictional world, no one calls grimdark worlds disingenuous, but make a world that is a bit more aspirational/optimistic, and hooooboy it's "theme parks" and "disingenuous".
