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

[Reynard]

Fair enough, I've never heard it used before. Like I said, I'm the first one I can recall describing settings as theme parks. I don't know if there is a broadly accepted definition of theme park as it applies to game settings.

The use originated in MMORPGs but I have seen it used regularly with respect to TTRPGs over the last 5 years or so.

 

[Dukey]

Even when we are using fictional races as antagonists, for example the githyankis or evil genies as planar invaders, there are still some potential risks. Maybe is a story about vampires kidnapping children to be turned into wereboars to use their regenerative traits to "gather vitae", months laters in the real life there are news about traffick of human beings for slavery. Then this plot become taboo and an unconfortable threat.

Turning fictional races such as githyanki into an uncomfortable threat (here on Earth) is very far fetched. I think that if you are expecting to experience any threats like this, then I dont think D&D (and all their frightening creatures) is a recommended game to play.

 

[Guest 7034872]

We should agree there is a great difference between intentional and accidental offense. For example an accidental offense would be to use the name "Almanzor/al-Manṣūr" for a character. In the real life it was it means "the victorious" and it was the nickname of a historical andaluci warlord, and a "very bad guy" in the eyes of the Christian Spanishs who suffered his "aceifas"(razzias or raids).

Amen. This is the main reason I am unwilling to get harsh or overly self-assured in my criticisms of Mr. Grubb's original work on the setting. For the moment, let's never mind what he got right or wrong in terms of accuracy or cultural sensitivity: the important thing to me is that even where he stumbled, he was doing the most vital and admirable thing: he was trying. Even if he got some stuff wrong and/or had a few ham-fisted moments, he really did try hard to get it right. To me, the effort and the intent are always going to be central to my moral evaluation of someone's work (or the person).

Am I greatly relieved this updated setting has removed honor killings and references to Islam and has lessened the frequency and social acceptance of slavery? Yeah, I sure am. But will I wag my virtual finger at Mr. Grubb over any of this? No way.

 

[MGibster]

So I do agree, the closer the setting is to something real the more difficult it is for me to ignore glossing over things. Deadlands faced a lot of criciticism in recent years because it portrayed both a South that essentially won the American Civil War and ended slavery. The game creators wanted to create a cold war atmosphere between the Union and the Confederacy for fun spy type games and they took out slavery becuase that gets in the way of fun. But this also plays in the Lost Cause narrative and this soured the game for a lot of people.

For pure fantasy games, even those inspired by real cultures (so pretty much all of them), I don't really care if they don't include all the unpleasantness associated with early modern Europe, ancient Rome, or wherever the inspiration came from.

 

[Micah Sweet]

We should agree there is a great difference between intentional and accidental offense. For example an accidental offense would be to use the name "Almanzor/al-Manṣūr" for a character. In the real life it was it means "the victorious" and it was the nickname of a historical andaluci warlord, and a "very bad guy" in the eyes of the Christian Spanishs who suffered his "aceifas"(razzias or raids). Or the pirates in a "1001 nights" adventure can be potentiallly controversial. Why? Because the Otoman corsairs attacked Christian coasts in the Mediterranean sea to catch slaves. A DM could search information about al-Andalus as source of inspiration for his next campaign, and he may find contradictory versions, one telling al-Andalus was a golden age of tolerance, but other saying this was a myth, and it was a aparheid-like regime for the "dhimmis" ("protected ones", Christians and Jews, the people of the Book).

Even when we are using fictional races as antagonists, for example the githyankis or evil genies as planar invaders, there are still some potential risks. Maybe is a story about vampires kidnapping children to be turned into wereboars to use their regenerative traits to "gather vitae", months laters in the real life there are news about traffick of human beings for slavery. Then this plot become taboo and an unconfortable threat.

* What can we do? WotC can publish corebooks focused more in the crunch and little details about the lore, almost only the names of places and rulers.

* The living idols could be interesting hook for adventures.

A lot of folks today seem to think that there is no difference between accident and intent. We're basically living in a minefield.

 

[Faolyn]

It's not even about history. Find me a cop game that deals with civil rights violations.

Can't help you with a cop game--the closest that I personally own is GURPS Cops, which has a small sidebar on police corruption but I can't find much, if anything, on those types of violations.

I will say that Planescape had the Harmonium--basically, the police in Sigil, if you don't know the setting--deliberately target the Free League in ways very similar to modern civil rights violations, to the point that on one thread I saw on RPG.net, it was suggested that the Harmonium was one of the factions that would have to get a serious rewrite to be properly brought into 5e.

 

[Faolyn]

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.
You can't simply cut out one part of a culture and expect the rest of it to stay the same.

And really, once you bring in any sort of non-human PC race, magic, and active gods, the entire culture should change anyway. Its ridiculous to assume that a society of humans, elves, dwarfs, orcs, etc. would function exactly like a setting where there's only humans and no magic.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Can't help you with a cop game--the closest that I personally own is GURPS Cops, which has a small sidebar on police corruption but I can't find much, if anything, on those types of violations.

I will say that Planescape had the Harmonium--basically, the police in Sigil, if you don't know the setting--deliberately target the Free League in ways very similar to modern civil rights violations, to the point that on one thread I saw on RPG.net, it was suggested that the Harmonium was one of the factions that would have to get a serious rewrite to be properly brought into 5e.

I don't have a problem with keeping the Harmonium. They're consistently depicted as largely not nice people.

 

[Dukey]

Can't help you with a cop game--the closest that I personally own is GURPS Cops, which has a small sidebar on police corruption but I can't find much, if anything, on those types of violations.

I will say that Planescape had the Harmonium--basically, the police in Sigil, if you don't know the setting--deliberately target the Free League in ways very similar to modern civil rights violations, to the point that on one thread I saw on RPG.net, it was suggested that the Harmonium was one of the factions that would have to get a serious rewrite to be properly brought into 5e.

And the Anarchists faction, very similar to Antifa, was not an issue? Typical.

 

[Micah Sweet]

And the Anarchists faction, very similar to Antifa, was not an issue? Typical.

People are going to find issues with all sorts of things. That's why I'm washing hands of 5e versions of settings. After Ravenloft, I have no faith in their ability in that area.