American RPGs

[DreadPirateMurphy]

I was looking through Mongoose's Core Supply Catalog for Traveller, and I noticed that various medical treatments cost a fortune -- thousands or millions of credits. This reminded me of my wife's first experience with American healthcare (she grew up in Korea), and how shocked she was at the amount the patient has to pay even with insurance. Traveller, while it is currently published by a UK company, was originally published in America. I wonder whether the rules for medical expenses would have been different if it had come from elsewhere?

Similarly, D&D tends to handwave language translation issues. There is a "common tongue" that most folks are expected to speak. That also strikes me as a rather American point of view. Most Europeans that I've known have had experience with multiple languages, for example, and expect to sometimes have to overcome linguistic obstacles.

Two questions for folks on these boards, especially the folks from outside the United States (and yes, I'm using the common U.S. habit where we refer to ourselves as "Americans," ignoring our friends to the north and south).

1) Do you think there is a U.S. cultural bias to the RPGs created here?

2) Do you think what I've pointed out qualifies, and are there other aspects like this that I've missed?

I'm not looking for qualitative judgements -- just identification. I think that this would be useful for DMs, as it would highlight areas where players might have assumptions that could be easily undermined.

 

[Umbran]

1) Do you think there is a U.S. cultural bias to the RPGs created here?

Almost certainly.

2) Do you think what I've pointed out qualifies, and are there other aspects like this that I've missed?

I am not sure the two you've pointed out qualify.

Game economic systems are notoriously twitchy. They generally aren't intended to be real-world simulations, but instead are a resource management system for the game. The price of medical attention will be balanced against the price of weapons and other stuff of interest in the game.

I think the language issue is a reasonable adaptation for the needs of an entertainment. Roleplaying through language barriers can be entertaining on occasion, but don't make for a fun experience when done constantly. The Common tongue is there primarily so that GMs can introduce language barriers when they want them, and can easily ignore them the rest of the time without looking weird or implausible.

 

[Celebrim]

I am not sure the two you've pointed out qualify.

I agree.

Game economic systems are notoriously twitchy. They generally aren't intended to be real-world simulations, but instead are a resource management system for the game. The price of medical attention will be balanced against the price of weapons and other stuff of interest in the game.

The most obvious example I can think of in this is the price of a buckler vs. the price of a small shield, where the buckler is much more expensive than the small shield (even a metal one) despite physically representing a smaller shield. You pay more for the buckler because of game mechanics, and not because of the construction of the shield.

I think the language issue is a reasonable adaptation for the needs of an entertainment. Roleplaying through language barriers can be entertaining on occasion, but don't make for a fun experience when done constantly. The Common tongue is there primarily so that GMs can introduce language barriers when they want them, and can easily ignore them the rest of the time without looking weird or implausible.

Agreed here as well. Realistic situations where the world has 1000's of languages (certainly common before the modern era) turn out to be just not very fun for gaming, and the end result is to make mundane knowledge of languages relatively useful and access to magic which allows communication all important.

 

[Dausuul]

Two questions for folks on these boards, especially the folks from outside the United States (and yes, I'm using the common U.S. habit where we refer to ourselves as "Americans," ignoring our friends to the north and south).

1) Do you think there is a U.S. cultural bias to the RPGs created here?

2) Do you think what I've pointed out qualifies, and are there other aspects like this that I've missed?

I'm not looking for qualitative judgements -- just identification. I think that this would be useful for DMs, as it would highlight areas where players might have assumptions that could be easily undermined.

I'm sure there is a U.S. cultural bias, but I don't know that these issues qualify. I can't speak to the question of medical treatments in Traveller since I've never played or read the game. However, I'm pretty sure the use of a "Common Tongue" in D&D was lifted directly from the Lord of the Rings, along with most of the standard races. It persists because it's a tremendously convenient handwave and because it enables the standardization of languages across campaign worlds.

Since LotR was written by a Brit, that would invalidate the idea that it's Americentrism at work (though it might be Anglocentrism).

Offhand, the most Americentric thing I can think of about D&D is the assumption of a laissez-faire market economy with a robust Second Amendment. PCs can run around buying the magical equivalents of antitank missiles and heavy-caliber machine guns and nobody bats an eyelash. Most real-world societies take a dim view of weapons being sold on the open market; in medieval societies it could be a crime for commoners even to own certain types of weapons and armor.

To some extent, of course, this is like the Common Tongue, a handwave for ease of play. Still, even the early editions assumed that nonmagical armaments could be freely purchased.

 

[amerigoV]

Similarly, D&D tends to handwave language translation issues. There is a "common tongue" that most folks are expected to speak.

I am 'Merican, but I agree that there is likely a 'Mercian bias. However, didn't Tolkien have the concept of Common Speech? That probably has as much influence on RPGs as anything (elves, orcs, hobbits (I mean halflings), dwarves, Common, etc).

Also, it there is a game play/mechanic issue. If you enforce languages and use them extensively, the PCs will eventually pick up the languages and you are "back to english" since the issue will fade in the background. If you use them some, then there is a lot of stop/start in a session if you make the players "translate" to the other players (otherwise it is just handwaved). Finally, if not used much, no one will pick them other than whatever the baseline system provides.

IMO, Its just one of those things where a "language system" looks nice on paper but becomes a hassle in play unless the campaign is fairly local (ie, the players have an idea of where they will be and for how long).

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Offhand, the most Americentric thing I can think of about D&D is the assumption of a laissez-faire market economy with a robust Second Amendment. PCs can run around buying the magical equivalents of antitank missiles and heavy-caliber machine guns and nobody bats an eyelash. Most real-world societies take a dim view of weapons being sold on the open market; in medieval societies it could be a crime for commoners even to own certain types of weapons and armor.

That might be a good example. In the German RPG The Dark Eye ( Das Schwarze Auge), weapon access might not be strictly limited, but there are definitely weapons only particular type of people are even allowed to own or carry.

Fanpro's Shadowrun material on Germany also introduced different weapon laws.

But still, in both cases the laws are not as strict as they realistically might be. There still need to be enough weapons going around to play an armed band of adventurers!

 

[Thanee]

1) Do you think there is a U.S. cultural bias to the RPGs created here?

Well, I would say you can put that a lot more general even, not just U.S., not just RPGs, pretty much anything will have cultural bias to some degree based on where the author/creator is from.

2) Do you think what I've pointed out qualifies, and are there other aspects like this that I've missed?

No, not really.

Medical care gets more expensive and a future rpg can certainly reflect that in that fashion.

Also, the common language in D&D is surely more out of convenience, apart from the fact, that a common trade language is kinda useful (and also exists for us, where english takes that place in the western world; you americans just happen to have one of the dialects of the english language as your native one, therefore the need to learn multiple languages is not as pronounced; here in germany the kids nowadays start with english lessons in elementary school already ).

Bye
Thanee

 

[DreadPirateMurphy]

Offhand, the most Americentric thing I can think of about D&D is the assumption of a laissez-faire market economy with a robust Second Amendment. PCs can run around buying the magical equivalents of antitank missiles and heavy-caliber machine guns and nobody bats an eyelash. Most real-world societies take a dim view of weapons being sold on the open market; in medieval societies it could be a crime for commoners even to own certain types of weapons and armor.

I could turn that argument around. Because the PCs are often given special status as adventurers, it makes sense that they have special access to weapons, just like private security or mercenaries in the real world. That doesn't mean that every man off the street can walk into a shop and purchase a wand of magic missile. You can see that as a handwave just as easily as the language thing.

More tongue in cheek, you could also argue that because most D&D worlds are more heavily populated by predators, any noble who forbade his peasants arms would find himself quickly running out of peasants.

 

[DreadPirateMurphy]

I am 'Merican, but I agree that there is likely a 'Mercian bias. However, didn't Tolkien have the concept of Common Speech? That probably has as much influence on RPGs as anything (elves, orcs, hobbits (I mean halflings), dwarves, Common, etc).

You don't have to go to Tolkien for that. There are often common languages established for various purposes. In Roman times, Latin was commonly used throughout the empire, even though it wasn't the local native tongue -- it was the ruling tongue. In Europe during certian periods of time, French was a common language of the nobility, the lingua franca. Muslims have to know Arabic to read the Koran as it was intended, and airline pilots have to speak English for safety reasons.

The existence of the common tongue isn't really what I was going at, so much as the assumption that you can just start speaking with anybody you happen to run into, whether you're in the Underdark or wandering the streets of Sigil. Has anybody ever run into players who, if somebody doesn't understand common, just starts speaking more slowly and more loudly?

 

[Cadfan]

I think there's probably some slight American bias.

I think there's MASSIVE European-originated-cultural bias. Absolutely enormous. To the extent that it sometimes makes me kind of mad. The game gets incredibly detailed and persnickety about European tropes and weapons, but then tells you to just retheme if you want something that's not European.