[EN5ider #43] Día de los Dinosaurios Muertos

New for EN5ider patrons! Halloween grows ever closer! Día de los Dinosaurios Muertos is a spooky 18-page adventure by Jensen Toperzer. You've heard of the Day of the Dead... but what happens when the dead are dinosaurs? When the raptors awaken to find their land overrun by hairless apes, they plot to reclaim their legacy. Can the PCs survive the machinations of Miquiztlicoatl, the velociraptor mummy lord, ancient reptilian priest-king of the feathered throne? This adventure for 14th-level PCs includes full-color maps, a pronunciation guide, the all-new Stone of the Inverted Sun, and - of course- intelligent undead velociraptors. Illustrated by Melissa Tillery; cartography by Justin Mason.

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[Mistwell]

That sounds awesome!

 

[Xaelvaen]

*rushes to download immediately* Cannot wait to read this!

 

[jamesjhaeck]

The long-suffering fans of Maztica may not be getting a 5e revival for that setting in the foreseeable future, but this adventure proves that the Aztec-inspired dream is still alive!

 

[MoonSong]

The existence of this doesn't make me happy. But more power to you I guess... Not a fan of Maztica.

 

[jamesjhaeck]

The existence of this doesn't make me happy. But more power to you I guess... Not a fan of Maztica.

Sorry to hear you're not a fan of this adventure. I wish we could release articles that make everyone happy, but I hope our next release is more to your liking!

 

[MoonSong]

Sorry to hear you're not a fan of this adventure. I wish we could release articles that make everyone happy, but I hope our next release is more to your liking!

I don't doubt the adventure could be fun, and at its core is a cool idea. But there's cultural appropriation and taking a very superficial approach to a part of my culture... and how it is conflated with a cultural group I'm already conflicted on how to relate to. But seriously, a chihuahuas store? why not make it a desert and verybody is wearing ponchos and resting below cacti? I have felt bad about less than this. (Of course I only speak for myself) Maybe it is that it looks like something familiar, but without the idiosyncrasies that make it feel right, and with the idiosyncrasies that make it feel wrong... Again all the reasons I'm not a fan of Maztika.

But you are cool Joey, you always get to deliver quality products. I will make a submission soon, as soon as I decide which idea works best.

 

[jamesjhaeck]

I don't doubt the adventure could be fun, and at its core is a cool idea. But there's cultural appropriation and taking a very superficial approach to a part of my culture... and how it is conflated with a cultural group I'm already conflicted on how to relate to. But seriously, a chihuahuas store? why not make it a desert and verybody is wearing ponchos and resting below cacti? I have felt bad about less than this. (Of course I only speak for myself) Maybe it is that it looks like something familiar, but without the idiosyncrasies that make it feel right, and with the idiosyncrasies that make it feel wrong... Again all the reasons I'm not a fan of Maztika.

But you are cool Joey, you always get to deliver quality products. I will make a submission soon, as soon as I decide which idea works best.

I'd actually like to talk about ways to be less appropriative in the future, while still diversifying from "standard" western fantasy. Western European mythology is hugely over-represented in RPGs, and it's EN5ider's goal—as well as a personal goal of mine—to help change that. It's a very fine line to walk, and I think a lot of game-makers are trying to figure this out right now (I look toward Monte Cook Games and the semi-recent Thunder Plains fiasco). The difficulty with these idiosyncrasies is that what feels "right" and what feels "wrong" differs wildly from person to person, even within the cultural group from whose mythology works like this are derived from.

Please PM me, I'd love to continue this discussion. I'm also comfortable continuing here in the public forum, if you are as well.

 

[Ricochet]

In-game fun (including charicatures and spoofs of culture relatable to something IN the real world) never becomes a real-world issue for me. There might be a myriad of factors for this, and I am only spekaing for myself, of course. One reason I not offended? Because I can separate the two. If someone at the table becomes offended then it doesn't fly, of course, but I can't recall that ever happening as long as the content is handled as joke-content and not a presentation of how the real world people around the table see things. There is something deliciously fun about recognizable stereotypes which is why they ARE stereotypes. That's what they do all the time in comics, movies, and especially in South Park, Family Guy etc, so why can't we have a humorous approach that takes a few jabs at cultures or religions or the like in RPGs? The South Park viewer knows it's wrong IRL, but can still relate to the absurdity and fun of the non-PC-ness presented.

My political stances don't change to become less politically correct IRL when I play RPGs with content that isn't politically correct. But with more and more things becoming PC, RPG's actually give me reprieve from the constant feeling that everyone is offended about something, because it's all right for certain people to be a crazed mass-murdering warlord or massive chauvanistic prick within the context of the game's world.

I want to point out that having ONLY charicature material is certainly not the ideal though. As an example I'd rather have nine out of ten Japaneese-inspired RPG products be about cool gritty worlds with relatively high science for the medieval timeframe and honor-systems for samurais etc. Yet if the tenth product contains a sushi-merchant who works himself to the bone while bowing all the time, then that might still bring a chuckle. I know it's not how such a person is in the real world, but the stereotype can still be a fun sidetrek to have amid the more serious content.

 

[MoonSong]

I'd actually like to talk about ways to be less appropriative in the future, while still diversifying from "standard" western fantasy. Western European mythology is hugely over-represented in RPGs, and it's EN5ider's goal—as well as a personal goal of mine—to help change that. It's a very fine line to walk, and I think a lot of game-makers are trying to figure this out right now (I look toward Monte Cook Games and the semi-recent Thunder Plains fiasco). The difficulty with these idiosyncrasies is that what feels "right" and what feels "wrong" differs wildly from person to person, even within the cultural group from whose mythology works like this are derived from.

Please PM me, I'd love to continue this discussion. I'm also comfortable continuing here in the public forum, if you are as well.

Well, yes the idiosyncrasies are subjective, but there are subtleties and things that just feel wrong when they are said by someone who doesn't belong to the group. -the merchant's part-. I don't know how to say it better, so I will go with an example: pilli adventure http://pilli-adventure.com/ it is a webcomic with a lot of "Mexican fantasy", it is fun but a little over the top. Now if this was written by an American, a Puertorican or a Spanish it would be downright offensive (this is what Tvtropes calls N-word privileges), and not only because it was made by an outsider, but because it would lack the little subtle things that tell you you are part of the joke instead of being laughed at. But if what you produce is less flashy and more subtle you could be fine.
Warning: it isn't too charitable to Americans and it has some misspellings and grammar mistakes all the way.

In general I could give some suggestions:

• Don't treat everyday things as if they were exotic or mystic. If you want to feature a culture's mistica depict the culture's mistica, don't mistify what is a current living religious tradition -more so with day of the dead, day of the dead is about the most important religious holiday for Mexicans, the only one recognized by the government besides Christmas-.
• Avoid stereotypes at all costs, chihuahuas might come from the North of Mexico, but are far from being popular with the populace. The most common kind of dog is the mutt, and the poodle and cocker are about very common. And the national breed is the Xolo, which is a beautiful animal.
• Recognize diversity, don't go for exotic names for the sake of exotic names. What is Mexican culture is actually Mestizo Mexican Culture, which has a lot of variation. And don't get started into indigenous cultures, of which there are hundreds.
• Get informants, one or two people who can tell you if what you are doing is offensive to themselves or to people they know or if they fit with the general idiosyncrasy of their culture. Go for a lot of primary sources.
• Be very careful with negative depictions.
• Avoid the gratuite use of symbols. Don't take symbols out of their context.
• Make sure that the work has some substance besides it being about x-mythology or x-culture. The basic idea of the adventure has a lot of merit -zombie dinosaurs!-, and it is ambitious, but the execution was a stereotype storm of decontextualized symbols.
• Encourage senders to depict their own culture, you might be surprised.
• This is only my opinion, we could enrich it with more opinions.

In-game fun (including charicatures and spoofs of culture relatable to something IN the real world) never becomes a real-world issue for me. There might be a myriad of factors for this, and I am only spekaing for myself, of course. One reason I not offended? Because I can separate the two. If someone at the table becomes offended then it doesn't fly, of course, but I can't recall that ever happening as long as the content is handled as joke-content and not a presentation of how the real world people around the table see things. There is something deliciously fun about recognizable stereotypes which is why they ARE stereotypes. That's what they do all the time in comics, movies, and especially in South Park, Family Guy etc, so why can't we have a humorous approach that takes a few jabs at cultures or religions or the like in RPGs? The South Park viewer knows it's wrong IRL, but can still relate to the absurdity and fun of the non-PC-ness presented.

My political stances don't change to become less politically correct IRL when I play RPGs with content that isn't politically correct. But with more and more things becoming PC, RPG's actually give me reprieve from the constant feeling that everyone is offended about something, because it's all right for certain people to be a crazed mass-murdering warlord or massive chauvanistic prick within the context of the game's world.

I want to point out that having ONLY charicature material is certainly not the ideal though. As an example I'd rather have nine out of ten Japaneese-inspired RPG products be about cool gritty worlds with relatively high science for the medieval timeframe and honor-systems for samurais etc. Yet if the tenth product contains a sushi-merchant who works himself to the bone while bowing all the time, then that might still bring a chuckle. I know it's not how such a person is in the real world, but the stereotype can still be a fun sidetrek to have amid the more serious content.

The problem is, some cultures get only the sterotypes. All depictions are the caricature.