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<blockquote data-quote="Thomas Shey" data-source="post: 8472204" data-attributes="member: 7026617">There's a couple of difficult issues that can come up with this.1.&nbsp; How close is too close?&nbsp; Who gets to decide?As an example, some years ago I had a Fantasy Hero setting that was supposed to be deliberately broad stroke.&nbsp; There was a sort-of Central Europe, a sort-of Nordic area, a sort-of Middle Eastern area, a sort-of Africa and a sort-of Central/South American area.&nbsp; None of these were supposed to be particularly literalist in their expression; they were opportunities to have kind of distinct identities and express some concepts I'd seen of some of their real world equivalents in some areas, and just do cool things in others.&nbsp; You could say I was being forward thinking by having one of the African cultures being the most advanced on the planet (they were in what we'd think of as mid-Renaissance when everyone else ranged from Iron Age to Late Medieval) or running to negative stereotypes because the Central/South American expie wasn't a very nice place.&nbsp; I could see someone of Nahua ethnicity who's seen all the Aztecs' negative traits constantly front and center and all their virtues ignored getting kind of soggy about that.&nbsp; So was it a bad idea to even go that far?2. What translates into other cultures?&nbsp; I just got done with running a Fantasy Briton Campaign set in a version of the world where magic worked and things like faery had been real, right after the Romans.&nbsp; I did my research as best I could (to the degree you can about that period), but I also took consider liberties for the effect I was trying for.&nbsp; I'm an American, but with a good chunk of Scots ancestry.&nbsp; So was that an &quot;other&quot; culture?&nbsp; If so, for whom isn't it?&nbsp; Native Welsh only?&nbsp; While more closely descended, modern Welsh probably don't have any more real connection with Fourth Century Britons than I do; the only thing they might have (and that's a might) is a bit more DNA shared.I'm not suggesting that one shouldn't take care in these cases and others, but I do think the appropriate borders in such things are really unclear in a lot of cases.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Thomas Shey, post: 8472204, member: 7026617"] There's a couple of difficult issues that can come up with this. 1. How close is too close? Who gets to decide? As an example, some years ago I had a Fantasy Hero setting that was supposed to be deliberately broad stroke. There was a sort-of Central Europe, a sort-of Nordic area, a sort-of Middle Eastern area, a sort-of Africa and a sort-of Central/South American area. None of these were supposed to be particularly literalist in their expression; they were opportunities to have kind of distinct identities and express some concepts I'd seen of some of their real world equivalents in some areas, and just do cool things in others. You could say I was being forward thinking by having one of the African cultures being the most advanced on the planet (they were in what we'd think of as mid-Renaissance when everyone else ranged from Iron Age to Late Medieval) or running to negative stereotypes because the Central/South American expie wasn't a very nice place. I could see someone of Nahua ethnicity who's seen all the Aztecs' negative traits constantly front and center and all their virtues ignored getting kind of soggy about that. So was it a bad idea to even go that far? 2. What translates into [I]other[/I] cultures? I just got done with running a Fantasy Briton Campaign set in a version of the world where magic worked and things like faery had been real, right after the Romans. I did my research as best I could (to the degree you can about that period), but I also took consider liberties for the effect I was trying for. I'm an American, but with a good chunk of Scots ancestry. So was that an "other" culture? If so, for whom isn't it? Native Welsh only? While more closely descended, modern Welsh probably don't have any more real connection with Fourth Century Britons than I do; the only thing they might have (and that's a might) is a bit more DNA shared. I'm not suggesting that one shouldn't take care in these cases and others, but I do think the appropriate borders in such things are [I]really[/I] unclear in a lot of cases. [/QUOTE]

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