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<blockquote data-quote="Malmuria" data-source="post: 8473257" data-attributes="member: 7030755">Well this is a complicated topic!&nbsp; A couple things- on appropriation: I am of south Asian descent, grew up in the US.&nbsp; When I was growing up, representations of India in American popular culture were things like Temple of Doom, Apu, and Ben Kingsley playing (and winning an academy award for playing) Gandhi.&nbsp; It was a set of highly successful caricatures and stereotypes, and otherwise there was not much at all.&nbsp; Point is, not only can white people in hollywood write and produce films and tv about non-western cultures, they have predominantly been the ones doing so and profiting off of it.&nbsp; This is still the case today (witness Disney, which exists mostly to turn the world's cultures into profit machines for itself (and to ruin star wars)).&nbsp; The concerns about appropriation, while long standing, have only reached a critical mass in the past decade or so, and only because an increasingly diverse audience wants some say as to how they are represented.- exoticization and derogation are two sides of the same coin (or token).&nbsp; For example, the &quot;East&quot; being depicted of a land of Spirituality and Mystery is still marginalizing even if the intended connotations are positive.&nbsp; Historically, this kind of romantic view of the &quot;orient&quot; has been the result of people in the west being tired of their &quot;same old&quot; culture and wanting to inject something new and exciting into their life.&nbsp; It's true that often the choice, at best, has been between that kind of orientalist representation or not being represented at all, but that doesn't mean we have to be satisfied with that.But the above has to do with media production, and less with playing characters in an rpg.&nbsp; I don't have a problem with anyone playing characters that are coded as non-western in an rpg, as long as, obviously, their character is not a stereotype.&nbsp; But this is often hard in fantasy, which is a genre that relies so much on tropes.&nbsp; Related: here are some kickstarters from rpg creators from the global south.&nbsp; Please support if you are interested![URL unfurl=&quot;true&quot;]https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/centaurgames/reach-of-the-roach-god-part-of-a-thousand-thousand-islands[/URL][URL unfurl=&quot;true&quot;]https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/soulmuppet/latam-breakout[/URL]</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Malmuria, post: 8473257, member: 7030755"] Well this is a complicated topic! A couple things - on appropriation: I am of south Asian descent, grew up in the US. When I was growing up, representations of India in American popular culture were things like Temple of Doom, Apu, and Ben Kingsley playing (and winning an academy award for playing) Gandhi. It was a set of highly successful caricatures and stereotypes, and otherwise there was not much at all. Point is, not only [I]can[/I] white people in hollywood write and produce films and tv about non-western cultures, they have predominantly been the ones doing so and profiting off of it. This is still the case today (witness Disney, which exists mostly to turn the world's cultures into profit machines for itself (and to ruin star wars)). The concerns about appropriation, while long standing, have only reached a critical mass in the past decade or so, and only because an increasingly diverse audience wants [I]some[/I] say as to how they are represented. - exoticization and derogation are two sides of the same coin (or token). For example, the "East" being depicted of a land of Spirituality and Mystery is still marginalizing even if the intended connotations are positive. Historically, this kind of romantic view of the "orient" has been the result of people in the west being tired of their "same old" culture and wanting to inject something new and exciting into their life. It's true that often the choice, at best, has been between that kind of orientalist representation or not being represented at all, but that doesn't mean we have to be satisfied with that. But the above has to do with media production, and less with playing characters in an rpg. I don't have a problem with anyone playing characters that are coded as non-western in an rpg, as long as, obviously, their character is not a stereotype. But this is often hard in fantasy, which is a genre that relies so much on tropes. Related: here are some kickstarters from rpg creators from the global south. Please support if you are interested! [URL unfurl="true"]https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/centaurgames/reach-of-the-roach-god-part-of-a-thousand-thousand-islands[/URL] [URL unfurl="true"]https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/soulmuppet/latam-breakout[/URL] [/QUOTE]

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