Real Religion in Adventure Design

[Fenris-77]

So many RPGs already engage with real-world religion in one way or another I don't really see the argument for avoidance. Mostly that seems to consist of 'try not to piss anyone off' but IMO that is kind of depreciating to people with actual religious convictions. Are we seriously suggesting that well adjusted adults can have the personal religious convictions challenged by RPG content? I think not. As for people being offended, meh, whatever, don't consume media that offend you. There's that old chestnut that applies here: offense is something that can be taken but not given. While that might not be true in every instance, I think it holds up well a maxim for consumption of media.

 

[Deathmaster Banak]

Are we seriously suggesting that well adjusted adults can have the personal religious convictions challenged by RPG content?.

Yes, a lot of people do suggest that. Being a well adjusted adult seems to be seen as a bug rather than a feature these days.

 

[Aldarc]

So many RPGs already engage with real-world religion in one way or another I don't really see the argument for avoidance. Mostly that seems to consist of 'try not to piss anyone off' but IMO that is kind of depreciating to people with actual religious convictions. Are we seriously suggesting that well adjusted adults can have the personal religious convictions challenged by RPG content? I think not. As for people being offended, meh, whatever, don't consume media that offend you. There's that old chestnut that applies here: offense is something that can be taken but not given. While that might not be true in every instance, I think it holds up well a maxim for consumption of media.

I don't think that it's about having religious convictions challenged by RPG content. I think it's closer to what @Umbran was saying about context and misinformation. There is a lot that RPGs IMHO often get wrong about real world religions and cultures particularly if they don't come from the cultural background or are not well-informed about the deeper contexts. I'm not necessarily offended, for example, when I see RPG depictions of Canaanite religion or culture, but there is a LOT that they get wrong about it while depicting it as "accurate," that just makes my eyes roll back in my head, groan, and want to not touch them. It's why I'm more likely to pick up a game like Jackals than Testament. I'm also not the biggest fan of fantasy that takes place in Ancient Mesopotamia rather than fantasy inspired by Ancient Mesopotamia. The historical, cultural, and religious errors, misunderstandings, or shallow depictions can take me out of the game.

Additionally, it can come across more as harmful stereotypes about another culture, people, or religion. Even if Jim Ward had good intentions when writing 1e Deities & Demigods, for example, he was basically drawing upon horribly dated library books written by early 20th century Euro-American white guys. I suspect that @Bedrockgames in developing their own wuxia games has also encountered a lot that well-intentioned people get fundamentally wrong in RPGs about Chinese religions and culture.

 

[Umbran]

So many RPGs already engage with real-world religion in one way or another I don't really see the argument for avoidance.

"So many people light their own houses on fire, I don't really see the argument for not doing it..."

Are we seriously suggesting that well adjusted adults can have the personal religious convictions challenged by RPG content?

No.

However, even intelligent, well-adjusted adults absorb inaccurate information and make it part of their worldview pretty easily.

I think not. As for people being offended, meh, whatever, don't consume media that offend you.

In general, you don't know if the content is going to be offensive until after you'd consumed it. Most of us cannot, in fact, know the future before it happens.

There's that old chestnut that applies here: offense is something that can be taken but not given. While that might not be true in every instance, I think it holds up well a maxim for consumption of media.

Ah! An old chestnut! It must be true, because it is old, and... chestnutty?

Who, I wonder, puts forth that chestnut? Surely, it could not be people who have some sort of interest in being able to deflect responsibility for their words!

 

[TheSword]

If it’s for your table then know your audience and if it’s not a problem with them, then of course you can do it... if it’s gonna be quality and interesting.

However, I’m assuming you mean for publication in which case... you need to know your audience even more. You don’t need to produce a product to make everyone happy (in fact definitely don’t try... you’ll go round the bend). You just have to make sure your audience is happy with it... and that the product doesn’t get drowned out because you’ve provoked too many people.

You’re not Wizards of the Coast, so don’t have responsibility as the shepherd of the game and the largest player in the industry, with your every word scrutinized. People don’t have to buy your product to play. They don’t get to stop you printing it because they don’t like what you’ve written as long as you’re not breaking local laws and the rules of your distribution method.

Ultimately if you have a way to reference religion in a game in a smart, quality, relevant way then it’s worth doing. I’d even suggest that if you’re doing a real world setting, it would be a bit odd if you didn’t.

Fiction has looked at religion in interesting ways for a good while. Whether it’s The Name of the Rose, Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials, Hitchhikers guide to the galaxy, Constantine, Dante’s Inferno or even Doctor Who’s Church of the Papal Mainframe. Religion has been hugely influential throughout the ages. The question I would have is... are you playing it for cheap thrills or are you including it in a meaningful way?

In that regard you are setting yourself a bar of quality that you don’t have to meet to the same extent if you make it all up like WOC do. Get it right and you could do something amazing. Mess it up and expect more criticism than you would normally get. So don’t mess it up.

 

[Bedrockgames]

I don't think that it's about having religious convictions challenged by RPG content. I think it's closer to what @Umbran was saying about context and misinformation. There is a lot that RPGs IMHO often get wrong about real world religions and cultures particularly if they don't come from the cultural background or are not well-informed about the deeper contexts. I'm not necessarily offended, for example, when I see RPG depictions of Canaanite religion or culture, but there is a LOT that they get wrong about it while depicting it as "accurate," that just makes my eyes roll back in my head, groan, and want to not touch them. It's why I'm more likely to pick up a game like Jackals than Testament. I'm also not the biggest fan of fantasy that takes place in Ancient Mesopotamia rather than fantasy inspired by Ancient Mesopotamia. The historical, cultural, and religious errors, misunderstandings, or shallow depictions can take me out of the game.

Additionally, it can come across more as harmful stereotypes about another culture, people, or religion. Even if Jim Ward had good intentions when writing 1e Deities & Demigods, for example, he was basically drawing upon horribly dated library books written by early 20th century Euro-American white guys. I suspect that @Bedrockgames in developing their own wuxia games has also encountered a lot that well-intentioned people get fundamentally wrong in RPGs about Chinese religions and culture.

I think though, if you are making this argument for RPGs, there isn't any reason why it wouldn't be applied to media of other forms as well. And it is really bigger than religion, we are actually talking about religion, culture, history, etc. Which could result in a pretty bleak media landscape. Writers, designers, have varying degrees of sophistication, education, personal experience with the real world things they write about. Honestly I think this topic is more of a podcast conversation or discussion. It doesn't lend itself well to a forum format (especially if their is a posture of debate). I think it is the kind of thing where for example you and I could sit down and have a discussion and find the places we agree or disagree but the tone of voice would matter a great deal. In a forum, where tone is impossible to read, and where it is only text and so you are pinned to what you literally said, a discussion like this is hard to have. I will try to respond to this best I can, but just know, I really think this is a topic for human conversation because of the nuance, the importance of tone, etc.

One thing I do think worth commenting on here is you make an important distinction between eye-rolling and offensiveness. Sometimes I think we blur those two today, but the former is really more about a lack of sophistication, lack of accurate information or depth (which might not bother someone who is casually interested in something but would upset the believability for someone like yourself who has deeper knowledge of the culture in question).

Again this is probably too nuanced a discussion to have on a forum (and probably one of the reasons for the no religion and politics rule) but I would say I think one benefit of having a more open acceptance of real world elements, you will a wider variety of accuracy levels. You mentioned me doing wuxia for example. There has been an explosion of wuxia content in recent years and that has upped everyone's game. I would not say my efforts are perfect by a long shot, but even looking at my own books, I can see how much the landscape in the gaming community has changed since I released my first wuxia RPG in 2016. A lot of the language has become more standard. When I read my first book for instance, I shift around the language a lot when talking about 武俠 (edit: and to be clear here: i don't read or speak Chinese). That is usually translated as 'martial heroes', and I use that language in portions of the book, but I also use more outdated language like knight errants. I did that because you still encountered knight errants a lot in 2016 and I assumed people might need to see that language to know what I am referring to. Now I don't use knight errants. I just use martial heroes. Even then though, it is a much deeper conversation than 'martial heroes' (my co-writer on a more recent book I worked on knows mandarin and wrote up a whole section on that, and there is lots of nuance to the language). And going back in time to previous RPGs, some have gotten the material more accurate than others. I think it would be a pretty involved discussion though. For the record, my starting point really for an interest in this in the RPG format would probably have been Hong Kong Action Theatre! That was the book that really sparked my interest in running campaigns around this stuff.

One thing I can say though is, just as someone who has written about this stuff but comes to it as a person who didn't grow up in the culture, didn't speak the language, etc: I have learned a lot more about it though the process of writing about it, than I otherwise would have. I think the trap people fall into is thinking that makes them an expert. I just come at it as a fan of genre films that I am trying to emulate, and as a fan of the history. Also, importantly in my wuxia RPG I put out in 2016, I used fantasy analogues. I didn't use real world religion. Even in the more recent game, where it is set in a kind of anachronistic historical China (not because we wanted to be inaccurate but because we were modeling Gu Long's timeless and romantic approach to history), we didn't get too deep into the real world religion. The reason for this was 1) it wasn't the focus of the game but 2) I realized information about these things online is accelerating and anything we put would probably be outdated in just a few years, so we treated it more as here is a very basic overview, but then here are the things to go look up if you want to learn more. So I again, I can't really weigh in on the personal end of handling real world religion, since my dealing with it hasn't been all that large.

 

[Aldarc]

I think though, if you are making this argument for RPGs, there isn't any reason why it wouldn't be applied to media of other forms as well.

Generally though, this tends to be more intra-cultural rather than inter-cultural. Christianity is often, but not always, re-contextualized within media by cultures that are predominately, at least culturally, Christian: e.g., Passion of the Christ, Jesus Christ Superstar, The Life of Brian, etc.

One thing I do think worth commenting on here is you make an important distinction between eye-rolling and offensiveness. Sometimes I think we blur those two today, but the former is really more about a lack of sophistication, lack of accurate information or depth (which might not bother someone who is casually interested in something but would upset the believability for someone like yourself who has deeper knowledge of the culture in question).

The distinction exists, but it can also exist with overlap, so the blur can't be dismissed as being out-of-hand just because a distinction exists.

One thing I can say though is, just as someone who has written about this stuff but comes to it as a person who didn't grow up in the culture, didn't speak the language, etc: I have learned a lot more about it though the process of writing about it, than I otherwise would have. I think the trap people fall into is thinking that makes them an expert. I just come at it as a fan of genre films that I am trying to emulate, and as a fan of the history.

This is a good point. I think it's important to recognize one's limitations in knowledge. And from what many academics can tell you, the more that you know, the more you recognize that you don't know. I think even "experts" tend to be wary about what constitutes their area of expertise.

Also, importantly in my wuxia RPG I put out in 2016, I used fantasy analogues. I didn't use real world religion. Even in the more recent game, where it is set in a kind of anachronistic historical China (not because we wanted to be inaccurate but because we were modeling Gu Long's timeless and romantic approach to history), we didn't get too deep into the real world history. The reason for this was 1) it wasn't the focus of the game but 2) I realized information about these things online is accelerating and anything we put would probably be outdated in just a few years, so we treated it more as here is a very basic overview, but then here are the things to go look up if you want to learn more. So I again, I can't really weigh in on the personal end of handling real world religion, since my dealing with it hasn't been all that large.

I can't recall. Do real world religions get discussed in your recent Osprey Games book?

 

[Bedrockgames]

Generally though, this tends to be more intra-cultural rather than inter-cultural. Christianity is often, but not always, re-contextualized within media by cultures that are predominately, at least culturally, Christian: e.g., Passion of the Christ, Jesus Christ Superstar, The Life of Brian, etc.

I don’t know, I haven’t checked. But I have definitely seen Christianity recontextualized in media from places where Christianity isn’t the dominant religion. When I do see it I always find it interesting. And I would be very interested in say an Indian or Chinese take on the life of Jesus (from a director who isn’t Christian)

 

[Bedrockgames]

I can't recall. Do real world religions get discussed in your recent Osprey Games book?

Very briefly. It isn’t presented as an academic treatment or anything. You have to at least mention it because stuff like Daoist priests and Buddhist monks are often featured in the genre.

 

[Umbran]

If it’s for your table then know your audience and if it’s not a problem with them, then of course you can do it... if it’s gonna be quality and interesting.

However, I’m assuming you mean for publication in which case... you need to know your audience even more.

These are important, and good notes.

But when you get to the public sphere, realize that you are making assumptions about your audience, and who they are, who they could be. Check those assumptions for validity if you can. Consider not just who your audience is, but who you want them to be.