Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Next
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
Twitch
YouTube
Facebook (EN Publishing)
Facebook (EN World)
Twitter
Instagram
TikTok
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*TTRPGs General
Real Religion in Adventure Design
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="Bedrockgames" data-source="post: 8275992" data-attributes="member: 85555"><p>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.</p><p></p><p>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).</p><p></p><p>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 <a href="https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E6%AD%A6%E4%BF%A0" target="_blank">武俠</a> (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.</p><p></p><p>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.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Bedrockgames, post: 8275992, member: 85555"] 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 [URL='https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E6%AD%A6%E4%BF%A0']武俠[/URL] (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. [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*TTRPGs General
Real Religion in Adventure Design
Top