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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Jürgen Hubert" data-source="post: 4159242" data-attributes="member: 7177">Well, for the record I'm from Germany.But I have to wonder how deep that "globalization" of settings really goes - are we really taking genuine elements of other cultures and their history, or are we only using a fairly superficial understanding of the same - one that's propagated within our own culture?Let me give you an example. What do most Americans think of when they hear the word "castle"? The image that will likely spring into the minds of most is the fairy tale castle from Disneyland.But the Disneyland castle is not a genuine castle, but a knockoff of the German castle of Neuschwanstein that has been used in the marketing of Disney to such an extent that it has become part of the American cultural mainstream.But even Neuschwanstein itself cannot really be considered a "genuine castle" by German standards - it was build after specifications by a rather nutty Bavarian king who had his own views of what a castle ought to look like. And it was built centuries after traditional castles became obsolete after the invention of the cannon.So the castle imagery in the minds of most Americans (though probably not most American role-players, who likely have a more in-depth knowledge of this period in history) is several layers removed from real castles - but giving them an understanding of the functioning, layout, and other essential aspects of genuine castles will require a lot of additional explaining. So what to do when you plan to use castle imagery - do you use the superficial image so that everyone gets it at once, or do you use the genuine historical thing and need to provide a large info-dump to clear up any misconceptions?The same is true for Angkor Wat - do you merely use the image of the complex, and thus are likely to get all sorts of details wrong, or do you do a lot of research to get everything right and risk overwhelming your players with information?(Or, to provide a flip side to the Neuschwanstein example for German readers: When using a pseudo-Native American culture - which would certainly qualify as "exotic" in Germany - do you try to get the details right, or do you confine yourself to the imagery thought up by Karl May?)Truly researching the historical and cultural details often is highly rewarding, and I strongly recommend it even if you don't end up using them - they often contain all sorts of cool adventure ideas. But again, all this has to be weighted against overwhelming the players with details.</blockquote>

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