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Message: <blockquote data-quote="TheSword" data-source="post: 8508112" data-attributes="member: 6879661">Everyone needs someone to provide a window into a different world and as a child with little access to travel, one way to look through this window is to read stories. Sure it’s tinted by the authors own viewpoints but let’s be honest 1001 nights had the full gamut of bravery, guile, deceit and stupidity amongst its cast, without favour or judgement. It was as genial a viewpoint (and probably more so) as most of the Greek myths or Anglo Saxon stories.Where was the colonial intervention? I thought Scheherazade was saved by her own inventiveness… if anything it’s an inditement of rampant misogyny.One of the criticisms made of orientalism is fetishization of the east as exotic and alluring. Noteworthy as several of the criticism of the original Oriental Adventures by Asians Represent related to the portrayal of characters in that book in the same way.At some point…  the word exotic and by extension exoticism became sexualised and fetishized. Probably in relation to nude dancers with tassels in dingy clubs. Or outrageous liberties taken by colonial authorities. That may indeed be a pernicious outcome that has afflicted the western worlds relationship with the countries viewed as oriental. I would resist the urge to view the Western interest in the wider world in these seedy terms though. Particularly since in rpgs we stepped away from fantasy game depictions of chain mail bikinis and alluring semi-naked women in diaphanous see through gowns to sell fantasy books to predominantly young men. That just isn’t our hobby any more.The original meaning of the word exotic meant mysteriously different and serves to explain our interest in parts foreign. Which as someone lucky enough to travel abroad and not be bound to hotel resorts still applies. The more unique or different to your own culture the more mysterious and by extension intriguing. I don’t think it is any surprise that the unknown is exciting. Particularly in this case when it brings up memories of our youth and the excellent stories in Scheherazade’s tales . It’s the same reason that people are enamored with martial arts, samurai, and ninjas, vikings, knights, dinosaurs and let’s be honest fantasy in general. Not many people play rpgs in a real world analogue of their home town with no fantastical elements at all.When you remove this unwholesome element (that isn’t really present or relevant in our world of gaming any more) we are left with the sense of wonder and mystery that fantasy games thrive on. To be honest, it comes from the same root cause that makes me want to explore a castle in North Wales, or the Gardens of Versailles, or temples on the Nile, or a coral reef in the Red Sea, or climb a mountain to reach Machu Picchu.It’s something to be admired and encouraged. Not ashamed of</blockquote>

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