Your opinion on basing fantasy countries on real world ones

[Morrus]

It's about respect and relative power. You can't exploit the USA, even if you want to; that's the most dominant culture on the planet. Following that is probably most Western European cultures, and so on.

 

[Blue Orange]

I wonder what a fantasy version of New Jersey would be like?

I could make a rival adventuring party based of The Jersey Shore cast!

It's a neat thought--I always thought NJ didn't get enough love. It'd have to be a part of a larger whole--one of the key things about NJ is it's between two larger cities, one fairly large, one very large. Perhaps a country located between two larger kingdoms? NJ is very diverse, which makes a good excuse for having party members come from many different ancestries. You replace the New Jersey Turnpike with the Great Road. Contrary to stereotypes, NJ's actually quite affluent, so it's actually not that great for adventuring unless you want to have urban adventures, though you could easily put a few dungeons in whatever the equivalent of the Pine Barrens is.

 

[Blue Orange]

It's about respect and relative power. You can't exploit the USA, even if you want to; that's the most dominant culture on the planet. Following that is probably most Western European cultures, and so on.

I wonder how this going to change as China rises? We've already seen people apologize for calling Taiwan a country, for instance...

 

[Enevhar Aldarion]

It's about respect and relative power. You can't exploit the USA, even if you want to; that's the most dominant culture on the planet. Following that is probably most Western European cultures, and so on.

That is sort of the problem for someone on the outside looking at the US, as there are really anywhere from 5-10, or more, distinct cultures within the US, depending on how specific you want to get.

 

[Morrus]

That is sort of the problem for someone on the outside looking at the US, as there are really anywhere from 5-10, or more, distinct cultures within the US, depending on how specific you want to get.

Of course. No culture is a monolith or a caricature. That‘s the problem. You’ve just described it perfectly. If you can see it in your own, then you can see it in others. An excellent summary.

 

[Enevhar Aldarion]

Of course. No culture is a monolith or a caricature. That‘s the problem. You’ve just described it perfectly. If you can see it in your own, then you can see it in others. An excellent summary.

Except the US seems to be good about being a bad caricature to the rest of the world.

 

[Blue Orange]

That is sort of the problem for someone on the outside looking at the US, as there are really anywhere from 5-10, or more, distinct cultures within the US, depending on how specific you want to get.

One of the other reasons you don't see not-USes as much is it doesn't have any existence (as the nation we know) in the preindustrial era fantasy RPGs are usually drawn from. There was Andoran in Golarion, though I noticed they tidied up our great national shame by not only removing slavery, but banning it in the kingdom...

 

[aco175]

I do not have a problem with it. I find that the most basic of things have been based on real-life ideas all along. Terms like druid and cleric, or kings and queens leading nations all have real-world ideas tied to them. To make a nation with vikings and tie in some other ideas around it like barrows and thanes and sailing warriors gives the nations a culture. It kind of makes more sense than to take the idea of a viking kingdom and then change it to be led by mages and they ride hippos just because I want to be different. This would throw off the players who take some of what they think about the kingdom from real-world ideas of how things are/were.

I have learned a lot about our Earth history from D&D. A dungeon based on Stonehenge or the Pyramids has caused me to research further into these sites and learn more about the people and culture that created them. Something on the History channel caused me to create fantasy elements on it. Some of this reminds me of the book writing thing about there is no more original ideas.

I find that if you copy and steal elements from history, you should try and be careful about offending people. I would not deliberately try and offend, but I also cannot research all elements from all angles to make certain I do not offend. I can live with a good-faith effort.

 

[Mallus]

I wonder what a fantasy version of New Jersey would be like?

I could make a rival adventuring party based of The Jersey Shore cast!

 

[Enevhar Aldarion]

One of the other reasons you don't see not-USes as much is it doesn't have any existence (as the nation we know) in the preindustrial era fantasy RPGs are usually drawn from. There was Andoran in Golarion, though I noticed they tidied up our great national shame by not only removing slavery, but banning it in the kingdom...

Well, most fantasy versions of European countries do not have slavery either, even though those were the countries that imported it to the American colonies. The British Empire did not ban slavery throughout the Empire until 1834 and France did not do the same until 1847, yet you never hear about any of that. All that is taught is that the US had slavery, when it was actually a worldwide sin.