Your opinion on basing fantasy countries on real world ones

[Morrus]

Politics aside, I do think an unintended side effect is going to be an increase in European-derived settings as people try to avoid culturally appropriating from areas they don't have any connection to.

We'll see in 10 years...

On the contrary, what we're actually seeing is an awesome increase in the number of non-European settings from writers and artists with non-European backgrounds. Just in the past year we've seen massive Kickstarters from an African-inspired sci-fi game, one by Native Americans, a big African-inspired setting book from Paizo, and a ton more. We're planning an awesome culture setting book for Level Up, which will be written by people with connections to that culture. On our podcast just last week we talked at length about the amazing stuff being made by creators from the Global South.

It's pretty awesome.

 

[MGibster]

So what is the solution? I really don’t know. I do with that DnD had something like the old Traveller world building system. Maybe a game for the whole group to play together to build a new campaign world.

I honestly don't know if there's a problem. People like what they like. D&D has changed over the years albeit ever so slowly. I expect tastes will change and in twenty or so years maybe we'll see fewer Tolkien style races in fantasy games and maybe something different instead.

 

[Hussar]

A suitable and accurate response for my beliefs would violate the politics rule. And I suspect you know that, and are trolling me.

Dude, or dudette, sorry, don't know, I'm barely on the boards any more and have zero idea of your political leanings.

You agreed with the claim that the current political atmosphere will have a chilling effect on the creation of non-Eurocentric settings. As @Morrus has rightly pointed out, we have more non-Eurocentric settings coming out now than at any point in the history of the game. And it shows zero signs of slowing.

For something to have a chilling effect means that there is some trend that is being stifled. The trend, prior to about 2010 (or so) was 99% Eurocentric settings. Other than a couple of notable exceptions, the world outside of Europe didn't exist in D&D. So, again, I'm questioning the idea that current politics is having any sort of stifling effect on the creation of non-Eurocentric settings.

 

[aramis erak]

Dude, or dudette, sorry, don't know, I'm barely on the boards any more and have zero idea of your political leanings.

You agreed with the claim that the current political atmosphere will have a chilling effect on the creation of non-Eurocentric settings. As @Morrus has rightly pointed out, we have more non-Eurocentric settings coming out now than at any point in the history of the game. And it shows zero signs of slowing.

For something to have a chilling effect means that there is some trend that is being stifled. The trend, prior to about 2010 (or so) was 99% Eurocentric settings. Other than a couple of notable exceptions, the world outside of Europe didn't exist in D&D. So, again, I'm questioning the idea that current politics is having any sort of stifling effect on the creation of non-Eurocentric settings.

Considering I got red-texted the page before...

 

[Hussar]

Sorry, didn't even notice it to be honest. Wasn't paying attention I guess.

 

[PhiloPharynx]

The trick for me is that it's a balance between originality and mental shorthand. On one hand, there's "This is vikingland." It gets across an unoriginal idea in two seconds. On the other extreme you have, "If you hail from Schyzyx, here's a 300-page dissertation on the history and culture of that nation. If you merely come from the region, you only have to read this 30-page book on how outsiders see the Schyzyxians. There will be tests."

This is why D&D style games traditionally default to tolkien-lite. It's easy to do this.

The hard part is coming up with something that you can dial up or down. I've found Eberron to be really good with this. Most of the cultures you can explain quickly, but there is enough detail for the people that want to dig deep.

 

[Jd Smith1]

Like others here, I find that the ability to make a quick comparison helps players immerse in the game. For example, I'm using a modified Harn setting for my Zweihander game. Being able to describe nations as 'Feudal England, Feudal France', etc, conveys a great deal of information quickly and smoothly.

I would like to have players who are sufficiently invested in a setting so as to ponder the different subtleties of various cultures, but those are hard to come by. Usually there's one or two in a group who will dig deep into the source material, but most are content with a mental snapshot in simple terms.

 

[Jd Smith1]

Politics aside, I do think an unintended side effect is going to be an increase in European-derived settings as people try to avoid culturally appropriating from areas they don't have any connection to.

We'll see in 10 years...

As a non-White gamer, I couldn't agree more.

 

[Bluenose]

How could we possibly have more European derived settings than we do now? Chilling effect on what? On the fact that virtually every single D&D setting out there is Euro-centric?

Let's play a game. You name a non-Euro-centric D&D setting, and I'll name three that are Euro-centric. We'll see who runs out first.

10 years ago I'd have agreed completely, and I would also add that non-D&D settings are even more likely to be derived from ideas of Europe (although that isn't as true of the games written outside Europe and north America). Now- well, you've got WotC publishing their MtG derived settings, many/most of those take imagery and ideas from something well away from medieval Europe, and an increasing number of games and settings which start from a different cultural perspective (sadly not always particularly well done or well received). It probably isn't equal yet within D&D and more so in other games but the ratio is changing.

 

[gamerprinter]

Strangely, back when I was doing more fantasy gaming, I did glom onto various cultures and nations of historic Earth, at least for inspiration. The one time I heavily delved into actual history and culture in deep way was my rendition of feudal Japan with my published Kaidan setting of Japanese Horror (PFRPG), and because part of that development was to fix mistakes, misspellings and content taken out of context in the creation of Oriental Adventures. I got into cultural aspects that few westerners even know about to add a greater sense of verisimilitude. And why I say "strangely" is that now I'm mostly developing societies and nations for sci-fi settings, and I can honestly say that nothing I've created so far, can be compared to a real world society or nation today. I try to create modern societies based on juxtapositioning two seemingly unrelated aspects and jam them together to create something new. Not that there isn't some influences in the real world, but never done so deliberately.