Your opinion on basing fantasy countries on real world ones

[Morrus]

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

I don’t really understand what you’re trying to say.

 

[Morrus]

All that is taught is that the US had slavery

Well that’s certainly not true, is it?

 

[aramis erak]

So what is your opinion on this?

Given that I've run several historical fantasy games (Pendragon, Ars Magica, RQ3's Fantasy Earth, Castle Falkenstein, Space: 1889), clearly I don't have a huge inherent issue with using them as a basis.

Likewise, I love TOR 1E and L5R, and have happily run D&D's Mystara, and MLP... all of which have cultures based upon real ones.

I think the liberal-progressive movement's emphasis on extreme political correctness is going to villainize those doing so in the future; I suspect that Kalymba may have suffered from being seen as "cultural appropriation."

 

[Enevhar Aldarion]

Well that’s certainly not true, is it?

It is in US schools. It is like the existence of slavery here from 1619-1776 is all the fault of the US government, even though the US, as a country, is only responsible for the existence of slavery from 1776-1865. Virtually nothing is taught about the evils done in the colonies, as related to slavery, by the various European countries, or by the citizens of those countries, here in the Americas. I don't even think I have ever seen anything taught on the differences in slavery in the colonies around the world versus slavery within the European countries, or even if slavery was restricted to just the colonies and not used with the borders of the home countries.

 

[Ixal]

Not going into the depth of the slavery issue, but it touches upon a problem you have when you base countries on history. When you do that the expectation is obviously a "when in doubt, refer to the real world". This gets problematic when different people have a different knowledge about history, especially that thanks to movies and other entertainment options with, lets say questionable historical accuracy, many people often have a completely wrong idea about certain historic eras and events.

 

[Umbran]

I think the liberal-progressive movement's emphasis on extreme political correctness...

Mod Note:
Please review the Terms and rules. You are walking into politics and anti-inclusiveness in one sentence, and that's not going to turn out well.

 

[Umbran]

It is in US schools.

Well, to be clear, we give only sketches of the histories or most other nations - there are 195 nations on the globe, and 180 days in a school year - the math just doesn't work out well.

And we have enough trouble teaching this aspect of our own history. Splinters and planks, and all that.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Mod Note:

We might also want to tamp down the discussion on RW slavery a bit.

 

[Crusadius]

I think its ok to do it. The important thing is to treat the subject with respect and not degenerate into caricature and stereotyping. Some games have even had experts go over the writing to ensure this was done.

 

[Jfdlsjfd]

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.

Most settings have faux-Middle Ages. Slavery was nearly non-existant (replaced by impoverished serfdom, which was certainly hardly better, but adventurers rarely ask the question about the socio-economical status of the farm workers when they cross villages in my experience) until it became economically sensible to buy slaves in Africa and put them to work in the colonies. Hence the absence of slaves: the inspiration is an earlier era and the conditions to have a prosperous slave trade aren't generally met in fantasy settings. Edit: actually, they sometimes are, but it's not something that is explored by designers, certainly due to the extreme level of equality usually displayed by fantasy races.