Worldbuilding, melanin and appropriation

[Satinavian]

What if it’s a very archaic setting? Something like Conan the barbarian… with the northern kingdoms being a bunch of loincloth wearing savages who paint their bodies blue and rush into battle naked… and the only real difference to an outside observer between the two culturally is the geography they live in?

The setting of Conan has lots of issues.

Now it is not that bad considering the time this stuff was written. But nowadays such a setting would be seen as really controversial and invite various unflattering speculations about the authors worldview. It is a good example of exactly the issues that the OP would rather avoid and thus what not to do.

[gbaji]

Conan is infamous for it's very bad portrait of African coded civilizations and the use racial insensitive language and harmful false stereotypes, bad exemple.

If you are cherry picking portrayals, and insisting that only certain groups of people are allowed to be portrayed badly. Let's not forget that those stories are set in a late bronze to early iron age setting, when, historically, a whole lot of cultures/civilizations/city-states were absolutely horrible if we judged them based on today's standards.

Issue is that even when all places of the setting are barbaric, not all barbaric peoples are portrayed equally, the point of Conan is how his civilization despite being "Barbaric" is more "civilized" than the "civilized" cultures. Meanwhile compared to the noble and heroic barbarian people of Conan, other civilizations are portrayed as more depraved savages, not cool.

Eh. I think that's in the eye of the beholder. Is it possible that you are defining "noble" and "depraved" based on your own stereotypes?

But yeah. I suppose your post is a great example of why GMs need to be cautious about defining/describing skin tone at all. Because you just never known when someone is going to combine skin tone and cultural definition and make a negative correlation to some assumed steretotype. I does come across like you can't abide any setting in which any culture in which people have dark skin area may be portrayed in any sort of negative light at all. I mean, if my setting includes a ton of different evil nations of different types, including people of different skin tones, you would be offended if one of them was of dark skin?

I'm not going to (nor are we allowed) ask about what specific traits you seem to think are negative stereotypes versus positive within the suset of "primitive/tribal/barbarian cultures" here. But maybe ask yourself if it's reasonable that if a setting is in an ancient time, that there should realistically be a ton of such cultures within it, and unless your argument is that we simple exclude all darker skinned people from our game settings, then yes, some of those folks are going to inevitably have traits that, if projected on a modern person today, we would find offensive. Um... But that's the setting.

IMO, as long as someone isn't portraying all of the people of one skin color as good and pure and civilized and all people of another skin color as evil and corrupt and savage, I'm not really seeing a problem. That's not to say that it *wont* create a problem at a table, but if I have a player who is that insistent on really really looking to find offense at my setting, the easier solution is to just not have them at my table.

{Scrub the post, scrub the quote}

All terms that refer to skin color are not innately racist.

I have never in my life heard this term used in a derogotary way. So... Not getting it?

The only thing I can think of is that the original term may have referred to people having darker skin, but not as a racial characteristic but because the simply spent more time in the sun. Which, I suppose, could be a connotation of people "working in the sun" as well. But typically just means "tanned". But yeah, I suppose you could marry the "works in the sun" bit, with an assumption of "low level laborer", and then attach that to people with darker skin (due to genetics) and make something out of that?

Again though, I've literally never heard this word used that way. Ever. So... super stretch.

Huh. In my parlance, "swarthy" is not only not a pejorative, it's generally a compliment. Like calling someone "tough". It's not a word one would use to describe their enemy, or someone they want to belittle - especially for their appearance.

Yeah. It can refer to "tanned" (with an implication of being "healthy" and "getting sun", as opposed to being "pasty" or "pale/sickly" or something).

I've also seen it used as "handy" or "capable". So yeah. Not seeng the perjorative here.

[Mechalich]

Yeah. It can refer to "tanned" (with an implication of being "healthy" and "getting sun", as opposed to being "pasty" or "pale/sickly" or something).

That is something of a modern usage though, dependent upon our understanding of things like vitamin D and the corresponding shift in aesthetics. Through most of human history paleness, especially in females, was seen as highly desirable because it was a marker of an upper class lifestyle that did not involve laboring out in the sun all day. A pro-light-skinned prejudice was, historically, extremely common within cultures not just across cultural boundaries. 'Swarthy,' often used at least in literature to refer to sailors, builds off of this, as sailors were generally lower-class (in many cases functionally or literally enslaved) and tanned up extremely dark due because on the water you get the sun from above and below.

In most cases of a historical or fantasy setting this class and labor-type based variation in skin is going to absolutely swamp ethnically-based variation in skin tone, because the level of ethnic variation in a large region simply isn't that high. That changes if there's some sort of massive discontinuity in the geography, like the Sahara Desert or the Himalayas, but that is uncommon.

[PhoenixPhyre]

'Swarthy,' often used at least in literature to refer to sailors, builds off of this, as sailors were generally lower-class (in many cases functionally or literally enslaved) and tanned up extremely dark due because on the water you get the sun from above and below.

Yeah. My mental connections to the word 'swarthy' all revolve around sailors, especially pirates. Nothing about race, particularly--in fact, my mental image of a pirate is mostly a European/Caucasian (dominantly dominant) or Northern African/Arab (secondary, and one that would have lighter skin without the solar influence) person.

[gbaji]

That is something of a modern usage though, dependent upon our understanding of things like vitamin D and the corresponding shift in aesthetics. Through most of human history paleness, especially in females, was seen as highly desirable because it was a marker of an upper class lifestyle that did not involve laboring out in the sun all day. A pro-light-skinned prejudice was, historically, extremely common within cultures not just across cultural boundaries. 'Swarthy,' often used at least in literature to refer to sailors, builds off of this, as sailors were generally lower-class (in many cases functionally or literally enslaved) and tanned up extremely dark due because on the water you get the sun from above and below.

Right. Which is exactly what I talked about in the section just above the one you quoted. That was just one additional possible (and you are correct, more modern) meaning for the term.

Um... But even the older use is more about class than race (really not about race at all, unless you mix and match meanings across times and locations). And one can also argue that while such things may have mattered to some nobility (as a sign of being a "common laborer"), there's also a connotation (which I mentioned previously as well) that being swarthy also meant "healty" and "strong", since folks who did such work tended to be healthier and stronger. Well, barring being afflicted by some disease due to living in less sanitary conditions as a result of their lower standard of living, but then we'd not refer to such people as "swarthy" either, so...

The term was pretty universally used to describe people who, yeah, worked hard (salt of the earth/sea types), but were hale and hearty and whatnot. It was overwhelmingly a positive term. I've never heard it used in a way that implied any sort of negative personality attributes to the person so described (unless someone actually does consider "working class" to be a negative personality trait?). And certainly have never heard it used in any form of racial reference at all, let alone a perjorative one.

It's almost like someone looked up the dictionary definition, which speaks of having dark skin, and just assumed that meant "because of race", and not "because of profession/activities". Which, again, speaks more to the person making that asociation than to the term itself.

[Perch]

I am confused.... what exactly are you referring to here?

Oh, are you are familiar with the works of Robert Ervin Howard? Well, that makes it a lot easier, I don't have my notes here with me but when I get home I'll check my library with all the texts, pages and chapters, I may return home tomorrow so I hope I'll remember to do it.

If you are referring to Stygia, then that would be more of an Egyptian code then anything

Last time I checked Egypt was... Well, in Africa so I don't understand what your point was in here.

Where exactly in the reading of any of Howard's books are the Cimmerians depicted as "civilized"? They have little to no art, science, or philosophy and are primarily hunter-gatherers living in primitive wooden villages with no central governments...

That's the point! At least to me and I believe it's also the consensus, how those things are not real indicators of "civilization" and that Conan's people despite being a warrior society has more honor and are more noble than the more "advanced" and sedentary civilizations.

The only way they are seen as "moral" is due to their society (and I don't use the word "civilization" because they have little to no sense of the word) having a strong sense of "justice", and I use that in air quotes seeing as even though they have a tribal concept of honor.

That's the point, they are "Barbaric savages" but they are "barbaric savages" with a noble sense of honor and that not only redeems them, but also elevates them, the same courtesy is not extended to other civilizations.

The whole point of Conan the Barbarian is to signify how the "civilizations" are usually much more "uncivilized" than the barbarians... Seeing as even though Conan's people are barely above cavemen, they don't have any concept of slaves or master, peasants or nobles, etc. This is why he rarely fights any tribals (other than the Picts and the Vanir)

{Scrubbed} I said "The point of Conan was that Conan's people was more civilized than the so called civilized people"

And you said "The point of Conan is that the So called civilized people was more barbaric than Conan's so called Barbaric people"

{Scrubbed} For all effects we said the same thing.

Technically, that depends on what you consider a civilization. Historically, almost all desert dwelling civilizations are usually a network of nomadic clans or closely related kin groups whose primary mode of making a living is through trade.

Most but not all, and even so, a merchant people is a far cry from the violent blood thirsty desert savages tropes we are discussing here. But there are many exemples of desert kingdoms that were not in fact like that and were able to build great things. Why not focus on that? Specially if you are trying to avoid racist tropes?

And before you ask, Ancient Egypt was not a desert dwelling civilization.

Wasn't going to I was actually thinking of Nabataean Kingdom since I'm a huge fan of Petra. But I would argue with you that the fact the Nile gave Egypt huge benefits that would make their civilization grow better than other places, it's still in a desert, even if it's has a river, it's in a desert biome so it's arguable a desert civilization. There is a reason their main God was the Sun and not lightning like most of their contemporaries.

I am confused, is that term actually racist? Or did a small group of progressives in academia decided that the term is "offensive" and are telling the rest of society that it is?

I mean you only have to look up in a dictionary and you will see, many words related to dark skin ended up gaining pejorative meanings, go figure, this is one of such cases, if the dictionary is not enough I suggest you seek the etymology of the word "sordid" perhaps that will ease your confusion.

What if I portray societies like the war hungry and expansionist Zulu Empire.... or the use of Azande hexes and curses and other African folk magic....

I mean you are more than allowed to do it, who am I to tell you what you are allowed to do or not, the thing is such things and portrays have been done in the past, and have been done badly, so they are not well received anymore because they carry a lot of symbolic weight, and OP wanted advice on how to deal and avoid these issues, so as per it was requested I provided my point of view, I think everything I said so far is valid but I thank you for you questions, I was perhaps allowed to clarify some points, I just hope the inquiries where made out of curiosity and not with the intent of antagonizing me.

I don't really understand this narrative of Africa being an idealized inherently peaceful place before Western forces had corrupted it. For thousands of years, hundreds of kingdoms, tribes, and warbands have been fighting over resources just like everywhere else in the world. Historical African civilizations shouldn't be portrayed as either idealized or demonic... they should be portrayed as realistic.

That was never the point, all those things can be done, it's just that they are ALL that has been done, for years, by people with not so noble intentions, so it comes to no surprise that it's frowned upon and other alternatives and different explorations are encouraged.

[False God]

In any case, it's not like we can't learn from historical missteps, both in reality and in fiction, to create better settings. Even settings full of terrible people around the world. The point, again, fundamentally is that the author/DM making this attempt is gonna have to work for it.

[paladinofshojo]

Oh, are you are familiar with the works of Robert Ervin Howard? Well, that makes it a lot easier, I don't have my notes here with me but when I get home I'll check my library with all the texts, pages and chapters, I may return home tomorrow so I hope I'll remember to do it.

I have read a few of the books namely the Coming of Conan and Conan the Barbarian, but most of my understanding of the franchise comes from the wiki and Youtube because the Lore for the Hyborean Age is way too massive to get into if you're just reading it. Howard may have come up with Conan, but because of his death and due to the massive popularity of the character, other writers have been adding to the mythos or re-adapting Conan's stories. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conan_(books)

That's also not including the comics, the videogames, and the movies which seem to deviate from the books.

Furthermore, did you really read through his work just to come up with notes on why it is problematic? Or are you just be sarcastic?

Side note, if you have read his works, why do you need to go back and look at your notes to tell me what exactly Howard wrote that is considered racist?

Last time I checked Egypt was... Well, in Africa so I don't understand what your point was in here.

Putting aside the Netflix lawsuit controversy...

You don't see anything culturally insensitive about painting an entire continent with such a broad stroke? This is literally the equivalent of saying that Aztecs, Iroquois, and Hopi Indians are "all the same"....

When you and I were starting this conversation, it was very clear that the unfortunate implications were targeted towards black people, i.e. sub-saharan Africans, whom I can tell you from my personal experience from living almost 15 years in South Africa, are divided amongst themselves based on tribal and ethnic lines, but that is besides the point.

The fact that you're trying to lump them all together {Scrubbed}

That's the point! At least to me and I believe it's also the consensus, how those things are not real indicators of "civilization" and that Conan's people despite being a warrior society has more honor and are more noble than the more "advanced" and sedentary civilizations.

Their sense of "honor" isn't even that moral though... They are not above stealing and raiding villages to survive. Their sense of justice is largely reliant on might makes right, it's not surprising since their chief god Crom is also very apathetic to the problems of mortals, in that he only cares for battle and calling his name is something he considers "weakness", so Cimmerians don't even bother praying to him, as he is not really worshipped but rather feared and even Conan had said "it is best not to draw his ire".

The only reason Crom isn't as bad as Set is because he isn't actively trying to destroy the world due to lack of interest in such things, not because he is a morally better deity to serve.

Their society is no more "moral" than say, the Imperium of Mankind in the Warhammer 40K series... Which is an apt comparison because unlike Warhammer 40K, the Conan universe's grimdark nature actually makes sense since it is a barbaric age ruled by sorcery and the swords of warlords.... and not an over the top satire of space fascism. The point I am making here is that both settings are grimdark as such, you aren't really getting "good" guys, just different shades of grey.

That's the point, they are "Barbaric savages" but they are "barbaric savages" with a noble sense of honor and that not only redeems them, but also elevates them, the same courtesy is not extended to other civilizations.

Question, which Cimmerians get elevated here? Conan sure, but he's literally the protagonist of this epic story so yeah, him becoming the Barbarian King of Aquilonia is a foregone conclusion.

But he isn't the entire Cimmerian people... despite the fact that for the majority of his stories, he is literally the only Cimmerian present.

Come to think of it, how many other Cimmerians show up in the stories anyways?

{Scrub the post, scrub the quote} I said "The point of Conan was that Conan's people was more civilized than the so called civilized people"

And you said "The point of Conan is that the So called civilized people was more barbaric than Conan's so called Barbaric people"

{Scrub the post, scrub the quote} For all effects we said the same thing.

There's a very big difference here though, what you are saying is that the point is that Conan's people are "innately better" than the Aquilonians, the Stygians, and assorted city-states by virtue of being presented as more moral...despite the fact that in most of the stories we only get a sum total of "one" Cimmerian, and what little we do know of them doesn't really present them as paragons of any civilization that can be considered "better" than another.

What I am saying is that the Aquilonians, Stygians, etc. despite having massive advanced cities, along with technology, sorcery, and the literal aid of gods/enslaved demons, are still just as savage, cruel, and barbaric as the caveman from the North and in their own ways even worse. Conan is literally a subtle critique of civilization itself, not saying that one group or way of life is better than another.

Most but not all, and even so, a merchant people is a far cry from the violent blood thirsty desert savages tropes we are discussing here. But there are many exemples of desert kingdoms that were not in fact like that and were able to build great things. Why not focus on that? Specially if you are trying to avoid racist tropes?

When were we discussing "desert tribes"? I thought we were discussing Sub-Saharan Africans.... Furthermore, you don't see anything wrong with the stereotype of creating kingdoms of nomadic Bedouins ruled by Sultans/ Caliphs which are based on trade?

Wasn't going to I was actually thinking of Nabataean Kingdom since I'm a huge fan of Petra. But I would argue with you that the fact the Nile gave Egypt huge benefits that would make their civilization grow better than other places, it's still in a desert, even if it's has a river, it's in a desert biome so it's arguable a desert civilization. There is a reason their main God was the Sun and not lightning like most of their contemporaries.

The Nabataeans were not an exception to the rule, their civilization largely revolved around trading as they started out as largely nomadic pastoralists, Petra itself was founded because it overlapped many trading routes, which is why anyone was able to live there at all seeing as it was almost impossible to grow anything there.

This is a common trend in desert civilizations, they are much more reliant on importing necessities and thus their survival depends on generating wealth via facilitating trade and monopolizing the most effective means of said trade.

This is why Egypt is not a desert civilization, since they had a very stable and very fertile land which allowed them to grow and produce whatever they needed without relying too heavily on trade.

A map of ancient Egypt would quickly disprove the Western stereotype of it being a "desert biome". https://smarthistory.org/wp-content/.../Egypt-map.jpg

The overwhelming majority of what one would consider "Ancient Egypt" was situated in either the Nile Delta or the Nile River, in other words, the green lush areas surrounding the banks of the Nile. The deserts flanking their East and West weren't considered as part of their kingdom but rather the boarders, said deserts were also coincidently, the reason "Ancient Egypt" had survived for so long, as with natural barriers signifying their boarders their civilization was much more insular than its contemporaries, like the Hittites, Assyrians, Babylonians, Myceneans, Hellenistic Greeks, Romans, etc. (and yes, Ancient Egypt was so ancient and so long lasting, that its "contemporaries" included Bronze Age civilizations and Classical Antiquity)

I mean you only have to look up in a dictionary and you will see, many words related to dark skin ended up gaining pejorative meanings, go figure, this is one of such cases, if the dictionary is not enough I suggest you seek the etymology of the word "sordid" perhaps that will ease your confusion.

Again, this is dodging the question, is the term "swarthy" actually racist? You are literally the only one here who made this insinuation, and I, a literal member of the group who should be taking offense to the term, have never seen any negative connotation with the word other than it being a descriptor at best.

Honestly, I felt that the term "brown" is slightly more offensive than "swarthy" but that is mostly because the word itself sounds kind of ugly.

I mean you are more than allowed to do it, who am I to tell you what you are allowed to do or not, the thing is such things and portrays have been done in the past, and have been done badly, so they are not well received anymore because they carry a lot of symbolic weight, and OP wanted advice on how to deal and avoid these issues, so as per it was requested I provided my point of view, I think everything I said so far is valid but I thank you for you questions, I was perhaps allowed to clarify some points, I just hope the inquiries where made out of curiosity and not with the intent of antagonizing me.

Again, the point I am making here is to explain that African civilizations are not morally better or worse than non-African ones. African countries, specifically South Africa from my experience, have plenty of problems, what with bigotry between ethnic lines, religious fundamentalism, and a lot of misogyny. Do these problems take away from how beautiful the cultures and traditions of these places are? No, but at the same time you can't pretend that these issues don't exist.

That was never the point, all those things can be done, it's just that they are ALL that has been done, for years, by people with not so noble intentions, so it comes to no surprise that it's frowned upon and other alternatives and different explorations are encouraged.

What exactly are the "other alternatives" and "different explorations" you are speaking of?

From what I notice, it seems that this means historical revision to either idealize African nations as being "pure" from the "taint" of Western imperialism, such as the Woman King in which the Dahomey are shown to be having qualms of participating in the slave trade, or involves race-swapping famous figures of antiquity to fit a narrative that sub-saharan Africans had a "proud and imperious legacy stolen from them", such as the Cleopatra documentary.

Neither of which look good in any optics to an outside observer.

[KorvinStarmast]

It would appear that the avian roost has been well and truly PWNed.

As to Conan: I've read them all, if by all you mean "the 12 paperback books with all of the R.E. Howard Conan stories in them (and a few by Lin Carter and L Sprague Decamp, IIRC) and which are still up in a box in my basement. (More or less reprints of the various pulp stories that Howard published). As best as I can recall, they were released in the 1970's due to the genre becoming popular again.

Spoiler: Actually, the re-release began in 1967, which meant that more than the original 21 Conan stories were included in the various books

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Following Howard's death, the copyright of the Conan stories passed through several hands. Eventually L. Sprague de Camp was entrusted with management of the fiction line and, beginning with 1967's Conan released by Lancer Books, oversaw a paperback series collecting all of Howard's stories (Lancer folded in 1973 and Ace Books picked up the line, reprinting the older volumes with new trade dress and continuing to release new ones). Howard's original stories received additional edits by de Camp, and de Camp also decided to create additional Conan stories to publish alongside the originals, working with Björn Nyberg and especially Lin Carter. These new stories were created from a mixture of already-complete Howard stories with different settings and characters that were altered to feature Conan and the Hyborian setting instead, incomplete fragments and outlines for Conan stories that were never completed by Howard, and all-new pastiches. Lastly, de Camp created prefaces for each story, fitting them into a timeline of Conan's life that he created.

I think that Poul Anderson's "On Thud and Blunder" was in part a send up of the Conan stories.

FWIW, I also read a number of the Conan comic books that came out in the 70's - the ones with Conan and with Red Sonya.
A lot of those books (if not all of them) had Frank Frazetta art on the covers.
A friend of mine was an avid comic book collector. While I had I tended toward Sergeant Rock and The Haunted Tank, and Sergeant Fury, he tended towards super heroes and things like Conan and Thor). He also had all of the E.R. Burroughs Mars books.

Conan was IIRC the only Cimmerian to show up in the books. For those of us reasonably well versed in the Conan storkes, the Conan movie, with Arnold as Conan, was a bit jarring since it was both similar to, and different from, the pulps.

[Cikomyr2]

Skin tone variety is not a bad thing to have in isolation, but here are a few trapfalls I'd recommend you pay attention to avoid:

- societies are not monolithic. The same family of people can have explicitly lighter or darker skins under the same genetic distribution. Its a fact that happens. Also, people migrate and travel (unless there's a good reason why not*), so you should still encounter significant number of minority ethnicities outside of their geographical points of origin. Have enclaves that migrates from one land to others, then back, etc.. the more complex and intermingled you make your societies the healthier the output will be.

- skin tone should not be correlated with specific talents, development level, etc. Dont have the dark people be advanced while whites are backward tribals, for example. You can emphasize that a culture may have speciality (ex: the eastern tropical kingdom is really into magic) but associate this more to a local geographical features rather than tie it with climate and skin tone. And don't have whatever "specialized" institution be ethnically exclusive unless its a deliberate choice you want to have in your game.

*For example, the biggest reason subsaharan people IRL did not have a history of being involved with the roman Empire or the Hellenistic world is the Sahara desert prevented most of this migration or trade.

[Perch]

If you are cherry picking portrayals, and insisting that only certain groups of people are allowed to be portrayed badly. Let's not forget that those stories are set in a late bronze to early iron age setting, when, historically, a whole lot of cultures/civilizations/city-states were absolutely horrible if we judged them based on today's standards.

In my views portrays of any culture as savages and evil is an issue, those were literal tools of colonization and racists so our fantastical literature can grow past it, more nuanced civilizations that are neutral, not inherently evil or good are way more interesting anyway.

Eh. I think that's in the eye of the beholder. Is it possible that you are defining "noble" and "depraved" based on your own stereotypes?

Nope, it's literally in the words he used, I think Howard was a product of his time and not nearly as bad as Lovecraft but he made his point clear:

Spoiler: Shadows in Zamboula - first chapter 12th paragraph

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"Aram Baksh is a demon! Nay, in this accursed city which Stygians built and which Hyrkanians rule—where white, brown and black folk mingle together to produce hybrids of all unholy hues and breeds—who can tell who is a man, and who a demon in disguise?"

Spoiler: Hour of the Dragon - Last paragraph - Chapter 4

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"But they attempted no reprisal, nor did they accept Conan's urgent invitation to approach within reach of the bloody chain in his hand. Presently, grunting in their ape-like speech, they lifted the senseless black and bore him out like a sack of wheat, arms and legs dangling. They used his key to lock the door behind them, but did not remove it from the gold chain that fastened it to his girdle. They took the torch with them, and as they moved up the corridor the darkness slunk behind them like an animate thing. Their soft padding footsteps died away, with the glimmer of their torch, and darkness and silence remained unchallenged."

Spoiler: The Vale of Lost women

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"The hut door opened, and a black woman entered—a lithe pantherish creature, whose supple body gleamed like polished ebony, adorned only by a wisp of silk twisted about her strutting loins. The whites of her eyeballs reflected the firelight outside, as she rolled them with wicked meaning."

“Those black pigs will never again touch your white skin”

"T eyes of those dark men, creatures full of cruelty and nothing else."

It's clear the words used to describe those peoples were a lot less than flattering, and these are only the things I'm allowed to post here without too much controversy, but either way if you compare the dehumanizing words and elements used to describe those civilizations with the sense of awe and admiration used to describe the barbaric beauty of Conan's people and you can get an ideia. If you don't I could continue on in your DM's if you want.

That's not to say anything about Robert's other novels specially the ones that are clearly more white supremacist leaning such as Black Canaan, or even his contemporaries such as Edgar Rice Burroughs. Either way all these should be exemples of the type of language OP should focus on avoiding.

But yeah. I suppose your post is a great example of why GMs need to be cautious about defining/describing skin tone at all. Because you just never known when someone is going to combine skin tone and cultural definition and make a negative correlation to some assumed steretotype.

Excuse me? Are you implying that I'm the issue?

I does come across like you can't abide any setting in which any culture in which people have dark skin area may be portrayed in any sort of negative light at all. I mean, if my setting includes a ton of different evil nations of different types, including people of different skin tones, you would be offended if one of them was of dark skin?

It's sure is possible, but I have never seen it done well, so I would rather avoid it. Even in settings where everyone is supposed to be "Barbaric" some are ALWAYS more barbaric than others. Besides as I said above, this is such a unrealistic and boring way to portray civilizations with some really questionable real life influences, why not just make the civilizations complex and interesting? With negatives and positves, like you know... Real people?

I'm not going to (nor are we allowed) ask about what specific traits you seem to think are negative stereotypes versus positive within the suset of "primitive/tribal/barbarian cultures" here.

There are many things, but to me the dehumanization, the focus on stereotypes and the disgraceful comparison to animalistic characteristics.

But maybe ask yourself if it's reasonable that if a setting is in an ancient time, that there should realistically be a ton of such cultures within it, and unless your argument is that we simple exclude all darker skinned people from our game settings, then yes, some of those folks are going to inevitably have traits that, if projected on a modern person today, we would find offensive. Um... But that's the setting.

That's has nothing to do with what I said. Is this a straw man? To be able to portray civilizations as complex and interesting instead of barbaric, savage and evil has nothing to do with... Excluding black folk from your setting? Which seems to be your point. Are you under the impression that is Black people as cannibals and caricatures or nothing at all? Are really incapable of considering any other portrait for an African inspired civilization?

All terms that refer to skin color are not innately racist.

Interesting, funny you would say that, since there is a phenomenon observed by linguists that terms used to refer to dark skin often with time gain pejorative undertones, I wonder why.

[gbaji]

In my views portrays of any culture as savages and evil is an issue, those were literal tools of colonization and racists so our fantastical literature can grow past it, more nuanced civilizations that are neutral, not inherently evil or good are way more interesting anyway.

Excuse me? Are you implying that I'm the issue?

Yes (not you personally, but the opinion/demands you are making). The statement above highlights the reason. You can't seem to be able to view ancient civilizations though an actual realistic (and historically accurate) lens, but only via your own modern perception and biases (seriouslly? "Colonialism"? When discussing ancient cultures and civilizations? You're just dropping modern rhetoric here). That's a huge problem. You're demanding something that is absolutely realistically (and certainly historically) an impossible standard. I'm not going to turn my mixed bronze/iron age fantasy setting into a modern freaking "safe space". There will be evil empires. There will be places where human sacrifice occurs. There will be evil wizards, and rulers, and worship of evil deities and demons and other nasty things. I'm not playing candyland here.

What I will not do is make any correlation at all between the physical/racial/whatever descriptions the various people I've populated this fantasy setting with and those things. But, apparently, even that isn't good enough for you.

So yeah. When faced with an impossible standard to meet, my response is to reject the impossible standard.

[Mechalich]

*For example, the biggest reason subsaharan people IRL did not have a history of being involved with the roman Empire or the Hellenistic world is the Sahara desert prevented most of this migration or trade.

This is important. The Sahara Desert, and a few thousand kilometers to the east the Himalayas, create a discontinuity in ethnic distributions that produce a correspondingly stark level of variation in melanin levels and other features that is not mirrored in places like East Asia or the Americas where such a barrier is broadly absent (there are other contributing factors too, of course). The Americas, in particular, show a distinctly reduced level of variation on this score overall because the source population was very small and comparatively recent which minimizes the amount of overall diversity. That example might be closer to a typical fantasy world in which the initial populations are either specially created by the gods or derived from small colonizer populations due to spelljamming/planar travel/other magic.

[Xervous]

I’m generally with gbaji on this matter. The expectation that the setting writer(s , editors, publishers, basically everything not on the user side) is the sole party responsible for mitigating harms derived from perception, those accurate or otherwise, is unreasonable.

It asks for a rubber stamp denial of topics regardless of context or intent. It protects the users from actual objectionable content, and denies them a chance to yield false positives stemming from errors in their own judgment. It values the safety of the least reliable user more than any potential value exploration of the topic might yield, and strives to keep such users safe not by educating them, but by dumbing down everything they might encounter.

[Perch]

Yes (not you personally, but the opinion/demands you are making). The statement above highlights the reason. You can't seem to be able to view ancient civilizations though an actual realistic

Maybe YOUR views are not realistic and full of historical bias? Ever considered that?

What's realistic about certain civilizations being evil? You do know that EVIL is not a real thing in real life right?

[False God]

Maybe YOUR views are not realistic and full of historical bias? Ever considered that?

What's realistic about certain civilizations being evil? You do know that EVIL is not a real thing in real life right?

You're the only one that is asking for a "realistic" portrayal of mankind in a fantasy setting with dragons, magic, elves and quite literally real evil gods.

[Perch]

You're the only one that is asking for a "realistic" portrayal of mankind in a fantasy setting with dragons, magic, elves and quite literally real evil gods.

No, I'm not.

I'm asking for nuance and verisimilitude, gbaji was the one claiming what I was saying was not realistic that it was creating a "safe space" or whatever.

[False God]

No, I'm not.

I'm asking for nuance and verisimilitude, gbaji was the one claiming what I was saying was not realistic that it was creating a "safe space" or whatever.

The literal definition of "verisimilitude" is "the appearance of being true or real". So yes you are asking for it to be "realistic".

[Perch]

The literal definition of "verisimilitude" is "the appearance of being true or real". So yes you are asking for it to be "realistic".

It's not the same thing.

Like shooting fire out of your hands may not be REALISTIC but if the setting has a magic system and in the magic system it described shooting fire out of your hands is possible then it has verisimilitude.

Now if the setting magic system says you can't create fire, but a character creates fire anyway that breaks the verisimilitude.

A lot of people who want to complain about verisimilitude in fantasy end up using the term realistic only the get the response "It's a world with Dragon and magic it doesn't have to be realistic" but what they wanted to say was verisimilitude, they wanted the rules of the setting, even a fantastic one, to make sense, to have an internal logic.

[False God]

It's not the same thing.

Like shooting fire out of your hands may not be REALISTIC but if the setting has a magic system and in the magic system it described shooting fire out of your hands is possible then it has verisimilitude.

Now if the setting magic system says you can't create fire, but a character creates fire anyway that breaks the verisimilitude.

A lot of people who want to complain about verisimilitude in fantasy end up using the term realistic only the get the response "It's a world with Dragon and magic it doesn't have to be realistic" but what they wanted to say was verisimilitude, they wanted the rules of the setting, even a fantastic one, to make sense, to have an internal logic.

Correction, it breaks your verisimilitude. That's exactly why I take issue with the phrase, people parrot it around like there is some universal definition of what is "believable" and there's not. All you're telling me is "I don't find this believable!" which doesn't mean much of anything. Great, you can't believe that some fantasy world can have a fantastical evil empire full of evil people. That's a you problem.

But nooooo, you gotta get this big word to hit people over the head with, "It lacks verisimilitude!" no, it doesn't. You just have a different opinion on what is or isn't believable.

See here's the thing, we can all agree on something being "realistic". We can look at the world and go "Yeah, that lines up!", but if you're saying that verisimilitude actually means "believability" well heck man, that bar is all over the place! If "verisimilitude" just means "believable within the context of the world", then coming full circle, YOUR opinion on the "verisimilitude" of something is entirely irrelevant! Has the world established itself to be internally consistent? Yes? Then it doesn't matter what it includes.

TLDR: "verisimilitude" holds no water for me. It's just a term for fantasy elitists to knock other people around with when they don't like the material someone else has created.

[PhoenixPhyre]

What's realistic about certain civilizations being evil? You do know that EVIL is not a real thing in real life right?

You're asking for realism right here. And in a world (as 99% of the D&D worlds are) where EVIL is literally a cosmic force of the universe and you can literally have creatures made out of pure physical evil...

Yeah. As to that second sentence...I'll refrain due to forum rules. Other than to say that I disagree wholeheartedly.
-----

While I, personally, prefer to have civilizations that have a mix of redeeming and, well, not so redeeming features, I can see the attraction of having an Evil Empire. NOTE this does not mean that everyone in that empire is EVIL. Just that the culture pushes toward evil and rewards those that do so.

[Mechalich]

While I, personally, prefer to have civilizations that have a mix of redeeming and, well, not so redeeming features, I can see the attraction of having an Evil Empire. NOTE this does not mean that everyone in that empire is EVIL. Just that the culture pushes toward evil and rewards those that do so.

Many fantasy settings (including most iterations of D&D) are functionally superhero settings and it is entirely possible for the culture of a state to be wholly determined by the ideology of a single individual in a way that simply isn't possible in the real world. This makes 'evil empires' easier to justify since their origins and maintenance can be placed at the feet of a single figure or small group. Similarly, it also facilitates 'enlightened dictatorships' since the would-be virtuous overlord can bypass limitations that normally prevent scaling of the tyranny of the just.

[MonochromeTiger]

Many fantasy settings (including most iterations of D&D) are functionally superhero settings and it is entirely possible for the culture of a state to be wholly determined by the ideology of a single individual in a way that simply isn't possible in the real world. This makes 'evil empires' easier to justify since their origins and maintenance can be placed at the feet of a single figure or small group. Similarly, it also facilitates 'enlightened dictatorships' since the would-be virtuous overlord can bypass limitations that normally prevent scaling of the tyranny of the just.

Also makes it much easier to have "the people are opposed to this act of cruelty/lack of compassion but they can't do anything about it" when the people in charge literally have the ability to wipe out people who complain too loudly en masse.

[Anymage]

Many fantasy settings (including most iterations of D&D) are functionally superhero settings and it is entirely possible for the culture of a state to be wholly determined by the ideology of a single individual in a way that simply isn't possible in the real world. This makes 'evil empires' easier to justify since their origins and maintenance can be placed at the feet of a single figure or small group. Similarly, it also facilitates 'enlightened dictatorships' since the would-be virtuous overlord can bypass limitations that normally prevent scaling of the tyranny of the just.

Even in such settings, it's better if the person/group in charge considers themselves in the right and tries to justify why what they're doing is in fact good. Real world history has no shortage of people trying to paint things like genocide or slavery in a positive light, so they can be used as inspiration.

Still, that's kind of tangential to the topic at hand. Thay exists as an evil empire. And while I'm sure someone somewhere has gotten upset over it, I haven't seen any traction on the topic equivalent to other hot button topics. Meanwhile the question of if various humanoid groups (usually orcs) carry troublesome colonial baggage has spawned countless threads and locked a good number of those. What real-world baggage a given idea carries, and how the DM (if doing for their own table) or authors (if wanting to publish) want to handle those issues, is its own long and involved topic for discussion and I have little interest in relitigating it. Except to say that I can see the appeal of a cosmopolitan fantasy melting pot on several levels. I totally understand why authors would want to go for that, and it's also sensible that a hired DM would want the most flexible world possible if they want to easily slot in any group they happen to come across.

[Perch]

I have read a few of the books namely the Coming of Conan and Conan the Barbarian, but most of my understanding of the franchise comes from the wiki and Youtube

Oh, I see. Pity.

Howard may have come up with Conan, but because of his death and due to the massive popularity of the character, other writers have been adding to the mythos or re-adapting Conan's stories. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conan_(books)

That's also not including the comics, the videogames, and the movies which seem to deviate from the books.

I'm well aware, many of his peers liked sharing their universes and making cameos or references, Lovecraft and Clark Ashton Smith (Oh look a member of the group who wasn't a massive racist even for the time) did the same, you don't have to go on Conanxplaining on me again.

Furthermore, did you really read through his work just to come up with notes on why it is problematic? Or are you just be sarcastic?

Not at all! Sword and sorcery (specifically Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser and the Elric Saga) was what got me in fantasy and RPG in the frist place! I love this type of setting much more than heroic fantasy, I re-read those books as an adult and made notes (as I do for everything I read) and since as an adult I have much more racial counsious among my notes were exemples of racism, sexism and other stuff that didn't age well.

Side note, if you have read his works, why do you need to go back and look at your notes to tell me what exactly Howard wrote that is considered racist?

Because, it's not the type of thing I can recall from the top of my head.

Putting aside the Netflix lawsuit controversy...

I'm unfamiliar with this and fail to see how it's relevant to the topic at hand.

You don't see anything culturally insensitive about painting an entire continent with such a broad stroke?

{Scrubbed}I said those stories used a lot of African coded civilizations, you counter argued with one civilization that you claimed to be Egyptian coded as if that would debunk my argument, I demonstrated confusion since the civilization you used as an exemple of not being African was in fact African... So I have literally no ideia of what you are going about with this.

This is literally the equivalent of saying that Aztecs, Iroquois, and Hopi Indians are "all the same"....

Not it's not... Those civilizations are not in the same continent. My inicial claim was that African cultures were being demonized in those works, you said they weren't and counter argued using an African civilization as an exemple, I pointed out that such argument was not a good counter argument since it actually proved my point.

When you and I were starting this conversation, it was very clear that the unfortunate implications were targeted towards black people, i.e. sub-saharan Africans

Nope, we were talking about black people in general in the start and then we went to Africa as a whole.

The fact that you're trying to lump them all together {Scrub the post, scrub the quote}

I'm not, my point is precisely the opposite how those peoples are diverse and complex and portraying all civilizations with one note is what the OP should avoid, you and the other are the ones harping on about the importance of Evil tribal empires full of cannibals who worship demons, a one sided, racist, shallow and honestly corny view on worldbuilding.

Their sense of "honor" isn't even that moral though...

That's just your opinion. It's quite clear not only to me but to most Conan specialists that the central point of the narrative in those short stories was that there is greater nobility in barbariasm compared to the sedentery and civilized who are the true vipers.

Question, which Cimmerians get elevated here? Conan sure, but he's literally the protagonist of this epic story so yeah, him becoming the Barbarian King of Aquilonia is a foregone conclusion.

But he isn't the entire Cimmerian people... despite the fact that for the majority of his stories, he is literally the only Cimmerian present.

Maybe not, but he is an stand in for his people, not everything in a story needs to be literal you can infer things and themes using your reading comprehension skills. Not everything needs to be spelled out... Or maybe it does...

What I am saying is that the Aquilonians, Stygians, etc. despite having massive advanced cities, along with technology, sorcery, and the literal aid of gods/enslaved demons, are still just as savage, cruel, and barbaric as the caveman from the North and in their own ways even worse. Conan is literally a subtle critique of civilization itself, not saying that one group or way of life is better than another.

Yes, that's the point, but if pay attention of the qualities of Conan that are highlighted by the language and symbolism contrasted by the animalistic comparison and claims of corruption other civilizations get you can form in you can understand the point the author is trying to come across.

Is the thing I said in the start, even when all civilizations are full barbaric and savages not all barbarians an savages are equal, some are better than others.

When were we discussing "desert tribes"? I thought we were discussing Sub-Saharan Africans...

{Scrubbed}I was clearly was talking about African societies and desert dwelling societies, if you read that and pictured "Sub-Saharan Africans" I'm not much to blame.

Furthermore, you don't see anything wrong with the stereotype of creating kingdoms of nomadic Bedouins ruled by Sultans/ Caliphs which are based on trade?

Errr... Nothing? As I have said before? I'm just repeating myself at this point.

The Nabataeans were not an exception to the rule, their civilization largely revolved around trading as they started out as largely nomadic pastoralists, Petra itself was founded because it overlapped many trading routes, which is why anyone was able to live there at all seeing as it was almost impossible to grow anything there.

Which is far different from your point implying that desert dwelling civilizations were unable to build anything great.

This is why Egypt is not a desert civilization, since they had a very stable and very fertile land which allowed them to grow and produce whatever they needed without relying too heavily on trade.

It's a desert civilization that had a very big and fertile river, allowing them to have luxuries unavailable for many other places. Still they were a desert civilization who lived in a desert sounded by sand, you can have a big delata and be in the middle of jungle or whatever, the fact they were in a delta and had a big river doesn't change the fact they were also in a desert, those things are not interchangeable.

A map of ancient Egypt would quickly disprove the Western stereotype of it being a "desert biome". https://smarthistory.org/wp-content/.../Egypt-map.jpg

That maps clearly shows a desert dude LOL.

The overwhelming majority of what one would consider "Ancient Egypt" was situated in either the Nile Delta or the Nile River, in other words, the green lush areas surrounding the banks of the Nile. The deserts flanking their East and West weren't considered as part of their kingdom but rather the boarders, said deserts were also coincidently, the reason "Ancient Egypt" had survived for so long, as with natural barriers signifying their boarders their civilization was much more insular than its contemporaries, like the Hittites, Assyrians, Babylonians, Myceneans, Hellenistic Greeks, Romans, etc. (and yes, Ancient Egypt was so ancient and so long lasting, that its "contemporaries" included Bronze Age civilizations and Classical Antiquity)

None of that Egyptxplaining will change the fact that they lived in a fertile region of a desert. So therefore they can be honestly called a Desert civilization.

Again, this is dodging the question, is the term "swarthy" actually racist?

I'm no authority on what's racist or not, the term has negative roots and has negative meanings, I have provided the evidence for that to you, if you still want to use it go for it by all means, i have literally no way to stop you. I only made a recommendation.

Queer used to be a slur for a very long time, now it has been reclaimed so some people even use it to self identify, still some people hate it and have bad experiences with it, who am I to say what words are good or not, I just warned you that this specific word has racist connotations, you can do with that knowledge what you will.

Again, the point I am making here is to explain that African civilizations are not morally better or worse than non-African ones.

That's not your point at all, that's my point, that those civilizations are complex and have been victims of stereotypes and media used to demonize them and mock them, such things should be avoided going forward for a coherent portrait of a civilization that is not BETTER but also not WORST.

Your point as far as I understand is that such portraits are not bad and negative at all and authors should not be concerned with reproducing racist tropes and patterns that have symbolic meaning because of their history of being used as propaganda and oppression. Authors can do anything and everything they want with their works, all while commenting on a thread of someone asking for advice on how to AVOID this kind of issues.

What exactly are the "other alternatives" and "different explorations" you are speaking of?

The use of empires with interesting cultures, architecture, religions and fashion is a start.

From what I notice, it seems that this means historical revision to either idealize African nations as being "pure" from the "taint" of Western imperialism, such as the Woman King in which the Dahomey are shown to be having qualms of participating in the slave trade, or involves race-swapping famous figures of antiquity to fit a narrative that sub-saharan Africans had a "proud and imperious legacy stolen from them", such as the Cleopatra documentary.

I think the issue is that you are not arguing with my comments but some imaginary cultural battle in your head. None of that you wrote has anything to do with what I said.

[flat_footed]

The Fullmetal Mod: Thread closed for review.

[Pirate ninja]

Modly Roger:

The thread has been reviewed and reopened.

Please be careful to be respectful to one another, and keep to the forum rules.

[KorvinStarmast]

Many fantasy settings (including most iterations of D&D) are functionally superhero settings and it is entirely possible for the culture of a state to be wholly determined by the ideology of a single individual in a way that simply isn't possible in the real world.

Evil Overlord Trope comes to mind.

This makes 'evil empires' easier to justify since their origins and maintenance can be placed at the feet of a single figure or small group. Similarly, it also facilitates 'enlightened dictatorships' since the would-be virtuous overlord can bypass limitations that normally prevent scaling of the tyranny of the just.

Fiction also includes quite a bit of wish fulfillment and wishful thinking by various authors. This can also hold true for DM's.

Also makes it much easier to have "the people are opposed to this act of cruelty/lack of compassion but they can't do anything about it" when the people in charge literally have the ability to wipe out people who complain too loudly en masse.

Ain't Magic Grand? Bavmorda (Willow's BBEG) would turn people into pigs if they pissed her off.

[False God]

Still, that's kind of tangential to the topic at hand. Thay exists as an evil empire. And while I'm sure someone somewhere has gotten upset over it, I haven't seen any traction on the topic equivalent to other hot button topics. Meanwhile the question of if various humanoid groups (usually orcs) carry troublesome colonial baggage has spawned countless threads and locked a good number of those. What real-world baggage a given idea carries, and how the DM (if doing for their own table) or authors (if wanting to publish) want to handle those issues, is its own long and involved topic for discussion and I have little interest in relitigating it. Except to say that I can see the appeal of a cosmopolitan fantasy melting pot on several levels. I totally understand why authors would want to go for that, and it's also sensible that a hired DM would want the most flexible world possible if they want to easily slot in any group they happen to come across.

I have noticed that explicitly magical nations seem to get a pass no matter what. They can be good nations, they can be bad nations, they can be totally normative nations. But generally when the subject of "proper presentation of a culture"(even a fantasy one comes up) nations and cultures such as these straight up get a pass. The Sith and the Jedi are often given much the same treatment. Noone really cares that the Sith are largely made up of (in all likelyhood) non-evil normies and it is totally accepted that they're an magical evil empire ruled by totally evil magic people and an magic evil overlord. The same holds true for the Jedi, noone really complains when the Jedi are by-and-large presented as a bunch of holier-than-thou do-gooders. Those that aren't are treated as exceptions not fair presentations that there are differences in opinion and personality within the culture-group.

Everyone simply accepts that this is either "just how it is" or that it's totally unrealistic but we should suspend our disbelief for the sake of the story, since "presenting the nation/culture of the evil empire" is just not relevant. The point is to tell the story of the young chosen one going against impossible odds and a whole bunch of baddies because of destiny or whatever.

----
Which, I think, is quite unfair to people who earnestly want to present nations that aren't cardboard cutouts of good or evil, which is substantially more work and runs much higher risk of failure.

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I personally find the "magic melting pot" to be almost as trite and cardboard as the wholly evil empire. Given a world where fear of what lurks in the shadows isn't just some paranoid fantasy, but actual reality. Given a world where the technology level (even with magic) is much lower, where disease, poverty and death are much more likely, it stands out in almost ridiculous contrast. And it's not surprising that these locations are almost always high-magic, once again seemingly giving them a pass on how glaringly strange they feel in the face of the world in which they exist. That the people with all the power are somehow not corrupt, that they have gathered here for the benefit of all species, that they have built a city of magical street-lights, crystal towers and magical works of art and somehow this has resulted in some kind of magical utopia where people hold hands and fight the forces of darkness with the power of friendship.

----
I'm down for giving "fair" presentations of fantastical cultures, but that hardly calls for a neutral approach. Cultures can and historically have been made of bad people. Perhaps not villainously evil, and perhaps many of the day-to-day folks were simply afraid to speak up because their Evil Overlord can literally dust them, maybe they even find it easy and preferably to be "diet evil" in order to not find themselves on the chopping block. Maybe simply living in this empire incentivizes evil in order to be successful. In a normal world, this might not be stable in the long term, but it's fantasy, and over time a society that finds this approach to be successful will continue to do so. Which, after a while, may mean we really do end up with a society where everyone is on the dark side of the spectrum.

I think that is an absolutely fair presentation of a possible fantasy evil society. We don't need to give equal spotlight to the rebels simply because they have an alternate point of view that probably includes blue jeans, apple pie and good-goodyness. We don't need to suggest that there are lots of different viewpoints, or ways of life, the fact that there aren't is kinda the POINT.

And there are plenty of real historical cultures that really did lack internal diversity (not just racial), but ones where by-and-large, variation within the people was low. They subscribed to the same or very similar set of beliefs, they all behaved and thought in a very similar manner, and yes, they didn't always agree, but from the outside perspective especially (the only perspective characters in a game/story may get until they actually visit this place) it can be very difficult to see any difference at all.

I think it's important to remember that for most settings, the PCs will be the outsiders. That they will only have piecemeal information on even their own nation, and this won't change until further down the road. So it is not unsurprising that initial descriptions of totally new cultures may seem almost cartoonish. Initial reactions should be to dig deeper, before criticizing.

[gbaji]

I'm asking for nuance and verisimilitude, gbaji was the one claiming what I was saying was not realistic that it was creating a "safe space" or whatever.

Not going to get into a discsussion about the menaing of verisimilitude, or whatever. And several folks have discussed and examined the whole "these are fantasy settings", bits. And I do think it is important to recognize that we are building "fantasy settings" here.

Having said that, we are also going to tend to take bits and pieces of what we know and put them into those settings (I think I posted about this earlier, about not just dropping whole historical cultures into place, but certainly taking elements here and there and sprinkling them around, applying fantasy changes to them, etc). And yes, this does mean that some elements of social, economic, political, or whatever factors are going to "make sense" and "fit together", due to our own understandings of how those thing work and fit together historically. Which is what I was referring to when I spoke of things being "realistic". It's not literally "this is some real thing that really exists(ed) in our own world", but "this is something that makes sense to exist in the fantasy world because the elements contained within follow similar rules and interactions that we know existed in our own world". Like a large Island nation is probably going to have a lot of ships and engage in maritime trade. That makes sense. That is "realistic". A nation with large amounts of fields and grasslands, could be full of nomadic folks, or could have a lot of farmers, kinda depending on other factors. Both "make sense" and are "realistic".

And yeah, as to social stuff, it's also realistic to realize that some of these cultures (most if we're set in an earlier/ancient age) are not going to come close to meeting the ethical/moral standards that we apply to ourselves. Now, we can certainly build worlds and societies in those worlds that follow our more modern views on these things. And I actually think most of us do tend at least a bit in that direction anyway. Certainly, I doubt many players are going to enjoy playing in a game where they are actively engaged in or employed in industries and activities that we as modern folks find morally reprehensible. But it's also "realistic" that those things may exist in the game setting itself, possibly as something the PCs may have to deal with (and can create moral quandaries for the players to work through, if the folks at the table are so inclined). So we do kinda already automatically place some modifications on such things anyway. But I don't think that "eliminate them entirely" is a great answer either.

The "reality" is that what we modern folks view as moral/ethical is historically the exception and not the rule. Now, we can certainly imagine a fantasy setting where magic is used in place of industry and these things allow for greater prosperity across the board, or the gods have decrees about behavior, and these sorts of things thus allow for the sorts of social standards we expect today. But that's not going to be the case most of the time in most settings (and frankly, opens up a whole set of additional "how do we make this work" problems that are too numerous to discuss here). But if I'm just creating a generic kingdom in a fantasy settings, it's going to have to exist at least somewhat within the "rules" of how such hierachical power structures somewhat have to exist. And yeah, as a consequence, that's going to have to include elements in that society that we today would almost certainly find to be "wrong". I'm not putting those things in to be capricious, or to force something unpleasant on my players, but simply because "in order to have a king, and a rank of nobility, and descending hierachy in here, I also have to have all of the things that support and maintain that type of power structure". I can certainly downplay these things as it relates to day to day play at the table (and whatever adventure type stuff I'm putting in there). But it's still going to exist, somewhere in the setting.

That's all I was talking about here, when I talked about being "realistic". That pretty much all societies in such a setting are going to include elements that some modern players might find questionable and/or objectionable. That's the nature of such a time period, so if we're simulating such in our settings, they are going to exist. And yeah, as I said earlier, I'm not at all going to correlate any of that with any specific physical characteristics (including skin tone) of the people I've populated my world with. But I'm also not going to bend over backwards to avoid any such "questionable" actions or behaviors existing based on those physical characteristics either. Because that would also be "wrong" in my opinion.

I just think that's a perfectly acceptable set of rules for creating such settings. And, if those rules are followed, and a player is still finding offense somewhere in there, either I've missed something (which is certainly possible), or the player is injecting some external biases into their own perception of the setting. And yeah. Then adjustments have to be made. But I'm going to lean towards not making my entire setting nonsensical just to avoid offending a really easily offended person (if I find that is the case). What's the old saying? You can please all of the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you can't please all the people all of the time. At a certain point, you may just be running into this and have to make a decision as to whether to keep the setting or the player. I'm not running a modern ethics/morality workshop here. I'm running a fantasy game in a fantasy settting. So I'm going to focus on that objective.