Worldbuilding, melanin and appropriation

[Telok]

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.

The jedi aren't a culture-group though. They're a cult that takes little kids from their families and indoctrinates them into a "us-vs-them holier-than-thou" mind set. Heck 5-6 year old kids are "too old" because they already have enough independence to make their own decisions. Drop or look past the whole morally good/bad whitewashing distraction stuff and most of your magical societies suddenly get really uncomfortably creepy, especially jedi.

[Perch]

I personally find the "magic melting pot" to be almost as trite and cardboard as the wholly evil empire.

But I don't think that was the point, no one, at least in my perception were arguing in favor of a "magic melting pot" setting. You can have other options is not either evil cartoonist empire or Saturday morning cartoon. The nuance is lost in those and nuance is what, at least I, was arguing for.

The "reality" is that what we modern folks view as moral/ethical is historically the exception and not the rule.

Again, I don't think anyone here was advocating for Wakanda, just the avoidance of using certain tropes that perpetuates issues.

The avoidance of certain tropes in my views, is not the same as a fabrication and lie full of rainbows and everyone dancing while holding hands.

The jedi aren't a culture-group though. They're a cult that takes little kids from their families and indoctrinates them into a "us-vs-them holier-than-thou" mind set. Heck 5-6 year old kids are "too old" because they already have enough independence to make their own decisions. Drop or look past the whole morally good/bad whitewashing distraction stuff and most of your magical societies suddenly get really uncomfortably creepy, especially jedi.

Agreed, it is very creepy when you start to think about it, the quasi religious themes make it even creepier. But I mean... It kind of make sense, Jedi are celibate right? They have no other option to fill their ranks, this was my head canon as a kid on why Hags and witches in fairy tales abduct kids, sure to eat but besides that also to turn into the next generation of Witches.

[Mechalich]

The jedi aren't a culture-group though. They're a cult that takes little kids from their families and indoctrinates them into a "us-vs-them holier-than-thou" mind set. Heck 5-6 year old kids are "too old" because they already have enough independence to make their own decisions. Drop or look past the whole morally good/bad whitewashing distraction stuff and most of your magical societies suddenly get really uncomfortably creepy, especially jedi.

Cult is unfair. The Jedi are a monastic order. There are numerous real-world examples of monastic orders that take in apprentices at very young ages in this way, including the one the Jedi Order was deliberately and directly based upon (I believe forum rules don't allow me to say which one, but it's not difficult to figure out). Monastic orders practice both selective recruitment - they control who gets to join - and ideological policing - an initiate who won't affirm the required beliefs gets booted - and are therefore quite homogenous in beliefs, practices, and behaviors, and monasticism, while not universal to human cultures, is an extremely common practice that has originated many times in different faiths.

The thing about fantasy compared to reality is that in many fantasy settings contemplating esoteric mysteries gives you superpowers (though for much of human history most humans believed this to be fundamentally true, which somewhat complicates things). In Star Wars this is basically the only way to get superpowers, which obviously has a rather profound impact on the setting compared to D&D, in which monastic devotion is something like one of a dozen ways to get superpowers and not even close to the best one.

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".

The tricky part here is that often you can't just 'apply fantasy changes' to some real-world phenomenon because the fantasy elements completely overwhelm that element. For example, using the skin color example of the OP, we can look at D&D elves and note that while most elves do appear to display some level of melanistic variation based on latitude (Arctic Elves being notably pale), the Drow completely violate environmental expectations. In that case we even know the reason: direct divine intervention in the form of an extremely potent curse. This is one reason why it's very important, in world-building to evaluate elements in terms of how they are impacted by the presence of whatever fantastical elements have been added to the setting. This is also why establishing verisimilitude is significant easier the fewer such elements there are.

[Perch]

In Star Wars this is basically the only way to get superpowers, which obviously has a rather profound impact on the setting compared to D&D, in which monastic devotion is something like one of a dozen ways to get superpowers and not even close to the best one..

This is a great quote! I find it both brilliant and somehow hilarious.

And yeah monastic order is more accurate, now that I come to think of it, Wizards used to have a lot of monk characteristics.

[KorvinStarmast]

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.

QFT

I personally find the "magic melting pot" to be almost as trite and cardboard as the wholly evil empire.

An interesting take on the magical culture was in Ursula K. Leguinn's A Wizard of Earthsea, but, as much as I loved the original trilogy, one of the things that I didn't care for was the whole you have to go to magic school to become a wizard although Ged's quest takes him well away from that school ... but I'll not get into spoilers)
The cliche/trope that I find more useful for a game is the origin as an apprentice to an accomplished or private master / mage / adept / what have you - FWIW, this is how the Grey Mouser started before he became a thief and an adventurer. He was a magician's apprentice.
And then, **something happens** and the character grows from being an apprentice into A Character.
I find that this approach fits with a PC full caster far better than "you came from Magic U and off you go"because that presumes a far more cosmopolitan, modern, anachronistic culture than where the genre comes from.
(Yes, I am not a Harry Potter fan; and the world building implications of the casters-versus-muggles is another case of creepy that I can do without).
----

I think it's important to remember that for most settings, the PCs will be the outsiders.

Or at least misfits of some kind. They are unusual / unique for reason x, y, or z.

The nuance is lost in those and nuance is what, at least I, was arguing for.

Then be prepared to do a great deal more work. (It may pay off and it may also snowball into even more work).

The Jedi are a monastic order.

Well put.
We had an interesting thread a few years ago on the 5e forum about how to create a Jedi (with of course a heavy nod towards optimization and multiclassing) which unfortunately ignored that thematic element.

[Cikomyr2]

Thing is, people often associate a government/their agent to the people and culture they have arisen from.

Evil Empire can exist, just maybe acknowledge that just because the Empire of Thay's armies are pillaging and conquering, it doesnt mean all Thayan support these conquests. Sure, the soldiers may or may not be willing participants in the horrors, but thinking the entire culture is reduced to the ***soldiers*** or their corrupt leader would be if native pacific islanders believe that all americans live a highly regimented lifestyle and wear blue camo patterns because they only interacted with US Navy personel.

"My experience represents the totality of what you can experience" is the usual problematic assumption

[False God]

The jedi aren't a culture-group though. They're a cult that takes little kids from their families and indoctrinates them into a "us-vs-them holier-than-thou" mind set. Heck 5-6 year old kids are "too old" because they already have enough independence to make their own decisions. Drop or look past the whole morally good/bad whitewashing distraction stuff and most of your magical societies suddenly get really uncomfortably creepy, especially jedi.

Only in the context of the Original Trilogy/PT/ST, accounting for the Jedi in the past they are yes, primarily a monastic order as pointed out below, but they are also a culture group, with their own architecture, art, clothing and cultural norms; and they are quite distinct from the world around them even when they leave their little enclaves.

But my main point was more than magical societies seem to get an inherent pass on believability. Regardless of how good or evil or well or poorly written they are.

But I don't think that was the point, no one, at least in my perception were arguing in favor of a "magic melting pot" setting. You can have other options is not either evil cartoonist empire or Saturday morning cartoon. The nuance is lost in those and nuance is what, at least I, was arguing for.

No, I brought it up because there is a lot of talk in this thread about societies that are "just one thing", good, evil, purple, whatever. I wanted to point out that the "magical melting pot" which you aren't arguing for, but is often used as an example of idealized society since it holds to many of our modern values, is just as bad because it makes no sense within the world.

And yes obviously you can have options beyond cartoonishly good or evil, that should be obvious. And fundamentally, there should always be some assumption that nuance exists, even if it isn't addressed. There's probably a couple folks within the evil kingdom who don't like it being evil, and some folks in the Good Kingdom who want it to be more aggressive. But monolithic cultures are not historically unusual, and it doesn't create "neutrality" or "nuance" to show that there is a minor faction that disagrees with the national culture. Cultures do not have be presented as "balanced" between the various ideologies within them, and more often than not, aren't. Not having a diversity of internal opinions, not having some kind of balance does not make them not nuanced. That's not where nuance comes from anyway.

An interesting take on the magical culture was in Ursula K. Leguinn's A Wizard of Earthsea, but, as much as I loved the original trilogy, one of the things that I didn't care for was the whole you have to go to magic school to become a wizard although Ged's quest takes him well away from that school ... but I'll not get into spoilers)
The cliche/trope that I find more useful for a game is the origin as an apprentice to an accomplished or private master / mage / adept / what have you - FWIW, this is how the Grey Mouser started before he became a thief and an adventurer. He was a magician's apprentice.
And then, **something happens** and the character grows from being an apprentice into A Character.
I find that this approach fits with a PC full caster far better than "you came from Magic U and off you go"because that presumes a far more cosmopolitan, modern, anachronistic culture than where the genre comes from.
(Yes, I am not a Harry Potter fan; and the world building implications of the casters-versus-muggles is another case of creepy that I can do without).

I'm not a Potter fan, but mostly because I was too old for the target demographic when the books/movies started hitting. I've now seen all the movies, but I've no interest in reading the books.

As someone who didn't really enjoy highschool or college (I liked learning, I just didn't like the experience) I really have no love for the idealization of the structured education experience in media. A time for "growing up" a time for "experiencing new things" a time for "all that dumb kid stuff" before becoming an adult. It just doesn't resonate with me. So I like my fantasy educational institutions to be just that, educational institutions and in that context, they should be contextually appropriate to education of the times.

I enjoy the "Magic U" setup when it is appropriately framed in the context of the world in which it exists: usually a place for rich kids. With the occasional exception of the MC, whose magic is just too magical to leave on the streets. Potter does this to some extent early on, but the contrast between his oppressive mundane life and his freeing magical life gets dropped somewhere (about movie/book? 3 I think?) and turns into a generic "lets have adventures at school!" Scooby-Doo sort of thing.

Or at least misfits of some kind. They are unusual / unique for reason x, y, or z.

I meant in the context that the PCs exist within the world, but they are being played by people outside the world. Everything their characters "know" is something the DM has to tell them. Beforehand, during play, as it comes up, whatever. The end-of-the-day issue is that the players themselves don't exist within the world and can only know what they are told. Nuance, going back to Perch's point, may exist, but the players haven't encountered it yet, even if reasonably speaking their characters may have. Which is just to call on the viewer to be patient with the presentation. The GM put a lot of work into it, the least you can do is give him some time to show it all to you!

[Satinavian]

As someone who didn't really enjoy highschool or college (I liked learning, I just didn't like the experience) I really have no love for the idealization of the structured education experience in media. A time for "growing up" a time for "experiencing new things" a time for "all that dumb kid stuff" before becoming an adult. It just doesn't resonate with me. So I like my fantasy educational institutions to be just that, educational institutions and in that context, they should be contextually appropriate to education of the times.

I like the magic school setup. But... it has to be a magic school. Not some magic boot camp or a magic gladiatorial arena for minors. It should be generally safe enough for people to actually want to send their kids to. And beneficial.
Also it would be nice, if at least a third of the tought topics were general knowledge : math, history, ancient languages etc. And i want a magic school setup to show and explore the magic theory of the world, the magic system as seen through an In-World academic lens.

[BRC]

No, I brought it up because there is a lot of talk in this thread about societies that are "just one thing", good, evil, purple, whatever. I wanted to point out that the "magical melting pot" which you aren't arguing for, but is often used as an example of idealized society since it holds to many of our modern values, is just as bad because it makes no sense within the world.

And yes obviously you can have options beyond cartoonishly good or evil, that should be obvious. And fundamentally, there should always be some assumption that nuance exists, even if it isn't addressed. There's probably a couple folks within the evil kingdom who don't like it being evil, and some folks in the Good Kingdom who want it to be more aggressive. But monolithic cultures are not historically unusual, and it doesn't create "neutrality" or "nuance" to show that there is a minor faction that disagrees with the national culture. Cultures do not have be presented as "balanced" between the various ideologies within them, and more often than not, aren't. Not having a diversity of internal opinions, not having some kind of balance does not make them not nuanced. That's not where nuance comes from anyway.

I want to talk about "magical melting pots" for a moment.

A lot of the lack of nuance in fantasy settings comes from the fact that we're experiencing the setting as a tool for storytelling, which means that all details of the setting, cultures and peoples included, are tools of that storytelling.

Historically, 99% of people spend their lives involved with the production of food or basic goods. Every full-time soldier needs something like ten farmers, three weavers, a miner, six cart-drivers, and a tenth of a highly specialized blacksmith. But, Fantasy Worlds rarely have time to do a deep-dive on every culture, because cultures tend to serve a role in a story.

But in fantasy stories, everything serves a narrative function, and extraneous detail just takes up space and ruins pacing. So, The Scalgathar Peoples are boiled down to one-note raiders from across the sea, because that's the function the story needs them to serve, and we don't have space to establish the 10 farmers, three weavers, miners, cart drivers, and 10% of a blacksmith just going about their ordinary, complex lives behind each raider our heroic protagonists cuts down.

If our story takes place far from Scalgathar lands, it's not unrealistic for every Scalgathar the protagonists meet to be a raider. There may be peace loving Scalgathar merchants and travelers, but, for very good reasons, they don't go to the same place Raiders go. If we approach the setting with, as you say, the assumption of Nuance, we can assume that there's nothing inherently evil about the Scalgathar, we just happen to only meet evil ones, or even that, historically speaking, "Going and raiding some other people for material gain" doesn't make a culture unusually evil. Some groups raid, some conquer and enslave, and some just stick to brutally oppressing their peasants here at home. Or maybe, the Scalgathar culture is just cool with raiding and pillaging, as some cultures are, and this isn't supposed to be a statement that some groups of people are inherently evil and should be destroyed.


However, stories exist within a context, and there's plenty of sci fi and fantasy stories that deliberately boil away that nuance. You meet some Scalgathar raiders, and it's canon that Scalgathar society revolves entirely around raiding and murdering, and that this is because the Scalgathar are inherently evil and love to raid and pillage and murder. Because "Our protagonists are in a situation where it is correct to fight and kill these people" requires a touch of nuance and complexity compared to "Oh yeah, those people are just evil, it's always correct to fight and kill them".

So, I can't really blame people for abandoning the assumption of Nuance, because so many fantasy settings like to take the role a group plays in a story, and go out of their way to make that central to that group's identity. Countering that usually means doing a lot of work to build the nuance into the setting, you can't just have Scalgathar Raiders, because even if you don't go out of your way to canonize their entire culture as being based around Raiding, people have been trained to assume that unless you specifically point out otherwise.


The "Magical Melting Pot" setting (at least as I understand it) may be less "Realistic" historically speaking, but it is a convenient shortcut to help free the setting of that context, and bring back the assumption of Nuance. "This is a Magical Melting Pot, people from everywhere live everywhere and do everything" is a big label that stops people from making the assumptions that other fantasy and sci-fi works have drilled into them, without having to go out of your way to counter those assumptions with every new culture and group you introduce.

[False God]

I like the magic school setup. But... it has to be a magic school. Not some magic boot camp or a magic gladiatorial arena for minors. It should be generally safe enough for people to actually want to send their kids to. And beneficial.
Also it would be nice, if at least a third of the tought topics were general knowledge : math, history, ancient languages etc. And i want a magic school setup to show and explore the magic theory of the world, the magic system as seen through an In-World academic lens.

Yes exactly.

It's a big drawback to a lot of anime for me, where "kids with guns"(be it magic, giant robots, or w/e) are just running around the halls assaulting each other. It's one thing to embrace the Japanese cultural norm of trusting children to run the system, it's another when said children are clearly not.

The disconnect, the isolation from the world around them seems to promote the more "children gladiatorial playpen" approach to "schools". It is the connection to the world at large, the consequences, real and implied of quacking around and finding out that make a [magic] school work. Disconnected presentations only seem to demonstrate the author hasn't put much thought into the implications for the wider world.

[Telok]

So, I can't really blame people for abandoning the assumption of Nuance, because so many fantasy settings like to take the role a group plays in a story, and go out of their way to make that central to that group's identity. Countering that usually means doing a lot of work to build the nuance into the setting, you can't just have Scalgathar Raiders, because even if you don't go out of your way to canonize their entire culture as being based around Raiding, people have been trained to assume that unless you specifically point out otherwise.

That's one thing I'm trying to do in my current bit of worldbuilding. Everyone has been a horrible bad guy at some point, everyone has mistakes & hubris in the history, and everyone is doing something good. Are there factions that are currently better or worse? Yeah, but its never total. So I've got vegan mind flayers, evil empire celestials, elf tech-priests, ork peace protesters, Nurgle hospice, and shining holy defender of the downtrodden paladins of Khorne. Not all over everything, but they're there. Plus working on full killing the species=identity thing.

I don't agree on the Jedi being a distinct culture thing, but I suspect that's likely due to the imprecision of English and the nature of things that get labeled 'culture'. But the nature of tribal identity and practices that make up culture and how the fictional Jedi are portrayed in contrast to that are , I think, likely too political/religious/ethnicity/etc. to dissect here. So I'm dropping that one.

[Mechalich]

The disconnect, the isolation from the world around them seems to promote the more "children gladiatorial playpen" approach to "schools". It is the connection to the world at large, the consequences, real and implied of quacking around and finding out that make a [magic] school work. Disconnected presentations only seem to demonstrate the author hasn't put much thought into the implications for the wider world.

Well, it depends on what the magical school story is attempting to do. If the entire point of the story is to be an allegory for the problems of a given education system or of the struggles of puberty or winner take all cultural structures or something similar, then there doesn't need to be a connection to the wider world because the purpose of the story doesn't extend to that setup. The problem is that keeping a story within a discrete alternative academic space is very challenging, especially when dealing with long-running serial works, or anything successful enough to prompt a sequel. Magical school stories often work fine in book one/season one because the characters never even leave the school grounds, but quickly collapse when they attempt to go further/deeper because there really isn't anything there to explore since the original intent wasn't to go that far.

[False God]

Well, it depends on what the magical school story is attempting to do. If the entire point of the story is to be an allegory for the problems of a given education system or of the struggles of puberty or winner take all cultural structures or something similar, then there doesn't need to be a connection to the wider world because the purpose of the story doesn't extend to that setup. The problem is that keeping a story within a discrete alternative academic space is very challenging, especially when dealing with long-running serial works, or anything successful enough to prompt a sequel. Magical school stories often work fine in book one/season one because the characters never even leave the school grounds, but quickly collapse when they attempt to go further/deeper because there really isn't anything there to explore since the original intent wasn't to go that far.

I suppose then I haven't been exposed to any "one shot" style presentations. At least not any I can recollect. Every single one that comes to mind is serialized and they almost universally fail at applying their logic to the rest of the world.

[Satinavian]

Well, it depends on what the magical school story is attempting to do. If the entire point of the story is to be an allegory for the problems of a given education system or of the struggles of puberty or winner take all cultural structures or something similar, then there doesn't need to be a connection to the wider world because the purpose of the story doesn't extend to that setup. The problem is that keeping a story within a discrete alternative academic space is very challenging, especially when dealing with long-running serial works, or anything successful enough to prompt a sequel. Magical school stories often work fine in book one/season one because the characters never even leave the school grounds, but quickly collapse when they attempt to go further/deeper because there really isn't anything there to explore since the original intent wasn't to go that far.

That sounds like "A story does not need proper worldbuilding if versimilitude is not a focus".

That might be technically true, but i am certainly not the audience for such stories. Bad worldbuilding is still bad worldbuilding if it is claimed to be unimportent.
I don't care about allegories.
There are very very few "magic school settings" that don't make sense and that i can tolerate. And all of them are basically parodies that manage to nail my sense of humor. Which is also rare.



An Example of magic school setup i actually like outside of parodies is the one from Ascendance of a Bookworm. But that comes in Book 4 and 5 after the first three books focussing on other parts of the setting.

[paladinofshojo]

I apologize for replying so late, as I was busy with work for the majority of this week!

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.

I never really understood this need to demonize art or media based on the political views of its creator. Yes, Lovecraft had some rather... interesting views... but that doesn't diminish the impact he made on fiction and fantasy with his work. Concepts such as cosmic horror or eldritch abomination owe a lot to him, which is something that especially we D&D gamers cannot dispute.

Racists are still people, they are capable of having talents and fostering hobbies outside of being racist. Not every piece of literature written by someone with bigoted views reads like Mein Kampf. If someone is capable of producing quality entertainment that I enjoy then I am not going to stop liking said entertainment just because of the creator's viewpoints.

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.

Why though? Do you legitimately enjoy cataloging everything problematic with the stuff you like?

I know I only speak for myself, but as a minority, I don't care if I am watching a movie and the entire cast is all white. I don't need a brown person on screen to feel "represented". Hell, I am even willing to let subtle racism slide if the movie itself is legitimately entertaining, like with Deadpool and Deadpool II. I am also pretty sure a lot of other people feel the same way too. There's a very apparent line between a throwaway stereotype and outright racist propaganda. Some of my favorite movies include School Dance and Tropic Thunder, yes, they poke fun at African Americans, but it's not exactly the same as say, 19th century minstrel shows or Birth of a Nation, is it?

Hell, sometimes I enjoy playing as outright racist genocidal characters too. I once played in a homebrew D&D campaign set during a fantasy version of the American Civil War reality where elves were the ruling class with humans being the chattel slaves. My character was a chaotic-evil half-elven sorcerer/gunslinger who fought for the equivalent of the Confederacy. I committed A LOT of war crimes in that campaign and some rather heinous acts and the justification was that, "humans are slaves, and thus they're not people". Does that make me, the South African born person of Indian descent a Confederate sympathizer? Is 5e D&D or my GM inherently racist for enabling me to be able to facilitate me playing such a way? No! I am literally playing a roleplaying game which gives me the freedom to do whatever I want, and I just happened to want to play as a racist sociopath because I thought it would be fun. Hell, Warhammer 40K's popularity shows that there are a lot of people who feel that way too!

But I am getting carried away, my point is that in media, especially literature or movies, you're allowed to ignore stereotypes if you legitimately enjoy the content and the overall message resonates with you.

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

You don't find it odd that when someone asks you "why are you calling a body of work as racist/problematic?" your answer is basically, "hold on, I need to check my notes."?

I am just saying, in my experience, the usual reason why someone would find something/someone to be racist/sexist/problematic is usually one glaring example which they circle in on. Granted, said example might be taken out of context or may even not be as bad as the accuser made it out to be, but there usually is one main point that is instantly brought up.

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

I was alluding to how the entire state of Egypt is apparently threatening Netflix with a lawsuit over how they portrayed Cleopatra in a documentary.

Said documentary in itself is portraying a very inaccurate depiction of historical events, seeing as both Cleopatra was part of a Macedonian Greek dynasty and thus it was very unlikely she was of sub-Saharan African descent, and the fact that the overwhelming majority of people in northern regions of Africa were not either....

TLDR: No, neither Cleopatra or the Ancient Egyptians were black.

{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.

I may be remembering incorrectly, but I was under the impression that you were alluding to black people, and as such, the only depictions that would show of that demographic in the Hyborian Age (a fantasy bronze age setting with sorcery and grimdark bloodshed) would be sub-Saharan Africans. My point is that Stygia wouldn't count as that.

Not it's not... Those civilizations are not in the same continent.

Are you saying that the Hopi, Aztecs, and Iroquois Indians are not all indigenous people of North America?

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.

So, your initial claim was that it portrayed Egyptians in a bad light? And not black people? Because that's the only way you can argue about Stygia.

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

I am confused, are we initially talking about black people or Egyptians?

If it's the former then Stygia is a moot point, if we are talking about the latter then I don't really understand why you are worried about anyone portraying them with a bone through their nostril.

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.

My argument to that is it depends on the tone of the setting, the reason why I don't see a problem with "evil tribal empires full of demon worshipping cannibals" is because the Hyborian Age is a universally terrible place for everyone. This wasn't the fault of the evil tribals, it was literally the fact that there was some massive cataclysm involving demon gods and eldritch horrors.....

In this kind of grimdark setting, I feel like the racism is kind of outweighed by the existential pessimism no? Don't you think it's kind of ridiculous if things like Nyarlethotep, the Outer Dark Demons, and Dark Gods running around prior to the Elder Night that harmful stereotypes is where we should draw the line in this world?

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.

I just have three questions in regards to this.

1) How exactly is my interpretation of the Cimmerians as a whole just an "opinion" whereas yours is not and more legitimate? Furthermore, what exactly is a "Conan specialist"?

2) What exactly is problematic with the central point of the "greater nobility in barbarism compared to the sedentary and civilized" in itself? Especially when a good number of the "true vipers" are coded as Caucasians? Such as the Aquilonians?

3) This still doesn't change the fact that as presented, the Cimmerians are just a bunch of iron aged tribals living in cold mud hutted villages who have to resort to banditry, thieving, and piracy to survive, all under the distant gaze of a callous and uncaring god. They are just as much a product of this grimdark world as any other group here.

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...

Okay, but is he though? He's canonically the biggest and strongest warrior in all of his adventures, and he's been through a lot of places in his world through his stories.

He's usually a mercenary or a thief, and doesn't seem to have any useful skills besides fighting and killing as well as speaking multiple languages. We know that some of them actually contributed positively to their community, seeing as Conan's dad was a blacksmith.

Furthermore, he seems to be motivated by two things, his own survival or personal gain. He seems more of an adventurer/soldier of fortune than an "example" of his people.

The only thing you can make an argument about his "Cimmerian moral superiority" for is how he's always blunt and truthful and how he will rescue women/never hit them.

Which seems like kind of a very low bar don't you think?


[QUOTE=Perch;25846926]

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.

But we only ever see one Cimmerian, and said Cimmerian doesn't even live in Cimmeria but rather wanders around the earth before taking over the Fantasy equivalent of Roman-France after strangling their last king....

Just because Conan is a literal demigod doesn't mean the rest of his (mostly absent) race is as well, does it not?

{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.

Forgive me for misremembering, but I was under the assumption you were speaking of Subsaharan African stereotypes (namely the bone through the nostril).

Which is why I am confused how Egyptians, and desert dwelling societies (which I am assuming means Arabic/Middle Easterners) got roped into this?

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

So this isn't about desert dwelling civilizations?

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

When have I said that?

The main point I was alluding to was that the foundation of all civilizations requires a surplus model of food, if you are unable to feed your own people then how exactly are you going to be able to grow your culture, develop weapons, arts, architecture, etc.?

Historical desert civilizations skip this problem via buying food with gold or other precious commodities they've acquired through monopolizing trade routes. This however only works so long as they have the most efficient and reliable routes of trade, this is why the city of Petra itself declined heavily during the Byzantine era when sea based trade routes overtook it.

Pretty buildings don't make a civilization, otherwise Göbekli Tepe would have a lot of explaining.

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.

I am confused? Are you admitting that "delta and big fertile river" are not interchangeable with "desert"?

Because from my understanding, without the Nile River, there wouldn't have been an Egyptian civilization, period.

That maps clearly shows a desert dude LOL.

Every city labelled on that map is located on a green part at the bank of the valley or within the Delta... Can you really say they were a desert civilization if 99% of them live nowhere near the barren, inhospitable parts?

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.

You don't see anything contradictory with that statement?

Also, why do you say terms like "Egyptxplaining" and "Conanxplaining"?

I am merely just adding context, most of the Ancient Egyptians never stepped foot in the deserts that flanked their kingdom's boarders, except when they were building a pharaoh's tomb or marching off to war in the Levant. So calling them a desert civilization is like calling Los Angeles a desert civilization...

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.

I am confused, what is the "negative root and negative meaning" here? From what I recalled, your explanation was that

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.

Are you implying that every word that is used to describe dark skin is automatically a slur?

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.

Okay, but when have you ever heard of the term "swarthy" being used as a slur?

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.

You don't think this is infantilizing and condescending towards said civilizations? Instead of seeing them as having actual agency in the narrative you're telling you can only view them in the lens of a poor victim?

As a South African, I can tell you that Shaka Zulu was a very controversial person in history, in the West, he seems to be seen as something of a freedom fighter whereas historically, he was seen as a bloodthirsty warlord. The truth is probably somewhere in the middle, but whitewashing him as the first Nelson Mandela is just as bad as only highlighting his atrocities.

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.

I mean, yes? The goal of authors should be to tell an entertaining story, not to have to worry about the pre-existing connotations of the tropes they wish to use.

And like I said before, I feel like most people will tolerate plenty of negative portrayals and harmful stereotypes so long as the overall message of the literature resonates with them and they are entertained.

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

Can you give me a concrete example?

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.

I am just pointing out observations for how we are portraying African cultures lately, feel free to give me an example that breaks my point.

[KorvinStarmast]

Magical school stories often work fine in book one/season one because the characters never even leave the school grounds, but quickly collapse when they attempt to go further/deeper because there really isn't anything there to explore since the original intent wasn't to go that far.

Having read a few 'boarding school stories' back when I was younger, the pattern you cite fits them as well. (And that's why The Paper Chase (original) TV series had to end when law school year ended ... it only really worked as "a law school story" when it worked. ) (I just discovered that they resurrected it on Showtime; never saw that iteration).

Every single one that comes to mind is serialized and they almost universally fail at applying their logic to the rest of the world.

School and Real Life do have some differences, do they not?

I never really understood this need to demonize art or media based on the political views of its creator.

It's a current fashion, won't comment further.

I was alluding to how the entire state of Egypt is apparently threatening Netflix with a lawsuit over how they portrayed Cleopatra in a documentary. Said documentary in itself is portraying a very inaccurate depiction of historical events, seeing as both Cleopatra was part of a Macedonian Greek dynasty and thus it was very unlikely she was of sub-Saharan African descent, and the fact that the overwhelming majority of people in northern regions of Africa were not either....
TLDR: No, neither Cleopatra or the Ancient Egyptians were black.

I have tried to teach people to view the Roman World as centered on Rome, but then draw a big circle around it. Rome's commercial highways were on the water initially. They built the roads later. I have had to use a similar model to explain how commerce in the Pacific region works...

... the reason why I don't see a problem with "evil tribal empires full of demon worshipping cannibals" is because the Hyborian Age is a universally terrible place for everyone. This wasn't the fault of the evil tribals, it was literally the fact that there was some massive cataclysm involving demon gods and eldritch horrors.....

The point of the stories was in part grim dark and horror, just as the point of Stephen King's stories is to scare you.
Not every middle aged woman who reads novels is an obsessive neurotic. (Misery reference there).

1) How exactly is my interpretation of the Cimmerians as a whole just an "opinion" whereas yours is not and more legitimate? Furthermore, what exactly is a "Conan specialist"?

That was an attempt to be dismissive, as seen by this audience member.

2) What exactly is problematic with the central point of the "greater nobility in barbarism compared to the sedentary and civilized" in itself? Especially when a good number of the "true vipers" are coded as Caucasians? Such as the Aquilonians?

aka the French.

3) ... the Cimmerians are just a bunch of iron aged tribals living in cold mud hutted villages who have to resort to banditry, thieving, and piracy to survive, all under the distant gaze of a callous and uncaring god. They are just as much a product of this grimdark world as any other group here.

I think Howard was channeling a bit of Hobb's "...nasty, brutish, and short" with his setting.

He's usually a mercenary or a thief, and doesn't seem to have any useful skills besides fighting and killing as well as speaking multiple languages. We know that some of them actually contributed positively to their community, seeing as Conan's dad was a blacksmith. Furthermore, he seems to be motivated by two things, his own survival or personal gain. He seems more of an adventurer/soldier of fortune than an "example" of his people.

Or even An Adventurer. Cue the "and a prototype for a D&D character" at about this time. (I recall one of my Conan collectins being called "Conan the Freebooter" but I can't tell which of the stories were in it. Frazetta art on the cover).

The only thing you can make an argument about his "Cimmerian moral superiority" for is how he's always blunt and truthful and how he will rescue women/never hit them. Which seems like kind of a very low bar don't you think?

But we only ever see one Cimmerian, and said Cimmerian doesn't even live in Cimmeria but rather wanders around the earth before taking over the Fantasy equivalent of Roman-France after strangling their last king....

What's not to like about that?

Because from my understanding, without the Nile River, there wouldn't have been an Egyptian civilization, period.

Or it would have taken a different form.

Another of the great River civilizations (not in Mesopotamia) was on the Mekong, but rather than being surrounded by desert, it was situated in an area with a lot of trees/jungles. Almost the opposite to a desert.

[False God]

So, I can't really blame people for abandoning the assumption of Nuance, because so many fantasy settings like to take the role a group plays in a story, and go out of their way to make that central to that group's identity. Countering that usually means doing a lot of work to build the nuance into the setting, you can't just have Scalgathar Raiders, because even if you don't go out of your way to canonize their entire culture as being based around Raiding, people have been trained to assume that unless you specifically point out otherwise.


The "Magical Melting Pot" setting (at least as I understand it) may be less "Realistic" historically speaking, but it is a convenient shortcut to help free the setting of that context, and bring back the assumption of Nuance. "This is a Magical Melting Pot, people from everywhere live everywhere and do everything" is a big label that stops people from making the assumptions that other fantasy and sci-fi works have drilled into them, without having to go out of your way to counter those assumptions with every new culture and group you introduce.

I keep meaning to get back to this and I keep having trouble forumlating a response, so lets see.

In short, I get what you're saying about the point of taking the Magical Melting Pot approach, and I get intentions, but I don't feel like that's what it does.

If people are numbed to nuance, I feel like the Magical Melting Pot approach reinforces that, by doubling down on the lack of nuance, but in a direction that people won't complain about. Instead of people hyper-vigilantly reacting to lack of nuance (real or perceived), the Magical Melting Pot instead causes people to be hyper-relaxed about the lack of nuance. The lack of nuance this time is instead positive. Dwarves are hard workers. Elves care for the trees. Humans are inventive. Gnomes are playful. Etc... These Magical Melting Pot portrayals still lack nuance, they still generalize entire species or cultures as "one thing", but they are positive stereotypes. Things that even if a particular member of the populace is not inclined towards, could be framed as something desirable to achieve.

Yes, this causes people to relax from a hyper-vigilant state, but it doesn't put them in a state where they are more inclined to accept a nuanced portrayal, but it puts them in a hyper-relaxed state where they are unconcerned about the still prevalent lack of nuance, simply because this new nuance is positive.

---
Like Perch, I like nuance. I don't need to to be everywhere, but I find the Magical Melting Pot to be almost offensive to my senses, since it seems to want to encourage me to not care about their nuance-less portrayals because the portrayals are all positive. Worse, it seems to encourage the idea that people who are exceptions can be "fixed" by setting up the nuance-less cultural portrayal as a desirable achievement. "Everyone wants to have friends, why don't you be more friendly?" is the sort of passive-aggressive things I see in these Magical Melting Pot approached, that people who aren't interested in being part of the Melting Pot are portrayed as bad. That people who don't want to change as shown as unwilling to improve themselves.

It's also used as an excuse not to have to deal with all that troublesome "differences" people have. IMO, working to overcome those cultural differences, those negative perceptions, for both sides to see each other as equals is what makes stories interesting. Skipping past that into the world of "everyone gets along because sunshine and rainbows" misses a great deal of character and story development. It's one thing to set two characters up as friends because they have a shared background the story hasn't told yet, it's another thing to just state that these two get along because they come from the Magical Melting Pot where all the bad things don't apply. This later approach IMO is good when paired with the "Real World" twist, where they leave the Magical Melting Pot, completely unaware of the bad stereotypes out there, only to have to work hard to overcome them when encountered. But IME, most of the time it never does this. It's cleared up "the Canadian way", that is when people ask "Are you an American?" the response is "No I'm from Canada." and suddenly the person asking overcomes all their fear an anxiety. The characters who the story is about never have to work to overcome the challenges before them, because they're from Magical Melting Pot Land and everyone understands the people from there are totally awesome.

Which isn't to say Canada doesn't exist. But Canada doesn't exist because of an authorial trope. Stories can still portray Magical Melting Pots, but they need to give them reasonably believable backstories. How did this society, against all odds, achieve such success?

Circling back around, that's why I was making the point that I generally find the "Magical Melting Pot" civilization no less one-dimensional than the "Evil Empire" or "Good Kingdom". It's used as an excuse to bypass all that nuance stuff that's difficult to write well, except it's often thrown in your face instead of used as a McGuffin to drive the plot. Challenges are overcome not by the benefit of trials of the characters, but simply by name-dropping their homeland, conflicts are resolved by showing others the enlightenment of Magical Melting Pot, not by coming to understand the views of others.

A lot of "friendship is magic" stories make this mistake. It is upon others to change in the revealing light of Magical Melting Pot Land, not upon the characters to change and grow in response to others.(I'm here to see MC-kun grow and change! Not see the shopkeep become friendlier because MC-kun turned out to be a swell guy thanks to his upbringing in Magical Melting Pot Land!)

[icefractal]

Which isn't to say Canada doesn't exist. But Canada doesn't exist because of an authorial trope. Stories can still portray Magical Melting Pots, but they need to give them reasonably believable backstories. How did this society, against all odds, achieve such success?

I mean sure, if that's a thing you're covering in the story/campaign. But lots of societies / empires / etc in fiction don't really get their existence justified. An empire that lasts 10k years relatively unchanged is massively unusual by RL standards, but those kind of things show up in settings with no particular explanation.

A lot of "friendship is magic" stories make this mistake. It is upon others to change in the revealing light of Magical Melting Pot Land, not upon the characters to change and grow in response to others.(I'm here to see MC-kun grow and change! Not see the shopkeep become friendlier because MC-kun turned out to be a swell guy thanks to his upbringing in Magical Melting Pot Land!)

I guess I'd wonder what this means in practice?

Because like, if I'm an elf, in my travels I go to stay at a inn and the innkeeper is like:
"GTFO! The only good elf is a dead elf!"
It's not on me to meet him half-way (half-dead?) there. I don't need to "grow" to accept that "it's fine if people want me dead and I should respect that", because I'm not here to play Doormat: The All-Accepting. Maybe if I stay in the area, the innkeeper changes his opinion based on my actions, or maybe he doesn't. But either way, it's on him - "you are bad for existing" is not a position that deserves any respect.

[awa]

I guess I'd wonder what this means in practice?

.

I recently read part of a story that kind of had that. The melting pot did that thing where they are both secret and hidden but also super diverse. While major states outside the secret utopia were depicted as both uniformly bad and incredibly incompetent, the utopia had massive advantages in basically every regard as well as perfectly fitting a modern liberal secular utopia. While the incompetent outsiders were either a fairly extreme caste system and a group of murderous religious fanatics respectively.

the utopia is put on such a pedestal that their can be no meeting of minds because only the utopia has anything of value. The dummies dont have any skills, technology or knowledge that the utopia is not wildly more advanced at. It a situation where one culture is simply correct and all other cultures are just wrong.

On the other hand I am currently reading a novel about dwarves, the dwarves are the heroes and very good at a lot of things, but they are close minded and stubborn, and their dislike of the elves is shown to be actively detrimental to their long term success. Victory is achieved by a meeting of the minds because the elves and to a lesser extent humans have something to offer. The dwarves need to change and grow in order to solve their problems.

[BRC]

I keep meaning to get back to this and I keep having trouble forumlating a response, so lets see.

In short, I get what you're saying about the point of taking the Magical Melting Pot approach, and I get intentions, but I don't feel like that's what it does.

If people are numbed to nuance, I feel like the Magical Melting Pot approach reinforces that, by doubling down on the lack of nuance, but in a direction that people won't complain about. Instead of people hyper-vigilantly reacting to lack of nuance (real or perceived), the Magical Melting Pot instead causes people to be hyper-relaxed about the lack of nuance. The lack of nuance this time is instead positive. Dwarves are hard workers. Elves care for the trees. Humans are inventive. Gnomes are playful. Etc... These Magical Melting Pot portrayals still lack nuance, they still generalize entire species or cultures as "one thing", but they are positive stereotypes. Things that even if a particular member of the populace is not inclined towards, could be framed as something desirable to achieve.

MMP doesn't introduce Nuance (Not inheriently anyway, you can certainly HAVE nuance in an MMP setting, but it doesn't bring any on it's own). What it does is counter the cultural context of reductive, one-note fantasy worldbuilding. You can't shortcut your way to a nuanced, living setting without putting in the work to do so.

What MMP usually does is bring back the assumption of Nuance. If the first goblin we meet is a bandit in a normal setting, then people have been trained to read that as "All Goblins are Bandits".

The MMP setting (At least as I think the term means, we may be talking about different things) does a lot of work by itself to counter that by showing "Oh, all sorts of fantasy races do all sorts of stuff", so even if we never meet another goblin besides this bandit, there's less chance of people assuming "In this world, all Goblins are Bandits"

Note that this doesn't mean the setting has a nuanced take on Goblins. But it means the author is able to include something like, a goblin bandit, as flavor without needing to put in the work to build a nuanced take on Goblins (because there is no shortcut for that), instead the nuance (Not All Goblins Are Bandits) is kind of assumed by the background radiation of the setting. No points gained, but you avoid having your players assume that All Goblins are inheriently Bandits for some reason.

And if you want a whole monster manuals worth of sentient species running around, that's kind of what you have to do.

(Personally, I'd prefer a handful of Cultures, each with the work done to make them properly nuanced)

[MonochromeTiger]

I recently read part of a story that kind of had that. The melting pot did that thing where they are both secret and hidden but also super diverse. While major states outside the secret utopia were depicted as both uniformly bad and incredibly incompetent, the utopia had massive advantages in basically every regard as well as perfectly fitting a modern liberal secular utopia. While the incompetent outsiders were either a fairly extreme caste system and a group of murderous religious fanatics respectively.

the utopia is put on such a pedestal that their can be no meeting of minds because only the utopia has anything of value. The dummies dont have any skills, technology or knowledge that the utopia is not wildly more advanced at. It a situation where one culture is simply correct and all other cultures are just wrong.

Which puts it pretty squarely in the realm of "this is the author's personal pet civilization and anything that so much as questions the author's views must inevitably be objectively wrong." It's an abandonment of the fact that there isn't any such thing as a shining perfect civilization with universal acceptance and understanding where all of life's problems are easily dealt with, that kind of thing is pure wish fulfillment and is usually done in such a way that they're just a slightly obfuscated rant on how "if we did things the way I want we'd never have these problems."

And it inevitably loops around to the issue of negative and biased portrayals. If this one group is being shown as flawless and perfect because they adopted whatever "I win" button the author believes will fix everything then inevitably everyone who didn't is forced into the insulting role of an unenlightened outsider who just hasn't seen whatever (insert magic answer here) can offer them or refuses to accept it because they're stuck in their ways or hungry for power in a way that (insert author's pet civilization here) somehow completely avoids because reasons. The portrayal of those other groups having absolutely nothing to offer then just deepens the idea that there's something wrong with them and that there's some actual inferiority and any bias against them is justified when what's actually happening is they're being used as a shameless caricature of whatever ideals or form of government the author doesn't like and said author can't allow them to have any points no matter how small or, gasp, their own perfect civilization might not get to show off how much better it is.

Eventually that mentality just works its way into the very gross idea of "we owe it to them to uplift them and bring them into our way of doing things" which I can't even go into how messed up it is or the things it might be used to justify without stepping into discussing politics and history.

On the other hand I am currently reading a novel about dwarves, the dwarves are the heroes and very good at a lot of things, but they are close minded and stubborn, and their dislike of the elves is shown to be actively detrimental to their long term success. Victory is achieved by a meeting of the minds because the elves and to a lesser extent humans have something to offer. The dwarves need to change and grow in order to solve their problems.

A much more reasonable portrayal depending on how it was done. There are no shining flawless cultures or civilizations, inevitably everyone has some things they don't like to talk about or some openly accepted or ignored flaws, often right alongside or in support of the things they're proud of. Everything saying otherwise reeks of personal biases saying "nuh uh we're flawless and everyone else is jealous" which also inevitably pops up in some parts of a country's population.

The only way there's ever going to be universal agreement on "the right way to do things" is if there's one person left and odds are pretty good the thing they'll be thinking is "I wish there were more people" which will go right back to dissenting opinions and biases again.

[Mechalich]

I have tried to teach people to view the Roman World as centered on Rome, but then draw a big circle around it. Rome's commercial highways were on the water initially. They built the roads later. I have had to use a similar model to explain how commerce in the Pacific region works...

I think this is mostly just a lack of understanding of historical context on the part of most modern people (including many published authors, who then perpetuate the issue). On water transport was the dominant form of long-distance transport for both goods and people until at least the mid-19th century, when railroads come in, and didn't achieve total dominance until the mid-20th century with the combination of extremely advanced roadways (ex. the US interstate highway system) and commercial air travel. It is often forgotten, in the modern day, that there were places on Earth where the bulk of trade was still conducted by camel caravan up through WWII. As such, ethnic mixing and state boundaries flow easily over water in the pre-industrial world but are broadly blocked by deserts, mountains, and jungle.

Now, there are lots of ways that fantasy can violate this, even at relatively low levels of magic. For example, the existence of flying beasts capable of carrying a single rider (which is within the range of capability of perfectly natural, just very extinct, giant pterosaurs) would allow an empire to potentially project power across such barriers in a manner no historical regime ever could.

[False God]

I guess I'd wonder what this means in practice?

Because like, if I'm an elf, in my travels I go to stay at a inn and the innkeeper is like:
"GTFO! The only good elf is a dead elf!"
It's not on me to meet him half-way (half-dead?) there. I don't need to "grow" to accept that "it's fine if people want me dead and I should respect that", because I'm not here to play Doormat: The All-Accepting. Maybe if I stay in the area, the innkeeper changes his opinion based on my actions, or maybe he doesn't. But either way, it's on him - "you are bad for existing" is not a position that deserves any respect.

In the context of what I want to see:
How does the MC react to this sudden racism?
Do they internalize it after extreme exposure?
Do they lean on the negative stereotypes to get their way?
Do they attempt to change people's minds?
Do they develop their own prejudices and stereotypes based on the people they interact with?

Again, I'm reading the story to see how MC grows and changes as a result of exposure to new things. I don't really care about the Shopkeep, I don't care if the MC changes his mind or even tries. I'm interested in MCs journey, his choices, successes, failures, and struggles. I only care about the Shopkeep if the MC cares about the shopkeeps attitude enough to do something about it. Befriend him, kill him, ignore him, but ultimately it's the MC's choices and actions I'm interested in, whatever they are.

[gbaji]

I'm not 100% adverse to the MMP method (when used reasonably). For many game settings, it can act as a justification for why an adventuring party can actually have elves, and dwarves, and halflings, and whatnot in them. If there's no common areas where these different groups all live together (at least somewhat peacefully), then it's a lot harder to justify a mixed party. So yeah. Don't have a problem with that.

I tend to focus my game settings on more political/economic conflicts than merely racial/ethnic anyway. And while there are some melting pot areas, not all are. In a stereoptyical fantasy setting, there may be elven forests, and dwarven underground strongholds, and Trolls living up in the mountains (and hey, why not have halflings living in some green rolling hills kind of areas, if we're just going with the tropes, right?). And yeah, there may even be some historical animosity between these different groups, for various setting reasons.

But here's the funny thing. And I think it's something we've almost lost somewhere along the line. Those divisions, even historically, were rarely applied individually. I think a good example of this is in LotR between Legolas and Gimli. In theory, historically, the dwarves and elves didn't get along. But that did not mean that an individual dwarf and individual elf had to hate eachother. As groups? Conflicts. As individuals? Tended to get along just fine. And I've found that this is a common parallel in our own history as well. Merchants and others tended to be able to travel all over the place, without a whole lot of fear that they would just be imprisoned or killed just for being a member of a different culture/civilization.

Um... There's also this sort of mistaken assumption that the more "other" someone is, the more they're going to be feared/hated. That's also generally not true. We tend to fear/hate the most, not that which is most unknown, but that which we know well. I know. Seems contradictory. But the known tribe "over there", that your own tribe has been fighting with for generations over some common resource is going to be far more likely to generate a fear/hate response than "some stranger from a distant land we've never heard of". Which can absolutely dovetail into "person with significantly different racial/ethnic features will be seen as an oddity, but not an enemy". Which, when applied to a fantasy setting with Elves and Dwarves and whatnot, allows us to integrate them into the setting without too much difficulty. Said character might get a response of "I've heard of <whatever> but never met one before" (and possibly questions as well), and then we move on.

I just think it's possible to over think this. And yeah, we all hear the horror story of the GM who creates obvious offensive stereotypes and plays them out in their games. I also wonder how much of that is just fictionalized acounts of GMs doing things we all know are horrible verus how often that has actually really happened. We all hear the story about this guy, who knew a guy, who played with a guy who did this. But how many people have actually directly experienced this? IMO, it's something talked about and railed against far more often than it actually happens. And maybe we shouldn't spend too much time getting too upset about something that "might happen" somewhere, at some table, by someone else, maybe.

Doesn't mean we can't be aware of and avoid doing such things. But I do think it's a bit unhealthy to be actively seeking out anything that might be a clue that something untoward might be happening. Let's not read too much into the tea leaves here. And to be honest, there are a large number of other problems that can crop up with a game and setting as well. And IME, those other problems are far more common and more likely to result in games failing than that the GM has created cultures and peoples who align with some earth stereotypes. I don't think I've ever played in a game where the GM applied a just straight up offensive stereotype to a culture. I've played in a number where the GM played favorites with the players, or where the GM thought it was "fun" to go out of his way to harm PCs and ruin their lives ("if it's not painful, then you aren't playing"), or where the GM applied such harsh rules of "game balance" that he would arbitrarily remove abilities/items/levels from characters if he felt they were "too powerful" (yes, I had a GM do that once).

Those things are real things that really happen, and that can destroy the "fun" playing a game. So yeah, I'm far more concerned about those than hypothetical world/setting building problems.

[awa]

Eventually that mentality just works its way into the very gross idea of "we owe it to them to uplift them and bring them into our way of doing things" which I can't even go into how messed up it is or the things it might be used to justify without stepping into discussing politics and history.

I don't actually see that very often, this one was the utopia is a hidden secret isolationist society and when the stupid inept outsiders intrude they are all effortlessly incapacitated and removed from the utopias territory unharmed which causes the stupids to declare war on the obviously overwhelmingly Superior force.

Now I stopped reading soon after but the way this trope usually goes is the stupids manage to bring so many men to bear that the "heroes" are justified in using increasingly massive retaliation to stop the relentless hordes of inept racists.

[gbaji]

Is this where I interject with my stock "All Utopias are Dystopias" observation?

[Perch]

I never really understood this need to demonize art or media based on the political views of its creator.

That was not my intention, I also don't think I have done it. Again, I fear you are not arguing with me and my arguments but some ideal in your head, maybe based on previous experiences? I don't know.

Yes, Lovecraft had some rather... interesting views...

Interesting?

but that doesn't diminish the impact he made on fiction and fantasy with his work. Concepts such as cosmic horror or eldritch abomination owe a lot to him, which is something that especially we D&D gamers cannot dispute.

Never said he didn't...

Why though? Do you legitimately enjoy cataloging everything problematic with the stuff you like?

I make tons of notes, stuff I can use in my games, names I should try to keep in mind, ideas I like and among them I also make notes on stuff that didn't age well, why? I fail to see why that's so weird.

You don't find it odd that when someone asks you "why are you calling a body of work as racist/problematic?" your answer is basically, "hold on, I need to check my notes."?

Not really.

On your other points, I'm a firm believer on the ideia that you can enjoy problematic stuff and be critical of it at the same time. It's not only possible but to me necessary.

I was alluding to how the entire state of Egypt is apparently threatening Netflix with a lawsuit over how they portrayed Cleopatra in a documentary. TLDR: No, neither Cleopatra or the Ancient Egyptians were black.

My point was that Egypt was an African nation, I said "African coded nations" you said "This nation is Egyptcoded" I said "Egypt is in Africa".

At no point I said anything about Cleopatra being black.

I may be remembering incorrectly, but I was under the impression that you were alluding to black people

That must be the case, I was talking about Africa as a whole, the entire continent and all it's civilizations.

So, your initial claim was that it portrayed Egyptians in a bad light?

Is the portrayal of a civilization as crazy, decadent, and full of vile sorcery evil people who worship a snake demon god and make human sacrifices a good, fair and accurate portrayal? I don't think so.

I am confused, are we initially talking about black people or Egyptians?

We were talking about African Civilizations, so both?

what exactly is a "Conan specialist"?

Someone who spend a long time studying the works and published papers ont eh subject, the type of people who will write the preface of newer editions or collections.

2) What exactly is problematic with the central point of the "greater nobility in barbarism compared to the sedentary and civilized" in itself? Especially when a good number of the "true vipers" are coded as Caucasians? Such as the Aquilonians?

Nothing, never said that were any issues, my issues were in the form, way and words used to describe African coded civilizations in those stories.

3) This still doesn't change the fact that as presented, the Cimmerians are just a bunch of iron aged tribals living in cold mud hutted villages who have to resort to banditry, thieving, and piracy to survive, all under the distant gaze of a callous and uncaring god. They are just as much a product of this grimdark world as any other group here.

As I said, it's a different shade of bad, a different taste.

My argument to that is it depends on the tone of the setting, the reason why I don't see a problem with "evil tribal empires full of demon worshipping cannibals"

I guess we will have to agree to disagree. If you don't see issues with that our conversation won't get anywhere, so I guess I will refrain from continuing this discussion with you. Thanks for the responses have a good day.


-----------------------------------------------------------

Is this where I interject with my stock "All Utopias are Dystopias" observation?

I can think of a few I would totally live, Oz comes to mind, The Blazing-World as well.

[SpyOne]

... I was thinking that, as a general rule, the further south and the warmer it gets, the darker the native people's skin tends to get, and the further north and the colder it gets, the paler they tend to be (although people from all over can be found in most areas, with the more centralized areas being more diverse than the more isolated ones with extreme climates).

... So the setting is a sort of high-seas adventure where hunting sea monsters for their ivory, oil, etc. is a huge business across the world.
In the south, there's a huge network of small islands. Which gives those peoples less resources to work with, prohibits the use of large ships and encourages the formation of smaller settlements.
In the north, the partially frozen sea offers very similar issues. Less resources, smaller communities and smaller boats.
In the more centralized area, the mainland is much bigger and the climate is milder, so there are more people, who all have access to more resources. And the open waters means larger ships that can go after larger monsters, which means more money. Which all means more advanced technology and a more diverse population.

You have a logical, even realistic, explanation for the distribution of skin tones in your world.
You have a logical, well thought out reason for the distribution of wealth and technology in your world, too.

... And entirely by accident you've made all the brown people from a part of the world that is poor and backwards. (The pale people, too, but ....)
I can't believe that I am the first person to notice that.

I can think of a couple of ways to change that, but they all mess with your world to some degree.

Like, you could move the archipelago. Have there be continents in the frozen north and the tropics, with the archipelago sandwiched between them.
Now the brown people are from the richest and most advanced area.

Or you could create a large island, well away from the others, in the tropics. It has trees that make good ship and excellent harbors and all the stuff that the rest of the islands don't, so it is home to a wealthy nation among the otherwise poor tropics.

Or, ... you could ditch realism and make the brown people from the west or something.

But I am pretty sure that if you don't change something, some of the players will notice.

[KorvinStarmast]

Is this where I interject with my stock "All Utopias are Dystopias" observation?

Yes. Or you could offer that "one person's Utopia is another person's Dystopia" with similar effect.

You have a logical, even realistic, explanation for the distribution of skin tones in your world.
You have a logical, well thought out reason for the distribution of wealth and technology in your world, too.
{snip}
But I am pretty sure that if you don't change something, some of the players will notice.

Ya think? And if our OP is as stated "a DM for hire" some players will find that set up appealing and others won't, which reduces the pool of players willing to pay, which will have an impact on income.

[False God]

I'm not 100% adverse to the MMP method (when used reasonably). For many game settings, it can act as a justification for why an adventuring party can actually have elves, and dwarves, and halflings, and whatnot in them. If there's no common areas where these different groups all live together (at least somewhat peacefully), then it's a lot harder to justify a mixed party. So yeah. Don't have a problem with that.

I tend to focus my game settings on more political/economic conflicts than merely racial/ethnic anyway. And while there are some melting pot areas, not all are. In a stereoptyical fantasy setting, there may be elven forests, and dwarven underground strongholds, and Trolls living up in the mountains (and hey, why not have halflings living in some green rolling hills kind of areas, if we're just going with the tropes, right?). And yeah, there may even be some historical animosity between these different groups, for various setting reasons.

But here's the funny thing. And I think it's something we've almost lost somewhere along the line. Those divisions, even historically, were rarely applied individually. I think a good example of this is in LotR between Legolas and Gimli. In theory, historically, the dwarves and elves didn't get along. But that did not mean that an individual dwarf and individual elf had to hate eachother. As groups? Conflicts. As individuals? Tended to get along just fine. And I've found that this is a common parallel in our own history as well. Merchants and others tended to be able to travel all over the place, without a whole lot of fear that they would just be imprisoned or killed just for being a member of a different culture/civilization.

Well, importantly, Legolas and Gimli didn't get along at first. Their transition from being distrustful and racist to "competitive companions" to "true friends" is well shown over the course of the LOTR trilogy. And yes, Groupthink can play a heavy role in the application of prejudice, and when someone is removed from the group, they now have to make their own decisions, which often gives them the opportunity to think outside the group's otherwise hateful norms.

Personally, I think the MMP approach is a lazy way to justify why this group gets along.
There are simpler solutions with fewer world implications:
A: These people don't have those prejudices, they are the exceptions.
B: These people DO have those prejudices, but feel the others of the party are "exceptions".
C: These people do have those prejudices, but agree working together towards defeating the Demon Lord is more important.
D: These people come from allied nations who, while not a melting pot, have mellowed thanks to shared economic/social/military success.

You end up with fewer world implications and no need to explain how the MMP seems to be working when noone else gets it. The latter approach is IMO, the best when you're actually relying on true nation-states and not tropey fantasy monocultures. There can be LOTS of dwarves and LOTS of elves just like there always seem to be lots of humans, all with different opinions and connections to each other.

But as always, more work.

Is this where I interject with my stock "All Utopias are Dystopias" observation?

Maybe, but this tends to be for the exception. Anarchists revel in objectively collapsed societies while they suffer in functional ones. I don't think that's enough to say that a utopia that functions for 99% of its members is a dystopia. It's not always a matter of perspective and even if it is, not all perspectives are inherently equal.