blocks in the road

[kumakami]

you ever come up with an idea that either you didn't have the cultral (sorry for all spelling errors) or the historacal knowledge to truely go forth with? One that you have issues resurching? How do you deal with it, you specificly!?!

[tadk]

Can you give an example please because I am not sure on this.

[pstmdrn]

This has happened to me before, especially if you are using obscure cultures or moments in history. I often fill in the blanks with my own ideas or I find another culture or event with themes and concepts I am looking for and round out the information with details from them.

For example:

I was inspired by hearing a news program about a very small and obscure sect of Persian Islam. I had little success locating much information about it so I researched some Persian mythology and used elements from the stories to fill in details about the sect.

[SheikhJahbooty]

I prioritize other things.

I know it's bad and it's wrong. I am depriving the world of my awesome Cahokia RPG.

But to do it right (in my eyes) I would need Traveller style character generation, detailed tactical sporting rules that can handle blood sports and chunkey, downtime rules that handle crafts, wealth and prestige, maybe optional rules to Tolkien it up, add nunnehi (Cherokee for elves) or bohpoli (Choctaw for dwarves), etc.

And let's be honest, how much can we really know about a place that we don't even know what the inhabitants called it. I have my ideas, but I would need to do a lot more reading.

And what if my guesses offend people? I'm just some old hippy. Actual archeologists studying Anasazi sites have found incontrovertible evidence of human sacrifice and ritual cannibalism. At least they thought it was incontrovertible. Once they revealed their findings, controversy!

But who knows, maybe one day I'll finish and upload it.

[vulpinoid]

Some of my first posts regarding my Game Chef entry drew some unwanted attention from people who though the idea of using Native Australian Aboriginal terminology in a game was racist.

There's a bit of banter about it over on

I had a few private comments from people who told me...just do it anyway.

To try to make it a bit more politically correct, I decided to remove the concept from it's original intentions slightly. My original thoughts were about making a game where Natives around the world take back the earth before twisted spirits tainted by technology destroy all life.

The later concept became about any survivors, natives or otherwise, after a great apocalypse...they look back on their cultures, both spiritual and technological, then they choose the best path to move forward.

Since the new story is about people picking and choosing from the fragments of their past, I didn't need to be so precious about getting the native voice "right". People make that decision for themselves during the course of play...in fact pone of the defining aspects of the characters is how they view their people and how they represent that community to the other members of the party (though I didn't focus on this as much as I would have liked to).

I guess what I'm trying to say is that you need to consider how important the cultural accuracy is to your game.

To use pstmdrn's example:

Do you just want a flavour of Persian Islam, or do you want your game to have as much detail as a reference book?

Are there key parts of the culture that your game is about? Describe these for the players and let them fill out the rest with a range of "inspiration sources" near the index. This way your players can really delve into it if they want to, otherwise at the other extreme they can sit back and watch Disney's Aladdin if it's just an overall vibe that you want your game to have.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that if you're having trouble researching facts, then I'm sure your players will have trouble researching it as well. Just go with whatever is important for your game, and if you're worried too much just say the game is in a fantasy setting that resembles earth pretty closely but isn't exactly the same in all respects...that way you're free to make up whatever details you want (case in point White Wolf's World of Darkness).

[NoobHealer]

The most important thing I try to remember is that when doing any sort of themed idea is that the idea rarely needs to be completely accurate. It needs to match the "feel" that people will expect going into the game.

This means that rather than always looking for historical or cultural facts, I look at the fiction that surrounds it. I watch movies and read stories to find what important aspects are common in them.

For example:
- A World War 2 RPG would probably involve the PC's doing heroic things like charging across the beach at D-Day and miraculously making it across.
- Something based on the Vietnam War would be more psychological and horror based, if the players aren't careful they will die.
- An RPG based in Ancient Greece should be heavily based into a mythological and pleasing the Gods.

Most of the time, the people who play themed games already have a fondness for the theme. Even if something isn't 100% historically accurate, they won't mind because it fits the mood that they associate with the topic.

Even if you want to make it fully realistic, viewing the fiction will give you key words to look up.Whether it's gods, technology, or weapons from the period. It'll give you a starting point that you can use to find more information.

[tadk]

I believe I was one of those that supported the original ideas and basically said go ahead and make it the way you want to.

I still do and will read your game one of these days. Likely it will be the only one this year I will get around to reading.

[kumakami]

Tadk: if that was in reference to me. thank you. if not I still think it to be a wonderful compliment to whom ever.....

in the end its all a matter of intent I know.

to make a game flavered with its one think. But there are time where one is attempting an alternate (god I wish I was better at spelling) history. in those cases I find one need an indepth research just to know where to diverge.


I've always wanted to write a steampunk game set in the bronze age. (roman or not) one reson is the rumor that the library in alxandera had the plans for the simplist of steam engines. (a ball on a axis with 2 opossing curved spouts). In the end its not true history I need of this but the culture.
Read any steampunk book and one can see the victorean culture with in.....change the culture and it becomes a strange new animal....

if you don't beleave me the try the following....write a western game using china and its culture....

[koipond]

See, this is the conversation again.

I've kinda stepped back because I didn't feel like having it again, but after reading a lot of the game chef games and seeing this thread get bigger I'm going to start talking about it again.

There is a reason why using stories from another culture is difficult, it's because the history surrounding the actions of taking stories and ideas and things from another culture can't be divorced from the history of colonialism. I know there are people who will disagree with that statement, probably the same ones who messaged you vulpinoid, because they suffer from a large degree of that insulates them from the othering this appropriation takes. When someone who is not of that culture takes what they like from that culture they will invariably change the meaning of what they're taking because it is removed from the context.

Accurate is another term that's loaded. You can be accurate and still not get the idea or the meaning being an action, or a word, or whatever it is that you're trying to do.

Does this mean you can never do anything outside of yourself? Of course not, if that were the case I couldn't write a story that didn't involve 30 something-ish white, male, Canadians. The key thing is, the word that I want to use is Authenticity but even that is loaded with connotations that I don't like, but the more I respect of the personhood and the culture of which I am using the less I am appropriating. If I write a female character in a story, I have to be conscious of the issues and situations with which this character, this person, has grown up in and continues to live in. I have to because it is filled with things that I, as a straight white male, don't have to think about in the least (thus showing my privilege, I don't have to worry about it).

The same thing happens when you write a game and you use a culture that isn't your own. I've talked, and commented on by Bill White. He even talked about it himself on his own . Bill gets it, he even says that he's guilty of Cultural Appropriation. Bill is awesome that way because he put forth his points and agreed that the person who had experienced their feelings of othering and alienation are valid and real because they are. Hell, the game chef reviews have been full with me banging my head against the table each time I come across a "native culture" that has "mystical powers" and crap.

Of course the third comment started the whole, "But it's just a fantasy" derail that thankfully came at the end of the conversation, but that's for another discussion.

I think I got sidetracked by work. I've got stuff I have to run to do but the quick answer is "We'll all hit that wall, it just depends on the level of respect and 'authenticity' (damn, that word again ... scare quotes will 'fix it' ... blech) with which you approach things that help or harm your cause.

[kumakami]

Thank you Koipond! that was....exsquisid (only spelled right ;} )