I don't know if it's just because I assumed English was intrinsically this major global language or that I thought Mexicans would interact a lot with English speakers or what, but for whatever reason that just seems super weird to me. Like, when I think American I think some white dude who speaks only English, too. Not saying that's the actual demographic or linguistic competency level, but it's the stereotype for me that springs to mind. I guess the reality is kind of more reversed for known languages, maybe? Odd, from my perspective.   

Quote from: KindaMeh on December 24, 2023, 02:16:31 AM
I don't know if it's just because I assumed English was intrinsically this major global language or that I thought Mexicans would interact a lot with English speakers or what, but for whatever reason that just seems super weird to me. Like, when I think American I think some white dude who speaks only English, too. Not saying that's the actual demographic or linguistic competency level, but it's the stereotype for me that springs to mind. I guess the reality is kind of more reversed for known languages, maybe? Odd, from my perspective.   

Yeah, stereotypes are fun for jokes, but probably not the best ground for basing reality on.

This is true, and a very fair point. Heuristics and stereotypes are generally trash for actual learning, actual demographics and the like. I wasn't actively planning on using them, but am indeed going to have to re-evaluate where they may be subconsciously steering me astray in places like this. Might have been over sharing, but I suspect unfortunately I might not be the only person who has had similar thoughts. A lot of times if you don't specifically look into the content in question, things like this and resulting ignorance probably can indeed get you into trouble. The intent was less to offend or promote the stereotype, and more note that for me this all challenged a less rigorous understanding of how things might be or the like.

Quote from: BadApple on December 23, 2023, 12:35:16 PM

Quote from: GeekyBugle on December 23, 2023, 12:13:14 PM
IIRC Tenbones is Filipino, you could ask him but...

My wife is Filipina (not Fil-Am, right from the islands) and she thought the idea of being Latino was funny.  Then I asked her what did she think she was and she asked me if I was feeling all right.

Haha!

Now ask her how to say silverware in Tagalog?  (Then compare to Spanish)  Or restaurant... bucket... bacon...  snake... and many more.

Quote from: KindaMeh on December 24, 2023, 12:07:52 PM
This is true, and a very fair point. Heuristics and stereotypes are generally trash for actual learning, actual demographics and the like. I wasn't actively planning on using them, but am indeed going to have to re-evaluate where they may be subconsciously steering me astray in places like this. Might have been over sharing, but I suspect unfortunately I might not be the only person who has had similar thoughts. A lot of times if you don't specifically look into the content in question, things like this and resulting ignorance probably can indeed get you into trouble. The intent was less to offend or promote the stereotype, and more note that for me this all challenged a less rigorous understanding of how things might be or the like.

No offense is taken where none is intended.  Just people chatting about stuff.

Latin America generally is difficult to categorize.  Too much variation between countries and regions. 

There is also the issue that modern Western thought seems to conflate race and culture.  People can share the same culture and be of different races.  People can share the same race and be from different cultures.  Not sure why this has become such an elusive concept these days.

I would add that one's race gives them no claim on any particular culture.  This is why "African/Mexican/European American" is a stupid concept.

They are just different flavors of Americans with different skin tones.

Can confirm about Mexicans in California. We have three generations right next door in LA, and only the youngest generation speak fluent English (that's something I guess).

Quote from: Captain_Pazuzu on December 24, 2023, 12:19:31 PM
There is also the issue that modern Western thought seems to conflate race and culture. 

American thought, not Western (and neither modern). It's Americans that tend to create massive socio-cultural buckets ("Caucasian", "Latino", "Black" and so on) based on outdated and misproved concepts ("race" is quite simply not a thing) and then go along for the ride.

Quote from: yosemitemike on December 24, 2023, 02:07:29 AM

Quote from: KindaMeh on December 23, 2023, 02:28:37 PM
I don't know why, but I had always assumed Mexico's inhabitants tended to be multilingual or at least better about that than Joe Sixpack of USA inhabitance. I guess that they wouldn't necessarily be thus makes sense though, since Mexico  may be less a nation of language-differentiated immigrants? I may have just made the (in retrospect somewhat odd) assumption that English was common among random members of the populous, for no good reason, outside the borders of places where that's the primary language.

I grew up in the Central Valley in California.  There are a lot of Mexicans there.  I mean Mexicans not Americans whose ancestors immigrated from Mexico generations ago.  A large majority of them only speak Spanish.  They don't speak any English and don't care to learn.  They don't need to because there are whole neighborhoods where everything is in Spanish.  It's easy to tell when you are in a neighborhood like that because the signage is all in Spanish.  You can live your whole life in the Central Valley without ever learning a word of English and there are a lot of people who do just that.  There are far more white Americans who speak Spanish than Mexicans who bother learning English.

My mom is from Texas, and her first language was Spanish. Her family grew up around the cotton farms there. We go all the way back to the conquistador days; one of my famous ancestors bought a huge tract of land out there, years before the USA existed at all.

I think I kinda dragged us off track with some of this stuff. I found out a lot of cool things as a result, but at this point I'm probably derailing a bit.

I guess to go back to translations and things in and from other nations, what's the general board consensus on the politics of different nations' TTRPG markets? I feel a lot of what we've discussed has related to US and English-speaking markets for the most part. Though I did appreciate hearing a bit about further left products existing in Brazil. Does Mexico mostly play games that are translated from other languages, for instance, or from Spain if that's where most Spanish language rpgs are from and they lack a strong internal market? How does this impact the politics of the game and corporations, more to the point?

Quote from: KindaMeh on December 29, 2023, 07:14:43 PM
I think I kinda dragged us off track with some of this stuff. I found out a lot of cool things as a result, but at this point I'm probably derailing a bit.

I guess to go back to translations and things in and from other nations, what's the general board consensus on the politics of different nations' TTRPG markets? I feel a lot of what we've discussed has related to US and English-speaking markets for the most part. Though I did appreciate hearing a bit about further left products existing in Brazil. Does Mexico mostly play games that are translated from other languages, for instance, or from Spain if that's where most Spanish language rpgs are from and they lack a strong internal market? How does this impact the politics of the game and corporations, more to the point?

AFAIK there's only one RPG in development/published by a Mexican right now (not counting myself). I live in a middle class neighborhood, the only RPG store nearby was tiny, about 12 square meters tops, and it closed down a few years back.

IME most Mexican gamers play American RPGs, either translated or not, I'm not sure most even know about Legends of the West Mark (the only OSR from Spain).

Oof. So mostly our own larger brands of woke offal. Yeah, that's probably less than fun for those who are new to TTRPGs there, I would guess.

Quote from: GeekyBugle on December 29, 2023, 08:49:43 PMAFAIK there's only one RPG in development/published by a Mexican right now (not counting myself). I live in a middle class neighborhood, the only RPG store nearby was tiny, about 12 square meters tops, and it closed down a few years back.

IME most Mexican gamers play American RPGs, either translated or not, I'm not sure most even know about Legends of the West Mark (the only OSR from Spain).

"Like, Coyote and Crow is like, Pan-American indigenous nativeeeessss. So, like, it's really a Mexican game, or like any Latinx or whateevvveeerrrrr."

I found a couple that look to be in Mexico.  They are apparently both making Powered by the Apocalyspe games.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1971035968/nahual-a-tabletop-rpg-of-mexican-urban-fantasy
https://smokingmirrorgames.com/

Because of course they fucking are.

Quote from: pawsplay on December 29, 2023, 06:57:16 PM
My mom is from Texas, and her first language was Spanish. Her family grew up around the cotton farms there. We go all the way back to the conquistador days; one of my famous ancestors bought a huge tract of land out there, years before the USA existed at all.

Your point being?

Quote from: yosemitemike on December 30, 2023, 08:22:49 AM
I found a couple that look to be in Mexico.  They are apparently both making Powered by the Apocalyspe games.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1971035968/nahual-a-tabletop-rpg-of-mexican-urban-fantasy
https://smokingmirrorgames.com/

Because of course they fucking are.

Quote from: pawsplay on December 29, 2023, 06:57:16 PM
My mom is from Texas, and her first language was Spanish. Her family grew up around the cotton farms there. We go all the way back to the conquistador days; one of my famous ancestors bought a huge tract of land out there, years before the USA existed at all.

Your point being?

Right, I forgot about nahual, a woke game where the nahual (who was considered evil even before the conquista) hunts Angels... PbtA because of course, the other one I didn't know about but seems to be woke garbage too.

Notice how both are in English and Spanish? My bet is it's audience will buy it to show how progressive and inclusive they are. So mainly white liberal Americans.

Quote from: KindaMeh on December 29, 2023, 08:55:44 PM
Oof. So mostly our own larger brands of woke offal. Yeah, that's probably less than fun for those who are new to TTRPGs there, I would guess.

60 $ times 3 is 180 dollars, convert to pesos 17X180 = 3060 pesos...

Not something most Mexicans can spend in a hobby.

Factor in the average books read is 2.5 per mexican per year (and that ppl like me who read at least 12 and sometimes 52 books per year bump the average upwards), and that reading is needed to play.

Compounding it with most  Mexicans proud ignorance of any other language.

Once you take all of that into consideration you need to also remember the honorable tradition of pirating stuff.

The national market isn't very attractive.