Quote from: tenbones;1089890The level of ignorance in America about the treatment of the Indians by the British is pretty enormous. That said, my Indian friends who fully admit to not being big fans of the Brits of that era (and in general from my own perspective of their clear biases) - they maintain that the framework of the British colonial laws that India adopted post-British rule, have been the scaffolding upon which has allowed India to rise (admittedly with a long way to go). Naturally this has all come at a price to their own culture.

I think that's a subtle gaming nuance that could be delved into - a culture that has hybridized its own distinct culture with another, with implicit game-impacting results for the PC's to engage in. I think that's the real issue that gets dodged with using analog cultures. They plop them down in-coherently rather than assuming some levels of assimilation on various levels has actually occurred and start the game-setting from that point forward.

Edit: Of course the Usual Idiots(tm) will still call it racism-via-cultural appropriation. But you know... reality.

Half-elves are an awesome vehicle for exploring this. Half-orcs, perhaps, but doing it via half-elves hits harder.

Quote from: RandyB;1089891Half-elves are an awesome vehicle for exploring this. Half-orcs, perhaps, but doing it via half-elves hits harder.

Kiiiinda not really. Depends.

1) You have to establish what Elven culture *is* in your setting.
2) You have to establish the conceits of your human culture that the half-elf parentage comes from.

#2 - is already part of the equation regardless of being half actual elf.

UNLESS you're saying that the Elves came first, established their culture over the human one and now they're dead in which case human/elf culture hybrid is now the dominate thing. That might be interesting

Though the Realms delved into that idea with the nation of Dambrath.

I'm talking something like "What if the Egyptians took over Rome and southern Europe for a thousand years... then the Romans won their independence but after centuries of mixing cultures - what does it look like? Mechanically - including fantasy elements like magical systems from the Egypt/Rome analogs might create? etc.

Quote from: tenbones;1089890The level of ignorance in America about the treatment of the Indians by the British is pretty enormous. That said, my Indian friends who fully admit to not being big fans of the Brits of that era (and in general from my own perspective of their clear biases) - they maintain that the framework of the British colonial laws that India adopted post-British rule, have been the scaffolding upon which has allowed India to rise (admittedly with a long way to go). Naturally this has all come at a price to their own culture.

I think that's a subtle gaming nuance that could be delved into - a culture that has hybridized its own distinct culture with another, with implicit game-impacting results for the PC's to engage in. I think that's the real issue that gets dodged with using analog cultures. They plop them down in-coherently rather than assuming some levels of assimilation on various levels has actually occurred and start the game-setting from that point forward.

Edit: Of course the Usual Idiots(tm) will still call it racism-via-cultural appropriation. But you know... reality.

I was actually talking about the treatment of American Indians vs black people in the American "wild west".

Seen on RPGGeek:

Link: https://rpggeek.com/geeklist/250272/item/6968534?commentid=8833105#comment8833105

QuoteIt's also unclear if he IS Native American. I would be very hesitant to buy any game about "Native" culture by a non-Native designer(...)

Quote from: RPGPundit;1091417I was actually talking about the treatment of American Indians vs black people in the American "wild west".

OMG! Those are *FIRST NATIONS NATIVE ABORIGINAL PROTO-AMERICANS* Pundit! Dude... talk about cultural appropriation!

Yeah I know, I was just talking speaking from the perspective of Americans>American Indians to British>India-Indians. It's interesting how both cultures reacted to colonization. When clearly there are benefits to be gained if one merely applied themselves to the task at hand, and that being the basis for a gaming concept.

Quote from: tenbones;1091470OMG! Those are *FIRST NATIONS NATIVE ABORIGINAL PROTO-AMERICANS* Pundit! Dude... talk about cultural appropriation!

Yeah I know, I was just talking speaking from the perspective of Americans>American Indians to British>India-Indians. It's interesting how both cultures reacted to colonization. When clearly there are benefits to be gained if one merely applied themselves to the task at hand, and that being the basis for a gaming concept.

Yeah, and no-one but Welsh people should be allowed to write for Pendragon because the characters are the proto-welsh Cymric people.

Quote from: 3rik;1091465Seen on RPGGeek:

Link: https://rpggeek.com/geeklist/250272/item/6968534?commentid=8833105#comment8833105

Quote from: tenbones;1091470OMG! Those are *FIRST NATIONS NATIVE ABORIGINAL PROTO-AMERICANS* Pundit! Dude... talk about cultural appropriation!

Yeah I know, I was just talking speaking from the perspective of Americans>American Indians to British>India-Indians. It's interesting how both cultures reacted to colonization. When clearly there are benefits to be gained if one merely applied themselves to the task at hand, and that being the basis for a gaming concept.

Quote from: Altheus;1091720Yeah, and no-one but Welsh people should be allowed to write for Pendragon because the characters are the proto-welsh Cymric people.

I believe the basis for cultural appropriation has to do with the fact that the existence of white and non-white identities are based entirely on whether one's ancestors and/or country were subject to the horrors of colonization. Plus the needless exoticization and fetishization of foreign cultures that were victimized by colonialism for the purposes of entertaining a white audience.

It would probably be prudent to provide a concrete example.

In the tv show Charmed, the main characters are white and routinely deal with monsters taken from non-white (i.e. formerly colonized) cultures. These are always monster of the week plots and any non-white characters (if they appear at all) are reduced to innocents for the heroines to save, even if the non-white character is themselves magical.

The recent reboot tries to mitigate this by casting the heroines as non-white and featuring recurring Haitian-American characters. The feminist caricature is obnoxious and offensive (they get less so over the first season, thank God), but the African diaspora subplots are really interesting and I'm annoyed that they're so subdued. These elements are seemingly written in a way that assumes the viewer is African-American and therefore can appreciate the context, but absolutely no attempt is made to educate viewers of other cultures as to why this is important.

It's almost as if... yep, showrunner Carter Covington is a white guy. Sure he's gay, but that doesn't magically give him insight into the struggles faced by people of color.

The season 2 showrunners are husband-wife team Elizabeth Kruger and Craig Shapiro. Because clearly they have better insight into what it's like to be women of color in America. I'm being sarcastic, by the way.

If you want to know what I think, then this article in which a leftist criticizes "awokening" sums up my thoughts nicely. Please try not to let your heads explode at the sheer impossibility that leftists might also repeat the mantra "get woke, go broke."

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1091732I believe the basis for cultural appropriation has to do with the fact that the existence of white and non-white identities are based entirely on whether one's ancestors and/or country were subject to the horrors of colonization. Plus the needless exoticization and fetishization of foreign cultures that were victimized by colonialism for the purposes of entertaining a white audience.

It would probably be prudent to provide a concrete example.

In the tv show Charmed, the main characters are white and routinely deal with monsters taken from non-white (i.e. formerly colonized) cultures. These are always monster of the week plots and any non-white characters (if they appear at all) are reduced to innocents for the heroines to save, even if the non-white character is themselves magical.

The recent reboot tries to mitigate this by casting the heroines as non-white and featuring recurring Haitian-American characters. The feminist caricature is obnoxious and offensive (they get less so over the first season, thank God), but the African diaspora subplots are really interesting and I'm annoyed that they're so subdued. These elements are seemingly written in a way that assumes the viewer is African-American and therefore can appreciate the context, but absolutely no attempt is made to educate viewers of other cultures as to why this is important.

It's almost as if... yep, showrunner Carter Covington is a white guy. Sure he's gay, but that doesn't magically give him insight into the struggles faced by people of color.

The season 2 showrunners are husband-wife team Elizabeth Kruger and Craig Shapiro. Because clearly they have better insight into what it's like to be women of color in America. I'm being sarcastic, by the way.

If you want to know what I think, then this article in which a leftist criticizes "awokening" sums up my thoughts nicely. Please try not to let your heads explode at the sheer impossibility that leftists might also repeat the mantra "get woke, go broke."

As a Maya (People of Color = Coloured People, ergo racist) Cultural Appropriation is BS. It's nothing more than the white man's burden and a desire to maintain white culture apart from other cultures, in short cultural segregation. Disguised as god intentions by the racist fucktards that invented the term.

I hereby declare you all honorary mexicans, now go forth and culturally appropriate to your hearts content.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1091732I believe the basis for cultural appropriation has to do with the fact that the existence of white and non-white identities are based entirely on whether one's ancestors and/or country were subject to the horrors of colonization. Plus the needless exoticization and fetishization of foreign cultures that were victimized by colonialism for the purposes of entertaining a white audience.

This is a fantastically silly idea (I'm not accusing you, Box of originating this obviously). Because you know where cultures have TV/Movie programming that portray's their antagonists as "other races" and their protagonists as their majority ethnic population?

Everywhere that has a TV and Movie industry.

Only in the West where white-guilt has set in is this an actual problem. Most countries consume western cinema where their own people are seen as villains - and they do not give a shit.

Quote from: GeekyBugle;1091739As a Maya (People of Color = Coloured People, ergo racist) Cultural Appropriation is BS. It's nothing more than the white man's burden and a desire to maintain white culture apart from other cultures, in short cultural segregation. Disguised as god intentions by the racist fucktards that invented the term.

I hereby declare you all honorary mexicans, now go forth and culturally appropriate to your hearts content.

Did the Maztican's appropriate the Eggroll? Or did  Kozakuran's appropriate the Burrito? It's a mystery.

Quote from: tenbones;1091741Did the Maztican's appropriate the Eggroll? Or did  Kozakuran's appropriate the Burrito? It's a mystery.

The burrito is a recent invention, a variation on the much older Taco, I don't much care who invented it first, since I'm not a cultural marxist. And I'm happy to appropriate the cuisine from anybody and to put red hot peppers in it.

Quote from: GeekyBugle;1091745The burrito is a recent invention, a variation on the much older Taco, I don't much care who invented it first, since I'm not a cultural marxist. And I'm happy to appropriate the cuisine from anybody and to put red hot peppers in it.

Well General Tso wasn't much of a general either. There I said it.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1091732I believe the basis for cultural appropriation has to do with the fact that the existence of white and non-white identities are based entirely on whether one's ancestors and/or country were subject to the horrors of colonization. Plus the needless exoticization and fetishization of foreign cultures that were victimized by colonialism for the purposes of entertaining a white audience.

If that were true, nobody would bat an eye at caucasian Americans trying on Japanese clothes. Japan was not colonized by Europeans, in fact it was a colonizing power itself and took over Korea, parts of China, former German colonies in the Pacific etc. Japan is also a super-prosperous nation today, with one of the world's largest economies, lots of leading multinational companies (Toyota, Honda, Mitsubishi, Sony, Canon etc) a generally prosperous population and enormous amounts of cultural exports (seen a samurai movie? A Studio Ghibli film? Played a Nintendo game?). There is no way that Japan can be considered a poor put upon nation, or its people victimized by colonization. And yet, dare to exhibit Kimono's and encourage people to try them on and guess what happens? It's all about surface judgments about ethnicity and an insane and completely inaccurate idea of how cultures work and interact with each other.

Quote from: Blankman;1091755If that were true, nobody would bat an eye at caucasian Americans trying on Japanese clothes. Japan was not colonized by Europeans, in fact it was a colonizing power itself and took over Korea, parts of China, former German colonies in the Pacific etc. Japan is also a super-prosperous nation today, with one of the world's largest economies, lots of leading multinational companies (Toyota, Honda, Mitsubishi, Sony, Canon etc) a generally prosperous population and enormous amounts of cultural exports (seen a samurai movie? A Studio Ghibli film? Played a Nintendo game?). There is no way that Japan can be considered a poor put upon nation, or its people victimized by colonization. And yet, dare to exhibit Kimono's and encourage people to try them on and guess what happens? It's all about surface judgments about ethnicity and an insane and completely inaccurate idea of how cultures work and interact with each other.

It's also rooted on the belief (shared by the Alt-Right and SJWs) that Culture=Race/Ethnicity.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1091732I believe the basis for cultural appropriation has to do with the fact that the existence of white and non-white identities are based entirely on whether one's ancestors and/or country were subject to the horrors of colonization.

You mean as when the Umayyad Caliphate conquered Hispania during the best part of the 8th century AD ?

So according to your understanding of the SJW doctrine of Whiteness*, the Muslims conquerors (and so colonialists) of Al-Andalus were Whites and the initial inhabitants of the Iberian Peninsula, the Wisigoths, were Non-Whites ? Yeah, it sounds just like an SJW theory to me (that's sarcasm).

* shitty half-baked inane concepts sound better with capitalization.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1091732Plus the needless exoticization and fetishization of foreign cultures that were victimized by colonialism for the purposes of entertaining a white audience.

I like to learn things - manners, habits, modes of thoughts, styles of clothing... the list is endless, really - from other cultures than mine. I enjoy their otherness, their strangeness. Is that exoticism ?

I'd like to make love to a Japanese woman or an Indian woman (at the same time ? Bonus :-) !), but since I'm happily married, it will remain a fond fantasy. Is that fetishization ?

You sound like a nice guy, BoxCrayonTales. You should just relax, bury your SJW universities' books in your backyard, and enjoy life ! And maybe have a little poontang with a beautiful and spicy-smelling African woman (if you're into that) ?

Just let go of all that SJW load of bother, my brother ! Live the life of Western magic ! And RPG like mad !