Quote from: Dr Rotwang!;283306Well, smack me with a handle. As a kid in Mexico, we always spelled it with a 'z', in school. Huh. Go figure.

When I worked at a hospital here in Texas, we had a doctor from Spain - Gonsales.  With an 's' at the end, not a 'z'.  He insisted that hispanic surnames with a 'z' were New World spellings, not Old World.
 
IDK, sounds good to me.....

Quote from: Claudius;283388In every case, in modern Spanish the correct form of writing his surname is Cortés.

That's interesting.  I didn't know that.  As to which school, the answer is "all 5 that I attended, public and private", with the caveat that this was 20+ years ago so it's possible I'm misremembering.  Who knows, maybe t is a "New World" thing...?  Sepa la bola.

Quote from: Cole;283082What are your suggestions for scholarly books on the subject that are reasonably layman-friendly?

By reasonably, I mean, does not presume indepth background in mesoamerican studies already.

Well, the novel Aztec by Gary Jennings is available, cheap, and fairly well researched.  It gives a good overview of the worldview of the Aztecs. It messes up the history a little bit for the sake of the story, but nails daily life in Cem Anahuac.

As for a good non-fiction book, try out Aztec Warfare by Ross Hassig.  It focuses on military campaigns and military life, but succinctly explains a lot of Aztec culture...because their way of war wouldn't make any sense otherwise.

Quote from: droog;283112What do you see as required for this?

A system designed specifically for the Aztecs.  Something that does take the auspiciousness of the days into account, but also focuses quite a bit on the "correct" way of acting in particular situations.  I'd like to see a game that could help the non-expert really understand how the Aztecs thought.

If anyone's interested in making an Aztec game, I'd be willing to help.

Quote from: Dr Rotwang!;283289Good on ya for writing "Moctezuma", but why not "Cortéz"?

Because I couldn't make an accent on my Windows box...and because it's spelled with an "s."

Quote from: RPGPundit;283364I just think it'd be pretty cool to play a short campaign with a fascinating alien culture that was also actually real and thus worth the effort of learning about, instead of the product of some ultra-weird dork's inner fantasy world.

RPGPundit

You're in the wrong hobby for that.

Quote from: Narf the Mouse;283487You're in the wrong hobby for that.

There's room in this hobby for that and the opposite.

Quote from: Narf the Mouse;283487You're in the wrong hobby for that.

Not true, I explore different cultures all the time in RPGs.  My players love it.

Quote from: RPGPundit;283364I just think it'd be pretty cool to play a short campaign with a fascinating alien culture that was also actually real and thus worth the effort of learning about, instead of the product of some ultra-weird dork's inner fantasy world.

RPGPundit

"Oh God, not another fucking elf."

Oh, we're not talking about him?

Quote from: Claudius;283498There's room in this hobby for that and the opposite.

Everything you play in is the product of some ultra-weird dorks inner world in this hobby.

I mean, you're talking about getting a serious history of the aztecs so you can pretend to be aztecs *As a game*.

Everyone in this hobby is an ultra-weird dork. Pretending it's otherwise is pretentiousness.

Remember, weird is defined from the norm.

Quote from: Narf the Mouse;283487You're in the wrong hobby for that.

Not if the GM is an ex- History Prof.

RPGPundit

Quote from: Narf the Mouse;283521Everything you play in is the product of some ultra-weird dorks inner world in this hobby.

I mean, you're talking about getting a serious history of the aztecs so you can pretend to be aztecs *As a game*.

Everyone in this hobby is an ultra-weird dork. Pretending it's otherwise is pretentiousness.

Remember, weird is defined from the norm.

The "weird" in this case corresponded to the question of "setting":  A world of sword and sorcery with elves and dwarves is not weird, because within fantasy it IS the norm.

A world with two suns and four moons and insect creatures and a dominant culture based on a mix of the ancient olmecs, the assyrians, and the 18th century italian city-states, who practice polyamory and speak 8 different languages, all based on Urdu, which are included in the setting and memorizing about 2000 words of vocab from this made-up language is essentially a pre-requisite of playing the game; that's weird by the fantasy norm standard.

RPGPundit

Yep. Uh-huh.

There's always 'But those guys are weirder!'.

Quote from: RPGPundit;283364I just think it'd be pretty cool to play a short campaign with a fascinating alien culture that was also actually real and thus worth the effort of learning about, instead of the product of some ultra-weird dork's inner fantasy world.

Doesn't this imply that RPGs can improve oneself rather than being just fun for its own sake?  Isn't that blatant swinism/pretension?  I don't disagree, but then I'm swine myself.  The campaign that I'm currently GMing is set in 19th century Korea -- albeit with dragons -- and the PCs have played through the ascension of King Gojong (the last king of korea, and its first emperor), and will shortly be confronting first major contacts with Western powers.  

Apropos the original question, I don't know a lot about the history.  GURPS Aztecs seems fine for source material, though I'm not sure what the ideal system would be like.  Aztecs society seems fairly rigid, so perhaps a class-based system with socially appropriate classes might be good -- at least for a campaign based out of Tenochtitlán.

Quote from: jhkim;283552Doesn't this imply that RPGs can improve oneself rather than being just fun for its own sake?  Isn't that blatant swinism/pretension?

No.

Using real history for roleplaying is as fun and legitimate as just ignoring it, pretension is when you think your style play is superior to the others. "My favorite game is better than your favorite game"

QuoteAztecs society seems fairly rigid, so perhaps a class-based system with socially appropriate classes might be good.

I disagree. Character classes in an RPG have nothing to do with classes in society, they're a way to protect your specialization in the adventure group (you're the traps guy and nobody will be better than you at that).

Quote from: jhkim;283552Doesn't this imply that RPGs can improve oneself rather than being just fun for its own sake?  Isn't that blatant swinism/pretension?  I don't disagree, but then I'm swine myself.  The campaign that I'm currently GMing is set in 19th century Korea -- albeit with dragons -- and the PCs have played through the ascension of King Gojong (the last king of korea, and its first emperor), and will shortly be confronting first major contacts with Western powers.  

Apropos the original question, I don't know a lot about the history.  GURPS Aztecs seems fine for source material, though I'm not sure what the ideal system would be like.  Aztecs society seems fairly rigid, so perhaps a class-based system with socially appropriate classes might be good -- at least for a campaign based out of Tenochtitlán.

The improvement in this case is not due to the roleplaying itself, but by the research required to GM an historical campaign. Its purely peripheral to the actual gaming experience.

RPGPundit

The German FRPG "Midgard" sports an pseudo-Aztec culture called "Nahuatlan". (Which has been known in the Armageddon wargaming campaign of which the game setting has been split as "Huanaca".) It's of course a bit anachronistic with magical assassins as servants of the war god, or with the death god employing slawic-style vampires as celestial servants, but it's the closest thing I know to a ready-made replica of Aztecs in a fantasy setting.


In regards of culture mish-mash, I think there's a healthy middle-ground between "direct rip-off" and "nut-job combo of things Man Was Not Meant To Mix", and that it's a middle-ground where some of the more interesting fantasy cultures are placed. I think for instance of 7th Sea's Vendel (which combines Gustavus the Great's Sweden and the commercially driven enterprising of 16-17th century Netherlands), or in my current homebrew setting for FtA! the Zhodabathi, which are derived a lot from the anachronistic pseudo-malaysian setting of the Sandokan adventure flicks.