Quote from: Black Vulmea;954437Jesusfuckingchrist, what a fucking stupid thing to write.

The indigenous people of the Americas built cities, cultivated land, managed game, and participated in trade networks which spanned the continents. The Americas didn't become "wild" until European diseases killed most of those people off, in greater numbers than the Black Plague, which left post-Roman Europe "wild" for the same reasons.

The Americas were a post-apocalyptic landscape by the seventeenth century, with immune invaders scavenging the ruins and subjugating the survivors. It's a world haunted by ghosts.

You are correct in the assessment that the Native American tribes built great cities and had vast civilizations, but by the time the English landed in Virginia in 1607, disease had pretty much decimated all that. Just like you said.

And considering the fact that my campaign is centered around a historical fantasy version of Jamestown, well......

Players would start out at Level 1 and be English settlers/adventurers on contract with the Virginia Company of London and the English Crown, and the biggest threat isn't the Natives or even the wild animals and monsters lurking in the Virginia woods, but rather the Spanish, who are at the height of their colonial empire's power and are willing to plunder the fledgling English colony. After all, Jamestown was initially built as a fortified village. And the reason why it was built like a fort was to keep the Spanish out, not the Natives.

In fact, the English really didn't see the Powhatan and Rappahannock people as a threat until 1622, when Opechanacough, brother of the legendary King Powhatan, became the new chief of the Powhatan and declared open war on the English. The English were caught by surprise because they were so concerned about the Spanish (as well as the profits of tobacco farming, as Virginia was established as an economic venture) that they didn't really pay attention to the fact that they were royally pissing off the Powhatan and once John Rolfe and Pocahontas left for London, all bets were off.

Jamestown survived because it was well-fortified, but the outlying farms and settlements that had sprung up around the Tidewater during the 1610's and early 1620's were largely decimated by the Powhatan.

Quote from: Brand55;954450Boo-fucking-hoo. By that standard, we would have to eliminate 90% of all the games out there currently. The various bits on religion alone would disqualify a good chunk of the games sitting on my shelf now from ever being played. And it's not like I ever hear any complaints about the atheists in Seattle who like to use Christian elements in their roleplaying and card games.

Warhammer 40k, Warhammer Fantasy, Anima, Armageddon, Dresden Files, Dungeons & Dragons, Deadlands . . . Hell, we might as well all just play Bunnies and Burrows.

Show some respect.

Do you think Native Americans would be happy with outsiders making up a highly anti-native biased fictional work based on their culture? I don't flipping think so. It's a culture that has already faced too much bigotry and genocide as it is.

It would be just as distasteful as if someone made an RPG based on the Holocaust. Only slanted to the point of view of the Nazis.

Quote from: Kiero;954451Cahokia. A pre-Colombian Native American city.



Hells, yes. We played a 1750s (so late Contact...) Mage: the Awakening game set in New York province, and for me that element was significantly more interesting than all the magical/arcane stuff.

I know what you mean. People tend to be surprised when I say I don't even need the Mythos in CoC games, because cultists are more interesting:D!

Well, at least all of your games stand a chance to be written some day;).

Quote from: Darrin Kelley;954455Show some respect.

Do you think Native Americans would be happy with outsiders making up a highly anti-native biased fictional work based on their culture? I don't flipping think so. It's a culture that has already faced too much bigotry and genocide as it is.

It would be just as distasteful as if someone made an RPG based on the Holocaust. Only slanted to the point of view of the Nazis.

Who said anything about it being negative? You made that up all on your own. And you can stop right there with the logical fallacies because we aren't talking about anything remotely resembling a pro-Nazi Holocaust game. I don't think anyone in this thread is talking about wanting to see FATAL: The (Insert Culture of Your Choice) Edition.

Quote from: Darrin Kelley;954443Problem with that is: The people of those currently surviving cultures it could and would offend.

It's why I am far more comfortable with fantasy and gaming based on cultures who are long gone. Nobody left of them to offend or provoke.

I prefer games that are well-researched and fairly presented, that way the only people offended are ignorant douchebags and moral busybodies.

Quote from: Tristram Evans;954469I prefer games that are well-researched and fairly presented, that way the only people offended are ignorant douchebags and moral busybodies.

What this guy said

Quote from: Darrin Kelley;954443Problem with that is: The people of those currently surviving cultures it could and would offend.

It's why I am far more comfortable with fantasy and gaming based on cultures who are long gone. Nobody left of them to offend or provoke.

And just which cultures would those be? Vikings, Celts, Anglo-Saxons, Romans, Classical Greeks all have surviving decendants today, some of whom are quite passionate about their culture and history. Certainly anything after the year 1000 has the potential to provoke and offend, and probably a lot earlier than that.

You may not care or be offended, but there are plenty of people who take their culture and history seriously.


And that is leaving aside the long gone cultures whose practices and mores were offensive by Modern sensibilities.

I love it when white folk assert their liberal bona fides by asserting how offended they are on behalf of the rest of us who, y'know, need mighty white liberal knights to protect us.

Quote from: 3rik;954326Even for the Aztecs there's only one game that managed to produce something playable: the unmatched GURPS Aztecs.

I have that one, actually. And it certainly makes for a fascinating setting, but I still want Incas. It's the principle of the thing! Or something.

Quote from: 3rik;954326Incas would be even more tricky to "get right"

How so?

Quote from: Brand55;954440I'd love to see more Native American-inspired games out there.

I know of one called Ehdrigohr, which has an unusual setting if nothing else - there's stuff like giant worms hibernating beneath the ground and any person or animal who sleeps on the land above them becomes possessed by demons that makes them shiver and jitter while slowly mutating into monsters, people building cities on the backs of giant tortoises, and just generally a lot of interesting weirdness with a definite non-European flavour to it. I got the feeling that I would probably like it more if I knew the first thing about American Indian cultures, though, since then I'd recognise which ones different nations in the game were inspired by and have an easier time keeping track of them - and of course the rule system is FATE, and FATE gives me a headache.

Quote from: Tristram Evans;954469I prefer games that are well-researched and fairly presented, that way the only people offended are ignorant douchebags and moral busybodies.

Quote from: Doc Sammy;954495What this guy said

+1 to that, really.

Quote from: DavetheLost;954501And just which cultures would those be? Vikings, Celts, Anglo-Saxons, Romans, Classical Greeks all have surviving decendants today, some of whom are quite passionate about their culture and history. Certainly anything after the year 1000 has the potential to provoke and offend, and probably a lot earlier than that.

You may not care or be offended, but there are plenty of people who take their culture and history seriously.


And that is leaving aside the long gone cultures whose practices and mores were offensive by Modern sensibilities.

Also, that, except that people who start to object to the practices and mores of other cultures probably aren't really interested in playing them;).

Quote from: Matt;954530I love it when white folk assert their liberal bona fides by asserting how offended they are on behalf of the rest of us who, y'know, need mighty white liberal knights to protect us.

I'm white, but I was once considering whether I should punch a well-meaning liberal who decided to be offended on my behalf because of something that mostly existed only in his head:D!

Quote from: AsenRG;954539I'm white, but I was once considering whether I should punch a well-meaning liberal who decided to be offended on my behalf because of something that mostly existed only in his head:D!

I feel that way about skinny bastards who whine about "fat-shaming." Especially given that they seem to have spawned an entire subculture of assholes who holler about how gross I am just to spite them. Like, thanks a bunch, guys!

ETA: On actual topic - I think that any fictional depiction that a) tries to be at least somewhat accurate and b) presents the people of a certain culture as relateable human beings is not only not a problem, but is actively a good thing.

Polynesia? Maori culture and myths? There are a _lot_ of them I can tell you, and its good RPG fodder. Go and watch The Dead Lands for a primer.  

The Napoleonic era - Barry Lyndon and all that make it seem that there is a good scope for a band of Irish rovers.

Biblical history - there was a D20 setting book from Green Ronin if I recall, but not a lot.

Also, I do think that Classical Greece is something that is actually quite underrepresented in fantasy gaming still too - notwithstanding Lords of Olympus. Where is the Classical Greek D&D 5E setting, for example? I am looking forward to Pete Nash's Mythras supplement though.

Quote from: DavetheLost;954501And just which cultures would those be? Vikings, Celts, Anglo-Saxons, Romans, Classical Greeks all have surviving decendants today, some of whom are quite passionate about their culture and history. Certainly anything after the year 1000 has the potential to provoke and offend, and probably a lot earlier than that.

You may not care or be offended, but there are plenty of people who take their culture and history seriously.


And that is leaving aside the long gone cultures whose practices and mores were offensive by Modern sensibilities.

I prefer to stay in the realm of myth. I don't like referencing actual history. Because it is bound to offend.

And yes. I am very aware of actual practicing Norse in the United States.

Quote from: Brand55;954450Warhammer 40k, Warhammer Fantasy, Anima, Armageddon, Dresden Files, Dungeons & Dragons, Deadlands . . . Hell, we might as well all just play Bunnies and Burrows.

Quote from: Darrin Kelley;954571I prefer to stay in the realm of myth.

So, appropriating the religious traditions of other cultures, and bastardizing them into adventures celebrating modern toxic masculinity, where primarily white player characters hunt down, kill, and take the stuff of mythical animals symbolizing aspects of a minority culture's most sacred beliefs.*



* - I see the appeal of this SJW stuff, its so easy to spout off pretentious nonsense that sounds condemning but is actually a bunch of wank.