Quote from: technoextreme;563830Taking a whole entire culture and plopping it into your setting is generally considered lazy.

By who?

And who cares if it's considered lazy by some unspecified group of people? If that's what you want in your game then good on you. Less time futzing about and creating/learning about an artificial fantasy culture, more time just playing the damn game.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;563831How is it lazy if he is doing the work to research the culture? I think both approached are fine. On the one hand taking an approach that isn't 1:1 can be unique and interesting but taking recognizeable cultures can be handy in a roleplaying game because it gives the players something they can grasp almost immediatley. Most GMs in my experience do a bit of both.

Hey, I admit one of my favorite kingdoms I made for a homebrew setting was based on France. Or Franks if you want to get technical.  

It is generally good to have a reference point; Everyone has at least a glimmering knowledge of Rome, for example.

You might find that a world that is 100 percent origional seems alien, or unnappealing. Not that it is really possible to be 100 percent origional regardless.

Quote from: technoextreme;563830Taking a whole entire culture and plopping it into your setting is generally considered lazy.  There is a huge difference between how Eberron is written where nothing is a straight 1:1 analog of anything in the real world and stuff like the Vistani which are gypsy ripoffs.

If all you want to do is create a setting, go for it.  Make your setting as detailed and unique as possible.  Unless you don't have a regular 40 hour/week job with outside commitments, however, you'll find that creating a setting like that will consume all of your game time.

I once played in a campaign where a guy did exactly that.  He spent an entire summer researching and creating this super detailed and unique setting, and he placed his campaign on top of it.  Do you know how many times it got played?  Two sessions, tops.  The game imploded because a lot of us realized what he really wanted to do was write a novel, not create a game setting.  He held all of the info about the setting, wouldn't let us look at more than a few scraps that he presumed our characters knew, and then got mad when we weren't "doing it right."

I thought the contention was that Golarion was racist, when in fact it's just lazy?  Whew, I'm sure Paizo would be happy to hear that.

Campaign settings – fantasy settings, really, except sometimes those that are explicitly ideological projects – are always going to be a little racist because stereotypes save time for both the author and the reader, and nobody has the time. And also, role-playing games are there so people can harmlessly indulge in atavistic impulses, like pretend-chopping people up with pretend swords, or pretend-chopping up The Other with pretend swords.

"Evil orcs are racist" is usually neither here nor there because when people make their orcs into sensitive shamans or whatever they typically just hand off the job of The Evil Other to weirder shit on two legs, and then you're at "evil mind flayers are racist", etc. etc.

If you're more interested in policing games for political content than you are in the game, you should quit playing the game and get involved in politics.

Also:

QuoteIf all you want to do is create a setting, go for it. Make your setting as detailed and unique as possible. Unless you don't have a regular 40 hour/week job with outside commitments, however, you'll find that creating a setting like that will consume all of your game time.

I once played in a campaign where a guy did exactly that. He spent an entire summer researching and creating this super detailed and unique setting, and he placed his campaign on top of it. Do you know how many times it got played? Two sessions, tops.

Yeah.

Not only do people not want to make uniquely creative fantasy worlds, players don't want to learn about uniquely creative fantasy worlds. Because they aren't that interesting!

Quote from: technoextreme;563818Egypt.

So Paizo is "racist" for populating their Africa analog with lazy cultural knock-offs representing black tribes instead of populating it with a lazy knock-off of a culture of Coptic and Semitic peoples ruled sometimes by Greeks, the "obvious" part of Africa?

:hmm:
...and Paizo is the racist, huh?

Yes, calling France "Frogland" in Dark Albion is terribly offensive.  RPGPundit should be ashamed.

He should also be ashamed for dancing to Ettin's tune.

Well, I intended to answer the Pundit, but since this thread is already far into crazy land, complete with accusations of JRR Tolkien being a racist motherfucker, that I'm just going to let this shit drown itself into irrelevance. This bullshit disgusts me so much, I think I'd melt a fuse trying to answer it, so I won't.

Quote from: Rum Cove;563857Yes, calling France "Frogland" in Dark Albion is terribly offensive.  RPGPundit should be ashamed.

That however I'm going to answer to. Assuming some people would take that shit seriously (I'm not talking about you, Rum, but some asshole who might read this and think to himself "YEAH, DAMN RIGHT!"), let me put it that way.

I'm French. Not Quebec-French. I'm French-French, from the motherfucking Homeland of the French. The Froglands.

I have NO PROBLEM WHATSOEVER with what RPG Pundit did with France in his Dark Albion setting. ACTUALLY, it completely makes sense from a crazy fantasy version of the prejudices the British had against the French, and vice versa, ESPECIALLY when we are talking about the time frame where a little something occured that's called the motherfucking ONE HUNDRED YEAR WAR.

It's a parody. It's a carricature. And I think it's a damn cool carricature because you also have this idea that the Frogmen took over the country and stuff, that there are collaborators who help them control the lands, which means... there also could be a Resistance out there... you see where this is going? Well, I'm feeling it and want to run with it so much in fact that I'm going to spin this into its own thing.

I'm going to flesh out the Froglands for Dark Albion. Me. A Frenchman.

OMG The Prejudice this asshole has against the French...

Wait a minute. He just said he's a Frenchman. Hating on his own people the bastard!!

Give me a fucking break.

Haven't read everything here yet (my eyes ache from rolling...I thought the 'site was better than this), but: no.

Golarion is no more racist than Eurocentric settings that distill the variety of Celtic or Northern European cultures into a limited, stereotyped set of archetypes (like the Pict or Viking).

Quote from: CRKrueger;563800Yeah, but what's the most obvious part of Africa?

Songhai ftw!

Quote from: Benoist;563866I'm going to flesh out the Froglands for Dark Albion. Me. A Frenchman..

Pfft!  It just means you have an identity crisis and you hate your own "people".  That's the worst kind of racist...

Quote from: KenHR;563867.Golarion is no more racist than Eurocentric settings that distill the variety of Celtic or Northern European cultures into a limited, stereotyped set of archetypes (like the Pict or Viking).

You cannot be this fucking obtuse. The Viking and the Pict, inaccurate though all their depictions may be, are stereotypes made by other white people. They have never been used to marginalize or oppress minorities. They have never been used to dismiss the entirety of white people as a bunch of savages/thieves/honorable tea-swilling samurai. Stop talking out of your ass and think before you post.

Quote from: Sacrosanct;563880Pfft!  It just means you have an identity crisis and you hate your own "people".  That's the worst kind of racist...

I'm sure there are some completely retarded fuckers who'll think along those lines.

I honestly have nothing to answer to these people. I'd rather have them say that to my face and have the opportunity to punch theirs.

Quote from: TomatoMalone;563883You cannot be this fucking obtuse. The Viking and the Pict, inaccurate though all their depictions may be, are stereotypes made by other white people. They have never been used to marginalize or oppress minorities. They have never been used to dismiss the entirety of white people as a bunch of savages/thieves/honorable tea-swilling samurai. Stop talking out of your ass and think before you post.

I don't know about vikings or scottish picts but The idea of irish as savage barbarians was certainly a stereotype employed here in Boston when they first started coming here in large numbers. Saw it all the time when I had to go through old newspapers and city records for my history internship.