Quote from: Haffrung;564368Nuanced, sophisticated, and original RPG settings based on sound anthropology have been tried. Harn, Talislanta, and Tekumel come to mind.

They've all been commercial failures, because most RPG players don't want to game in those sorts of worlds. They're regarded as either too mundane, too narrow, or too weird.

Golarian is a kitchen sink setting. If it hews close to stereotypes, that's because Paizo wants to make broadly popular products. If Golarion was as realistic as Harn, it would have real trouble hosting a variety of adventures. If it were as original as Talislanta, it would alienate many customers. If it were as strange as Tekumel, it wouldn't be commercially viable at all.

Holy Cow, some common sense.

JG

Quote from: Sacrosanct;564394So yeah, it seems like threads like that are totally created because they get their kicks out of it.  You'd think someone at TBP on the admin staff is aware of SA and can put 2 and 2 together.

You're assuming that any of the mods can put 2 and 2 together (either they're too dumb or math has been banned as too Western-chauvinist) AND that even they want to bother dipping into the SA cesspool.

JG

Quote from: RPGPundit;564588Fuck the French.

Or, to be more diplomatic, a Frenchman can feel free, if he doesn't like Albion, to make his own dark fantasy setting where fantasy-England is full of some kind of uncouth monsters who cook terrible food and are still somehow much better empire-builders than they are.

RPGPundit

If you go to the UK these days it's pretty clear that they conquered all those countries just so that their nationals would emigrate over and start decent restaurants.

JG

Quote from: Bastetson;564441Please point out this "Keb Air" on this map or this wikia. The Egyptian-analogue is called Osirion. Maybe you meant Geb?
BTW, I have both the (old) Campaign Setting book and the (newer) Inner Sea World Guide within reach.
Thanks.

I expect I was confusing Geb with Osirion. Either way they clearly did not "leave out Egypt".

Quote from: Stackmaster J;564456On topic, though, racism is an issue that I think RPGs could tackle, but it would be best if it wasn't with analagous cultures. That will just make it harder to do sanely and without getting into arguments over real world affairs.

I agree - when I took a look at racism in my Southlands campaign with the Altanian vs Nerathi conflict, while I used various real-world tropes for both, neither group is closely analogous to a real-world group.  The Nerathi antagonists were white, but not based on any particular rw white ethny.

Quote from: RPGPundit;564589For the record, we're 30 pages in, and I know that theRPGsite is probably not the most concentrated place to find Golarion-experts, but I have yet to see a single serious post presenting either decent textual examples that support the idea of Golarion being racist, or refute the same claim.

RPGPundit

What would constitute evidence that Golarion is not racist? Evidence can be adduced to refute specific accusations, but it is not possible to refute an allegation of racism as a free-floating miasma that includes positive depictions, negative depictions, and non-depictions, of any culture or race.

Quote from: MGuy;564561The thing is, I don't really "care" about the obvious racism. Pigeon holding "the darkies" to being primitive is something that falls beneath the "insult" radar for most people (that associate them with it and that aren't thinking of the implications) and its not something you have to "look" for. Now it wouldn't be so "racist" had they positied what changes would be made to the culture based on the world they live in considering that specific gods or other higher beings actually exist, you don't have empire building foreigners stomping out their culture, and they have access to something that would catapult their society out of the grass hut era (IE magic), o if they had high lighted some of the African culture that wasn't just being primitive (Egypt existed!).They did not because they were LAZY. No effort was taken to build anything unique or highlight the rich African culture. They chose to highlight how primitive it was. Sure you can dress it up as nicely as you want but it'll only fool the people who don't care. Effort to "build" anything wasn't taken. Holding the dark people and the native american people to grass huts as part of their cultural description is pretty damn racist. Its more racist when their description of primitive hunter/gatherers has to go against Taldians who pride themselves on lon reaching cultural influence and high standards of education, Tian who have a very long very rich history and culture and value family, and Ulfren are hardened northern men who value honor.
I mean the Mwangi DO have a culture its just primitive and unrefined. There are sprinkles in the text about how there might have been evidence of Mwangi having a more advanced culture but its all in ruins. So Dark skinned people have grass huts and possible cannabalists while lighter toned people have culture and influence just as our stereotypes tell us.

I don't think it was done intentionally or with a malicious heart. Its just being lazy and thus not that big a deal. Oh and the spear wielding tribal tattoed man as the representative picture right above the well dressed white dude below him is just icing on the cake.

Except for the fact you are ignoring tons of shit to come up with this conclusion. Osirion (Egypt analogue) EXISTS in the setting, and I can't figure out why people keep saying it doesn't.

Nantambu is a great peaceful Mwangi city and center of learning which contains Magaambya, the oldest magical academy in all Golarion.

The Mwangi are not all "spearchuckers", there are several different cultures even within the Mwangi, among them the Bonuwat, who are sailors and fishermen, and the Mauxi who are part of the nation of Thuvia, some of which are part of the upper ruling caste.

Everyone making accusations at Paizo (and hell I'm not even a fan of Pathfinder, I just know a lot about it because my brother runs a campaign in the setting, I find it a bit too much still like 3.5 to me (I'm a FC fan, personally)), seems to be ignoring everything and focusing entirely on the Zenj and removing all context.

Quote from: Emperor Norton;564631Except for the fact you are ignoring tons of shit to come up with this conclusion. Osirion (Egypt analogue) EXISTS in the setting, and I can't figure out why people keep saying it doesn't.

Nantambu is a great peaceful Mwangi city and center of learning which contains Magaambya, the oldest magical academy in all Golarion.

The Mwangi are not all "spearchuckers", there are several different cultures even within the Mwangi, among them the Bonuwat, who are sailors and fishermen, and the Mauxi who are part of the nation of Thuvia, some of which are part of the upper ruling caste.

Everyone making accusations at Paizo (and hell I'm not even a fan of Pathfinder, I just know a lot about it because my brother runs a campaign in the setting, I find it a bit too much still like 3.5 to me (I'm a FC fan, personally)), seems to be ignoring everything and focusing entirely on the Zenj and removing all context.

That's what's in the setting book. You can be mad at "me" all you want for pointing it out right there in the text but when you look at the picture in the book right above the description its shirtless tribal black dude with a spear right above the entry of the clean cut well dressed white dude. All the larking about having to go around to find something deeper, while interesting, isn't hat the culture's description is in the setting book. Again, personally, I don't really care but that don't mean it ain't there.

Quote from: GrimJesta;564522What the fuck is this "informed answer" bullshit? This has no place on the internet! This is the domain of knee-jerk hyper-reactionary freakouts and finger-pointing! Get it right!



-=Grim=-

Sorry. I'm new here. I was hoping the rest of my post would have filled in that quota.

Are people mad that Golarion's egyptians aren't black?

Quote from: MGuy;564678That's what's in the setting book. You can be mad at "me" all you want for pointing it out right there in the text but when you look at the picture in the book right above the description its shirtless tribal black dude with a spear right above the entry of the clean cut well dressed white dude. All the larking about having to go around to find something deeper, while interesting, isn't hat the culture's description is in the setting book. Again, personally, I don't really care but that don't mean it ain't there.

Did you seriously think that I quoted your entire post because I wanted to respond to just the last sentence in your post? Because you seem to think the only damned thing I was talking about was the picture in the book.

You said there was no Egypt analogue in Golarion, you were wrong, there is one.

As an extension of that you said they didn't put in anything other than primitive spearchucker grass hut "africans". You were WRONG. I listed several other portions of the Mwangi in the setting, including the possibly most PEACEFUL, EDUCATED, and CIVILIZED society in the entire setting (Nantambu).

Jesus christ man, just get over the fact that you were god damned wrong and suck it up.

Does anyone have any pictures for comparison by chance?

QuoteEveryone making accusations at Paizo (and hell I'm not even a fan of Pathfinder, I just know a lot about it because my brother runs a campaign in the setting, I find it a bit too much still like 3.5 to me (I'm a FC fan, personally)), seems to be ignoring everything and focusing entirely on the Zenj and removing all context.

Isn't that the whole point of the internet? Make a bunch of unfounded bullshit up and make sure it's completely out of context just to be sure and then act like it's TOTAL fact.

Then sit back with a giant smile and small giggle with a bag of popcorn.

Quote from: Marleycat;564690Isn't that the whole point of the internet? Make a bunch of unfounded bullshit up and make sure it's completely out of context just to be sure and then act like it's TOTAL fact.

Then sit back with a giant smile and small giggle with a bag of popcorn.

To be entirely honest, I've been popcorning the thread here and the one at TBP (that term by the way just makes me think of purple worms, something about being swallowed by one in an old 2e campaign back in the day engenders a natural hatred of them in me).

I just don't see a reason to stir shit up myself to get popcorn threads. They seem to happen on their own. Like you said. Its the internet

Quote from: MGuy;564561The thing is, I don't really "care" about the obvious racism.

Except that it is neither racist nor obvious, you are just clueless.