TheRPGSite

With some help from my cat "Big Chungus", in my newest video I talk about how the D&D SJW's Stalinism is reaching new extremes, and the ridiculous new "conduct" rules they want to impose on every designer in the ttrpg and OSR hobby.

[video=youtube_share;1S9An65RmRM]https://youtu.be/1S9An65RmRM[/youtube]

I'm not going to lie, I paused what I was watching to watch this video because of Big Chungus in the box.

Big Chungus looks so loveable!

And the example you brought up seems oddly familiar...... ;)

All hail Big Chungus!

Thank you for referring to these clowns as Stalinists. It's an important distinction beyond their anarchist and communist rhetoric. These morons seek to have REALITY conform to their ideology.

What is it with cats and cardboard boxes. My two are the same.

By the way I'm available for hire... I specialize in sensitivity reading. For 1000 bucks you'll get my stamp of approval.

Quote from: The Exploited.;1134179What is it with cats and cardboard boxes. My two are the same.

By the way I'm available for hire... I specialize in sensitivity reading. For 1000 bucks you'll get my stamp of approval.

   Their favorite version of the box is almost closed.  They are ambush predators, and a dark hold to pop out of is their dream come true, both for offense and defense.

Quote from: RPGPundit;1134155With some help from my cat "Big Chungus", in my newest video I talk about how the D&D SJW's Stalinism is reaching new extremes, and the ridiculous new "conduct" rules they want to impose on every designer in the ttrpg and OSR hobby.

[video=youtube_share;1S9An65RmRM]https://youtu.be/1S9An65RmRM[/youtube]

I just wanted you to know I clicked on the video because it showed Big Chungus in the box. I would not have clicked it if it had been a book cover. Probably. :)

I don't see any reason to be upset about this Code of Conduct.

Firstly, any company that is going to base their employee conduct code on a free download from an RPG site isn't a serious company.

Secondly, any company that needs this code is designing by committee and won't produce anything worthwhile anyway.

Finally, if DriveThru requires this for publication, all that will do is drive more people off DriveThru which can only be a good thing.

Quote from: Spinachcat;1134168All hail Big Chungus!

Thank you for referring to these clowns as Stalinists. It's an important distinction beyond their anarchist and communist rhetoric. These morons seek to have REALITY conform to their ideology.

The cat is indeed very cute.

As for Stalinist, well -- I suppose Stalin was most infamous for executing and starving millions of people to death -- but he was also infamous for suggesting codes of conduct. So I guess it fits. :rolleyes:

Quote from: hedgehobbit;1134270I don't see any reason to be upset about this Code of Conduct.

Firstly, any company that is going to base their employee conduct code on a free download from an RPG site isn't a serious company.

Secondly, any company that needs this code is designing by committee and won't produce anything worthwhile anyway.

Finally, if DriveThru requires this for publication, all that will do is drive more people off DriveThru which can only be a good thing.

Yeah... I don't think we've anything to worry about here tbh. No one credible would adopt such a 'manifesto'. And by 'credible' I mean games companies that I'd actually buy from. Several, I won't touch with a barge pole.

Quote from: oggsmash;1134231Their favorite version of the box is almost closed.  They are ambush predators, and a dark hold to pop out of is their dream come true, both for offense and defense.

Like a trap door spider! Except with claws. My too also love bags. Either to get into or just sit on.

Like today's Leftists, Stalin sought to organize every aspect of society to adhere to his vision of communist ideology.  Freedom of expression does not exist when you're free to express whatever opinion has been approved.

I don't want to adhere to anyone's code of conduct and I don't want to enforce my code of conduct on anyone else.

But that's not where the hobby is heading.

Wow, an HR guy from Portland made a boilerplate form cobbled from various sources.  He's gonna change the world!

Inevitable future:  Every game session will require one NKVD equivalent member (of whatever movement is in power) to be present to oversee and maintain that the group is adhering to required standards of the product.

I wouldn't be surprised if 6e replaces the character sheet at the end of the book with a CoC to be signed by all using their product in a public setting (with a copy sent to WoC for statistical data requirements).

Quote from: hedgehobbit;1134270I don't see any reason to be upset about this Code of Conduct. ...
Finally, if DriveThru requires this for publication, all that will do is drive more people off DriveThru which can only be a good thing.

I said almost the same besides that last point! Which is a good one. If DTRPG goes full communist I feel like the Liberty Digital Marketplace would be more viable...

Quote from: rocksfalleverybodydies;1134320Wow, an HR guy from Portland made a boilerplate form cobbled from various sources.  He's gonna change the world! ...

Nah. I still believe this is a tempest in a tea pot. It's driven by guilt and rage. Instead of all this hand-wringing maybe we should just treat each other with respect and equality? I still don't believe this is anything but a lefty poking the elephants. Any project that adopts this has way bigger issues towards completion than representation, equality, or conduct. I dismiss it as wishful thinking with no practical application. I believe that pointing at it and screaming "spider!!" isn't helping.

One shouldn't respond to hand-wringing with more hand-wringing.

You're just giving them what they want. Some chuckle-head in Portland is reading theRPGsite right now laughing themselves into a coma.

Sorry I should have put a smiley face or something after that statement. :)
Not worried about this.  More amusing than anything.

Quote from: trechriron;1134342...Instead of all this hand-wringing maybe we should just treat each other with respect and equality?...\

That's so crazy, it might just work.  Naw, pandering, over compensation and making everyone afraid to voice a balanced opinion is the soup du jour.  Subservience is the new business model as I am sure it is profitable in the end.  Having a moderate opinion these days is very unfashionable I guess.

Quote from: trechriron;1134342.... I believe that pointing at it and screaming "spider!!" isn't helping.

One shouldn't respond to hand-wringing with more hand-wringing.

Of course you don't point at it and scream "spider"...EVERYONE knows you kill it with napalm! :D

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GXif__oPXX4 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GXif__oPXX4)

Quote from: trechriron;1134342You're just giving them what they want. Some chuckle-head in Portland is reading theRPGsite right now laughing themselves into a coma.

I'm pretty sure Pundit appreciates any clicks he gets from his detractors.  No such thing as bad publicity and all that...


....But, on to the actual important point from the video.


Pundit, where the fuck is the OSR/DCC stat block for Big Chungus?

Quote from: moonsweeper;1134376Pundit, where the fuck is the OSR/DCC stat block for Big Chungus?

An incisive and important question. Now that you ask, I don't know how I went this long WITHOUT Big Chungus in my games. RPG Pundit Presents #101?

Quote from: moonsweeper;1134376Pundit, where the fuck is the OSR/DCC stat block for Big Chungus?

You cannot stat a god!

Quote from: trechriron;1134342If DTRPG goes full communist I feel like the Liberty Digital Marketplace would be more viable...

Agreed.

Tenbones was discussing how adverse the novel/publishing industry has gotten toward traditional adventure fantasy, so I believe there is a real market opportunity catering to readers left behind by the mainstream.

Quote from: trechriron;1134342I still believe this is a tempest in a tea pot. It's driven by guilt and rage. Instead of all this hand-wringing maybe we should just treat each other with respect and equality? I still don't believe this is anything but a lefty poking the elephants. Any project that adopts this has way bigger issues towards completion than representation, equality, or conduct. I dismiss it as wishful thinking with no practical application. I believe that pointing at it and screaming "spider!!" isn't helping.

Unfortunately, this "guilt and rage" nonsense is being promoted in universities. My buddy is doing his MBA and he's pretty sure he's accidentally enrolled in North Korea University. Utter idiocy like this CoC isn't isolated to RPGs. It's a spreading cancer.

The joke is that the clowns talking about "respect and equality" don't offer either unless you submit to their ideology. Meanwhile, I just want everyone on my projects to STFU about their personal politics and just get the job done brilliantly so everyone can be rewarded for their best efforts.

[QUOTE\]I just want everyone on my projects to STFU about their personal politics and just get the job done brilliantly so everyone can be rewarded for their best efforts.[/QUOTE]

How Dare You insist upon common sense!!!

Quote from: Spinachcat;1134549You cannot stat a god!

Pfft, none of this new school airy fairy mumbo jumbo story gaming rubbish.  We want Old School God stats, and then we want to kick in (the fictional RPG representation of ) Big Chunguses door and harvest that sweet sweet xp.

Quote from: insubordinate polyhedral;1134156I'm not going to lie, I paused what I was watching to watch this video because of Big Chungus in the box.

That was the goal.

Quote from: The Exploited.;1134179What is it with cats and cardboard boxes. My two are the same.

By the way I'm available for hire... I specialize in sensitivity reading. For 1000 bucks you'll get my stamp of approval.

In their first year or two, I tried getting the cats various cat toys. They would never be interested in them for more than two minutes.

But any time I have an empty box, one or both cats will jump in and stay there for 12+ hours at a time.

Quote from: jhkim;1134308The cat is indeed very cute.

As for Stalinist, well -- I suppose Stalin was most infamous for executing and starving millions of people to death -- but he was also infamous for suggesting codes of conduct. So I guess it fits. :rolleyes:

He absolutely did. The code of conduct even extended to rewriting history (unpersoning anyone he killed, forcing everyone to pretend he never existed), to getting rid of real science in favor of ideological science (Lysenkoism), and sending anyone who was "problematic" to a Gulag.

I agree, the wokeness of much of the industry is getting to be too much. I recently had a discussion on another rpg site about "LGBTQ" representation in a future Dungeons & Dragons movie, we were talking about how to make a great D&D movie and to avoid the mistakes of the previous D&D movie, one of the issues I raised was one of forced diversity, in the first D&D movie there was a black character, and I compared that movie to Lord of the Rings, which I think was a great movie trilogy. One of the things about Lord of the Rings is that all of the characters that were not cgi and who's faces were not covered were played by white actors and actresses, this movie felt more authentically medeaval than the first Dungeons & Dragons movie with its token black character and its evil 20th level fighter with blue lipstick. I made the argument that the setting should determine who is cast, rather than setting aside various roles for minority actors. I think the most important part of movie making is creating a good movie, and if it's based on European folklore, it should have a cast of white actors to create authenticity in the setting. Saying this got me in a bit of trouble with the administrators because of my unwise point of view.

On the LGTBQ one person suggested that one of the characters be LGTBQ, and I asked how that would make it a better movie for the inclusion of such a character. I also made the comment about a rich character, such as a princess using magic to change her GENDER, I got in a lot of trouble for making that suggestion. I said there would likely be no gender reassignment surgery in medeaval fantasy, but a wish spell could accomplish a sex change without producing a trans character, I noted that Elminster once did such a thing in a Forgotten Realms novel.

Quote from: Tom Kalbfus;1134706On the LGTBQ one person suggested that one of the characters be LGTBQ, and I asked how that would make it a better movie for the inclusion of such a character. I also made the comment about a rich character, such as a princess using magic to change her GENDER, I got in a lot of trouble for making that suggestion. I said there would likely be no gender reassignment surgery in medeaval fantasy, but a wish spell could accomplish a sex change without producing a trans character, I noted that Elminster once did such a thing in a Forgotten Realms novel.

Medieval Fantasy certainly does have gender reassignment surgery.  


Male to Eunuch.

Yep, cutting off ones genitals is one thing, the hormone treatments is something else entirely. Eunuchs we're often created to guard female members of noble households, after all, can't have a servant getting the princess pregnant, virginity was a commodity back then.

Quote from: Tom Kalbfus;1134706I agree, the wokeness of much of the industry is getting to be too much. I recently had a discussion on another rpg site about "LGBTQ" representation in a future Dungeons & Dragons movie, we were talking about how to make a great D&D movie and to avoid the mistakes of the previous D&D movie, one of the issues I raised was one of forced diversity, in the first D&D movie there was a black character, and I compared that movie to Lord of the Rings, which I think was a great movie trilogy. One of the things about Lord of the Rings is that all of the characters that were not cgi and who's faces were not covered were played by white actors and actresses, this movie felt more authentically medeaval than the first Dungeons & Dragons movie with its token black character and its evil 20th level fighter with blue lipstick. I made the argument that the setting should determine who is cast, rather than setting aside various roles for minority actors. I think the most important part of movie making is creating a good movie, and if it's based on European folklore, it should have a cast of white actors to create authenticity in the setting. Saying this got me in a bit of trouble with the administrators because of my unwise point of view.

Did you forget the Haradrim and their war elephants? War elephants (or oliphaunts) not being particularly medieval and the Haradrim being black in the books and pretty much Arab in the films. They're a pretty big part of the story, especially in the films, which has a lot more focus on Legolas doing insane things on elephants.

Quote from: RPGPundit;1134583In their first year or two, I tried getting the cats various cat toys. They would never be interested in them for more than two minutes.

But any time I have an empty box, one or both cats will jump in and stay there for 12+ hours at a time.

We had a big box from Costco in the hallway for about a month. Then I got the insane idea to put it out with the trash. Now Squeakytoy is sitting where it used to be, making threatening noises and  glaring at everyone who passes by and scaring the dogs. And me.

Quote from: WillInNewHaven;1134744We had a big box from Costco in the hallway for about a month. Then I got the insane idea to put it out with the trash. Now Squeakytoy is sitting where it used to be, making threatening noises and  glaring at everyone who passes by and scaring the dogs. And me.

Pics or it didn't happen. :D

Quote from: Blankman;1134742Did you forget the Haradrim and their war elephants? War elephants (or oliphaunts) not being particularly medieval and the Haradrim being black in the books and pretty much Arab in the films. They're a pretty big part of the story, especially in the films, which has a lot more focus on Legolas doing insane things on elephants.

No, they were from another region to the south brought in by Sauron, they have a story reason for being there, Sauron brought them in as part of an army, that is different from just having a random individual who just happens to be black for diversity reasons, no explanation given, and no one paying them no mind. I'm pretty sure that if a black man were to suddenly appear in an 11th century village in England, people will be asking where he came from, because they likely never seen a black man before. A stranger of a different race coming from a different continent suddenly showing up in a medeaval village is not an every day event. Now if a white person showed up in an African village in the 11th century, he'd get similar attention, as locals are not used to seeing such people. There are not a lot of globetrotting tourists in these times, this is not the 21st century in our world.

I don't even want to imagine the clusterfuck that a future D&D movie might be.

There could make a great D&D movie, or they can make a woke movie with every demographic and sexual orientation represented in order to push their social agenda. Seems like Hollywood is on a mission to change society rather that to pursue profit, and it's too bad. I would much rather have a good movie to watch than a piece of woke trash.

Quote from: Tom Kalbfus;1134747No, they were from another region to the south brought in by Sauron, they have a story reason for being there, Sauron brought them in as part of an army, that is different from just having a random individual who just happens to be black for diversity reasons, no explanation given, and no one paying them no mind. I'm pretty sure that if a black man were to suddenly appear in an 11th century village in England, people will be asking where he came from, because they likely never seen a black man before. A stranger of a different race coming from a different continent suddenly showing up in a medeaval village is not an every day event. Now if a white person showed up in an African village in the 11th century, he'd get similar attention, as locals are not used to seeing such people. There are not a lot of globetrotting tourists in these times, this is not the 21st century in our world.

That's not what you wrote though. You claimed everyone in the LotR films, apart from characters with covered faces, was portrayed by a white actor. This isn't true, because the Haradrim are in there. You made a claim, that claim was false.

As for villages in the 11th century, ok, but since when should a D&D film be about villagers? In the 11th century you had Norse fighters appearing in the Mediterranean under Byzantine command, Norman forces conquering Sicily from the Arabs, El Cid fighting for and with both Christian and Muslim rulers in Spain and eventually conquering Valencia with a mixed army of Moors and Spaniards, and of course the first crusade, in which a bunch of Western Europeans conquered the Holy Land. Screw Medieval England, one of the less interesting places of the time period anyway.

The D&D movie probably tanked less because a few of the characters were black and more because one of the black characters was played by the brother of the guy in my avatar.

Quote from: Blankman;1134783As for villages in the 11th century, ok, but since when should a D&D film be about villagers? In the 11th century you had Norse fighters appearing in the Mediterranean under Byzantine command, Norman forces conquering Sicily from the Arabs, El Cid fighting for and with both Christian and Muslim rulers in Spain and eventually conquering Valencia with a mixed army of Moors and Spaniards, and of course the first crusade, in which a bunch of Western Europeans conquered the Holy Land. Screw Medieval England, one of the less interesting places of the time period anyway.

Arabian Arabs are white. Some of them have a pretty strong tan. But there is no noticeable racial difference between Spaniards Sicilians Moroccans & Tunisians, say - counting European and Arab as separate races really is a 'social construct', and not one a man in AD 1100 would make. Even Normans are just a bit pastier, and they tan up like any other whites.

Quote from: S'mon;1134784Arabian Arabs are white. Some of them have a pretty strong tan. But there is no noticeable racial difference between Spaniards Sicilians Moroccans & Tunisians, say - counting European and Arab as separate races really is a 'social construct', and not one a man in AD 1100 would make. Even Normans are just a bit pastier, and they tan up like any other whites.

Eh, in a modern American context there is. In a medieval European context, and really in a modern European context, "white" is a meaningless concept. There are clearly ethnic differences though, and one on the main reasons there isn't, or less of one, with Sicilians and Spaniards and northern Africans is of course that those places were conquered by Moors and population mingling occurred (and of course Spain, North Africa, Sicily and Palestine has all been part of the Roman Empire for hundreds of years prior to this).

I even question if the LOTR film series could even make it out of the development stage today, as people would be decrying it for various reasons, launching on tirades of racism and depiction, even through Tolkien was very anti-racist and anti-war.
Those knowledgeable of Tolkien's work would understand that the events in the film were just a small moment in the grand scheme Middle Earth's Ages, where many events came to pass, resulting in the Haradrim siding with Mordor and their reasons for doing so.  Rather, most people would get their hackles up and start posting outrage tweets about something or other.

Jackson's films weren't even made that long ago and today the ability to knee-jerk respond and trend nonsense, uneducated views would have probably have made Jackson's attempts to film LOTR a non-starter for Hollywood's delicate sensibilities before it even got the green light.

Jackson had enough trouble getting a studio to sign on as it was.  It would perhaps appease the woke crowd that Weinstein pressured Jackson with demands that eventually ended up with Miramax losing out to Newline on one of the biggest profit film series ever.  Oops.

I can only imagine how Hollywood would attempt another D&D movie in their overly-embarrassing efforts to show that they are so very woke and forgetting that escapism from the noise is why (or perhaps did) people love D&D.  It's probably going to take an independent YT series or something similar to do the concept justice: if WoC doesn't sue them into oblivion for even hinting at it being a D&D influenced vehicle.

Lest they forget, most of those people who made the LOTR film series so successful and enjoyed it for the story and escapism are still out there somewhere.  Perhaps trying to pander to the outraged ends up pleasing no one and just racks up another failed attempt at a good D&D film.  Oh, and a decent script with developed, engaging characters wouldn't hurt either this time around.

Quote from: rocksfalleverybodydies;1134800I even question if the LOTR film series could even make it out of the development stage today, as people would be decrying it for various reasons, launching on tirades of racism and depiction, even through Tolkien was very anti-racist and anti-war.
Those knowledgeable of Tolkien's work would understand that the events in the film were just a small moment in the grand scheme Middle Earth's Ages, where many events came to pass, resulting in the Haradrim siding with Mordor and their reasons for doing so.  Rather, most people would get their hackles up and start posting outrage tweets about something or other.

Jackson's films weren't even made that long ago and today the ability to knee-jerk respond and trend nonsense, uneducated views would have probably have made Jackson's attempts to film LOTR a non-starter for Hollywood's delicate sensibilities before it even got the green light.

Jackson had enough trouble getting a studio to sign on as it was.  It would perhaps appease the woke crowd that Weinstein pressured Jackson with demands that eventually ended up with Miramax losing out to Newline on one of the biggest profit film series ever.  Oops.

I can only imagine how Hollywood would attempt another D&D movie in their overly-embarrassing efforts to show that they are so very woke and forgetting that escapism from the noise is why (or perhaps did) people love D&D.  It's probably going to take an independent YT series or something similar to do the concept justice: if WoC doesn't sue them into oblivion for even hinting at it being a D&D influenced vehicle.

Lest they forget, most of those people who made the LOTR film series so successful and enjoyed it for the story and escapism are still out there somewhere.  Perhaps trying to pander to the outraged ends up pleasing no one and just racks up another failed attempt at a good D&D film.

I personally only really liked one of Jackson's six Middle Earth films (Fellowship of the Ring), but that had to do with butchering the characters and the story, putting too much focus on the battles and cutting out some really important parts (like the Scouring of the Shire). But as for it making it out of development today, why not? Game of Thrones is at least as "problematic", has racist and rapist main characters, a fairly unnuanced depiction of horse nomad culture (and lots of other cultures, but I doubt too many people would be upset about how fucking stupid the Ironborn are portrayed because they're "white"), used half-dressed and naked women to sell the show etc etc, and it was one of the most popular tv shows out there, until the last season did a belly flop after a two year wait and everyone stopped talking about it.

Quote from: Spinachcat;1134766I don't even want to imagine the clusterfuck that a future D&D movie might be.

I want to see an HBO D&D series set in Ed Greenwood's Home Campaign Forgotten Realms, with Alustriel inviting Driz'zt to one of her orgies.  Flashbacks to his time in Menzoberranzan, shown to be a cross between Caligula and Clive Barker would bring the Horror.  Basically make Game of Thrones look like Sesame Street.  HBO would be boycotted by every SJW in existence, and still rake in the cash.

Blankman, you make some fair points about GoT.

Perhaps due to it being HBO who is rather renowned for making risky project and subject matter work really well in all its unabashed grit and glory.  Specialty channel networks may be the better option these days.

That's why I don't quite get where D&D seems to be trending in the opposite direction.
We need WoC, 'HBO'ed as it were.  Heh

Quote from: rocksfalleverybodydies;1134805Blankman, you make some fair points about GoT.

Perhaps due to it being HBO who is rather renowned for making risky project and subject matter work really well in all its unabashed grit and glory.  Specialty channel networks may be the better option these days.

That's why I don't quite get where D&D seems to be trending in the opposite direction.
We need WoC, 'HBO'ed as it were.  Heh

I think the real thing is, there's a lot of sturm und drang about this type of stuff on the net, but it never amounts to anything, in either direction. Works succeed or fail mostly on other factors. Take the recent Star Wars films for instance. "oh my god, the racist sexists tanked The Last Jedi on Rotten Tomatoes through magic!!" Uh-huh, and why couldn't the same racist sexists do the same thing with Wonder Woman? Because Wonder Woman was a well-received film that was pretty respectful of the character (despite moving her to WWI) while The Last Jedi was made by someone who doesn't understand pacing and seemingly hated Star Wars. The Ghostbusters remake didn't fail because of misogyny, it failed because the film was bad and unfunny. Similarly the Hobbit movies weren't panned and kind of underwhelming money-wise (despite grossing around three billion dollars in total) because they only featured two relevant female characters and no black people, but because Peter Jackson can't pace films for shit and spent way too long on boring cgi-fest fight scenes and trying to gritty up the story and not enough on making a good adaptation of what was actually there.

There's always some assholes screaming online. It doesn't matter. It has a very limited effect, if any, on the performance of a film or tv-show.

Quote from: Spinachcat;1134766I don't even want to imagine the clusterfuck that a future D&D movie might be.

it could be awesome if the entire plot of the new DND movie was to go back in time and ensure that the first D&D movie was never made.

Quote from: rocksfalleverybodydies;1134800I even question if the LOTR film series could even make it out of the development stage today, as people would be decrying it for various reasons, launching on tirades of racism and depiction, even through Tolkien was very anti-racist and anti-war.

I always thought Jackson's -Saruman's Maori Uruk-Hai were a little close to the bone!

But few SJWs outside New Zealand care about Maori, and even there the Maori are a little too badass to play the victim role very well. I expect SJWs would be more about demanding black hobbits, black elves, black dwarves, black Rohirrim, black Numenoreans (oops... :D) et al.

Quote from: S'mon;1134811I always thought Jackson's -Saruman's Maori Uruk-Hai were a little close to the bone!

But few SJWs outside New Zealand care about Maori, and even there the Maori are a little too badass to play the victim role very well. I expect SJWs would be more about demanding black hobbits, black elves, black dwarves, black Rohirrim, black Numenoreans (oops... :D) et al.

Yeah, have your average American Starbucks Liberal go tell the Maori what victims they are.  I'd pay good money to watch.

Quote from: CRKrueger;1134804I want to see an HBO D&D series set in Ed Greenwood's Home Campaign Forgotten Realms, with Alustriel inviting Driz'zt to one of her orgies.  Flashbacks to his time in Menzoberranzan, shown to be a cross between Caligula and Clive Barker would bring the Horror.  Basically make Game of Thrones look like Sesame Street.  HBO would be boycotted by every SJW in existence, and still rake in the cash.

If they did set a film or show in the Forgotten Realms, I'd want them to do ethnic diversity, but Forgotten Realms ethnic diversity. Have an elf that looks like they're supposed to look there. Hands and fingers half-again as long as a human's. Gold Elves have bronze skin and copper, black or blonde hair with eyes of gold, silver or black. Moon elves have bleach white faces tinged with blue, silver-white, black or blue hair, and blue or green eyes with gold flecks. Wild elves have copper skin with tinctures of green, and otherwise fairly normal eyes and hair. Sea elves have either deep green skin with irregular patches of brown, or blue skin with white patches and stripes. The Drow with their obsidian black skin and and stark white hair and eyes don't look so weird now, do they?

Quote from: Blankman;1134816If they did set a film or show in the Forgotten Realms, I'd want them to do ethnic diversity, but Forgotten Realms ethnic diversity. Have an elf that looks like they're supposed to look there. Hands and fingers half-again as long as a human's. Gold Elves have bronze skin and copper, black or blonde hair with eyes of gold, silver or black. Moon elves have bleach white faces tinged with blue, silver-white, black or blue hair, and blue or green eyes with gold flecks. Wild elves have copper skin with tinctures of green, and otherwise fairly normal eyes and hair. Sea elves have either deep green skin with irregular patches of brown, or blue skin with white patches and stripes. The Drow with their obsidian black skin and and stark white hair and eyes don't look so weird now, do they?

Yeah, painting Realms Elves the way they should be painted makes them look way different, and the Drow don't stick out at all.

Quote from: S'mon;1134811I always thought Jackson's -Saruman's Maori Uruk-Hai were a little close to the bone!

But few SJWs outside New Zealand care about Maori, and even there the Maori are a little too badass to play the victim role very well. I expect SJWs would be more about demanding black hobbits, black elves, black dwarves, black Rohirrim, black Numenoreans (oops... :D) et al.

Quote from: CRKrueger;1134814Yeah, have your average American Starbucks Liberal go tell the Maori what victims they are.  I'd pay good money to watch.

You romanticise the nobel savage a little too much.  There are a vocal minority of Maori that lap that victimology shit up but mostly are just normal Kiwis depending where they come from.

Quote from: Shasarak;1134824You romanticise the nobel savage a little too much.  There are a vocal minority of Maori that lap that victimology shit up but mostly are just normal Kiwis depending where they come from.

Oh yeah, you got your Taika Waititi types, but the guys that are into the traditional warrior thing, with the Haka and the face tats or scarring are the ones I'd love to see when Portlanders suggest they're weak.

Quote from: CRKrueger;1134804I want to see an HBO D&D series set in Ed Greenwood's Home Campaign Forgotten Realms, with Alustriel inviting Driz'zt to one of her orgies.  Flashbacks to his time in Menzoberranzan, shown to be a cross between Caligula and Clive Barker would bring the Horror.  Basically make Game of Thrones look like Sesame Street.  HBO would be boycotted by every SJW in existence, and still rake in the cash.

Despite being overused to an extent that would make Wolverine say, 'Bub, give the guy a break', Drizzt's always been a favorite of mine simply because the stubborn little bastard just won't quit trying to do the right thing.

Quote from: Blankman;1134783That's not what you wrote though. You claimed everyone in the LotR films, apart from characters with covered faces, was portrayed by a white actor. This isn't true, because the Haradrim are in there. You made a claim, that claim was false.

As for villages in the 11th century, ok, but since when should a D&D film be about villagers? In the 11th century you had Norse fighters appearing in the Mediterranean under Byzantine command, Norman forces conquering Sicily from the Arabs, El Cid fighting for and with both Christian and Muslim rulers in Spain and eventually conquering Valencia with a mixed army of Moors and Spaniards, and of course the first crusade, in which a bunch of Western Europeans conquered the Holy Land. Screw Medieval England, one of the less interesting places of the time period anyway.

The D&D movie probably tanked less because a few of the characters were black and more because one of the black characters was played by the brother of the guy in my avatar.

The Haradrim are as diverse as they get in Lord of the Rings without going into made up fantasy races such as elves and dwarfs, they are like North Africans or Arabs, I guess you could call them border races. As you move south, skin tones get darker transitioning to black as you move closer to the equator. The Haradrim would not usually be there except for the fact that Sauron hired them as mercenaries and they had financial reasons for traveling north to fight in Sauron's battles. The bigness of the World and the fact that people mostly did not travel around much meant that people tended to stay in their own regions, blacks stayed in the tropics, whites stayed in the north, this only changed with the Age of Exploration when whites started dragging people out of Africa as slaves.

Quote from: Blankman;1134788Eh, in a modern American context there is. In a medieval European context, and really in a modern European context, "white" is a meaningless concept. There are clearly ethnic differences though, and one on the main reasons there isn't, or less of one, with Sicilians and Spaniards and northern Africans is of course that those places were conquered by Moors and population mingling occurred (and of course Spain, North Africa, Sicily and Palestine has all been part of the Roman Empire for hundreds of years prior to this).

There are not distinct borders between the races, there are transition zones, in the case of Africa it is the Sahara desert, it is a dry desolate place and a barrier to movements across it, but as you move across it, skin tones of the native inhabitants get darker transitioning to black. You don't have a situation like today where you have black and white neighborhoods within a short distance of each other in a city, that is more of a modern phenomenon caused by the relative ease of transportation which didn't exist in the Middle Ages. The Age of Exploration was brought about through advancements in sailing technology and open ocean navigation, before that ships huged the coast and stayed mostly in inland seas.

Quote from: Blankman;1134788Eh, in a modern American context there is. In a medieval European context, and really in a modern European context, "white" is a meaningless concept. There are clearly ethnic differences though, and one on the main reasons there isn't, or less of one, with Sicilians and Spaniards and northern Africans is of course that those places were conquered by Moors and population mingling occurred (and of course Spain, North Africa, Sicily and Palestine has all been part of the Roman Empire for hundreds of years prior to this).

There are not distinct borders between the races, there are transition zones, in the case of Africa it is the Sahara desert, it is a dry desolate place and a barrier to movements across it, but as you move across it, skin tones of the native inhabitants get darker transitioning to black. You don't have a situation like today where you have black and white neighborhoods within a short distance of each other in a city, that is more of a modern phenomenon caused by the relative ease of transportation which didn't exist in the Middle Ages. The Age of Exploration was brought about through advancements in sailing technology and open ocean navigation, before that ships huged the coast and stayed mostly in inland seas.

Quote from: rocksfalleverybodydies;1134800I even question if the LOTR film series could even make it out of the development stage today, as people would be decrying it for various reasons, launching on tirades of racism and depiction, even through Tolkien was very anti-racist and anti-war.
Those knowledgeable of Tolkien's work would understand that the events in the film were just a small moment in the grand scheme Middle Earth's Ages, where many events came to pass, resulting in the Haradrim siding with Mordor and their reasons for doing so.  Rather, most people would get their hackles up and start posting outrage tweets about something or other.

Jackson's films weren't even made that long ago and today the ability to knee-jerk respond and trend nonsense, uneducated views would have probably have made Jackson's attempts to film LOTR a non-starter for Hollywood's delicate sensibilities before it even got the green light.

Jackson had enough trouble getting a studio to sign on as it was.  It would perhaps appease the woke crowd that Weinstein pressured Jackson with demands that eventually ended up with Miramax losing out to Newline on one of the biggest profit film series ever.  Oops.

I can only imagine how Hollywood would attempt another D&D movie in their overly-embarrassing efforts to show that they are so very woke and forgetting that escapism from the noise is why (or perhaps did) people love D&D.  It's probably going to take an independent YT series or something similar to do the concept justice: if WoC doesn't sue them into oblivion for even hinting at it being a D&D influenced vehicle.

Lest they forget, most of those people who made the LOTR film series so successful and enjoyed it for the story and escapism are still out there somewhere.  Perhaps trying to pander to the outraged ends up pleasing no one and just racks up another failed attempt at a good D&D film.  Oh, and a decent script with developed, engaging characters wouldn't hurt either this time around.

We need a new Hollywood, Hollywood has been producing too much crap recently by trying to be culturally sensitive and inclusive. TV shows have been the worst, the show Supergirl has devolved into social commentary. I saw what happened to the show Once Upon A Time, it started out great but then became increasingly woke as seasons progressed until the last season where they fired most of the cast in order to include a more diverse set of actors and moved the setting to the inner city, that was so lame, it was a throwaway for social justice, it was pretty much a different show with three holdover cast members from the previous 6 seasons, they reset the whole story arc this time with an inner city setting instead of a small town in Maine, and with everyone's memory wiped.

Quote from: Tom Kalbfus;1134839The Haradrim are as diverse as they get in Lord of the Rings without going into made up fantasy races such as elves and dwarfs, they are like North Africans or Arabs, I guess you could call them border races. As you move south, skin tones get darker transitioning to black as you move closer to the equator. The Haradrim would not usually be there except for the fact that Sauron hired them as mercenaries and they had financial reasons for traveling north to fight in Sauron's battles. The bigness of the World and the fact that people mostly did not travel around much meant that people tended to stay in their own regions, blacks stayed in the tropics, whites stayed in the north, this only changed with the Age of Exploration when whites started dragging people out of Africa as slaves.

Homo Sapiens originated in Africa, and spread to almost every corner of the world before the invention of writing or agriculture. The Roman Empire at its greatest extent stretched from Hadrian's wall in the northwest to Berenice on the Red Sea coast in the southeast. The Norse knew about black people (although they called them blue) and sailed their ships from Canada to the Russian interior and the Black Sea, as well as the Mediterranean and North Africa. The Mongols fought and conquered from China to Poland and Hungary. People moved around. Not most people, no (although the migration period may want a word there) but that is true today as well. Who cares about random villagers, we don't (usually) make films about them. We make films about epic, larger than life characters, or at least people with an interesting story. People like El Cid, or Richard the Lionheart, or Saladin, or Ahmad ibn Fadlan, or Leif Eriksson, or Joan of Arc. Does that mean "we gotta force black and openly gay characters into our D&D movie"? No. But it doesn't mean "all Anglo conceptions of white people all the time or else it isn't accurate" either. Just do what is right for the setting and the story.

But that still has nothing to do with the fact that there are Haradrim in the Lord of the Rings films, and they ain't white, in the traditional American/Anglo-Saxon conception at least. Just admit you didn't think about them in your earlier post.

Quote from: CRKrueger;1134814Yeah, have your average American Starbucks Liberal go tell the Maori what victims they are.  I'd pay good money to watch.

They should go tell the Moriori what victims the Maori are... oops (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moriori).

Quote from: Blankman;1134847Homo Sapiens originated in Africa, and spread to almost every corner of the world before the invention of writing or agriculture. The Roman Empire at its greatest extent stretched from Hadrian's wall in the northwest to Berenice on the Red Sea coast in the southeast. The Norse knew about black people (although they called them blue) and sailed their ships from Canada to the Russian interior and the Black Sea, as well as the Mediterranean and North Africa. The Mongols fought and conquered from China to Poland and Hungary. People moved around. Not most people, no (although the migration period may want a word there) but that is true today as well. Who cares about random villagers, we don't (usually) make films about them. We make films about epic, larger than life characters, or at least people with an interesting story. People like El Cid, or Richard the Lionheart, or Saladin, or Ahmad ibn Fadlan, or Leif Eriksson, or Joan of Arc. Does that mean "we gotta force black and openly gay characters into our D&D movie"? No. But it doesn't mean "all Anglo conceptions of white people all the time or else it isn't accurate" either. Just do what is right for the setting and the story.

But that still has nothing to do with the fact that there are Haradrim in the Lord of the Rings films, and they ain't white, in the traditional American/Anglo-Saxon conception at least. Just admit you didn't think about them in your earlier post.

They are a border ethnic group, they live adjacent to the white European area, so you are more likely to encounter them than a black or east asian person, the further away some one originates from, the less likely you are to encounter them. The drow by contrast live underground, you are more likely to encounter them because they are closer, they only have to come to the surface, they don't have to travel for weeks, months and years to get to the European setting.

Humans spread across the World over thousands of years and multiple generations, not in a jet airplane like they do today. While they were migrating, they physically changed and adapted to the local environments they found themselves in, today there is no time for that, mostly this has to do with the amount of sunlight a given area gets, black people are adapted to tropical regions with high levels of sunlight, white people are adapted to regions with relatively low levels of sunlight that were made habitable in Europe by the Gulf Stream current which modified the climate of Europe allowing agriculture there and higher populations of people than would otherwise be possible. East Asians have darker skin because the normal climate for the eastern shores of continents tend to be colder, Siberia is inhospitable so the majority of the people are forced to live closer to the equator to get a climate where they can grow their own food, the sunlight is still more intense in those regions so they need darker skin. I sunburn very easily, as my skin was not designed for intense summer sunlight at 45 degrees north latitude, my skin was designed for northern Europe. The phenomenon of having ethnic and racial neighborhoods in a city is a relatively recent one, and should not be reflected in a medeaval setting as that would be unrealistic.

Quote from: Blankman;1134847Homo Sapiens originated in Africa, and spread to almost every corner of the world before the invention of writing or agriculture. The Roman Empire at its greatest extent stretched from Hadrian's wall in the northwest to Berenice on the Red Sea coast in the southeast. The Norse knew about black people (although they called them blue) and sailed their ships from Canada to the Russian interior and the Black Sea, as well as the Mediterranean and North Africa. The Mongols fought and conquered from China to Poland and Hungary. People moved around. Not most people, no (although the migration period may want a word there) but that is true today as well. Who cares about random villagers, we don't (usually) make films about them. We make films about epic, larger than life characters, or at least people with an interesting story. People like El Cid, or Richard the Lionheart, or Saladin, or Ahmad ibn Fadlan, or Leif Eriksson, or Joan of Arc. Does that mean "we gotta force black and openly gay characters into our D&D movie"? No. But it doesn't mean "all Anglo conceptions of white people all the time or else it isn't accurate" either. Just do what is right for the setting and the story.

But that still has nothing to do with the fact that there are Haradrim in the Lord of the Rings films, and they ain't white, in the traditional American/Anglo-Saxon conception at least. Just admit you didn't think about them in your earlier post.

They are a border ethnic group, they live adjacent to the white European area, so you are more likely to encounter them than a black or east asian person, the further away some one originates from, the less likely you are to encounter them. The drow by contrast live underground, you are more likely to encounter them because they are closer, they only have to come to the surface, they don't have to travel for weeks, months and years to get to the European setting.

Quote from: Tom Kalbfus;1134857They are a border ethnic group, they live adjacent to the white European area, so you are more likely to encounter them than a black or east asian person, the further away some one originates from, the less likely you are to encounter them. The drow by contrast live underground, you are more likely to encounter them because they are closer, they only have to come to the surface, they don't have to travel for weeks, months and years to get to the European setting.

Humans spread across the World over thousands of years and multiple generations, not in a jet airplane like they do today. While they were migrating, they physically changed and adapted to the local environments they found themselves in, today there is no time for that, mostly this has to do with the amount of sunlight a given area gets, black people are adapted to tropical regions with high levels of sunlight, white people are adapted to regions with relatively low levels of sunlight that were made habitable in Europe by the Gulf Stream current which modified the climate of Europe allowing agriculture there and higher populations of people than would otherwise be possible. East Asians have darker skin because the normal climate for the eastern shores of continents tend to be colder, Siberia is inhospitable so the majority of the people are forced to live closer to the equator to get a climate where they can grow their own food, the sunlight is still more intense in those regions so they need darker skin. I sunburn very easily, as my skin was not designed for intense summer sunlight at 45 degrees north latitude, my skin was designed for northern Europe. The phenomenon of having ethnic and racial neighborhoods in a city is a relatively recent one, and should not be reflected in a medeaval setting as that would be unrealistic.

Where you correct when you stated that there were only white people in the Lord of the Rings movies? Since you can't seem to focus on that, I'll refrain from addressing the rest of your post until you do so.

Quote from: S'mon;1134811I always thought Jackson's -Saruman's Maori Uruk-Hai were a little close to the bone!

But few SJWs outside New Zealand care about Maori, and even there the Maori are a little too badass to play the victim role very well. I expect SJWs would be more about demanding black hobbits, black elves, black dwarves, black Rohirrim, black Numenoreans (oops... :D) et al.

When I first saw the Uruk-Hai, I thought "loose forwards" but not specifically Maori. I should have made the connection.

Quote from: Blankman;1134864Where you correct when you stated that there were only white people in the Lord of the Rings movies? Since you can't seem to focus on that, I'll refrain from addressing the rest of your post until you do so.

Every rule has its exceptions, Drizzt in the Forgotten Realms was an exception, and we didn't get to know the Haradrim as people, they were the guys riding on those giant elephants, they were definitely outsiders and invaders to the region, they were part of a foreign army and only shown in that context within the movies.

Quote from: Tom Kalbfus;1134870Every rule has its exceptions, Drizzt in the Forgotten Realms was an exception, and we didn't get to know the Haradrim as people, they were the guys riding on those giant elephants, they were definitely outsiders and invaders to the region, they were part of a foreign army and only shown in that context within the movies.

Yeah but that is not what you said. It doesn't matter if they're an outside force or foreign army, they're in the films. You're trying to go back and say you wrote something else, but you didn't, you wrote a very absolutist statement, and it was wrong. Just own up to it, you forgot about the Haradrim.

As for the thing in your previous post about no ethnic enclaves in cities before recent times, the Jews of medieval and early modern Europe might disagree with you there.

Quote from: Blankman;1134878As for the thing in your previous post about no ethnic enclaves in cities before recent times, the Jews of medieval and early modern Europe might disagree with you there.

Absolutely. While random ethnically-exotic person living in a rural not-medieval-European village may seem a little odd, having ethnically-exotic people living in your not-medieval-European *city* (possibly in an ethnic enclave but not always) is not a stretch at all. In my own setting, I have several ethnic trade diasporas that span swathes of the known world, and these make just such a thing possible (Trade diasporas also serve other useful roles in the setting).

Quote from: Tom Kalbfus;1134857Humans spread across the World over thousands of years and multiple generations, not in a jet airplane like they do today. While they were migrating, they physically changed and adapted to the local environments they found themselves in, today there is no time for that, mostly this has to do with the amount of sunlight a given area gets, black people are adapted to tropical regions with high levels of sunlight, white people are adapted to regions with relatively low levels of sunlight that were made habitable in Europe by the Gulf Stream current which modified the climate of Europe allowing agriculture there and higher populations of people than would otherwise be possible. East Asians have darker skin because the normal climate for the eastern shores of continents tend to be colder, Siberia is inhospitable so the majority of the people are forced to live closer to the equator to get a climate where they can grow their own food, the sunlight is still more intense in those regions so they need darker skin. I sunburn very easily, as my skin was not designed for intense summer sunlight at 45 degrees north latitude, my skin was designed for northern Europe.

The data here is far more mixed than you imply. The Inuit have lived in Alaska for thousands of years, but their skin is not much whiter than the Navajo living close to the equator. The reason for this is that a few thousand years is a very short time in evolutionary terms, so not much is necessarily going to change. European white skin is a specific chance genetic adaptation that isn't matched elsewhere in the world. It's one of only a handful of distinct adaptive traits among different human populations. For the most part, humans have *not* adapted to their local environment, because there hasn't been enough time and isolation for humans to form distinct subspecies. We took over the world too quickly.

Quote from: Tom Kalbfus;1134857The phenomenon of having ethnic and racial neighborhoods in a city is a relatively recent one, and should not be reflected in a medeaval setting as that would be unrealistic.

Having an ethnic neighborhood like a Jewish quarter was a feature in many medieval European cities. Some cities were more monocultural, but others were cultural and ethnic crossroads. Cities like Constantinople and Granada had very diverse ethnic makeup -- with people from a range of areas.

Regarding race in fantasy -- there's badly done mixed-race fantasy and there's badly done single-race fantasy. I don't think it is a problem for, say, Sinbad movies to feature a racially mixed cast rather than all-Arab. The whole point of Sinbad was that he traveled widely, and the Mediterranean was very much a crossroads of different peoples. Fantasy stories could be focused on crossroads like this, or could be more single race.

Love Big Chungus.  

Thanks for posting this, I've been falling into a funk lately with the latest D&D announcements - Robert Burke news, the 'poor, misunderstood orcs and drow' statements, and the fact that people have been WIPING THEIR AS**S with the franchises I love, I am happy to have blundered into these forums, which I have been reading voraciously.

Quote from: Blankman;1134878Yeah but that is not what you said. It doesn't matter if they're an outside force or foreign army, they're in the films. You're trying to go back and say you wrote something else, but you didn't, you wrote a very absolutist statement, and it was wrong. Just own up to it, you forgot about the Haradrim.

As for the thing in your previous post about no ethnic enclaves in cities before recent times, the Jews of medieval and early modern Europe might disagree with you there.

EDIT: forget it. I'm not risking the rightful wrath of Pundit for going off-topic.

Quote from: RandyB;1134894EDIT: forget it. I'm not risking the rightful wrath of Pundit for going off-topic.

My understanding is, the big rule is no non-gaming politics on the main board. If you were going to say something about gaming then go ahead.

I mean in the end this goes back to talking about a D&D movie, which is at least role playing related, but it is equally applicable to settings used for actual gaming as well.

Rewriting medieval history is in vogue to push the myths of multiculturalism and invalidate Western civilization, and academics are under pressure to play along if they enjoy eating and not being cancelled by the woke mobs. Which is terrible for determining historical truth because we can not know if any advances in our knowledge are real or just Orwellian rewrites to promote the woke narrative.

But sadly, that's the history of history books. The authors were rarely neutral and biases in their text, cultural or political, have always been an issue when trying to determine the truth. Although today, we're in a truly ludicrous time of outright bullshit.

Quote from: Tom Kalbfus;1134857The phenomenon of having ethnic and racial neighborhoods in a city is a relatively recent one, and should not be reflected in a medeaval setting as that would be unrealistic.

There's arguments for and against that regarding a medieval EARTH setting. AKA, historical fantasy.  Once you get into historical fantasy, you can go alt-History or faux-History or try to maintain more historical (aka, the nations had monsters and magic and yet the battle outcomes and leaders were the same).
 
HOWEVER...there is no reason for any D&D "faux medieval" setting to be based on Earth's history. I agree heartily with RPGPundit that "actual medieval" roleplay - aka his Lion & Dragon RPG - requires grounding in the medieval mindset.

But if your D&D campaign is a "Renn-Faire Medieval" like Forgotten Realms or most basics-of-genre "vanilla" fantasy, there's no reason to adhere to anything other than the interior logic of the setting.

Quote from: jhkim;1134887The data here is far more mixed than you imply. The Inuit have lived in Alaska for thousands of years, but their skin is not much whiter than the Navajo living close to the equator. The reason for this is that a few thousand years is a very short time in evolutionary terms

I'd say the main reason is there are no trees up there, and sunburn is a serious risk!

Likewise, North-east Asians (such as yourself) evolved in a very dry arid climate during the last Ice Age - no trees to keep the sun off. And fat deposits below the skin for insulation vs frostbite, which can give a yellowish complexion.

South East Asians are mostly recently descended from North-east Asian invaders, hence still showing adaptations to the NE Asia ancestral environment.

The split between West Eurasians inc Europeans and NE Asians seems to have taken place during the Last Glacial Maximum when central Eurasia was glaciated; about 20,000 years ago AFAIK. West Eurasia south of the glaciers was much moister and so had forests & cloudy skies, so Europeans evolved very light complexions that sunburn easily.

I think (but this is pretty speculative) that the pre-split Eurasians looked probably more like Europeans, albeit darker complexion than modern NW Europeans. NE Asians seem to have more recent stronger evolutionary adaptation. You could say you're more evolved. :D

I think ethnic enclaves in trade cities would be very historical in a medieval-esque setting. How many fantasy cities do have ethnic enclaves though? Very few AFAICT. Normally everyone is mixed up together, much more than in most modern cities, never mind the middle ages!

Quote from: S'mon;1134921I think ethnic enclaves in trade cities would be very historical in a medieval-esque setting. How many fantasy cities do have ethnic enclaves though?

I dunno but mine do. The "medieval-esque" zone is a bit remote (and a bit xenophobic) so exotic ethnic communities are fewer and smaller than in the "bejewelled empires" zone, but they do exist.

Quote from: Zirunel;1134923I dunno but mine do. The "medieval-esque" zone is a bit remote (and a bit xenophobic) so exotic ethnic communities are fewer and smaller than in the "bejewelled empires" zone, but they do exist.

Now I want to add a Mulhorandi Quarter & a Thayan Quarter to Heliogabalus in my Forgotten Realms Damara campaign...

Quote from: S'mon;1134925Now I want to add a Mulhorandi Quarter & a Thayan Quarter to Heliogabalus in my Forgotten Realms Damara campaign...

I don't know any of those names but if you want to do it, then go nuts!

Quote from: S'mon;1134921I think ethnic enclaves in trade cities would be very historical in a medieval-esque setting. How many fantasy cities do have ethnic enclaves though? Very few AFAICT. Normally everyone is mixed up together, much more than in most modern cities, never mind the middle ages!

It all depends on the size of your world and the state of traveling tech, in a world the size of earth with the continents equally big and distant no, it makes no sense to have "ethnic" enclaves of Chinese people in an European city or the other way around. Unless in your world magic is cheap, safe and widely available and thus traveling from one place to the other is close to instantaneous at least.

The vikings visited (and colonized) the new world way before than the Spaniards, yet you don't find any accounts of blond haired blue eyed Indians (dot not feather) by the conquerors or among the tribes. Because their genetic diversity got drowned in the sea of the aboriginal people (if there was any intermingling).

So no, in a medieval-esque setting on a earth sized world with big continents makes zero sense, and if the continents are closer/smaller then it still makes no sense since the intermingling would end with most people looking very similar. As we expect it will happen with earth after some time with fast travel/heavy immigration.

And no, "but muh dragons!" is not a valid argument either.

Edited to add:

In medieval real earth most people lived and died within 20 miles (I think) of where they were born, because traveling was hard and dangerous.

Now imagine if you will an earth where Dragons, Krakens, and other monsters of air, earth and sea are real. With roving bands of smaller monsters preying on the traveler.

I dare say travel is more dangerous in that imaginary earth by several orders of magnitude.

Quote from: Spinachcat;1134899Rewriting medieval history is in vogue to push the myths of multiculturalism and invalidate Western civilization, and academics are under pressure to play along if they enjoy eating and not being cancelled by the woke mobs. Which is terrible for determining historical truth because we can not know if any advances in our knowledge are real or just Orwellian rewrites to promote the woke narrative.

But sadly, that's the history of history books. The authors were rarely neutral and biases in their text, cultural or political, have always been an issue when trying to determine the truth. Although today, we're in a truly ludicrous time of outright bullshit.



There's arguments for and against that regarding a medieval EARTH setting. AKA, historical fantasy.  Once you get into historical fantasy, you can go alt-History or faux-History or try to maintain more historical (aka, the nations had monsters and magic and yet the battle outcomes and leaders were the same).
 
HOWEVER...there is no reason for any D&D "faux medieval" setting to be based on Earth's history. I agree heartily with RPGPundit that "actual medieval" roleplay - aka his Lion & Dragon RPG - requires grounding in the medieval mindset.

But if your D&D campaign is a "Renn-Faire Medieval" like Forgotten Realms or most basics-of-genre "vanilla" fantasy, there's no reason to adhere to anything other than the interior logic of the setting.

Mostly my point was on the non-player characters, not on the player characters who can choose any or background they want, man or woman. The background will tend to be monocultures, monoethnic and monoracial for the most part, and if player stands out because she want to play a black female human fighter in a white male dominated pseudo-medeaval setting, you can role play this out and have the female black woman prove herself, there is nothing wrong with dealing with societal prejudice in a fantasy setting. The best settings are not perfectly progressive by 21st century standards, people need something to fight for after all, the players can improve upon the society they find themselves in. I remember a book called The Sleeping Dragon where players find themselves in their player character's bodies and in their fictional setting that they thought was just in a role playing game, a major campaign goal was the fight to abolish slavery in this world and they had many adventures leading to this goal. An imperfect world has lots of adventure possibilities.

Quote from: Blankman;1134878Yeah but that is not what you said. It doesn't matter if they're an outside force or foreign army, they're in the films. You're trying to go back and say you wrote something else, but you didn't, you wrote a very absolutist statement, and it was wrong. Just own up to it, you forgot about the Haradrim.

As for the thing in your previous post about no ethnic enclaves in cities before recent times, the Jews of medieval and early modern Europe might disagree with you there.

Jews are mostly white and they blended in fairly well with Europeans except for their religion and practises, I don't expect to find Jews in a D&D campaign, just because the Nazis called them a race and were targets for extermination, doesn't mean they were a race. Physically, and I don't care what was going on in their heads, how they dressed, and what they believed in, they were white people, maybe originally from the middle east, but they spent so much time among the Europeans and intermarried with them, they adopted their physical characteristics if not all of their cultural norms.

Yes, I will admit there were some nonwhite people in Lord of the Rings if it makes you happy, but their incursion into Middle Earth was the exception rather than the rule.

Quote from: GeekyBugle;1134931no, it makes no sense to have "ethnic" enclaves of Chinese people in an European city or the other way around.

What? Who said  this was necessarily about the Chinese? you just picked that out of your hat. Or even about the most widely separated ethnic groups you can imagine?

Ethnic trading enclaves have existed in many, many historical cities, even in the medieval past, even in antiquity, without magic or teleportation or whatever. You can pick the most distant improbable places to try and claim it never happened: Chinese in medieval Europe, Greenlanders in precontact Tasmania, Betelgeuseans in ancient Rome....whatever.  But sorry, your reductio ad absurdum won't make all the real, actual, historical enclaves go away.

In general terms, ethnic trading enclaves are a historical fact and a plausible addition to any rpg setting.

Quote from: GeekyBugle;1134931The vikings visited (and colonized) the new world way before than the Spaniards, yet you don't find any accounts of blond haired blue eyed Indians (dot not feather) by the conquerors or among the tribes.

The Norse colonized Greenland. Their exploits in the new world, such as they were, were more like visits. Sometimes several seasons long. But not colonization. And not really relevant here.

Quote from: Zirunel;1134951What? Who said  this was necessarily about the Chinese? or even about the most widely separated ethnic groups you can imagine? Ethnic trading enclaves have existed in many, many historical cities, even in the medieval past, even in antiquity, without magic or teleportation or whatever. You can pick the most distant improbable places to try and claim it never happened: Chinese in medieval Europe, Greenlanders in precontact Tasmania, Betelgeuseans in ancient Rome....whatever.  But sorry, your reductio ad absurdum won't make all the real, actual, historical enclaves go away.




The Norse colonized Greenland. Their exploits in the new world, such as they were, were more like visits. Not colonization. And not really relevant here.

So Africans in Germany? Nope it doesn't work and it's not a reductio ad absurdum, it's me pointing facts and using logic, sorry to rain on your parade.

Yes, the norse COLONIZED Greenland, they took land from the natives by force, you calling it visits is funny as all hell.

Quote from: GeekyBugle;1134955So Africans in Germany? Nope it doesn't work and it's not a reductio ad absurdum, it's me pointing facts and using logic, sorry to rain on your parade.

Why Germany now? and why Africans instead of Chinese? You're picking names out of your hat again.

No, I'll agree medieval Germany was not particularly plugged into any North African or subsaharan African trade networks. Medieval Portugal was, though. Once again, you carefully select a hypothetical and once again it fails to disprove my assertion. Just because you can come up with some random trade diaspora that may not have existed, does not demonstrate that ethnic trade enclaves didn't exist anywhere. They did.

One early example is the Assyrian merchant enclave at Kultepe in Turkey ca. 2000 BC.

How about Constantinople AD 1060, which had funduq (segregated trading enclaves) from Babylon, Persia, Medea, Egypt, Russia, Hungary and Spain as well as a large Jewish enclave?

Or for real diversity, Malacca in Malaysia at the end of the middle ages, which had segregated enclaves of traders from Cairo, Mecca, Abyssinians, Kilwa and Malindi (East Africa), along with Turks, Christian Armenians, Goans, Siamese, Chinese, and many many more (including Portuguese).

...the vast Armenian, Jewish, Chinese, Hanseatic German trade diasporas, the list goes on.....

I'll say it again. Trade diaspora communities existed historically and are therefore a plausible element in an rpg setting.

Quote from: GeekyBugle;1134955Yes, the norse COLONIZED Greenland, they took land from the natives by force, you calling it visits is funny as all hell.

Yes, as I said, the Norse colonized Greenland. They established two small colonies there. However, their activities in the new world to the west were much more limited.

EDITED TO ASK: btw what makes you say they "took land from the natives by force?" There is no evidence whatsoever for that. Rather, both East and West Greenland appear to have been uninhabited at the time the Norse arrived.

Quote from: Zirunel;1134975Trade diaspora communities existed historically and are therefore a plausible element in an rpg setting.

Regardless if trade diaspora communities existed or not, they are a perfectly good element in a RPG setting if the GM feels that would make sense in the setting and increase its interest for the players.

San Francisco has Chinatown. The Emerald City of Yubnari can have Dwarftown.

Quote from: Zirunel;1134975DITED TO ASK: btw what makes you say they "took land from the natives by force?" There is no evidence whatsoever for that. Rather, both East and West Greenland appear to have been uninhabited at the time the Norse arrived.

Then the Inuit arrived, killed them, and took their stuff (probably).

I love how the Inuit were busy slaughtering & pillaging across North America only a few centuries before the Europeans started further south. The Europeans made it to Greenland first, but the Inuit made it last. :D They even reached Europe, I think it was in the 18th century one paddled into Aberdeen harbour. I guess they thought Europe was a bit too big to kill it & take its stuff.

Quote from: S'mon;1134980Then the Inuit arrived, killed them, and took their stuff (probably).

I love how the Inuit were busy slaughtering & pillaging across North America only a few centuries before the Europeans started further south. The Europeans made it to Greenland first, but the Inuit made it last. :D

Well, the colonies were abandoned a century or so after the Inuit arrived, so maybe... Personally I doubt it, the Inuit have very real traditions of feuding among themselves, but slaughtering and pillaging not so much... Hard to say though, with any certainty.

Quote from: Zirunel;1134975Why Germany now? and why Africans instead of Chinese? You're picking names out of your hat again.

No, I'll agree medieval Germany was not particularly plugged into any North African or subsaharan African trade networks. Medieval Portugal was, though. Once again, you carefully select a hypothetical and once again it fails to disprove my assertion. Just because you can come up with some random trade diaspora that may not have existed, does not demonstrate that ethnic trade enclaves didn't exist anywhere. They did.

One early example is the Assyrian merchant enclave at Kultepe in Turkey ca. 2000 BC.

How about Constantinople AD 1060, which had funduq (segregated trading enclaves) from Babylon, Persia, Medea, Egypt, Russia, Hungary and Spain as well as a large Jewish enclave?

Or for real diversity, Malacca in Malaysia at the end of the middle ages, which had segregated enclaves of traders from Cairo, Mecca, Abyssinians, Kilwa and Malindi (East Africa), along with Turks, Christian Armenians, Goans, Siamese, Chinese, and many many more (including Portuguese).

...the vast Armenian, Jewish, Chinese, Hanseatic German trade diasporas, the list goes on.....

I'll say it again. Trade diaspora communities existed historically and are therefore a plausible element in an rpg setting.



Yes, as I said, the Norse colonized Greenland. They established two small colonies there. However, their activities in the new world to the west were much more limited.

EDITED TO ASK: btw what makes you say they "took land from the natives by force?" There is no evidence whatsoever for that. Rather, both East and West Greenland appear to have been uninhabited at the time the Norse arrived.

Medieval Portugal had African enclaves?

No, I'm using random names, not to fuck with you, you complained about the distance, so I took two closer places, you complain again...

But again, you say those "communities" existed, well how common were those diverse communities in Europe? Could you find an African everywhere? Or a Muslim? I know of Jews, expelled from their native land, and Muslims conquering, raping and pillaging Europe, so you could call those both diasporas, but you'd be wrong.

Once more, travel was dangerous in the real medieval times, and they didn't had to deal with Dragons, Krakens and other big monsters, or roving bands of smaller monsters. Which would make traveling orders of magnitude more dangerous.

Quote from: S'mon;1134921I think ethnic enclaves in trade cities would be very historical in a medieval-esque setting. How many fantasy cities do have ethnic enclaves though? Very few AFAICT. Normally everyone is mixed up together, much more than in most modern cities, never mind the middle ages!

Pretty common to see those in a lot of Swedish rpgs from at least the 90s. Often more fantasy ethnicities (this is dwarf town) but happens with various human ethnicities as well.

The city of Atil around 800 AD would make a great cosmopolitan setting.  (For a better game than D&D).

It was at the mouth of the Volga river on the edge of the Caspian sea, and ruled by a former steppe tribe of Turkish nomads (the Khazars), who settled down and started a state and converted to Judaism (possibly because they were stuck right between the Christians and the Muslims).  It was at the end of the silk road, at the height of the Tang Dynasty and China's most westward expansion - there are some suggestions they sent armies as far west as the Caspian.  It was also along the Viking trade routes through Russia to Baghdad.
It was a trade city that had judges that had specified mixes of Jews, Christians and Muslims to ensure that no one took religious exception to the law.  It's a city where you could quite plausibly have a Viking rubbing soliders with a Chinese Monk.

But as for fantasy settings needing to be plausible on historical grounds...

How many gamers these days know anything much at all about history?  Or care?  D&D settings are ahistorcial mush and have been for a long time.  When D&D was something that emerged out of wargaming that actually cared about history, it may have been different, but that's long gone.

Quote from: Zirunel;1134985Well, the colonies were abandoned a century or so after the Inuit arrived, so maybe... Personally I doubt it, the Inuit have very real traditions of feuding among themselves, but slaughtering and pillaging not so much...

I guess the Paleo-Eskimos all decided to commit collective suicide, then. :D

Quote from: TJS;1135019But as for fantasy settings needing to be plausible on historical grounds...

How many gamers these days know anything much at all about history?  Or care?  D&D settings are ahistorcial mush and have been for a long time.  When D&D was something that emerged out of wargaming that actually cared about history, it may have been different, but that's long gone.

The earliest incarnations of D&D resembled another time of history than medieval Europe far more anyway. The American Wild West. Vast tracts of empty land, settlers coming in, somewhat isolated towns, raiders preying on travelers etc. Probably helped by everyone involved in the creation being from the Midwest too.

I'm having a bit of trouble thinking of any iconic fantasy settings, and I'm not talking about rpg settings here, that are particularly medieval. Westeros was created based on medieval history (although parts of it like the giant wall, the eunuch administrator, the named throne and other countries being generally small and irrelevant remind me more of Imperial China). Middle Earth is not. The Shire is some kind of idealized 18th/19th century England while Gondor/Rohan more resemble the late Roman empire, complete with letting a barbarian people take over part of the land in return for reinforcing the army. Mordor doesn't really have a historical analogy of course, being governed by an ageless evil demigod. Much of the rest of the world is post-apocalyptic wasteland with pockets of habitation.

Okay, what about Conan's Hyborian age? Some parts are definitely more medieval, like Aquilonia and Nemedia, but Stygia for instance is very much not. In the end, the world was created by Howard so he could throw stuff from different eras of history together.

Lankhmar/Newhon? Somewhat, but not really. Narnia? Well, it gets the monotheism at least, but is also a land ruled by a literal Ice queen and kept forever in winter, with no human inhabitants. Later it is conquered by refugee pirates from our world who are then finally defeated by an army of talking animals and fantasy creatures. Still, may be the closest to genuinely medieval just because of how Christian the whole thing is. The Young Kingdoms? I'm not familiar enough with Elric to say (I've only read two of the stories, not a big fan of Moorcock's style), so maybe. Discworld? Definitely not.

Quote from: Blankman;1135024Middle Earth is not. The Shire is some kind of idealized 18th/19th century England while Gondor/Rohan more resemble the late Roman empire, complete with letting a barbarian people take over part of the land in return for reinforcing the army. Mordor doesn't really have a historical analogy of course, being governed by an ageless evil demigod. Much of the rest of the world is post-apocalyptic wasteland with pockets of habitation.

Well I think Tolkien was overall going for a Dark Ages vibe; with Gondor as Byzantium, Rohan as Anglo-Saxons on horses (his equivalent of dinosaurs with laser cannons) :D and vast stretches of waste land. AFAICT Roman Britain was never heavily populated, because the heavy British soil didn't support Roman-style agriculture and the mouldboard plough for deep soil churn had not been invented yet. But it did have urban centres, which vanished after the Roman withdrawal and Anglo-Saxon invasions. So post Roman Britain did have something of a post apocalypse feel - there used to be Civilisation here, and now it's gone.

Quote from: S'mon;1135027Well I think Tolkien was overall going for a Dark Ages vibe; with Gondor as Byzantium, Rohan as Anglo-Saxons on horses (his equivalent of dinosaurs with laser cannons) :D and vast stretches of waste land. AFAICT Roman Britain was never heavily populated, because the heavy British soil didn't support Roman-style agriculture and the mouldboard plough for deep soil churn had not been invented yet. But it did have urban centres, which vanished after the Roman withdrawal and Anglo-Saxon invasions. So post Roman Britain did have something of a post apocalypse feel - there used to be Civilisation here, and now it's gone.

The Rohirrim/Eorlingas were granted a part of Gondor to rule as their own as reward for help in battle, and on a promise to help in future wars. That's textbook late Western Roman Empire (the Visigoths were granted Aquitaine in this way for instance) apart from how the alliance actually held. I think Tolkien had a lot of sources and ideas, but one thing is for sure, Middle Earth is not particularly high or late medieval. A bit early medieval/dark ages sure, but also some late antiquity and 19th century England thrown in there too (no tobacco pre-Columbian exchange after all). Basically, the big grab bag of influences that fantasy settings often are.

Quote from: GeekyBugle;1134998Medieval Portugal had African enclaves?

No, I'm using random names, not to fuck with you, you complained about the distance, so I took two closer places, you complain again...

But again, you say those "communities" existed, well how common were those diverse communities in Europe? Could you find an African everywhere? Or a Muslim? I know of Jews, expelled from their native land, and Muslims conquering, raping and pillaging Europe, so you could call those both diasporas, but you'd be wrong.

Once more, travel was dangerous in the real medieval times, and they didn't had to deal with Dragons, Krakens and other big monsters, or roving bands of smaller monsters. Which would make traveling orders of magnitude more dangerous.

Travel may have been dangerous, and yet people were travelling all over the place. One of the reasons for the first crusade was Christian pilgrims to Jerusalem facing harder receptions than earlier, so we know many went on pilgrimage top Jerusalem. The Crusades themselves were of course travels. The Mongol conquests stretched from China to Poland, and during their rule Marco Polo and thousands of other Europeans traveled through their realms, including China. And in china Polo saw Christian churches. Maybe no Chinatown in Europe, but at least in the 1320s there was a Genoese colony in the Chinese trade city of Quanzhou (Zaiton to many foreigners), which also housed merchants from Arabia, Iran, India, Sumatra, Cambodia, Brunei, Japan, the Philippines etc. No, the average peasant in a village in medieval England may not have traveled far (although maybe he went on a pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela, Rome or even Jersualem) but merchants, mercenaries and nobles often did. Especially merchants.

People who live in cities often project the urban setting they live in onto their fantasy setting. A lot of the RPG writers live in cities and what they experience in those cities go into their work. The result is something like the movie Ella Enchanted, the "Flintstones" for Dungeons & Dragons. I'll give you another example, the television shows Hercules and Xena.

Quote from: Tom Kalbfus;1134940Mostly my point was on the non-player characters, not on the player characters who can choose any or background they want, man or woman. The background will tend to be monocultures, monoethnic and monoracial for the most part, and if player stands out because she want to play a black female human fighter in a white male dominated pseudo-medeaval setting, you can role play this out and have the female black woman prove herself, there is nothing wrong with dealing with societal prejudice in a fantasy setting. The best settings are not perfectly progressive by 21st century standards, people need something to fight for after all, the players can improve upon the society they find themselves in. I remember a book called The Sleeping Dragon where players find themselves in their player character's bodies and in their fictional setting that they thought was just in a role playing game, a major campaign goal was the fight to abolish slavery in this world and they had many adventures leading to this goal. An imperfect world has lots of adventure possibilities.

By the late Joel Rosenberg. The series is Guardians of the Flame. He gamed with us a little and we talked about gaming a lot.

Quote from: GeekyBugle;1134955So Africans in Germany? Nope it doesn't work and it's not a reductio ad absurdum, it's me pointing facts and using logic, sorry to rain on your parade.

Yes, the norse COLONIZED Greenland, they took land from the natives by force, you calling it visits is funny as all hell.

They reached a part of Greenland that was temporarily unoccupied and only met the Inuit later.

Quote from: GeekyBugle;1134998Medieval Portugal had African enclaves?

No. I said that Portugal was plugged into subsaharan African trade networks, not that it hosted African enclaves. Maybe some African
 individuals in Portugal, but no, the enclaves were Portuguese in Africa, not the other way around.

Quote from: GeekyBugle;1134998But again, you say those "communities" existed, well how common were those diverse communities in Europe? Could you find an African everywhere? Or a Muslim? I know of Jews, expelled from their native land, and Muslims conquering, raping and pillaging Europe, so you could call those both diasporas, but you'd be wrong.

Wrong to refer to a "Jewish diaspora?" That's just bizarre.

 Look, I have a sense that you believe I'm claiming more diversity than I really am, at least in Europe. Prior to the early modern period, long distance trade was mostly in high value low volume luxury goods and Europe had little to offer, so to a large degree, Europeans formed enclaves elsewhere but there was little reason for non-Europeans to form enclaves in Europe. Non-Europeans in Europe consisted mostly of Jews, as well as some Arabs and North Africans in Spain and Italy. Aside from the Jews, who had well known trade enclaves in many cities, most of the ethnic trade enclaves actually *in* Europe consisted of Europeans in distant, ethnically-different parts of Europe. Hanseatic German enclaves in places like London, Bergen, Novgorod; Venetians and Genoese in Crimea etc., Armenians just about everywhere (although I guess Armenians could be considered Asian). I'm certainly not claiming that "you could find an African everywhere." (Some) European cities were more cosmopolitan than many people seem to think, but no they were not all abuzz with diversity. For that, you need to look just beyond Europe to places like Constantinople and Cairo.

And I guess further back in antiquity you have far-flung Greek and Phoenician diasporas as well. In any case, the trade diasporas have been a thing almost as long as cities have, and are a perfectly good model for introducing some cultural diversity in your setting without having everybody segregated in separate ethnic kingdoms. Random unexplained "diversity" in a setting may be a little unrealistic, but having all your polities be somehow ethnically pure is also unrealistic.

Quote from: S'mon;1135023I guess the Paleo-Eskimos all decided to commit collective suicide, then. :D

P-E show a pattern of regional extinctions every 500 years or so throughout their whole period of occupation, and across the arctic and those parts of the syntactic that they occupied - except for their Foxe Basin core area. Inherently unstable adaptation? Is that what you meant by suicide? Possibly, but in any case,  just as the P-E occupation of southern Greenland seems to have ended a bit before the Norse arrived, so in many places it seems to have ended before the Inuit arrived. There are late Dorset dates in a few places suggesting there could have been contact of some sort somewhere, but little real evidence for such contact.

Quote from: Zirunel;1135123No. I said that Portugal was plugged into subsaharan African trade networks, not that it hosted African enclaves. Maybe some African
 individuals in Portugal, but no, the enclaves were Portuguese in Africa, not the other way around.


Wrong to refer to a "Jewish diaspora?" That's just bizarre.

 Look, I have a sense that you believe I'm claiming more diversity than I really am, at least in Europe. Prior to the early modern period, long distance trade was mostly in high value low volume luxury goods and Europe had little to offer, so to a large degree, Europeans formed enclaves elsewhere but there was little reason for non-Europeans to form enclaves in Europe. Non-Europeans in Europe consisted mostly of Jews, as well as some Arabs and North Africans in Spain and Italy. Aside from the Jews, who had well known trade enclaves in many cities, most of the ethnic trade enclaves actually *in* Europe consisted of Europeans in distant, ethnically-different parts of Europe. Hanseatic German enclaves in places like London, Bergen, Novgorod; Venetians and Genoese in Crimea etc., Armenians just about everywhere (although I guess Armenians could be considered Asian). I'm certainly not claiming that "you could find an African everywhere." (Some) European cities were more cosmopolitan than many people seem to think, but no they were not all abuzz with diversity. For that, you need to look just beyond Europe to places like Constantinople and Cairo.

And I guess further back in antiquity you have far-flung Greek and Phoenician diasporas as well. In any case, the trade diasporas have been a thing almost as long as cities have, and are a perfectly good model for introducing some cultural diversity in your setting without having everybody segregated in separate ethnic kingdoms. Random unexplained "diversity" in a setting may be a little unrealistic, but having all your polities be somehow ethnically pure is also unrealistic.

You could have some unexplained diversity, but a public reaction can be expected if a black person suddenly shows up in a white European neighborhood. A good example of the opposite of this, take a look at the show Once Upon A Time, for some unexplained reason both Merlin and Lancelot were black, and everybody just accepted this with no questions asked. In 21st century Storybrooke, this is perfectly fine, but don't expect this from a medeaval village!

Quote from: TJS;1135018The city of Atil around 800 AD would make a great cosmopolitan setting.  (For a better game than D&D).

WOW!! I never heard of the city of Atil. That's awesome. Thank you!

That would make an excellent setting piece.

Quote from: Blankman;1135024I'm not familiar enough with Elric to say (I've only read two of the stories, not a big fan of Moorcock's style), so maybe.

I'm an Elric and Moorcock fan and I can confirm the Young Kingdoms aren't medieval or historically inspired. It began as a thought experiment by Moorcock to subvert and rebel against all the tropes of Conanesque fantasy and grew into its own cohesive creation. If anything, the Young Kingdoms are grounded in "unreality" and exist more as parts within a dream. The "fantasy world as dream" is even more apparent in his Corum saga.

Quote from: Blankman;1135024The earliest incarnations of D&D resembled another time of history than medieval Europe far more anyway. The American Wild West. Vast tracts of empty land, settlers coming in, somewhat isolated towns, raiders preying on travelers etc. Probably helped by everyone involved in the creation being from the Midwest too.

Didn't REH re-write some of his fantasy stories as westerns in order to sell them to different pulp magazines? I've heard that story before.

QuoteI'm not familiar enough with Elric to say (I've only read two of the stories, not a big fan of Moorcock's style), so maybe. Discworld? Definitely not.

Over the past few years I've read a large number of pulp magazines, not just the fantasy ones but the mystery and adventure ones like Argosy. I was surprised how close those old adventure stories resembled the tone and pacing of classic sword and sorcery. They are also close to the Elric stories which are basically Victorian-era pulp adventures with magic instead of guns.

Quote from: Zirunel;1135123No. I said that Portugal was plugged into subsaharan African trade networks, not that it hosted African enclaves. Maybe some African
 individuals in Portugal, but no, the enclaves were Portuguese in Africa, not the other way around.


Wrong to refer to a "Jewish diaspora?" That's just bizarre.

 Look, I have a sense that you believe I'm claiming more diversity than I really am, at least in Europe. Prior to the early modern period, long distance trade was mostly in high value low volume luxury goods and Europe had little to offer, so to a large degree, Europeans formed enclaves elsewhere but there was little reason for non-Europeans to form enclaves in Europe. Non-Europeans in Europe consisted mostly of Jews, as well as some Arabs and North Africans in Spain and Italy. Aside from the Jews, who had well known trade enclaves in many cities, most of the ethnic trade enclaves actually *in* Europe consisted of Europeans in distant, ethnically-different parts of Europe. Hanseatic German enclaves in places like London, Bergen, Novgorod; Venetians and Genoese in Crimea etc., Armenians just about everywhere (although I guess Armenians could be considered Asian). I'm certainly not claiming that "you could find an African everywhere." (Some) European cities were more cosmopolitan than many people seem to think, but no they were not all abuzz with diversity. For that, you need to look just beyond Europe to places like Constantinople and Cairo.

And I guess further back in antiquity you have far-flung Greek and Phoenician diasporas as well. In any case, the trade diasporas have been a thing almost as long as cities have, and are a perfectly good model for introducing some cultural diversity in your setting without having everybody segregated in separate ethnic kingdoms. Random unexplained "diversity" in a setting may be a little unrealistic, but having all your polities be somehow ethnically pure is also unrealistic.

Are you always this disingenuous?

I said it was wrong to call both diasporas, which you did. And then your retort is:

Quote from: Zirunel;1135123Wrong to refer to a "Jewish diaspora?" That's just bizarre.

As for the rest, yes, that was clearly the impression YOU were giving, I don't give a damn if you make your medieval-esque faux Europe as ethnically diverse as you want, just don't say it's realistic because "muh history!" because it's false or because "muh Dragons!" because the mere existence of huge and small monsters roaming the air, land and sea would make travel orders of magnitude more dangerous AND rare. Unless, like I've said before, you postulate smaller continents and or magical travel being accessible to all.

Is it clear now?

Quote from: GeekyBugle;1135150Are you always this disingenuous?

I said it was wrong to call both diasporas, which you did.

You're the one who said "both." Perhaps you meant to say "one was a diaspora, the other wasn't?"

And where did I refer to both Jews and Muslims in Europe as "diasporas?"  You say I did, but where?

Quote from: Zirunel;1135127P-E show a pattern of regional extinctions every 500 years or so throughout their whole period of occupation, and across the arctic and those parts of the syntactic that they occupied - except for their Foxe Basin core area. Inherently unstable adaptation? Is that what you meant by suicide? Possibly, but in any case,  just as the P-E occupation of southern Greenland seems to have ended a bit before the Norse arrived, so in many places it seems to have ended before the Inuit arrived. There are late Dorset dates in a few places suggesting there could have been contact of some sort somewhere, but little real evidence for such contact.

Aww, you're no fun. :(

(Seriously, thanks for the counterpoint).

Quote from: S'mon;1135285Aww, you're no fun. :(

(Seriously, thanks for the counterpoint).

You're welcome...nice to see someone who's even heard of P-E.

doh..syntactic? Stupid autocorrect...I meant subarctic

Quote from: Zirunel;1135278You're the one who said "both." Perhaps you meant to say "one was a diaspora, the other wasn't?"

And where did I refer to both Jews and Muslims in Europe as "diasporas?"  You say I did, but where?

Yeah, I said it was wrong to call BOTH a diaspora, maybe you don't English?

As for where you say there's a Muslim diaspora, look in your own writing for Mecca and the tell me you're not referring to that as a "trade diaspora".

Quote from: Zirunel;1134975Why Germany now? and why Africans instead of Chinese? You're picking names out of your hat again.

No, I'll agree medieval Germany was not particularly plugged into any North African or subsaharan African trade networks. Medieval Portugal was, though. Once again, you carefully select a hypothetical and once again it fails to disprove my assertion. Just because you can come up with some random trade diaspora that may not have existed, does not demonstrate that ethnic trade enclaves didn't exist anywhere. They did.

One early example is the Assyrian merchant enclave at Kultepe in Turkey ca. 2000 BC.

How about Constantinople AD 1060, which had funduq (segregated trading enclaves) from Babylon, Persia, Medea, Egypt, Russia, Hungary and Spain as well as a large Jewish enclave?

Or for real diversity, Malacca in Malaysia at the end of the middle ages, which had segregated enclaves of traders from Cairo, Mecca, Abyssinians, Kilwa and Malindi (East Africa), along with Turks, Christian Armenians, Goans, Siamese, Chinese, and many many more (including Portuguese).

...the vast Armenian, Jewish, Chinese, Hanseatic German trade diasporas, the list goes on.....

I'll say it again. Trade diaspora communities existed historically and are therefore a plausible element in an rpg setting.



Yes, as I said, the Norse colonized Greenland. They established two small colonies there. However, their activities in the new world to the west were much more limited.

EDITED TO ASK: btw what makes you say they "took land from the natives by force?" There is no evidence whatsoever for that. Rather, both East and West Greenland appear to have been uninhabited at the time the Norse arrived.

Quote from: GeekyBugle;1135296Yeah, I said it was wrong to call BOTH a diaspora, maybe you don't English?

As for where you say there's a Muslim diaspora, look in your own writing for Mecca and the tell me you're not referring to that as a "trade diaspora".

Yes there were Arab trade diasporas that reached Malaysia, and other places as well. Still not seeing the part where I refer to both Jews and Muslims in Europe as "diasporas" .....

Quote from: Zirunel;1135338Yes there were Arab trade diasporas that reached Malaysia, and other places as well. Still not seeing the part where I refer to both Jews and Muslims in Europe as "diasporas" .....

Exactly in the same breath, but please keep backpedaling.

Quote from: Zirunel;1135123No. I said that Portugal was plugged into subsaharan African trade networks, not that it hosted African enclaves. Maybe some African
 individuals in Portugal, but no, the enclaves were Portuguese in Africa, not the other way around.

Ummmmm... incorrect. There were sizable African enclaves in Portugal, Most of Portugal was Islamic (Berber) up until the second Crusade in 1156 a.d. Also in there were a large number of Africans in Bordeaux, France, in the Roman era, as it was the sea trade gateway to Northern Europe. There is an African Quarter in Bordeaux, and there was a large group of Africans in Eboracum (York) as part of one of the Roman Legions. Many cohorts of  Numidian Archers (Sagittarii) and Javelin Men, so many that they left permanent genetic markers in the remaining English and Angle Saxon populations there.

Later on in the 15th Century there were Portugese (and Spanish) enclaves in Africa, but earlier, it was African enclaves in Portugal, and Gaul, and Rome, and Galatia, Capadoccia, and ancient Judea as well after the fall of the Second Temple. The Numidian Auxilliary Archers were famous, and devastating.

...Why, yes there were Africans in Ancient Britain. They even buried them there. Even wealthy ones...
https://www.quora.com/Did-the-Romans-leave-Africans-in-Britain?share=1

Quote from: GeekyBugle;1135349Exactly in the same breath, but please keep backpedaling.

No backpedaling here. But still not seeing  where I said what you claim I did.

Quote from: GameDaddy;1135392Ummmmm... incorrect. There were sizable African enclaves in Portugal, Most of Portugal was Islamic (Berber) up until the second Crusade in 1156 a.d. Also in there were a large number of Africans in Bordeaux, France, in the Roman era, as it was the sea trade gateway to Northern Europe. There is an African Quarter in Bordeaux, and there was a large group of Africans in Eboracum (York) as part of one of the Roman Legions. Many cohorts of  Numidian Archers (Sagittarii) and Javelin Men, so many that they left permanent genetic markers in the remaining English and Angle Saxon populations there.

Later on in the 15th Century there were Portugese (and Spanish) enclaves in Africa, but earlier, it was African enclaves in Portugal, and Gaul, and Rome, and Galatia, Capadoccia, and ancient Judea as well after the fall of the Second Temple. The Numidian Auxilliary Archers were famous, and devastating.

...Why, yes there were Africans in Ancient Britain. They even buried them there. Even wealthy ones...
https://www.quora.com/Did-the-Romans-leave-Africans-in-Britain?share=1

Not subsaharan examples, nor necessarily trade diasporas, but point taken, especially when you go back to the Mediterranean oikumene.

Quote from: LiferGamer;1134890Love Big Chungus.  

Thanks for posting this, I've been falling into a funk lately with the latest D&D announcements - Robert Burke news, the 'poor, misunderstood orcs and drow' statements, and the fact that people have been WIPING THEIR AS**S with the franchises I love, I am happy to have blundered into these forums, which I have been reading voraciously.

Thanks!