Quote from: Bruwulf on February 07, 2023, 01:13:51 PM
As one of those rare unicorns, a conservative gay man, I thought I'd comment here.

Gay characters have existed in fantasy and sci-fi literature for a long time. I'm sure I'm not the only gay geek who grew up with Mercedes Lackey, for example. I don't have a problem with gay characters in fantasy and sci-fi RPG... to a point.

When you basically design your game from the ground up to be an LGBT utopian wonderland, that's just stupid. I'm looking at you, Blue Rose. I'm gay, and even I don't care about the issue that much. I don't need an entire RPG that validates my struggle by having placeholder homophobic groups I can beat up on, and I sure as shit don't need to be reassured over and over that I'm valid and good and right and nobody who disagrees is anything other than an evil caricature. I'm not a pet. You don't need to pat me on the head and reassure me.

When you try to rewrite history and make your "authentic" settings based on the "real world" conform to modern-day LGBT sensibilities. Look, I get it, despite what we sometimes think, homosexuality wasn't unknown in the past, but it also wasn't treated like the LGBT community today thinks it should be. Don't treat me like a moron, I don't need to pretend the past wasn't what it was to avoid going into an emotional meltdown or something.

When you specifically call out only the gay people. When you have a dozen characters, 8 of them do not have their sexuality discussed at all, 1 is straight, and 3 are some flavor of LGBT? That's insulting. Don't do it. It's also stupid. Again, don't do it. Is it relevant to the character, the story, the product? Is there a scandal because the prince of the dwarven kingdom in the North Peak region has a male lover, which calls into question the succession? Great! That's interesting! Sure! Are you just telling me that the male tavern keeper has a husband to point out that he's gay, when that husband is in no way relevant to anything? Again, that's insulting and dumb. Don't do it. To paraphrase a rant I once heard from another gay guy about this issue, I also don't care that the tavern keeper's mother has hemorrhoids, because it doesn't matter.

That's where I stand on the "culture war" issue with regards to gay representation in games. "Do it right, don't treat me like an idiot, and stop being so fucking annoying about it". Outside of games, it's a whole lot more complex.

Cat dang, so true. Thumbs up. Great post

Quote from: Bruwulf on February 07, 2023, 01:13:51 PM
As one of those rare unicorns, a conservative gay man, I thought I'd comment here.

Gay characters have existed in fantasy and sci-fi literature for a long time. I'm sure I'm not the only gay geek who grew up with Mercedes Lackey, for example. I don't have a problem with gay characters in fantasy and sci-fi RPG... to a point.

Quote from: Bruwulf on February 07, 2023, 01:13:51 PM
That's where I stand on the "culture war" issue with regards to gay representation in games. "Do it right, don't treat me like an idiot, and stop being so fucking annoying about it". Outside of games, it's a whole lot more complex.

Bruwulf -- can you suggest any products or creators who are doing it right on this front, as far as your tastes go?

Quote from: Anon Adderlan on February 07, 2023, 05:47:13 AM
The problem with writing Mythic Polynesia is the same as writing Mythic Americas. There are many cultures involved which were often hostile to each other, so you can't take any single source as definitive, and many will object to their historic enemies speaking for them. After all a rather startling number of Native American names still in use today are all but slurs given to then by the tribes they fought with. And as I don't have the book I cannot say how or if it covers each Polynesian demographic.

The other problem I'm realizing is that all media is treated like propaganda these days, and neither artistic interpretation nor personal expression can exist in such an environment. And while all art is political, not all of it is advocacy. Many folks explore darker subjects without being consumed by them as many who are ostensibly in the kink and BDSM communities should realize. But if we eliminate every piece of media which could be interpreted in an ideologically aberrant way we're not going to have any media at all, just vacuous content and insipid political screeds.

Just for the lulz, explain the politics of the Monalisa.

No, not all art IS political.

But you're correct that the woke WANT all art to be but propaganda for their religious beliefs, thus no RPG that doesn't push the cult's screed can be allowed to exist, if any such game exists it must be forced to bend the knee and change, destroyed or co-opted, any of those is an acceptable outcome for the progressives.

What many fail to notice is they ALLWAYS go after soft targets, no one is going after Pundit's Arrows, Silk Road, Lion and dragon, etc in a serious way.

Yes, Wotzi/Hasbro IS a sof target, they have D.I.E. priests in positions of power and are taking blood money from the ESG.

Meanwhile a smaller fish like Pundit isn't as soft, which is why they try to get his stuff banned instead of trying to force him to to bend the knee, hire Kultural Kommisars and change his stuff.

The ONLY correct play when they come after you is to tell them to get fucked.

Quote from: GeekyBugle on February 07, 2023, 09:34:19 PM
Since the only people who could write were the priests/monarchy no, we don't know very much because plenty was lost during the conquista.

We know a little, infer a bunch and don't know how much we can trust what we "know" because it was contaminated by the religious, the hatred of one poeple towards the other because of being their slaves for centuries before the Spaniards came here and the woke "historians".

We still can't read the Mayan heriogliphs, because there's no rosetta stone with 3 languages and we happen to know one. Ditto for most of the American cultures. Not to mention the northamerican ones who didn't even have that.

How many of the stories told to the priests are just tall tales? We don't know.

While it is true that writing among the Mesoamericans was generally limited to the priests, this is less of a problem than it would seem at first: the absolute same thing is true of the Babylonians, the Gauls, and the Middle Egyptians. By and large, we have a smaller corpus for the Migrations period Germanics, and essentially hearsay about all sorts of Late Antique and Early Mediaeval European ethnicities (Magyars, Bolghars, Alans, Finns, Suebi...) We're used to having limited textual evidence to go by. In any case, as far as fodder for RPGs go, what we want are the tall tales much more than the real history of which king replaced which other king. The tall tales are much more fantastic.

In fact, I was generally thinking of the rest of Latin America, the illiterate part—unless consensus has shifted again on the status of Incan quipús as true writing—where we have essentially hearsay and legend, and even a good part of it Christianised. This is fine: there is a lot you can find out about a people just by collecting enough hearsay and legends, not to mention those new methods of genetic archaeology which allows us to begin tracking broad population movements into the distant past. Regardless, the means of social organization in Incan and Aztec lands were left mostly intact, only replacing the Inca/Tlatoani with His Catholic Majesty and allowing what we could term the rest of the Feudal setup running BAU until the second third of the Eighteenth Century, when French influence started the "Enlightened Despotism" era and people like the Marquis of Pombal decided to extirpate native culture to replace it with "superior" European one.

In Portuguese America, it has long been the Metropolitan policy to come in, marry the local women, and let the next generation do the work of settling the land. Practically all Brazilian bandeirantes were this kind of mixed-blood offspring who spoke Nheendyba as a mother tongue and often weren't very good at Portuguese proper. Only from 1750 on the government went on a campaign to replace it with Portuguese, which mostly worked because there was such a massive foreign migration into Brazil in the 19th Century. Otherwise we might still be like the Paraguayans, a slight majority of which speak Guaraní at home.

Now, to bring the subject back to New Zealand and Polynesia, there is plenty of legendary material which still remains useful for the purpose of making up a campaign setting. It's certainly a lot easier, methinks, since there is basically only one macro-culture to emulate, even if it has developed slightly different in NZ vs Tonga vs Hawai'i. In the Americas there's a lot more diversity and you will eventually need to pick only a few to develop to any significant extent.

Quote from: GeekyBugle on February 08, 2023, 04:36:44 PM
No, not all art IS political.

Especially the way they 'squeeze', or force it into the modern hobby then play the 'damned if you do and damned if you don't' tactic. Of course, that definition is highly flexible depending on who you want to target today.

Fuck 'em - Never play that game. Do what you want and ignore the bedwetters. 

Quote from: Wtrmute on February 08, 2023, 05:10:24 PM
In fact, I was generally thinking of the rest of Latin America, the illiterate part—unless consensus has shifted again on the status of Incan quipús as true writing—where we have essentially hearsay and legend, and even a good part of it Christianised. This is fine: there is a lot you can find out about a people just by collecting enough hearsay and legends, not to mention those new methods of genetic archaeology which allows us to begin tracking broad population movements into the distant past. Regardless, the means of social organization in Incan and Aztec lands were left mostly intact, only replacing the Inca/Tlatoani with His Catholic Majesty and allowing what we could term the rest of the Feudal setup running BAU until the second third of the Eighteenth Century, when French influence started the "Enlightened Despotism" era and people like the Marquis of Pombal decided to extirpate native culture to replace it with "superior" European one.

Quipu isn't true writing in the sense of conveying stories. However, Incan and other Andean cultures left a lot of detailed art - both representational and abstract. (Much more than most North American cultures, for example.) Much of the Andean artwork was destroyed - especially goldwork that was melted down by conquerors - but there is still a lot that has been found. I've been using this book a lot in my campaign:

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1045239.Art_of_the_Andes

Using only art leaves a lot of holes to interpret, but it is a great jumping off point. There is also archeology of things like city layout and burials.

Quote from: Wtrmute on February 08, 2023, 05:10:24 PM
Now, to bring the subject back to New Zealand and Polynesia, there is plenty of legendary material which still remains useful for the purpose of making up a campaign setting. It's certainly a lot easier, methinks, since there is basically only one macro-culture to emulate, even if it has developed slightly different in NZ vs Tonga vs Hawai'i. In the Americas there's a lot more diversity and you will eventually need to pick only a few to develop to any significant extent.

I don't know Polynesia much, but I'd be wary about saying that it's easy because there's only one macro-culture. I'd accept that it's less diverse than all of the Americas or all of Europe. Still, regional differences can be very important, like how the difference between French and German would be very important for a continental Europe game.

Quote from: jhkim on February 08, 2023, 07:29:02 PM
Quipu isn't true writing in the sense of conveying stories. However, Incan and other Andean cultures left a lot of detailed art - both representational and abstract. (Much more than most North American cultures, for example.) Much of the Andean artwork was destroyed - especially goldwork that was melted down by conquerors - but there is still a lot that has been found. I've been using this book a lot in my campaign:

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1045239.Art_of_the_Andes

Using only art leaves a lot of holes to interpret, but it is a great jumping off point. There is also archeology of things like city layout and burials.

Unless the consensus has shifted since I last studied this 10–15 years ago, quipús seem to have been some sort of mechanism for recording accounting ledgers, of all things; which is fantastic, considering that the Sumerians started their cuneiform writing down accounting ledgers. It may have been that, in five hundred years, we might have had yet another birthplace of writing (or it might have never gone anywhere, as the proto-writing in Mohenjo-daro and Harappa seem to have gone nowhere).

Quote from: jhkim on February 08, 2023, 07:29:02 PM
I don't know Polynesia much, but I'd be wary about saying that it's easy because there's only one macro-culture. I'd accept that it's less diverse than all of the Americas or all of Europe. Still, regional differences can be very important, like how the difference between French and German would be very important for a continental Europe game.

Actually, unless your continental Europe is set in actual Europe, as opposed to the Flanaess or somewhere similar, there are no relevant differences between French and Germans—or Spaniards, or Poles, or even the English. Western Europe is essentially one big material culture, the biggest difference being which language they use; and even within France and Germany proper, there was a bewildering array of varieties of the "national" language, not to mention completely different language groups like the Bretons and the Sorbs. And yet, from Talinn to Lisbon they are all feudal, Latin-Rite Christians whose warrior élite specialize in heavy cavalry.

But yes, I agree that it is not necessarily easy; just easier than the glorious mess that are the pre-Columbian Americas.

Quote from: Rob Necronomicon on February 07, 2023, 06:12:20 AM
This is subjective... But if you are buying gaming books for historical accuracy, then you're probably going to be mostly disappointed. As they said themselves it is not a textbook. If I want to know the real history of a place I'll buy a history book. But that's just me.

I don't think people are expecting textbook like historical accuracy, or buying RPG books to know the real history of the place. It's that when you buy an RPG book based on a setting, in this case the mythic past of Polynesia, you expect the book to actually implement that to some degree and show knowledge of the myths and cultures, otherwise why buy a historical supplement? It's no different from when DM released Lyonesse, it has to actually reflect the society of the books and magic system, otherwise why buy it as a Lyonesse setting book?

Based on the threads on rpgpub.com though I bought Mythic Polynesia as it seems the major errors are just for New Zealand and not the rest of Polynesia.

Quote from: Carfilhiot on February 09, 2023, 12:30:02 PM
Based on the threads on rpgpub.com though I bought Mythic Polynesia as it seems the major errors are just for New Zealand and not the rest of Polynesia.

Errors in a 'mythical' book? So what and who cares? I refer you to their disclaimer.

Quote from: Rob Necronomicon on February 09, 2023, 12:43:29 PM
Errors in a 'mythical' book? So what and who cares? I refer you to their disclaimer.

Yeah the disclaimer says it isn't a historical treatise. That doesn't mean I'll just accept absolutely anything from a book just because it has "Mythic" on its cover. It's no different from the Lyonesse source book. Sure I don't mind if it doesn't match the novels 100%, but if half the locations are wrong and the magic system is nothing like the book why would I use it as a source book for the novels? Similarly if the creatures in the book weren't really from Polynesian myth and the magic system didn't reflect the magic from their myths to some degree why would you use it as a historic myth source book?

Quote from: Carfilhiot on February 09, 2023, 01:59:18 PM
That doesn't mean I'll just accept absolutely anything from a book just because it has "Mythic" on its cover.

Thanks for popping over from the pub, and being 'oh-so concerned' about this 'harmful' release. Hmm... smells like a troll to me.

But more importantly... Who gives a shit what you will or won't accept?

Quote from: Rob Necronomicon on February 09, 2023, 04:00:58 PM
Thanks for popping over from the pub, and being 'oh-so concerned' about this 'harmful' release. Hmm... smells like a troll to me.

I don't think it's "harmful", I never even said that.

Quote from: Rob Necronomicon on February 09, 2023, 04:00:58 PM
But more importantly... Who gives a shit what you will or won't accept?

I'm not expecting other people to "give a shit", it's just a conversation about what people expect from historical sourcebooks. Most people buying the Mythras historical line expect some fidelity, it's what the line is marketed with. Not total historical accuracy, but some reasonable fidelity to the source culture and its myths. Other books in the line were good at this. I even think this book is good at it.
My point isn't so much about Mythic Polynesia itself, more that it's not odd to expect some historical accuracy from a line marketing itself as such. Just like I'd expect some accuracy to the setting from a Lord of the Rings book.

Quote from: Carfilhiot on February 09, 2023, 04:23:17 PM
I'm not expecting other people to "give a shit", it's just a conversation about what people expect from historical sourcebooks. Most people buying the Mythras historical line expect some fidelity, it's what the line is marketed with. Not total historical accuracy, but some reasonable fidelity to the source culture and its myths. Mythic Babylon is a good example.

At this point, it's probably useful to recentre the discussion. I did not follow the hubbub over at Twitter, but the problem originally didn't seem to be about historical fidelity, but that the villains on the included adventure were lizardmen and someone decided it was a dog whistle for the Maori. Is that what the problem was? Carfilhiot, what exactly do you feel in the book isn't faithful to Maori culture specifically?

Quote from: Wtrmute on February 09, 2023, 04:32:09 PM
At this point, it's probably useful to recentre the discussion. I did not follow the hubbub over at Twitter, but the problem originally didn't seem to be about historical fidelity, but that the villains on the included adventure were lizardmen and someone decided it was a dog whistle for the Maori. Is that what the problem was?

I didn't hear about that Lizardmen thing. I don't recall lizardmen in the book.

QuoteCarfilhiot, what exactly do you feel in the book isn't faithful to Maori culture specifically?

It just seems to be missing monsters from their myth and doesn't handle their magic well. Not a big deal for me as it handles other Polynesians fine, I wasn't looking for a Maori specific game.

the lizardman thing was a sidetrack discussion about Monster Island, which has the term "savage" to describe one species of lizardman natives on the island and I got threadbanned for attempting to correct some facts about it without stepping into any commentary about the racism of the statement. It is not relevant to Mythic Polynesia.

edit: you can read my comments https://forum.rpg.net/index.php?threads/mythras-mythic-polynesia.904650/post-24602331 and https://forum.rpg.net/index.php?threads/mythras-mythic-polynesia.904650/post-24602492 and my threadban reasoning https://forum.rpg.net/index.php?threads/mythras-mythic-polynesia.904650/post-24610906