Are games demeaning in Pueblo culture? Is that what you are saying?

Note, this isn't the only thing I'm thinking about, but just wondering.

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I don't know how they're considered currently.

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Let's just assume that for argument's sake they are.

If so, what should I do?

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All I have is this:

http://www.speculations.com/?t=189622

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I am told that intentions don't matter. Simply the act of a white guy creating a degrading work (a game) about Native people is offensive right there.

That's a nice link. I don't think I did anything particularly stereotyped. But I am still stealing someone else's culture, aren't I? :(

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If so, you have to ask yourself whether it's a childing and demeaning game.

If so, it never should have been posted in the first place. If not, taking it down does a disservice to us all.

You may just be balancing one set of stereotypes against another here.

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I'm not Pueblo, but I am Native (or to be exact, mixed race but mostly raised by my mother and her Native family) so I'll drop my two cents. I'm not offended in the least by this game; in fact, I think it's cool because so many RPGs tend to be Euro-centric. I can see how some could see issues in "playing" a persecuted minority - but to me it's no different than reading or writing a work featuring someone of a different race. The time span also makes a difference, because even though I'm Native and I live and see the legacy of things that happened in the takeover of the Americas, I really don't know anything more about how it felt to live back then than anyone else.

In short: live action role-playing would disturb me, but something like this where one tries to understand a character from the inside out and stand in their shoes is cool.

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You have confused appropriation and representation:

http://notesfromthegeekshow.blogspot.com/2006/06/cultural-appropriation.html

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so...
what are a bunch of white guys sitting around pretending to be native americans?

appropriation or representation?

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Would it be a better game if it was a bunch of white guys sitting around pretending to kill Native Americans?

There wouldn't be any question of appropriation.

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RPGs don't involve pretending to the extent that culture is being appropriated (the LARP example above is a bit more problematic).

What's the difference between there being one author of a story with Native American themes and several?

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I hate to sound wishy-washy, but as I see things, your intention does matter, and your reception matters as well. If you've done honest research so that the game background and rules are fair representations of what the reality was (modified by the need to be a playable game, of course) and to avoid cliche or unimaginative thinking, stayed within the general bounds of good taste, and if you've done a professional job to make the game as well-done as you're able, then I would think your intention is inoffensive. It might not be received as such, but you can't find that out unless the Pueblo descendants actually are generally offended. (I'm sure someone will be offended -- there's nothing that doesn't draw some objection, including Thursdays and glasses of water -- but, in general, how do people react?)

I admit that as a fan of grand strategy games I'm more inclined to view games-based-on-history favorably than other people might. But offhand I don't see a reason this would be any more inherently ``offensive by construction'' than, say, a similar game about the Turkish siege of Vienna or about the Shinmiyangyo War would be.

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I see no problem in this. I think, as long as you tried to be historically accurate (as accurate as an RPG could get I suppose), and have the noble intentions of honoring resistance, there is nothing wrong.

As long as you aren't telling American Indians today what they should or shouldn't do, there is nothing wrong. You seem to be doing this game to glorify resistance to an imperial culture (at least that's my take) and in that sense, I think it's perfectly right.

I agree with all the prior commentary here, all have wonderfully valid points, and I think you have to, at some point, stop worrying so much about such things. You'll kill yourself otherwise.

The important thing is to make sure you're doing it with honor, dignity and respect. At least that's just me.

Then again, I'm a white dude, so what do I know. :P

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First off. Games are a learning tool. They're no more demeaning than books or songs. They're a medium.

I'm not sure I'd find the Werewolf guy offensive. It'd depend entirely on context. If, he were like a football mascot running around giving war-whoops and acting stereotypes, then I'd probably find it offensive. If he just stole the symbol because it fit with his character concept, I don't think it's a big deal. If he's somewhere in between, playing the notion of a 'noble savage', it's probably privledge but if his heart is in the right place, I don't see it as a big deal either.

If he talks about the meaning of it and the people whom it belongs to, I'd even think it's probably a positive thing. Sequoia created a written alphabet of the Cherokee language so that other people might learn it and keep it from being forgotten. Even if you don't speak it well or can only read a few characters, the sentiment is appreciated because it means something lives on.

As for your game. I know you, so I know it's well intentioned. Maybe it has a little privledge but no reason to throw the baby out with the bathwater. Games of cowboys and indians and the 'ignorant savage' story schlock of the 20th century was pretty awful and offensive. The 'noble savage' is still offensive in it's way but it's a Hell of a lot better than 'ignorant savage'. But you're doing a history game and it probably is less stereotyped than 'the noble savage' so that's a step better yet.

You don't know what it was like to be Anasazi, Pueblo or Lakota during those times, but to be perfectly honest, their descendents today don't know what it was like either. This is no more racist than writing a civil war strategy game or a game that re-enacts Neilson's battle against the Spanish Armada. It's a setting based on a historic event and that can make people AWARE of that event and make them curious and learn about what happened. Even the 'cowboys and indians' stories of the 30s inspired that despite their negative stereotypes.

You did your best. Don't sweat it. Why not remember instead "Those who do not know history are doomed to repeat it."

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First off. Games are a learning tool. They're no more demeaning than books or songs. They're a medium.

the marriage of culture, topic, and medium has a profound effect: mohammed in cartoons

it's probably privledge but if his heart is in the right place

this bugs people without the privilege. alot.

As for your game. I know you, so I know it's well intentioned. Maybe it has a little privledge but no reason to throw the baby out with the bathwater. Games of cowboys and indians and the 'ignorant savage' story schlock of the 20th century was pretty awful and offensive. The 'noble savage' is still offensive in it's way but it's a Hell of a lot better than 'ignorant savage'. But you're doing a history game and it probably is less stereotyped than 'the noble savage' so that's a step better yet.

the big question here is how someone of the corresponding culture would feel.

and it's a privileged attitude to think "a little privilege won't do too much harm."

ou don't know what it was like to be Anasazi, Pueblo or Lakota during those times, but to be perfectly honest, their descendents today don't know what it was like either. This is no more racist than writing a civil war strategy game or a game that re-enacts Neilson's battle against the Spanish Armada.

this is total bullshit. it's bullshit to diminish a person's tie to their history - especially since it was european oppression the severed so many of those ties. and it's bullshit to compare native american history to the american civil war or nelson's battle because the power differential is totally different.

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Those cartoons, even to me, a non-muslim do not look well-intentioned. A drawing with horns and a turban isn't trying to be culturally sensitive.


I honestly disagree that minority people are so easily offended. I'm a member of several minorities. Philidelphia, Boys Don't Cry, Different for Girls, Ma Vie En Rose, Boys on the Side, and Fried Green Tomatos are all films about lesbians, gays, or transgendered people. None or few of them were written by the people the films represented and an even smaller portion of the actors portraying those people were themselves gay or trans. I find none of those films offensive and I think most gay and trans people would side with me on that.

I can't pretend to speak for other minorities, of course but I don't think it's fair to say an outsider is totally incapable of understanding. They may not COMPLETELY understand but they can understand enough to convey the meaning to other outsiders in a way which is not harmful to those within.

When I was a teen, I spent a lot of time around and on the reservations in Oklahoma. I'm enough Cherokee and Choctaw to be on the roles and I was unofficially adopted into the Creek nation. I won't even pretend to know what it's like to live ON the reservation BUT I do know though historical re-enactment (which is basically a LARP without a game system) and pow-wow that the general feeling was that attempts to understand and celebrate culture were mostly welcome.

I don't for a moment think that privilege is harmless but I don't think it's an instant show-stopper either.

I also really disagree about history. Saying it is diminishing someone's tie with history seems really reactionary. _I_ don't know what it would have been like to be Cherokee or Choctaw 50 years ago. I don't even know what it would be like to be german, irish, or accepted as an american. I can GUESS because of what I've read and people I've talked to but I don't magically know MORE than someone who's studied those periods simply because my great grandparents were those groups and lived in that time.

I read or see programs about the trail of tears and even just thinking about it brings tears to my eyes and makes my heart ache but it isn't because of an ancestoral connection but because it was such an awful thing. I feel the same pangs when I read of the nazi death camps or the slave ships that carried blacks to this country.

The Pueblo uprising was over THREE HUNDRED years ago. I don't even know what nationality my ancestors might have considered themselves 300 years ago. Nor what religion. I don't know their names or their childrens' names or their childrens' childrens' names. So what, precisely, would make me more qualified to speak for them than a person from mainland China? If he'd researched that and wrote something about it, he's probably far more qualified than I.

I do understand the power differential and how that affects reporting of history. So do you. Neither of us are Pueblo, nor are either of us Spanish. We may not fully understand the power dynamic that existed but through the power dynamic that exists in our own lives, we can at least partially comprehend it. If we can, why can't someone else? ... In fact, actually come to think of it, how do you know you're even arguing the right SIDE in this particular case. Anti-mexican sentiments in this country are generally worse than anti-indian and have been for a very long time. It could quite easily be the spanish who are portrayed unfairly in american history books. So who should have the say in way Kynn can and can't say and what is and isn't privilege? Spaniards? Mexicans? Navajo? (the native americans that are most prominent there now) Hopi? (The most direct ancestors of the pueblo people) It's not nearly as black and white as you present it.

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Yes. No. No. No. No.

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Games aren't childish and demeaning. Games are a part of life. Play is an integral part of work is a part of life. I think that most countries (and cultures) know this. Life isn't about being right, but about dancing/singing/participating, and loving who you love, and helping those you can.

Try not to fret, hun. There are those who won't agree with you or who have a two by fifteen on their shoulder and who will try to put you down. Who are really talking about their own insecurities, their own anger, own feelings and projecting them on you.

Be strong. You created something beautiful here. And worthwhile.

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what exactly is a privilege check anyway?

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It's when you call someone out on the fact that they're speaking or acting from privilege.

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I don't have a good answer for your question, kynn, but I know that asking white people to not write people of colour isn't the answer. All that leads to is whitewashing, like what is talked about here.

Here's another thread that might be useful, as it specifically talks about including non-white cultures in worldbuilding (and does a little bit of strategizing on how to avoid the common pitfalls): Creating non-racist fantasy races/cultures?

Playing a Character of Color isn't directly related, but it might help you see if you, as a creator, can address the problem that stoneself brought up about privileged white people playing the characters as a caricature rather than as solid characters.

Information on racial coding of fantasy/alien races in SF&F? is only tangentially related, because it deals with racial coding, but I think that there is a nominal connection in terms of the cultural appropriation question.

I'm pretty sure you're the one who linked me to zvi_likes_tv's entries on writing people of colour in fandom, so I would recommend those as a resource as well.

What it comes down to, I think, is that the most important thing here is that you need to be hyper-aware of privilege -- your own and that of your potential players -- and think a lot more about what you write and what you don't than you would if you were writing about a whitewashed culture.

Is it a lot of work? Hell yes. But you're an ally, you know very well that extra work comes with the job.

Should you scrap the project? It's not my place to say. What you should do, however, is sit down with your work, with what everyone has said here and elsewhere about white people writing people of colour and non-white cultures, and think about both the possible damages that could be done by a game like this as well as the possible advantages.

I know things got heated between you and stoneself, but once you have some emotional distance, it is probably worthwhile to look into some of the things he was saying -- about the players, about the gaming culture you're going into, etc -- and see if you can subtly counteract those problems in the way that you write your manual. It might also be helpful to write a forward for the manual outright discussing issues of cultural appropriation and stereotyping.

This isn't an easy subject, but -- even if it causes fights and makes you confront possible areas of privilege -- I think that it's infinitely better to try to write a non-white-centric game and get burned now and then, than it is to go for the "safe" choice of hiding in the privilege of whitewashed worlds.

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Eh I'm going to stay on my creative bandwagon here and just say that what mostly matters is whether the writing/work is accurate (in the details) and authentic (in the themes). For most of us, that means staying within cultural parameters where we can assess those things. But for some people observation and research can bridge the gap.

As an example, Shakespeare's Shylock fails (IMHO) but Othello doesn't. Shylock fails 'cause he's only Jewish as a sort of convenient shorthand to the audience; he could be just as nasty without the Jewishness and the Jewishness doesn't add to anything. Othello, on the other hand, is far from just a stupid murdering black guy, because it is a part of his insecurity and also doesn't detract from his actual humanity.

That's probably way too short a paragraph to get at it, but that's my belief. All artists appropriate; it's what we DO, unless every character is exactly like us or every image out of our personal culture. The question is, is it done well, or badly.

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Well, I'm a white girl, and I know fuck-all about role-playing, but I do write novels, and the majority of the characters in the novel I'm currently writing are people of colour. Now, it's skiffy, so there's a certain leeway in terms of representation, but I still have responsibility as an author.

My responsibility, as I see it, is twofold. One, I need to tell stories that are relevant to the world around me. I'm pale-skinned, but increasing numbers of people in my city aren't, and if I'm going to write a story about that city (and about the issues that matter to me), I need to step outside of my own experience. Besides, skiffy is still predominantly lily-white, and that's fucked up.

Ursula LeGuin is white, but her characters generally aren't. And she's always flooded with letters from young people who say things like, "I've never picked up a fantasy novel where the characters have the same skin colour as me." That's important, not because it gives LeGuin an ego boost, but because it encourages kids from different ethnic backgrounds to start telling their own stories. She's doing everything she can to break the cycle of "there are few skiffy books about people of colour" --> "therefore, I have no interest in skiffy because it doesn't represent people like me" --> "there are few skiffy authors of colour."

I gather that the world of role-playing is still primarily white, so I think that your desire to create a game with people of colour as protagonists is a good one.

Responsibility number two: I have to avoid cultural appropriation, misrepresentation, and stereotypes in the stories that I tell. I think this is what you're hitting up against now. And there's a whole lot of questions you've got to ask yourself, and, to be honest, that you need to ask other people. Are you exoticizing or speaking for the other group of people? Are you doing this to entertain yourself, or are you doing this to tell a story that needs to be told. Are you asking the player to imitate, or to empathize?

I can't answer these questions, and in some ways, it's really best to run them by people from the culture you're telling stories about. Which is, again, hard to do. But I think it's a worthy thing to try, because the alternative is never writing outside one's own narrow experience.

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Would you like an easy way to get to know how your game feels and affects indigenous people?

Instead of rolling it around in your head, try contacting some indigenous folks (yes, they're still around) and asking them how they feel about it. Not one person, not one group, but a couple. Listen and consider. Not all of them are going to be upset, and not all are going to be cool with it. But you can get a feel for what is problematic and what is good by a small sample.

The internet makes this incredibly easy.

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Heya Kynn. I followed your link.

First, I think the whole "appropriation or representation" thing is a false dilemma. It's much more complicated than a y/n answer.

There will always be assholes who, for example, assume that all Asian americans are "from" somewhere. And they'll do worse things when they play RPGs. That doesn't have to do with you and your game.

Hey, and maybe your game, aside from all that, turns out to have some content that comes across racist. It's the pitfalls of the system we live in. All you can do is say, hey, my bad, and move on with what you learned.

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