Muahaha
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It's probably easier to make up a culture that is "sort of like" the Hollywood depiction of Steampunk Mongols or whatever. You can take liberties and claim that the industrialisation or whatever that lead to the steam powered era prompted some sort of cultural revolution that changed X into the modern Y.
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Or just go the Avatar route and set the location on a fictional planet with fictional peoples and places. You can have people of different races, but without the issue of cultural appropriation by using a specific historical ethnicity or country.
Ceterum autem censeo Carthaginem esse delendam
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Or just go the Avatar route and set the location on a fictional planet with fictional peoples and places. You can have people of different races, but without the issue of cultural appropriation by using a specific historical ethnicity or country.
True, but that would require writing and reading cultural backgrounds. And people don't even bother reading the rule book for the RPG system they're playing these days.
He/Him
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True, but that would require writing and reading cultural backgrounds. And people don't even bother reading the rule book for the RPG system they're playing these days.
Who gave you permission to make a new post, while I was editing my post?
To add to my thoughts, I've been working out my ideas for a fantasy world dotted only with islands and archipelagos with the largest islands being like Great Britain sized and civilization dominated by elves whose culture is a rip-off of the Monarchies of Mau blended with a little bit of cyberpunk mega-corporations. I keep wavering on whether I want to do a Renaissance theme with some Age of Sail ships or go Victorian/Georgian-ish steampunk ships. I'm hoping to do fantasy DUNE and have the ships scratch that space truckin' itch too, but, as conversations on here have led me to believe, tinkering with the ship tech is a required part of the experience for space truckin' so Age of Sail probably wouldn't work for that.
Regarding your post, true. I'm one of the weirdos who avoids existing IPs and actively seeks out unique IPs for MU*s.
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The problem I've found with historical fiction - even pseudo-historical - based in "real world" places is that the further back in time you go, the more documentation you need for your theme. It also gets I think harder for people to just come in and play - the more documentation/theme files you have, the more people have to read until they feel comfortable, and that can turn people off. And then you have the players who think they know everything about that era and become like, the czar of YOU ARE PLAYING THIS WRONG and ugh, those people make historical fiction games really difficult to play.
It's also I think hard to introduce a cultural era that a majority of people have little to no knowledge of. Which means that you're going to have people unintentionally being ignorant of the times. Which means you're going to combat that with more documentation and that's going to give people more things to read and it's kind of a vicious balancing cycle and you're still going to have people being culturally ignorant unintentionally (or even intentionally).
Anyway that's just my two cents. Steampunk Lord & Ladies sounds like it'd have a good mass appeal, I would just be really thoughtful on the setting (and I would, honestly, probably go with everyone else's suggestions and make your own world at that point)
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What about Meiji Japan but with steampunk Lord & Ladies? It was an up-and-coming power, eager to prove itself; it was industrializing rapidly; and they altered the system of nobility to resemble something more like Britain and Germany, so you had somewhat recognizable styles of nobility. Then again, you're expecting players to be able to play steampunk Meiji Japan as something other than a caricature, and that's a tall order. Maybe stick with European states.
This sounds like L5R but with extra steps. Which I am here for, but demand the FFG weird R&K dice, not your normal D10s.
LET'S GOOOOOO
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Yes, we've discussed the issues of cultural insensitivity. I'm still thinking the best way to handle it. I'm not 100% onboard with writing our own world, because I lose interest in things quick.
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@cobaltasaurus said in Muahaha:
Yes, we've discussed the issues of cultural insensitivity. I'm still thinking the best way to handle it. I'm not 100% onboard with writing our own world, because I lose interest in things quick.
I might look into a bit of worldbuilding, in part because there are some factors that I am interested in including regarding ecosystems and trade routes that are limited by real-world geography.
Idiotic racism will always be a factor, because people are really carelessly oblivious when it comes to cultures and stereotypes.
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@cobaltasaurus said in Muahaha:
Yes, we've discussed the issues of cultural insensitivity. I'm still thinking the best way to handle it. I'm not 100% onboard with writing our own world, because I lose interest in things quick.
You could always have someone else write the world up so that you can focus on the stories you want to tell within it.
“It is better to live doing the things that you like. It is foolish to live within this dream of a world seeing unpleasantness and doing only things that you do not like.” -- Yamamoto Tsunetomo.
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As someone who's working at the grindstone of their worldbuilding, the one thing I try to keep in mind is not to create too much world. Because I'm accutely aware of how players can just check out if there's too much.
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TBH, I'm surprised noone ever did a SciFi version of Pendragon.
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@cobaltasaurus said in Muahaha:
Yes, we've discussed the issues of cultural insensitivity. I'm still thinking the best way to handle it. I'm not 100% onboard with writing our own world, because I lose interest in things quick.
You could always have someone else write the world up so that you can focus on the stories you want to tell within it.
@Tributary @Pyrephox ^^^^
... >.>
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@cobaltasaurus
Hey.
Me too.
“It is better to live doing the things that you like. It is foolish to live within this dream of a world seeing unpleasantness and doing only things that you do not like.” -- Yamamoto Tsunetomo.
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@cobaltasaurus
Hey.
Me too.
That would require you to be on discord with us to communicate with us.
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@cobaltasaurus
goddammit cobie i don't use discord i'm fucking old as shit
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Here I went and offered my wonderful (read insane) ideas for steampunk-y airships in fantasy ocean island world and I don't get an invitation?
Well, fine! I'll go make my own game...
Actually, that probably describes a lot of games already.
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The entirety of planning is currently being held on discord, where @Tributary, @Pyrephox, @Saturna, as well as other friends and I are throwing things at a wall and seeing what sticks. We're looking at seeing if we can get ArxCode up sometime in the near future. After that is done we may be open to crowd sourcing parts of theme.
We're not trying to make anyone feel unwanted. We appreciate the ideas, we just don't have a public place to share them yet.
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@cobaltasaurus
FINE JUST LEAVE US OUT.
(I kid, plz share when you are ready.)
