Dec 30, 2016, 11:45 PM

This was inspired by the current conversation in the Shadowhunters MUSH thread, which is a little broad and warrants a discussion of its own. (Also, I'm gonna tangent and I would feel awful doing that in someone's advertisement.)

I know I'm looking at aspects of this for a project myself, and it's one of the few things that gives me pause about the theme/concept. It's probably the only reservation I have because I have my ideas about how to handle and where to 'draw the line', so to speak, but various other games have handled this in a variety of ways, to varying degrees of success. (I'm still waffling. I do not have a solid plan; I have ideas, though. It seems like I'm not the only creator-person who is facing this issue. Hence, thread.)

This strikes me as an issue that doesn't have a "right answer", but instead a variety of approaches to address the potential problems it can create when either a fantastical society or a historical setting is not aligned with the current understanding of how things should be.

How would you address this as a staffer? Would your approach change if you were using a completely invented fantasy setting vs. a historical one? What about an 'alt earth' setting ('The Man in the High Castle', World of Darkness, etc. which are essentially fantastical takes on the world we do know and draw from it's real history)?

As a player, how do these issues impact your choice to play somewhere or not, if they do at all? Do you think there are reasonable compromises to make on these subjects? If so, what kinds of things do you think would influence your decision one way or the other?