My world hasn't been fully mapped out yet. I made a map for a continent early into world-building, without much thinking. The continent has a frontier on it, based on the wild west. I want to make a continent later that's based on pre-colonization America, with outsiders entering the continent. Would it be offensive or culturally appropriating to have 2 continents for America? I can get rid of the older one and make a frontier in the new one.
It's important to understand what cultural appropriation means in order to avoid it. Cultural appropriation is the act of taking elements of another culture, intentionally or otherwise, and using them for your own ends without acknowledging the origins of those elements, or being respectful in how you handle them.
It's fine to take inspiration and be inclusive of other cultural ideas, the key elements being:
Be respectful in how you depict those elements and the culture from which they originate; avoid caricatures and harmful stereotypes
Acknowledge the roots of what you're drawing from and don't wash away those roots
Aim for authenticity and authentic respect; read up about the culture. If you can, ask people from that culture about it. Read about how it's been done badly and don't do those things.
As for what you're discussing, depending on what you're doing it might be less cultural appropriation and more a potential risk of using problematic historical themes for entertainment value. The 'wild west' era of history was one fraught with tragedy and violence. Now, that's not to say you can't or shouldn't tell stories that parallel the wild west era of American colonisation by Europeans. Instead I would advocate you do it carefully; avoid painting one side as good or bad, avoid harmful tropes often found in older depictions of said period of history. If you want a good example of this in fantasy fiction, I'd recommend the Ixalan setting from Magic the Gathering; it features an indigenous peoples facing off against invading (vampire) conquistador-types with an interesting framing that paints neither side as superior to the other in terms of 'civilisation'.
My shortest advice would be; Be Respectful. Be Kind. Ask Questions. Listen. Learn
Are you creating this world for public consumption, such as on DM Guild or somewhere else on the internet? Or are you just making this world for a private game you are playing with your friends?
I ask this because, if it's for public consumption, you have to be very careful, as stated above. But if it's just you and your friends, I'd say just talk to them about it. Ask if any of THEM would be offended or bothered by it. If not, then who cares what the rest of the world thinks? No one else is going to see it but you and your friends. If they are bothered by it, then your job as a DM is to make sure that you don't upset your players, and that is all that matters. Your players might get upset by things that the internet wouldn't care about -- again, they come first.
And if you are lucky and you have a group of friends that just roll with things and don't get bothered by stuff -- like my old group, back in high school -- then you can do almost anything. We were incredibly rough on each other and nobody cared. We laughed it off. Nobody took it seriously. I'm Italian. People made Italian jokes at me, and I made ethnic jokes on their ethnicity back to them, and nobody got offended, because everyone knew it was not meant to harm but to tease. A GM in our Champions game could make up a very stereotypically Sicilian-like Italian-American mafia and I would not have gotten offended. (Oh wait, *I* was the GM who did that... LOL.) But I knew nobody was going to get offended and they knew it too and nobody worried about it.
Incidentally, one of our habits was calling each other "idiot" as a way of making fun of something we did that was bone-headed... no one actually thought each other was stupid -- we were all in advanced classes... Then one day I called another person, not part of our friends group, an idiot, similarly meaning it in jest, and he was severely offended, and I had a lot of apologizing to do.
This is what I mean by, the context matters. If you have a game group like mine, you can get away with anything, and don't worry about it. If your group is not quite so thick-skinned and shrug-it-offy, you will need to have a conversation. (I would not have even bothered with a conversation about what you have described here with my old high school group... I *would* probably have that conversation with my current group, because they are not the same people.)
If it is for public consumption on the internet or in book stores, then I would say, you must take FAR more care and watch this kind of thing. But for just a group of friends in a private game, talk to them, and don't worry about it if they say it is OK.
There are many pieces as to how a culture develops.
One of the large one is geography. People over centuries have evolved or developed to fit into their geography. Without being racist take a look at the countries that have had more major marathon winners the all others. A commonality is a people that lived with the best mode of getting from one place to the other by running.
Cultures that developed thousands of miles apart in similar environments developed very similar styles of dress that worked best for their geography.
A lot of them have very similar and unique ways of doing things and traditions.
Don't be afraid of using elements of a culture, but as stated above a few times, be respectful.
My party recently traveled across a desert. Their guides I based off Bedouins. Compare them to the Mongols. Lots of similarities, lots of differences.
Would it be offensive or culturally appropriating to have 2 continents for America? I can get rid of the older one and make a frontier in the new one.
Have to be honest, I really don't see what having two continents has to do with cultural appropriation.
That aside, cultural appropriation is taking something from another culture as if it were yours, thereby ignoring its authentic origins and not crediting the - usually not dominant - culture it's really from. Taking elements from or portraying other cultures is not cultural appropriation. Blending classic Helenistic or Roman elements into your setting is not cultural appropriation, for instance. Eating with chopsticks as a westerner is not cultural appropriaton and neither is practicing yoga or an oriental martial art - not unless that westerner were to claim these practices did not originate the way they did and what cultural context surrounds them.
That's not to say any of this can't not be cultural appropriation but still disrespectful or offensive either. If you intend to have a group of people resembling pre-colonization natives and to present them in an unflattering way, that'd be disrespectful even if it isn't appropriation.
I doubt there's a problem with what you intend. As long as you don't insult or mock other cultures, you should be fine.
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Want to start playing but don't have anyone to play with? You can try these options: [link].
Would it be offensive or culturally appropriating to have 2 continents for America? I can get rid of the older one and make a frontier in the new one.
Have to be honest, I really don't see what having two continents has to do with cultural appropriation.
That aside, cultural appropriation is taking something from another culture as if it were yours, thereby ignoring its authentic origins and not crediting the - usually not dominant - culture it's really from. Taking elements from or portraying other cultures is not cultural appropriation. Blending classic Helenistic or Roman elements into your setting is not cultural appropriation, for instance. Eating with chopsticks as a westerner is not cultural appropriaton and neither is practicing yoga or an oriental martial art - not unless that westerner were to claim these practices did not originate the way they did and what cultural context surrounds them.
That's not to say any of this can't not be cultural appropriation but still disrespectful or offensive either. If you intend to have a group of people resembling pre-colonization natives and to present them in an unflattering way, that'd be disrespectful even if it isn't appropriation.
I doubt there's a problem with what you intend. As long as you don't insult or mock other cultures, you should be fine.
Sorry for not clarifying what I meant in that sentence. When I asked if it would be offensive to have 2 American based continents, I was worried that having the Frontier based continent without Natives would gloss over the struggles and eventual genocides of the Native Americans, potentially offending someone.
As for other responses, thank you for all the help. I'll make sure to research as much as I can.
Cultural appropriation is just multiculturalism. Multiculturalism is good.
There's no issues here.
Sorry for not clarifying what I meant in that sentence. When I asked if it would be offensive to have 2 American based continents, I was worried that having the Frontier based continent without Natives would gloss over the struggles and eventual genocides of the Native Americans, potentially offending someone.
It not addressing indians' history isn't something that most people would get offended by. It would be such a rare event for that to happen. As most people can tell that your world is fictional and doesn't follow our world's history. You can simply say "there weren't people on here before in this wild west-esque land, now there are" and nobody would care.
People usually play DnD for a fantastical adventure, nobody is expecting you to write the next great American novel with the perfect allegory to class and racial tension and they usually won't want you to. Because it being so serious would probably get in the way of their fun unless they specifically said they wanted that. Most people would expect to just see the tieflings, dwarves, and elves riding around in cowboy hats and spurs trying to survive off the land. There not being specific mention of Amerindians wouldn't even cross their mind and it would be weird if they were there, since your continents aren't America.
The only people that would care would be the small subset of critics on tumblr, twitter, and reviewtube. Their opinions shouldn't get in your way of creativity. And creators shouldn't read their reviews anyway, since they're for consumers. That's just assuming if this world you're making is a commercial product, not just a private game.
There is a fine, not always super well- defined line between multiculturalism and cultural appropriation. It's like pornography in that it's not always the easiest to define, but you know it when you see it. But they are different.
For example, I've heard many Japanese people enjoy seeing people from other cultures sharing in theirs through fashions and music (if done accurately and respectfully) and typically don't mind say, white people wearing kimonos. HOWEVER, that can be interpreted differently by Japanese-Americans who've grown up facing persecution because of their culture and/or ethnicity, so seeing a white person adopting Japanese cultural practices without acknowledging how Japanese-Americans have been treated historically can be seen as insulting, or clumsy at best.
Same with someone citing white people wearing dreadlocks above. Many black hairstyles have histories rooted deeply in the historic persecution, exploitation, and violence against black people, and adopting those styles without ever meaningfully addressing the history behind it, and having never been affected by it, is not what the kids these days would call "a good look."
But you can still hold interest in other cultures and learn cultural practices and share in culture. You can read, you can more importantly talk to your friends who may come from other cultures, BUT a big part of sharing in another culture is doing so respectfully as Davedamon said, and part of that is going forward with the understanding that not every cultural practice is for you to participate in directly.
Back on topic however, as far as the continents go I think you're fine. You could make an argument that including an accurate representation of a native people being colonized as they were in real life for the purposes of a fantasy game just for fun would be a tad insensitive, and that if you want to build a thematic Old West style world without replicating the racism and colonialism of the real world, then the two continents solution is probably a good way to go about it. But again: that's subjective, so you should really talk to your players. If you're not sure if historically accurate colonialism for the purpose of a game would be offensive, or if sanitizing a history of oppression for the purposes of a game would be offensive, then your players' feelings on the matter should be the tie breaker.
I'd say legality doesn't come into it. There's plenty of not cool things you can do that there's no legal recourse against; it's all a matter of using good judgment. Knowing the history behind cultural signifiers and knowing how it can make people feel to appropriate them, do your judge it to be a good thing to do?
And as I said above: this is all subjective. Sometimes the answer is no, sometimes the answer is yes. We are all entitled to our beliefs but should be mindful of how they effect people.
That said, we're veering off topic and I wouldn't want to give the mods more work than they have already, so that's my two cents on the topic. I appreciate the respectful discussion, stay nerdy friends!
Polite reminder that while courteous and polite discussion of how to respectfully, kindly, and considerately represent and reference real world cultures, historical events, and the struggles of the many peoples of this world in your D&D game is acceptable for this forum, forays into politics and political discussion are not. Please stay on topic, and most of all
My world hasn't been fully mapped out yet. I made a map for a continent early into world-building, without much thinking. The continent has a frontier on it, based on the wild west. I want to make a continent later that's based on pre-colonization America, with outsiders entering the continent. Would it be offensive or culturally appropriating to have 2 continents for America? I can get rid of the older one and make a frontier in the new one.
It's important to understand what cultural appropriation means in order to avoid it. Cultural appropriation is the act of taking elements of another culture, intentionally or otherwise, and using them for your own ends without acknowledging the origins of those elements, or being respectful in how you handle them.
It's fine to take inspiration and be inclusive of other cultural ideas, the key elements being:
As for what you're discussing, depending on what you're doing it might be less cultural appropriation and more a potential risk of using problematic historical themes for entertainment value. The 'wild west' era of history was one fraught with tragedy and violence. Now, that's not to say you can't or shouldn't tell stories that parallel the wild west era of American colonisation by Europeans. Instead I would advocate you do it carefully; avoid painting one side as good or bad, avoid harmful tropes often found in older depictions of said period of history. If you want a good example of this in fantasy fiction, I'd recommend the Ixalan setting from Magic the Gathering; it features an indigenous peoples facing off against invading (vampire) conquistador-types with an interesting framing that paints neither side as superior to the other in terms of 'civilisation'.
My shortest advice would be; Be Respectful. Be Kind. Ask Questions. Listen. Learn
I hope this helps
Find my D&D Beyond articles here
Here's some tips I found: https://getproofed.com/writing-tips/5-tips-for-avoiding-cultural-appropriation-in-fiction/
https://medium.com/@nettlefish/cultural-appropriation-for-the-worried-writer-some-practical-advice-ac21710685e3
Canto alla vita
alla sua bellezza
ad ogni sua ferita
ogni sua carezza!
I sing to life and to its tragic beauty
To pain and to strife, but all that dances through me
The rise and the fall, I've lived through it all!
Are you creating this world for public consumption, such as on DM Guild or somewhere else on the internet? Or are you just making this world for a private game you are playing with your friends?
I ask this because, if it's for public consumption, you have to be very careful, as stated above. But if it's just you and your friends, I'd say just talk to them about it. Ask if any of THEM would be offended or bothered by it. If not, then who cares what the rest of the world thinks? No one else is going to see it but you and your friends. If they are bothered by it, then your job as a DM is to make sure that you don't upset your players, and that is all that matters. Your players might get upset by things that the internet wouldn't care about -- again, they come first.
And if you are lucky and you have a group of friends that just roll with things and don't get bothered by stuff -- like my old group, back in high school -- then you can do almost anything. We were incredibly rough on each other and nobody cared. We laughed it off. Nobody took it seriously. I'm Italian. People made Italian jokes at me, and I made ethnic jokes on their ethnicity back to them, and nobody got offended, because everyone knew it was not meant to harm but to tease. A GM in our Champions game could make up a very stereotypically Sicilian-like Italian-American mafia and I would not have gotten offended. (Oh wait, *I* was the GM who did that... LOL.) But I knew nobody was going to get offended and they knew it too and nobody worried about it.
Incidentally, one of our habits was calling each other "idiot" as a way of making fun of something we did that was bone-headed... no one actually thought each other was stupid -- we were all in advanced classes... Then one day I called another person, not part of our friends group, an idiot, similarly meaning it in jest, and he was severely offended, and I had a lot of apologizing to do.
This is what I mean by, the context matters. If you have a game group like mine, you can get away with anything, and don't worry about it. If your group is not quite so thick-skinned and shrug-it-offy, you will need to have a conversation. (I would not have even bothered with a conversation about what you have described here with my old high school group... I *would* probably have that conversation with my current group, because they are not the same people.)
If it is for public consumption on the internet or in book stores, then I would say, you must take FAR more care and watch this kind of thing. But for just a group of friends in a private game, talk to them, and don't worry about it if they say it is OK.
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
There are many pieces as to how a culture develops.
One of the large one is geography. People over centuries have evolved or developed to fit into their geography. Without being racist take a look at the countries that have had more major marathon winners the all others. A commonality is a people that lived with the best mode of getting from one place to the other by running.
Cultures that developed thousands of miles apart in similar environments developed very similar styles of dress that worked best for their geography.
A lot of them have very similar and unique ways of doing things and traditions.
Don't be afraid of using elements of a culture, but as stated above a few times, be respectful.
My party recently traveled across a desert. Their guides I based off Bedouins. Compare them to the Mongols. Lots of similarities, lots of differences.
Have to be honest, I really don't see what having two continents has to do with cultural appropriation.
That aside, cultural appropriation is taking something from another culture as if it were yours, thereby ignoring its authentic origins and not crediting the - usually not dominant - culture it's really from. Taking elements from or portraying other cultures is not cultural appropriation. Blending classic Helenistic or Roman elements into your setting is not cultural appropriation, for instance. Eating with chopsticks as a westerner is not cultural appropriaton and neither is practicing yoga or an oriental martial art - not unless that westerner were to claim these practices did not originate the way they did and what cultural context surrounds them.
That's not to say any of this can't not be cultural appropriation but still disrespectful or offensive either. If you intend to have a group of people resembling pre-colonization natives and to present them in an unflattering way, that'd be disrespectful even if it isn't appropriation.
I doubt there's a problem with what you intend. As long as you don't insult or mock other cultures, you should be fine.
Want to start playing but don't have anyone to play with? You can try these options: [link].
Sorry for not clarifying what I meant in that sentence. When I asked if it would be offensive to have 2 American based continents, I was worried that having the Frontier based continent without Natives would gloss over the struggles and eventual genocides of the Native Americans, potentially offending someone.
As for other responses, thank you for all the help. I'll make sure to research as much as I can.
Having 2 continents on another world that do not follow the history of the real world should not be offensive to anyone.
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
Cultural appropriation is just multiculturalism. Multiculturalism is good.
There's no issues here.
It not addressing indians' history isn't something that most people would get offended by. It would be such a rare event for that to happen. As most people can tell that your world is fictional and doesn't follow our world's history. You can simply say "there weren't people on here before in this wild west-esque land, now there are" and nobody would care.
People usually play DnD for a fantastical adventure, nobody is expecting you to write the next great American novel with the perfect allegory to class and racial tension and they usually won't want you to. Because it being so serious would probably get in the way of their fun unless they specifically said they wanted that. Most people would expect to just see the tieflings, dwarves, and elves riding around in cowboy hats and spurs trying to survive off the land. There not being specific mention of Amerindians wouldn't even cross their mind and it would be weird if they were there, since your continents aren't America.
The only people that would care would be the small subset of critics on tumblr, twitter, and reviewtube. Their opinions shouldn't get in your way of creativity. And creators shouldn't read their reviews anyway, since they're for consumers. That's just assuming if this world you're making is a commercial product, not just a private game.
Er ek geng, þat er í þeim skóm er ek valda.
UwU
Thank you all for your feedback. Your advice is greatly appreciated. I over-thought my predicament and you guys have helped me realize that.
There is a fine, not always super well- defined line between multiculturalism and cultural appropriation. It's like pornography in that it's not always the easiest to define, but you know it when you see it. But they are different.
For example, I've heard many Japanese people enjoy seeing people from other cultures sharing in theirs through fashions and music (if done accurately and respectfully) and typically don't mind say, white people wearing kimonos. HOWEVER, that can be interpreted differently by Japanese-Americans who've grown up facing persecution because of their culture and/or ethnicity, so seeing a white person adopting Japanese cultural practices without acknowledging how Japanese-Americans have been treated historically can be seen as insulting, or clumsy at best.
Same with someone citing white people wearing dreadlocks above. Many black hairstyles have histories rooted deeply in the historic persecution, exploitation, and violence against black people, and adopting those styles without ever meaningfully addressing the history behind it, and having never been affected by it, is not what the kids these days would call "a good look."
But you can still hold interest in other cultures and learn cultural practices and share in culture. You can read, you can more importantly talk to your friends who may come from other cultures, BUT a big part of sharing in another culture is doing so respectfully as Davedamon said, and part of that is going forward with the understanding that not every cultural practice is for you to participate in directly.
Back on topic however, as far as the continents go I think you're fine. You could make an argument that including an accurate representation of a native people being colonized as they were in real life for the purposes of a fantasy game just for fun would be a tad insensitive, and that if you want to build a thematic Old West style world without replicating the racism and colonialism of the real world, then the two continents solution is probably a good way to go about it. But again: that's subjective, so you should really talk to your players. If you're not sure if historically accurate colonialism for the purpose of a game would be offensive, or if sanitizing a history of oppression for the purposes of a game would be offensive, then your players' feelings on the matter should be the tie breaker.
I'd say legality doesn't come into it. There's plenty of not cool things you can do that there's no legal recourse against; it's all a matter of using good judgment. Knowing the history behind cultural signifiers and knowing how it can make people feel to appropriate them, do your judge it to be a good thing to do?
And as I said above: this is all subjective. Sometimes the answer is no, sometimes the answer is yes. We are all entitled to our beliefs but should be mindful of how they effect people.
That said, we're veering off topic and I wouldn't want to give the mods more work than they have already, so that's my two cents on the topic. I appreciate the respectful discussion, stay nerdy friends!
I agree that you should be respectful of other cultures, but I think the whole idea of "appropriation" is overblown.
Polite reminder that while courteous and polite discussion of how to respectfully, kindly, and considerately represent and reference real world cultures, historical events, and the struggles of the many peoples of this world in your D&D game is acceptable for this forum, forays into politics and political discussion are not. Please stay on topic, and most of all
Be excellent to each other
Find my D&D Beyond articles here
I didn't know Geography was cultural...