Bridging the Representative Diversity Divide

You may have heard that there has been something of a kerfuffle lately, concerning attacks made by various of Wizards of the Coast's stable of designers and hangers-on against the older editions of D&D and their various insensitivities about language, lack of representation of non-white people, casual depictions of slavery, and so on and so forth. This is, apparently, happening in tandem with a gradual 'wokeification', if I can use that term, of the game in its most recent iterations, opinions about which - naturally enough nowadays - tend to cleave along culture war lines. 

This highlights the extent to which people in the culture war on both sides generally tend to interpret each other's conduct in the least charitable way possible, and thereby convince themselves that people with opposing views are evil and malevolent rather than just adopting a different perspective. 

I thought therefore it might be useful to give the most charitable interpretations I can think of to the two sides in the 'representativeness' debate in order to see if there can be an armistice of some kind. Because I think in particular people who are in favour of what I will call representative diversity tend to interpret the kneejerk reaction against 'wokeness' as being evidence of barely concealed or inchoate racism, when actually it's best to descibe it as a pretty understandable feeling of being unfairly demonised. 

Let's start, then, by putting the case for representative diversity at its strongest: for years and years it was mostly straight white men (or, let's face it, straight white adolescent boys) who played D&D, and they tended rather unthinkingly and generally unconsciously to behave in ways that were insensitive or exclusionary. A great example of this, not from D&D, actually comes from Palladium Fantasy, in which homosexuality appears in a list of variants of insanity (in my memory - I don't have the book in front of me - this is fairly early on in the text itself). Other more visually obvious examples would be the tendency to only ever depict women as looking either like supermodels or else witches or hags, or to only ever depict black or brown people in the context of being 'savages'. All of this was entirely understandable in historical terms simply because it is an ineluctable feature of the human experience that people tend to stereotype or typecast other people who don't physically resemble them. But it put off people who didn't fit into a particular paradigm and, hey, why put people off? Why not make the game more 'inclusive'?

What, then, could be the reason for the counter-reaction? Let's again put the case at its strongest and with its most charitable interepretation. It has I think three distinct limbs, though these interrelate for reasons which will be obvious. 

The first is that people can smell a rat with respect to the way in which companies like Wizards of the Coast operate. There is absolutely nothing genuine or principled about the way representative diversity is put into effect at the commercial level - it is happening simply because D&D for a long time had a core market of nerdy straight white adolescent boys and that market is in relative terms getting smaller and smaller. The diversity is there because of entirely cynical reasons - it isn't because Wizards of the Coast are a charitable foundation trying to improve race relations across the Western world, or making their own game more inclusive because they're just such nice guys. Fake sincerity is grating to everyone, and some people (I include myself in this) have a fine-tuned sensitivity against it.

The second is that nerds are nerds, and some nerds care about things 'making sense' in particular ways. Until very recently in human history most societies simply were not racially diverse in anything like the way they are now. And so something feels 'off' about presenting fantasy medieval societies as looking, in racial terms, like a cosmopolitan modern city. Similarly, there have never been human societies in which men and women's roles have been exactly the same and not in any way, to use modern parlance, 'gendered'. Here, the opposition mainly comes from a position of a desire for verissimilitude. The standard response to this - 'This is a game with magic and dragons in, so why do you care about realism?' - is well-known, but slightly unfair; when it comes to fantasy settings, tastes for the level of realism that different people prefer simply vary. 

The third is that the trouble with trying to increase representative diversity is that it is difficult to do it in such a way as to not appear to be acting sanctimoniously and/or snidely. Too often it comes alongside a (consciously or unconsciously) mean-spirited insinuation: 'You have a problem with this, do you? It's because you're a racist. You are, aren't you?' For people who are perfectly well aware that they have no racist bones in their own bodies, and who have just been innocently enjoying pretending to be an elf for years and have never 'excluded' anybody from anything, there is something galling about being implicitly cast as a villain in this way. And in this regard it bears emphasising that respresentative diversity is very frequently, indeed all too frequently, framed by an assertion that the hobby would just be 'better' in some sense if it was less 'pale, male and stale'. There are only so many occasions on which a person can accept being told that their very presence - or the presence of their type of person - is undesirable before they start to simply get pissed off. And the anger is justified; if everybody is entitled to equal concern and respect, then that means everybody is. 

Both sides in the representative diversity debate, such as it is, therefore have good faith arguments. And when two people are approaching a disagreement from a position of good faith, what tends to happen - if they don't listen to each other properly - is that they start to convince themselves that because their own position is good, the disagreement can only have arisen becaues the other side is bad. They begin to forget that it is possible for people to disagree for good reason. And this makes the disagreement more intractable, because the participants grow more convinced that compromise is undesirable (since compromise with somebody who is definitionally bad can only ever be an unjustified concession). This is, obviously, to be regretted, because it transforms such disagreements into winner-takes-all conflicts when the truth is that the stakes are probably considerably lower than either side realises. A more sensible public discourse is available - in every respect. 

The Great North - Visual Delights

In the background, quietly, as my Yoon-Suin 2nd edition projects nears final fulfilment, work has been going on in relation to The Great North. Behold, some more glorious Tom Kilian art:

Not bad, eh?

The Greatest Book in the History of Books

Do you know about the Japanese kids' book phenomenon, Kobito Zukan? Literally translated it means something like 'dwarf encyclopedia' or 'gnome encyclopedia', but all of the English translations of kobito aren't really satisfactory because they come with too much baggage. Written and illustrated by Nabata Toshitaka, the conceit is that there live alongside us very many species and subspecies of little people, who have evolved to fulfil particular niches; each book describes some kobito and their habits and behaviour, in the manner of an old-fashioned reference volume about animals or dinosaurs that one would once have found in one's local library. The main commonality between all of the varities of kobito is that each has a tentacle, or tentacles, on their heads, called the touchin, which they use to manipulate objects, put on displays and so on.

Kids love the idea because it is suggestive that there is a hidden world of little people living alongside us and who are often responsible for much of what we experience in our day-to-day lives, whether by putting the nasty mildew smell into a wet towel or making loud thumping noises on the roof during a rainstorm. But adults love it too because it is so wonderfully imaginative and evocative, and often hinting at mysteries waiting to be discovered:

This is the 'ochiakimijika', which has a shape like the leaves of a maple tree and hides among fallen leaves in autumn - the book tells us that nobody knows what they do during the rest of the year.

This is the 'tsukushinbozu', which lives among horsetails. It is unkown what they eat; they spend their time looking for one another and, when they meet, touch their touchins; at night they bury themselves underground and hold hands.

There are lots of kobito that live in fruit and veg. Here are banana and apple varities. It is easy to tell when a banana has a kobito inside because if you leave it for long enough and its gets overripe, you'll be able to see the kobito's face inside. The apple one ('ringoshinkui', or 'apple core eater'), gets inside an apple and eats the core with its strong teeth; an apple which has had a kobito inside is very juicy and said to be the tastiest of all.

Here, at the top, is the 'osamanonioi' ('king smell'), which lives inside dorian fruits and makes them even smellier than they normally are. If there are two inside, it will be smellier yet. At the bottom is the 'mikankitsuke', which lives inside satsumas - if you ever get one which is hard to peel, it could be because there is a kobito inside.

This one, the 'nomihyotan', lives inside gourds - it drinks water with its touchin (which makes it go brown), and during the process of digestion turns this into alcohol, which it later pours out. It is like a 'nectar of the gods' to drink. 

Here are aquatic varities whose various touchins, as you can see, are like lilypads or reeds. The one with the reed-like touchin bobs around in the water and waits for an insect, like a dragonfly, to fly past, and then sucks it in. 

Here are other freshwater dwellers. As you can see, the top one, the 'oohirekamofraodiri' (this is a pun on 'kamo', which is the Japanese word for 'duck', and 'kamofra', which is 'camouflage') disguises itself as a duck; the bottom one is nocturnal and eats crayfish and small fish.

This one, 'erabikoibito' ('koi chooser') lives on the back of a koi carp, eating small insects or whatever the koi itself eats; they quickly change their minds and hop from koi to koi as they see fit.

Here is a diorama of various pond-dwelling kobito. 

This is the 'heiheimaimai', whose favourite food is snails; it has very salty saliva with which it melts the snail before eating it, and then puts the shell on its head. 

Lots of kobito varieties live alongside, and quasi-parasitise, animals. This one comes along and finds a monkey that has just given birth and sneakily masquerades as the baby's twin; even after the baby has grown up and left the mother the kobito remains, still getting looked after by the mother. 

This type. the 'shiboriochichi' lives in fields and sucks milk from the udders of cows. It stores this in its touchin, and the resulting liquid is very nutritious to drink - if babies are given it to drink, they stop crying at night. 

This type, the sakunyudoji, lives on the back of cows, eating insects, but if it can find a shiboriochichi, it catches it and steals its stored milk, catching it in its own touchin. 

Here is the 'kagekakure' (shadow-hider), which - well - hides in people's shadows, walking along behind them. It is a 'very mysterious' kobito.

This type lives beside lamposts and waits to be urinated on by dogs - this is thought to be a way to get nutrients.

Here is a variety that lives inside closets, eating insects and furballs; it is said to also help to prevent mould spreading with the fluid it emits from its body.

There are marine varieties too - this one pretends to be an anemone and sucks down fish with its touchin - even clownfish which are fooled into thinking they'll be safe.

What I've posted here merely scratches the surface. There are hundreds of different types. You can also, if you are so inclined, find out more on YouTube.

Small Worldism: A Method for Campaign Setting Inspiration

One of the best ways to come up with a campaign setting is to get down to ground level and imagine the miniature landscape in one's immediate vicinity scaled up to 100 or 1000 times its actual size. Let's call this method, 'Small Worldism'.

Earlier this week I visited Iwaisaki, an cape of unusual rock formations off the coast near my wife's hometown. In an earlier life, she and I spent hours swimming in its stunningly clear waters, occasionally stepping back onto dry land to lazily drink beer and sunbathe. Now, with two young kids in tow, we mostly spent our time there chasing them around making sure they didn't slip or hurt themselves. But I did manage to take some low level photos to illustrate what I mean. 

First, then, the overview. What we see here is clearly a vast lagoon, perhaps dozens of miles across, and surrounded by mighty rocky cliffs. At the base of these cliffs are many sea caves within which can be found entire city-states - their inhabitants trade and war with each other with armadas of vessels that continually traverse its vast expanse. (There also, naturally, here and there lurk pirates, too.) Higher up these cliffs lurk monsters, dragons, harpies, and the like. In the depths of the lagoon are crab-men, sahuagin, aquatic elves, tritons - the whole marine shebang. And on top of the cliffs are huge expanses of arid, barren badlands populated by savage tribes, outcasts and outlaws, and dotted with - natch - lost civilisations and ruins. 

Here, up close, are the sea cliffs - can't you just imagine tiny sailing ships swarming around the water beneath these towering, mile-high monoliths? Can't you just imagine dragons, manticores, hydras, harpies,  lairing in caves and cracks in their huge and variegated faces? Can't you imagine tribes of troglodytes or spider-goblins lurking there too? 

In case further evidence was needed, just take a look at some of the caves on offer and imagine what might be found inside if they were a dozen, or a hundred, yards wide:

Beyond the cliffs themselves is a huge arid wasteland of great ravines and ridges, populated by aforementioned savages - not to mention basilisk lizards, giant antlions, probably also dinosaurs, paranoid isolationist cults, liches, mummies, and formians:

Up close you can see what the terrain would be like - riven with huge crevasses and ravines, constantly subject to landslides and collapses, and terribly dangerous to traverse:

Throw in some other risks and interesting flavour ideas and you have the icing on the cake. Maybe the region is swept periodically by tidal waves and storms which cause all the inhabitants to search for shelter for weeks on end. Maybe everybody is dependent on rainwater to survive, since the entire area lacks rivers or other sources of freshwater. Maybe the depths of the lagoon harbour not just aquatic humanoids but also kraken, or leviathans, or undersea gods. Maybe there is a huge whirlpool at the centre. Maybe to make their boats the people of the sea caves are dependent on a precarious trade in wood with whoever inhabits the forested region inland... 

And so the thoughts go on. I daresay you could have as much fun in your back garden, though undoubtedly wild or rural areas are going to provide the most inspirational ammunition.