Re: Cultural Protocols: A Broader Discussion
Posted: Tue Oct 06, 2015 8:32 am
Scrap.
Martinulus wrote:EEL Mk2 wrote:With respect, I very strongly oppose this. This may come as a surprise given my general sympathy for the simulationist point of view. I would certainly favour this proposal if we were starting from scratch, but given that anomalies have arisen in the distribution of cultures as a result of long years of RP and contributions from various members of the Particracy community, I feel that to suddenly require cultural consistency across regions would overturn so much RP and hard work that it would, quite frankly, be a great shame.Liu Che/Zhuli wrote:Yes, a Regional Protocol. The regions should make sense and not be a chaotic mix of language families, ethnic groups, etc. Of course, there should be room for hybridization, but overall, regions should be consistent.
I agree with EEL here. I get the feeling that this is mostly about Dovani, and that's also the best example why, with all due respect, this isn't a good idea at all. If we look at Dovani a few IG centuries ago, it was considerably more diverse and interesting than it is now. The reason is very simple: a group of players consistently pushing the view that Dovani is or ought to be Asia on everyone, totally trampling on Dovani's equal status as America. I won't name names, but some people in that group (not Liu, though) have consistently refused to consider the fact that the cultures they prefer would have turned out differently in the face of colonization. Southeast Asia was never colonized, but Dovani was. The total purge of all things Western from Dovani would quite simply be a shame, but it will happen with Regional Protocols. You can say what you want about nations like Hulstria, but they were fully embedded in the continent's history, totally legit and very detailed. What, then, does it matter that there was for the time being an Austria-Japan sharing a border with Socialist Imperial Japan ruled by a line of Empresses?
That brings me to my second point. Do we really want Terra to be a boring pastiche of Earth? Because that's what consistency does. If we had passed Regional Protocols setting down the character of Majatra, would it really have become the eclectic, explosive and unstable mix of the Mediterranean, Middle East, Steppe and Russian elements it is today? I don't quite think so. Still, the fictional history that has developed to justify a mix of cultures that, on the face of it, would have to be discarded as quite ridiculous, is one of the most detailed and interesting in the game. Rather than stimulating creativity, Regional Protocols would turn everything into the perfect copies of RL nations that, let's face it, are rather boring. Instead of whining about consistency, we should realise that the strange mix of cultures we're landed with can also be a force for creativity, if we but abide by the basic rule of RP: accept eachother's premises - which in this case means don't deny the legitimate existence of present and past cultural RP in a nation simply because it doesn't fit in with your personal opinions about what the region should be like. Run with it - some of the best RP in Particracy originated because people simply ran with it. Remember Dranland? The ridiculous mixture of Welshmen, Koreans and Spanish/Filipinos wasn't realistic in the sense that it would ever be happening in the real world, but it did make for some of the best ethnic conflict RP I've seen and also the most active International News topic in the game.
What I'm trying to say is: realism and consistency can only get you so far. The best RP comes out of reconciling unlikely situations with eachother and finding the common or opposed patterns.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnic_groups_in_Bosnia_and_HerzegovinaPolites wrote: Dranland was home to players RPing Wales, Spain, and Korea as if they were separate nations, with their own parties, languages, religions, and cultures, and no attempt at harmonizing them in a way that would have made realistic sense.
EEL Mk2 wrote:Southeast Asia was never colonized, but Dovani was.
Martinulus wrote:I agree with EEL here. I get the feeling that this is mostly about Dovani, and that's also the best example why, with all due respect, this isn't a good idea at all.
If we look at Dovani a few IG centuries ago, it was considerably more diverse and interesting than it is now. The reason is very simple: a group of players consistently pushing the view that Dovani is or ought to be Asia on everyone, totally trampling on Dovani's equal status as America.
I won't name names, but some people in that group (not Liu, though) have consistently refused to consider the fact that the cultures they prefer would have turned out differently in the face of colonization. Southeast Asia was never colonized, but Dovani was. The total purge of all things Western from Dovani would quite simply be a shame, but it will happen with Regional Protocols.
That brings me to my second point. Do we really want Terra to be a boring pastiche of Earth? Because that's what consistency does. If we had passed Regional Protocols setting down the character of Majatra, would it really have become the eclectic, explosive and unstable mix of the Mediterranean, Middle East, Steppe and Russian elements it is today? I don't quite think so. ... Rather than stimulating creativity, Regional Protocols would turn everything into the perfect copies of RL nations that, let's face it, are rather boring.
Zongxian wrote:As players try to establish histories and build identities for their nations, it is extremely useful to have some kind of basic consistency across regions. (snip)
What a regional protocol would do is make it much more possible to explain the histories of nations and peoples and to build upon the content and character of the Particracy World. Returning to the Seleya example, since it is one I'm most familiar: look on the wiki at some of the articles on the ancient empires of the continent. It is incomplete work, but it is very interesting and it is a positive contribution to the game world. If we just allow anarchic mixes of groups with no regard to consistency, this wouldn't be possible. Even on a smaller scale it'd be damn near impossible to explain how and why an ethnic group or culture exists where it does. And to allow just inconsistency opens up players to live in their own little bubble nations, unconcerned with their surroundings and disengaged from regional RP... I won't name names...