Life - Culture and Games

Life - Culture and Games

I've been thinking and writing a lot of late about the intersection of culture and games. It has been a lasting series of thoughts upon which I have many ideas.

I've been working on Wire Run, my latest universe on and off for years. This is our second foray into it for the RPG table. This 'campaign', I have been working on for about 6 months. During my time creating it the first time, I spent a lot of time building my own lore. Basically taking what was existing, and doing my best to both remove problematic parts of what I perceive as being at odds with a modern Sci-Fi, and also laying foundation work for a sandbox world to play in.

That first campaign was set in Vancouver, about 60 years into the future. It was easy. From a design perspective, it was a simple crutch. The players were familiar with the locations, if not the history. They understood the geography, the places, the people. They know what it means to live in a slum section on the lower East Side. They know what the travel time is between Downtown and North Van. They have a cultural appreciation for what it means to live in Surrey, vs Kits.

It was so easy.



I have long grappled with creating situations in my roleplaying games that are analogous to my own experience. Common themes to all of my worlds are often ideas of power dynamics, structural and institutionalized discrimination, subtle and more often not so subtle racism or speciesism. The thing is that fantasy, and by extension, science fiction create a fertile breeding ground for us to explore these ideas.

At the same time, this environment is rife with pitfalls. We can see it in the exemplar nature of 'traditional' Elves (live forever, don't sleep, always beautiful). We see it in the way that species are derided for what is considered 'low' or 'base' emotions or intelligence (orcs, ogres, goblins).

I've done my best in a decade of focused DMing to create vibrant worlds that really push my player perceptions about ideas of right and wrong, morals, ethics, justice, equality, and intentions.

Wire Run, the latest one, is the most challenging world I've made yet, and it's because I have set it in Hong Kong.

I waffled on that decision for WEEKS. In fact, two weeks out from the start of the campaign, I almost swapped everything over to another city. I was right on the verge of placing it instead in Paris, or Mumbai, or Cape Town. I agonized over it. Why? Because it would be easier. It would be safer. There is something forgivable by not getting it perfect in those places, because they're easier to understand. They're a step removed. They're also not mine.

Hong Kong is my culture. China, is my culture. And Malaysia. And Southeast Asia. There are complexities there, subtleties that I am designing around, that I must also acknowledge and respect for in context of the real world. There is an interplay of culture, language, geography, history, politics, and warfare that demands a careful and practiced hand in its execution. It's also personal to me. I have almost unilaterally shied away from most Asian settings in RPG games. I famously derided Five Rings as a setting, (and openly eviscerated the vomit-worthy Oriental Adventures). Because they're done by white people. That's the crux of it. It lacks truth because it's viewed through a deeply colonialist lens. They were creations by white men, by white men who did not have experience in those worlds and cultures, and instead only saw what they sought to take, instead of representing.

Creating the Hong Kong Supersprawl for Wire Run has been months of meticulous research and studying. It has been a cultural immersion day in and day out. Because I feel this weighty responsibility to get it RIGHT. And where I am intentionally bending away from 'right', it must instead be RESPONSIBLE.

I am incredibly self-aware that everything I create in this setting can, and should, and deserves a sense of nuance. Not only in the creating of it, but in the way I will be imparting it to my players. My very caucasian players. My players who have no sense of that culture beyond Hollywood and documentary. Perhaps their first real immersive understanding will be the sights and sounds I describe to them at the table. Their imaginations need to run with those careful depictions. Many of them will NEVER visit Hong Kong. They will never see that world, will never explore those streets and alleys, wander those vendors or push past throngs of people at all hours of the day. If they ever wanted to ask, I could tell them about the feel of wood grain in the tea house they visit. I feel obligated to get it right.

They are a group of people, well really WE, are a group of people who enjoy tremendous privilege to mess around in such a game. The rules I circumvent or twist in order to rewrite history for the 'story' of the game, are part of the privilege I have as a writer. But they're also a weight to critique and create with honesty.

I'm also incredibly aware of walking this fine line around stereotyping. My players are very mature in most ways (no one would ever dare try to approximate a 60s faux-chinese accent), but I have to play all the characters they ever meet. From the highest brow, to the lowest born. And everything in between. I am feeling immense pressure to make the most fleshed out characters, more so than ever before. Even an elderly Japanese woman who sold them 5 dollar newspapers is intricately designed based on my personal experience.

The most painful part for me is that there are deficits. Deficits because obviously I haven't lived in Hong Kong, or most Asian cities for any really respectable amount of time. I've wandered here and there, I've traveled, I have vivid memories and notes, but I did not grow up in those sprawling metropolises.

Years ago now, my best friend Keltie had been helping me with an errand and met my parents, who were in town for a few days. A few days later, offhandedly she mentioned that of course, they were very nice, but she was very surprised at how "Asian" they were, because, as she said, "You aren't very Asian."

I remember I recoiled from her as if she had slapped me.

She must have known something was a misspeak, because she followed up with, "Not that it's a bad thing! It's just, you don't act very Asian, or Chinese. You don't really dress it, you don't really talk about it."

We cracked a few jokes, and smoothed over that moment.

I never forgot it though. In fact, I would say I still am reminded of it often. I am reminded of it because she is literally one of the very few people who understand me closely, but at the time, did not consider me to really be a visible member of my own cultural group. The failing was mine. I do not speak Mandarin very well, and cannot read it. I have markedly few Asian friends, most all of my close friends are caucasian, or other people of color, but not often Asian. I don't listen to many Asian genres of music, and my awareness of asian art tends to be from a global perspective. In truth, beyond politics and food, I am VERY disconnected from my own culture.

It's why in the end, I had to set Wire Run in Hong Kong. I had to set it in Hong Kong because of a sense of obligation. Because of a cultural guilt. But also because the challenge is a different kind of personal. I demand of players to bring honesty and truth to the characters they play. How could I ask any less of myself?

I'm curious if other DMs grapple with these problems. If you're Irish, or Scottish, do you feel fully comfortable incorporating those aspects into a game, those cultural touchstones. If you have an interest or are of generally Western ancestry, how easy is it for you to play or create in a space that those are normative and understood. Do you ever face hurdles? Are there subjects you feel deeply unprepared for in a cultural manner to touch.

Does it ever make you uncomfortable when people bring their own culture into the game? Or a culture they aren't a part of?

Is it strange for me, as a Chinese man to play someone who has the fantasy equivalent of Gaelic roots? No one has ever questioned me on that. No one has ever objected to my early roughshod 'Scottish brogue' Dwarf accent.

There are so many things to unpack here.