The RPG Room: On cultural appropriation in games

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The topic of cultural appropriation is a hot one in Social Justice circles. But is it a justified outcry when someone uses someone else’s culture to create games, costumes or anything else? It is a matter of fact that cultures evolve both by themselves – traditions that become canon in time or ones that die, fashion that evolves… – and by assimilation when we see something from another culture and we adopt it. In a world that is a lot more globalised today than it was 30 or 40 years ago mostly thanks to the Internet, the rate at which cultures are being shared, adopted, evolved and bastardized has also increased exponentially. Are we ready for this? Is there a justified concern for the phenomenon we are witnessing in which people use other people’s cultures? And is it justified to do it in RPGs? Since there is not a single RPG that hasn’t borrowed from one culture or another, to say we are free from culture appropriation would be pretty naive thing, so it is safe to say it’s unavoidable. So what? Jim and I explore all those questions and give our take on this controversial topic. Warning… we don’t hold back and we are likely to offend some people.