Black Vulmea
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This post talks about racism in roleplaying. For the love of God, please be adults . . .
Sorry, this is something of a tangent, but the difference between contemporary period fiction and later historical fiction brought to mind something I struggled with literally for years with ¡Viva GangBusters! my planned but never run GangBusters campaign set in 1920s New Mexico.
One of the organizations that I intended to play a role in the campaign was the Ku Klux Klan and I ran into a showstopping problem when my own contemporary, present-day view of the Klan clouded the historical Klan of the place and time. I struggled mightily with how overtly racist I was willing to let the campaign be, to the point of considering a list of 'acceptable' racial slurs that potential players and I could agree upon before we started.
Some of my contemporary fictional sources were B-movie Westerns from the 1930s, which were about as racist as much of contemporary fiction, with stereotypical depictions of 'lazy Mexicans' and Amos-and-Andy blacks, when one saw characters of color at all. Historical fiction sources like Boardwalk Empire show a Klan that goes to war with black bootleggers while the Yellowstone prequel series 1923 incorporates the horrors of Indian schools and anti-miscegenation laws in Twenties Montana. The Cotton Club and the Bumpy Johnson biopic Hoodlum, both set in Harlem in the Twenties and Thirties, put racism front and center, and justifiably so - it's integral to the story.
I knew I didn't want to run a game where the n-, k-, and s-words were tossed around casually, however much I wanted to run something relatively true to the period, so I wrestled with my options. I could whitewash the setting and excise the Klan, but that meant tossing a powerful antagonist and didn't feel right. I could try to 'limit the scope,' with the aforementioned ridiculous idea of an 'acceptable' slurs list. I could let it all hang out, like Empire, and let the chips fall where they may in the interest of 'period authenticity.'
Contemporary period fiction didn't throw me a lifeline, but contemporary non-fiction and historical sources did. The Klan in 1920s New Mexico was far less focused on race than it was on religion; more specifically, it was anti-Catholic. Given that hispanos, Mexicans, and Irish - Catholics all - represent the most powerful criminal elements in the setting at the outset of the campaign, now the Klan becomes the interesting antagonist I wanted it to be from the giddyup while keeping its historical relevance.
Turns out, I'm much more comfortable with roleplaying religious bigotry than racism. As John Sayles wrote in Lone Star, "Yeah, it's always heartwarming to see a prejudice defeated by a deeper prejudice."
This doesn't have much to do with the notion of contemporary period fiction and historical fiction offering different stakes, but hopefully it does underscore the relevance and utility of using contemporary fiction and non-fiction sources when prepping a campaign.
One more thing: concerning Dumas and TTM, I discovered in the research for Le Ballet de l'Acier, my Flashing Blades campaign years ago, that the actual history was far wilder than the historical fiction that followed it.
Sorry, this is something of a tangent, but the difference between contemporary period fiction and later historical fiction brought to mind something I struggled with literally for years with ¡Viva GangBusters! my planned but never run GangBusters campaign set in 1920s New Mexico.
One of the organizations that I intended to play a role in the campaign was the Ku Klux Klan and I ran into a showstopping problem when my own contemporary, present-day view of the Klan clouded the historical Klan of the place and time. I struggled mightily with how overtly racist I was willing to let the campaign be, to the point of considering a list of 'acceptable' racial slurs that potential players and I could agree upon before we started.
Some of my contemporary fictional sources were B-movie Westerns from the 1930s, which were about as racist as much of contemporary fiction, with stereotypical depictions of 'lazy Mexicans' and Amos-and-Andy blacks, when one saw characters of color at all. Historical fiction sources like Boardwalk Empire show a Klan that goes to war with black bootleggers while the Yellowstone prequel series 1923 incorporates the horrors of Indian schools and anti-miscegenation laws in Twenties Montana. The Cotton Club and the Bumpy Johnson biopic Hoodlum, both set in Harlem in the Twenties and Thirties, put racism front and center, and justifiably so - it's integral to the story.
I knew I didn't want to run a game where the n-, k-, and s-words were tossed around casually, however much I wanted to run something relatively true to the period, so I wrestled with my options. I could whitewash the setting and excise the Klan, but that meant tossing a powerful antagonist and didn't feel right. I could try to 'limit the scope,' with the aforementioned ridiculous idea of an 'acceptable' slurs list. I could let it all hang out, like Empire, and let the chips fall where they may in the interest of 'period authenticity.'
Contemporary period fiction didn't throw me a lifeline, but contemporary non-fiction and historical sources did. The Klan in 1920s New Mexico was far less focused on race than it was on religion; more specifically, it was anti-Catholic. Given that hispanos, Mexicans, and Irish - Catholics all - represent the most powerful criminal elements in the setting at the outset of the campaign, now the Klan becomes the interesting antagonist I wanted it to be from the giddyup while keeping its historical relevance.
Turns out, I'm much more comfortable with roleplaying religious bigotry than racism. As John Sayles wrote in Lone Star, "Yeah, it's always heartwarming to see a prejudice defeated by a deeper prejudice."
This doesn't have much to do with the notion of contemporary period fiction and historical fiction offering different stakes, but hopefully it does underscore the relevance and utility of using contemporary fiction and non-fiction sources when prepping a campaign.
One more thing: concerning Dumas and TTM, I discovered in the research for Le Ballet de l'Acier, my Flashing Blades campaign years ago, that the actual history was far wilder than the historical fiction that followed it.
