I attempted to run a WDCS, based on a small-scale hunter-gathering kinship-based society with an exchange economy (look up “Onka’s Big Moka” on YouTube for a great example). My players had difficulty adjusting to it, to say the least. One of the advantages of a medieval Islamic society, from a Western perspective, is that you can at least assume hierarchy, private ownership, and a tendency towards the accumulation of goods. Two moments, post-game, really bring out the difference.

Moi: How’d you find it?
Player: There was a lack of tangible rewards.

To be fair, I hadn’t emphasised the rewards that were there. But this was a bit more worrisome:

Moi: So you realise that since (your rival) has given you a gift, you now owe him one?
Player: Oh for F’s sake…

It wasn’t apparent that one could express one’s superiority through the means of generosity.

I found the best way to “train” my players was to have them witness events in which they were directly involved, then running through similar circumstances again and giving them and opportunity to perform as they had seen others perform, though it times it felt a bit like lecturing.

Speaking as someone well-traveled and holding a degree in history, it is sometimes a little shocking at how hidebound gamers are culturally. Take them out of their suburban western american lifestyle and they just get all shellshocked.

It’s really surprising that none of you came through any of these revelations through.. well, real life? You’ve never lived in another culture, had to deal with perceptions, rituals and traditions vastly ‘different’ and yet quite the same as your own?

Not being white or raised in a western household, some things I learned in school and from friends continue to perplex me.
Why is it that you cannot put you elbows on the table? Why the hell are there so many forks and spoons in proper ettiquette? What is an esquire? When a lady leaves the table, exactly what is the point for all the men to stand?

Obviously, as an American I know that most people don’t do that anymore, but in ‘proper society’ they still do. Quite frankly due to globalization, most young people in first world countries are equally uncouth.

Anywhere you go where they still have access to ‘popular culture’, people more or less act and dress the same these days.

Anyway, back to gaming. I run a 4e game set in a fantastical version of medieval China, and my players have taken quite a liking too it. They’re some differences, but frankly we’re all humans, and the stories we tell are largely, quite the same.

@peter – I always loved Arabian flavored settings and was sad that there weren’t more games that made use of them. I may have to check out the Legacy of Fire campaign.

Of course, as Barvo points out, this applies equally well to “our” “Western” culture. GMs tend to put a blanket “fantasy” template onto campaigns, rather than really evoking the middle ages. Perhaps your friend was more conscious of this, as I admit may have been the case. It’s worth remembering that Tolkein, for instance, was largely writing an allegory of 20th century Europe, rather than a medieval work as such. (And the political ideology of LOtR is somewhat scary when you think about that!)

I always struggle with this in my games, as I studied history in uni. I try to convey a radically different mindset, but so far can’t say I’ve succeeded. My friend, who actually did Medieval History as his degree, did a much better job in his campaigns, stressing strongly the distinction between noble and peasant, the regionalism, etc. His biggest weakness was probably the distinction between church and state, as he got a bit 20th century cynical, and his characters did too, whereas regardless of their private beliefs every 15th century European would at least PROFESS Christianity (Catholicism in this case, Orthodox Christianity in the case of some), except Jews, Muslims, and that catch-all “pagan” (none of whom tended to fare terribly well in European society).

My most ambitious attempt was my “Goblins” campaign, in which I stated that goblins reproduce asexually. I tried creating a culture without families, inheritance, kinship, et cetera. I may have succeeded, but the you get into weird debates. In human society, kinship is the basic grouping on which all others are based. Could goblins have armies, if they never had families? I solved this by saying that they were originally quite anarchic happy little buggers, living in the jungle without a care, but learned all of this behaviour from other races, without understanding the cultural bases of it.

Hmmm. Much food for thought. Can we ever really escape our Western mindset, or do all of our attempts to get into another really end up as Western interpretations of other cultures? Or, in your friend’s case (and here, again, I’m guessing he’s a Muslim), a modern interpretation of a Medieval culture?

Yes, well, while I agree that misinterpreting civilized eels could create a lot of danger in a game world, I think the word you’re looking for is ‘mores.’

I definitely like describing cities more than dungeons. It seems like it will be remembered much better by the players, and thus a better use of my narrative detail.

Egypt would be an awesome place to spend some time. One of the biggest differences that I’ve seen between countries is how they arrange their living spaces. A lot of the countries that I’ve visited have had a much more communal layout to their cities. If you lived in a neighborhood then you generally knew most of the people around you, and heard buzzings about what went on in the neighborhood. While I’ve found this in some big cities, its never quite there to the same extent.

@Argalek – Culture differences in rank and caste are always interesting. I know in the couple of oriental themed games I had played in, the class differentiations were done away with in the same way they are in medieval games. The party meets with the king, even though they are just a bunch of hired soldiers, technically. I like the way you differentiate with the titles.

@Scott Martin – I think you’ve definitely hit it with “just enough to shake you out of stereotypes”. It’s hard to see outside of our stereotypes when we sit down to play a game. The assumed standards help us play. An NPC gives quests, is a foil for the PC, is an enemy or is a shopkeep. I used to have the PCs find “wrong numbers” every so often. Some guy who looked like their target, but really wasn’t. They’d chase him down while he was just running to get home to his wife and kids.

To keep me in the culture, he pretty much just corrected me or provided details. Also, since I knew he was open to questions, I asked a lot. “What would be the appropriate thing to order? If my character wanted to find information on the local criminals, where would he go. I know in a fantasy world he would start looking for rogues and beating them down, but that seems like I’d just be hauled off here.” and then he would make some suggestions or fill me in on some details, but only when I asked and seemed interested in how it would work. That guaranteed that I would get enough information about the current situation, without being overwhelmed. It definitely helped that he had done his research and was familiar with the setting.

Did he have a good method for corralling you when you went off on the wrong path based on faulty assumptions?

I am a native Californian and I spent 10 months in Egypt. Awesome leaps to mind. It is cheap to live there so if you can afford some time off, then look into it. The people there, in the residential districts especially, re-define what it means to be great people. I don’t know Arabic and they don’t know English but we got along, in all aspects of life, very well. I am not Muslim but I did see the beauty in the people of that faith. I didn’t play any games there, due again to the lack of language, but I was certainly inspired by the history, archetecture and people of that ancient land. Reading Dune is not enough.

-JoMo