Guidelines for LARP on cultural appropriation

October 17, 2023 6:03 PM

The LARP where I volunteer is working on a document to explain its stance and guidelines on cultural appropriation. Are there standards in the LARP community or community theater I could reference?

The existing lorebook (the product of 30 years of play) has several countries modeled off real-world cultures (but all with different names than the real ones, and usually made very generic): For example, French (accents, wine, etc.), German (accents, highly nationalistic and militant), Native American (beaded vests but no accents), Roma (caravans, fortune-telling, bells, some accents), Vikings (complete with slavery, which is considered evil by others), Celtic, with Irish accents), and Asian (katanas, kung fu jackets, and conical hats - but no accents).
Times have changed since this LARP was created. I'm very concerned about cultural appropriation, and find several of those problematic, even when they're played with a level of modesty, decorum, and thought. The player base is mostly of white, European ancestry. Do we need to turn some of those cultures into storyline-only and ban characters played by people not of those backgrounds? Are there ways to do it right?

posted by Flight Hardware, do not touch to Sports, Hobbies, & Recreation (6 answers total)

Coyote & Crow, developed by a group of mostly Indigenous North American RPGers, has a brief but thoughtful Message To non-Native American Players. It begins and ends:

If you do not have heritage Indigenous to the Americas, we ask you not to incorporate any of your knowledge or ideas of real world Native Americans into the game.

… Play your characters as people, not “Natives,” and you'll be fine.

As someone who has been told they have a thick, heavy accent, all use of accents for characterization may please kindly fuck off.
posted by scruss at 6:53 PM on October 17, 2023 [6 favorites]

Best answer: James Mendez Hodes is a cultural advisor who works in the fantasy RPG industry. His website says he works on a sliding scale or he can recommend someone else in his professional network. He also has a blog where he very generously shares thoughts on issues like cultural appropriation, asian representation & martial arts, and tons of other topics.
posted by muddgirl at 8:19 PM on October 17, 2023 [6 favorites]

The characteristics you're describing sound like stereotypes and not generic attributes. Maybe you're using them as examples, but if not, I would say you have a bigger issue than cultural appropriation.

Stereotypes very easily slide into ugly and offensive territory.
posted by brookeb at 10:21 PM on October 17, 2023 [5 favorites]

Seconding Coyote & Crow. If you can get your hands on a copy of the book, there is extensive space dedicated to cultural appropriation and specific scenarios addressed (like a white DM and POC players, or vice versa) that may be helpful. I haven't read a ton of it, my partner is the gamer in our house, but I know there is a specific section in the front of the book and then little bits of advice and guidelines sprinkled throughout.
posted by cheese at 11:41 AM on October 18, 2023

Best answer: I want to add to the information about Coyote & Crow.

I agree that you should look at their recommendations. However, there is a major, important difference between the situation that they were writing recommendations for and the situation that you find yourself in: They were writing recommendations for players of a game with indigenous designers who knew better than to incorporate racist tropes about indigenous people.

You're going to have to do more than make recommendations for players; you're going to have to reckon with the racist and stereotypical tropes that have been added to your game's lore over the years. I have no idea how much freedom they've given you to do this, but it's your responsibility as a member of the group to push for it. You cannot play a racist trope with "modesty, decorum, and thought."

I think that you can look writing about appropriation in fiction for this part of the revisions/guidelines. You have some serious reading to do about portrayals of Native American characters, Asian characters, Roma characters, etc - because what you describe as "generic" are in fact specific racial stereotypes.
posted by Kutsuwamushi at 12:09 PM on October 18, 2023 [5 favorites]

An easy bit: don't do accents. That was a staple of last-century entertainment, but it's not cool.

I like one of Mendez's points: ask permission. Not because it's a cure-all, but because it recognizes that you have to have relationships with the people affected. If your group doesn't presently include anyone of Asian descent, then you don't have that, so don't LARP as Asians.

(Honestly the ethnic stereotypes are past their sell-by date too.)
posted by zompist at 1:02 PM on October 18, 2023 [1 favorite]