Seeking Advice on When and How to Sacrifice Loyalty to History for Storytelling

Game Development Writing and Content
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Alrighty so buckle in because while I’m certain this kind of topic has been discussed before I feel as though I am at an impasse regarding a story I have began drafting since I am struggling with one specific problem.

The setting is an alternate history around the time of Domitian’s rule in the Ancient Roman Empire with the aim of being accurate where possible [to the extent one reasonably can be while maintaining sanity and actually doing any writing] however there are a few notable issues with trying to remain historically accurate, and I don’t want to just throw all that to the side and wash away these problems…

The primary issues I am running into are revolving around slavery and treatment of women. Trigger warning for these topics by the way as this will be somewhat in depth to hopefully find help on writing or alterations that could be made.

Slavery at this current period of time meant more than a man being under another, they viewed them as literal objects that could be killed or tortured without any serious repercussion, fully and truly property. Now, as the Roman Emperors of this period would continue to lead they would expand the rights of slaves, granting them protections from being murdered, being sold into prostitution or into gladiatorial combat needed justification, and slaves could be granted semi-citizen status between the ages of 18-30 and full Roman citizenship if over the age of 30 if they were being freed.

It is noted that the treatment of slaves did generally seem to be at least passable, as when a scholar living at the time, Pliny the Younger, heard about a slave revolt occurring in a neighboring city he seemed stunned that such a thing were possible. Additionally, as time went on it seems there was an ongoing blur of the lines of who was slave and who was free in that slaves could be beside their master, dressed identically with no way of actually differentiating them. Slaves could be specialized in specific fields, could be looked to for wisdom or even treated essentially as scholars. There additionally was a popular habit of Romans to release their slaves, particularly writing as much on their will, it was such a popular thing to do that Augustus had to put in place restrictions on the amount of slaves that could be released within a will.

Slavery is an essential part of what made Rome as a society work, and while obviously slavery is not acceptable it’s worth noting that the Emperors made consistent efforts towards improving their rights and moving away from the practice as time went on. However, as slavery is terrible it’s difficult to find a way to write any kind of upper class character who benefits from these practices as being particularly sympathetic without either making them ignorant or limited by their capacity to act by other powers. I’m not sure if that is a satisfactory answer either way either.

The Emperor was originally intended to be a key character in the Narrative but I’m wondering if I should scrap it just because I feel like it is so apt for… Well being kind of repulsive, since slavery does exist it’s not like you can just not knowledge it within the context of a narrative.

Moving on to the way women were treated, they were essentially also seen as a form of property, handed off from father to husband. If a woman was to have her husband die she would be returned to her father or she would be made to be under her son if he was old enough to care for her. Obviously I don’t want to write a story where all women are just treated as quasi property, and I’m not sure how to diverge here from this history in a way that also wouldn’t have broader implications for it? All of this is just me rambling and seeking advice on how to handle this kind of thing.

Hand waving this all away and making it so men and women are completely equal feels like that would kind of be deceptive but obviously if someone wants to play as a women their treatment shouldn’t be significantly worse. One solution perhaps is to make them a foreigner, as Romans would treat them with wariness either way and would likely discount their lack of following custom as a form of barbarism, perhaps? Anyway I just need some eyes because my head hurts from thinking about all of this too much haha.

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"“Those that fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it”
~Churchill (Probably)

So following the quote above, there is some reasons that you may want to go down the historically accurate route. You need to ask yourself, do you want to write escapism, or are you looking at a particular event/moment/character in time you wish to portray? That’s going to depend on how you approach this. Slavery and misogyny were certainly alive and well at some points in history and portraying them as they were in some instances I personally feel can be better, than “pretending realism” with some certain other tropes you frequently see in literature that often make me uncomfortable like the slave who falls in love with their master and has a whole secret relationship going because the “master really cares” about them and they couldn’t possibly imagine being free of their ownership. Might this have happened/could it be written as a good story? Maybe, but it frequently gives me power imbalance and stockholm syndrome vibes and romanticising it isn’t always ideal. Modern day slavery still exists, presenting it as “not so bad” has implications.

In saying that Ancient Rome was a different time with different attitudes about a lot of things. Having slaves as a wealthy ancient Roman looking in from our POV is distasteful, but from their POV was normal. I can guarantee you that a lot of Romans would not have seen their Emperor as evil because he owned slaves or didn’t allow his sisters/wife to run around the city doing as they pleased. You’d need to do your research if wanting to be historically correct and try to show what it was really like in insert year and place here. One thing to remember is HG will not publish anything that glorifies topics like this. So an Emperor having a slave serve refreshments at a dinner might pass. But having a scene where you can play as the Emperor and being able to choose to do bad things to that slave just because without negative consequences would probably not.

Women in ancient Roman society are often going to be expected to have significantly different “gender roles” to men (although there were exceptions that overcame that to an extent- See Hypatia). So if you’re going to go for historical accuracy, you’re probably going to have to write two different stories depending on whether the MC is seen to have a male or female identity. Alternative options from there are to not do this and gender lock it. Or do not make it historically accurate and handwave the problematic attitudes that may citizens likely held at the time so anyone can play the game comfortably, albeit in an alternative version of the past.

Just going to come out and say it though, I might like a game of say a woman navigating the world at that time either in a traditional role and what that entailed, as a priestess, or even overcoming prejudices enough to become successful (similar to Hypatia), this is going to entail genderlocking your game to present a very specific type of story, something that is hard to get any popularity for (although there are exceptions such as the Infinity series- have you read the Infinity series? It seems it might grapple with some of the concerns you have about whether to present a largely patriarchal society in a game or not and it genderlocks because of it.) I don’t get the feeling this is where you want to go though anyway from the post above.

I would personally find that a game where you could play as what ever gender you like, but the only difference is if you’re not a man then you get continuously told you shouldn’t be doing things, locked out of options, and generally being beaten over the head with discrimination would be quite unplesant to read through, most of your non-male audience is probably going to not have a good time and dislike your game, and I have no idea if it would be publishable through HG. Personally I wouldn’t do it.

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I mean as a nonbinary person my intent from the jump would never to be just to beat down on people with discriminatory stuff on the basis of gender, which is why I am making the post to begin with, to try to figure out how to navigate this kind of thing. Honestly since the scope of the game is directly intended to be small I might initially lock it to one gender then write the alternative version once that is finished. If I am aiming for pure realism though then there are a lot of other issues that come along with how to portray things like queer romance or literally people with my own identity [I took a concession in that specific circumstance appealing to an interpretation of Galli priests and worship to say some people end up also discounting their gender on that basis but idk whether this will stick or I will just forego it entirely].

But yeah, I want historical accuracy to the point that it is a narrative that is engaging to read, hence why I asked when and how to make those sacrifices not that there are none to be made. I haven’t checked out the infinity series before… Would you think it worth reading / checking out for this? Also, how women are viewed might follow a similar line with slavery where I take some things from a few centuries later and incorporate them just for the sake of… not feeling ill with the story I am telling, but we will see. [I took Hadrian’s slavery laws and pulled them into the period, at least that is the current intention for now.]

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What we “know” about how things were changes almost daily.

An example that applies directly to you is what we know about those who died in Pompeii.

In the 1890’s plaster casts were taken of those who died in a house there during the volcanic eruption.

There were two adults and a child. For over 100 years it was known that the adult that was providing comfort to the child was a mother, and the other a man.

Then, earlier this year, dna was actually recovered, enough to determine that both adults were men.

But we still don’t know exactly what was the situation … they could have been a gay couple, or perhaps trans, or non-binary. All these possibilities exist from what we “know.”

You are writing an alternative history. The societal constructs might have evolved in a different manner than the way society was arranged as we “know” it … you have the ability to tweak things that way because you are not writing a thesis or history.

I feel you are overthinking things and getting lost in the details, when you should be pulling back and looking at the bigger picture relating to the story, themes and narrative YOU want to tell, not some guy working on his history theory from what he “knows” today, but may not be accurate tomorrow.

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I’m not exactly sure what your issue with slavery is. Yes, it’s horrible and focusing on it will probably make the reader view the Roman Empire and the people running it as utterly heinous, but like… yeah. That’s true. That’s the reality you decided to write about. I can kinda understand being reluctant to include sexism, if limiting the player’s freedom is your main fear here, but it kinda sounds like you’re trying to keep the audience from having any negative feelings about a setting which should evoke negative feelings.

Ancient Rome gave us such wonders as dog crucifixions, the Year of Four Emperors, torches made from Christians, the razing of Carthage, legalized corruption, urine taxes and a bunch of other things so horrible I don’t feel safe outlining them in this forum. You can write a historically accurate story or a story where Rome is actually really nice, not both. Pick one and stick with it.

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When writing a historical story, regardless of how accurate you’re going to be, it’s important to do one thing: remember that every person in history is a multi dimensional person.

If we take women as an example, they were passed from father to husband as if they were property. But that doesn’t mean her father literally treated her like a couch he’s going to give some guy. A lot of Roman fathers loved their daughters and wanted the best for them. And a marriage might have been arranged, but that doesn’t mean the couple doesn’t treat their vows seriously.

You can soften these issues by adding relatable humanity to your characters.

This will be harder with the slave question. It’s hard to make it seem softer. I would recommend either not focusing on it or bringing it up too much, or simply make them servants rather than slaves

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That’s fine. I mean I was trying to keep a lot of the concepts in Oedipus relatively true to the time period and source material as I wanted it to be a relatively faithful retelling and not steer people wrong if they read it, and then walked into a class that looked at ancient Greek literature, but did put some degree of artistic licence in there given it’s also mythology and a CYOA so YMMV. I did get caught by surprise a couple of times where I realised some people reading the game had understandibly misinterpreted some of the reasons why things were as they were and it was causing confusion so I needed to add more information for clarity so stay alert for that.

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Really depends on your writing ability, do you believe you can make a realistic adaptation of Roman era? If not don’t do it. But remember one thing just because someone is treated has property doesn’t make them property or an object. Women are sill humans in those times with ideas, wishes etc… just serverly restrained and stunted by their social context. Also why can’t you make someone who lives in a slave society be sympathetic? Just because one lives on it doesn’t make one support it. Or are we all monsters to? Do you fight against slavery? Tens of millions of people right now still live with chains around their neck. Yet has sad has it is we can’t do anything.

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I’m going to ferally cannibalise anyone who says “it depends”

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Almost got cannibalised there but I wrote really depends so I’m safe

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No it wasn’t so much not wanting to evoke negative feelings about the society rather than wanting to be able to have sympathetic characters within said setting. Like, slavery bad, Roman Empire also bad for a variety of complex reasons, but individual people [even those who had slaves] were not necessarily terrible as a result, to a lot of people I think there would be a strong dissonance as a result of being raised told that this kind of thing is perfectly normal… Kind of like how a lot of people end up racist or sexist or homophobic in adulthood not through any direct negative experience with said person but purely due to how they were educated in their youth.

But yeah no my concern isn’t so much that the slavery is there, as I said before it is there and is a large fundamental component of what made Rome successful [as twisted as that is]. It’s more so about how to characterize people who would be indirectly or directly profiting from or using that unpaid labour, I think simply just saying they are all evil or the like would be kind of reductive.

It’s why I was wondering if scrapping the Emperor would make more sense because while I intended to write them as being sympathetic towards slavery they also cannot act openly against the practice since the act would very likely get them killed. So instead they act indirectly by pushing for change more gradually in ways that would not necessarily be read as such. This is all just a thought though…

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I honestly really do appreciate this answer, it is really important to keep this in mind I agree. Like each individual person has their own perspective of their responsibilities or the power that others may have over them and their interpersonal relationships can completely change the flavour of how these ‘hierarchies’ are actually viewed within families and the like.

Yeah the act of having slaves isn’t exactly like… An easy thing for us to process in a modern context, nor the lifetime of normalization that said practice has in order for people to be able to see other humans as literal objects. I think I’ll just have to make the sympathetic characters follow that line, working with freedmen instead of relying purely on slave labour or having a fundamental disagreement from the practice but they are unable to do anything against it [still being under their father’s household].

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It would be a great opportunity to think about this further, not in the corrective way of matching the past to the present but instead looking for parallels.

We live with all kinds of atrocities and inequalities today but we still buy bread and for the most part don’t feel burdened by the responsibility of overthrowing ‘the order’ (or at least don’t think it should rest entirely on our shoulders).

I think you’ll find your key to writing regular Roman citizens there.

In the end what stumps is the question: Why are people living with [evil]? Why can’t they try to change it? What does that say about them? What moral concepts do they operate under?
Will dealing with freedmen instead free these people’s conscience? Perhaps, but everyone contributes to this society including the compassionate liberal lords. Who does it serve, when freedman are often slaves in all but name?
There’s a lot of interesting questions to explore there.

Perhaps your character could read choice-your-adventure wax tablets to cope with their helplessness /j

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I wonder if reading some historical novels might be helpful here.

For example: there’s a children’s series I happen to have read called Roman Mysteries by Caroline Lawrence in which kids solve mysteries in the Domitian era. They’re certainly not perfect (and in various ways they’re very “mid-2000s”) but they’re an example of books that don’t sugarcoat historical elements, but still allow the plucky kids to get things done within the system they’re living in. The main characters have agency and they do interesting things, but it’s very clear how grim the world is.

Perhaps reading these or other books might help with seeing examples of modern writers threading the needle of combining “terrible things embedded in society” with a story that’s fun.

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It depends. (@will, no cannibalism :stuck_out_tongue:)

Cataphrak, one of my favorite writers on this forum, has in his Infinity series allowed the MC to partake in the Infiniverse’s oppressive power hierarchies on several occasions, because he believes that one of a game’s uses as an educational tool is to show why and how atrocities happen by inviting the player to become complicit. (How do you clear your debt early? You have half of the men under your command killed just to capture a noncombatant, so you can collect her ransom. And there’s also an option to believe in the military necessity of shooting her out of hand, and do so.) If you’re allowing the Emperor to do wicked deeds with that in mind (particularly if you’ve established a certain trust in your writing first), or another clear artistically-meritorious purpose, you’ll likely not run afoul of the publishing guidelines from what I’ve seen.

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I would think that most people reading historical fiction are expecting some level of unpleasantness in the setting. It comes with the genre. If someone didn’t want to deal with that at all, they’d read a contemporary or fantasy story. So I think it’s fair to trust that the audience knows what they are getting into, especially if you add a warning/explanation in your post.

Might be worth mentioning another WIP set in Roman Times, Defiled Hearts. There’s slavery, colonization, xenophobia, and misogyny in the game, and the experiences and romances of the MC does change based on their selected gender (ex. AFAB MCs have to pretend to be AMAB). It doesn’t go into detail with these topics and (imo) the world-building would be improved by doing so, but you could use it as a baseline for what is acceptable to readers.

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So whilst not roman one of the WIPs I’m working on is set in 1666 London in the wake of the Great Fire of London when the city was extremely xenophobic towards catholics and the dutch and people were murdered because of such bigotry. I cannot shy away from these attitudes if I wish to play a game set in this time and place, at least one of the “main,” cast will inevitably have these beliefs and I’m trying to work out how to navigate that without it taking over his character or making him completely unsympathetic.

And I think what’s working best, as poorly as this may be phrased, is just writing it and writing him as a person and instead allowing the MC/Reader to react to it? People are products of their environment but people aren’t solely one thing or the other, there’s a difference between a mustache twirling sadist who hurts people for fun and someone who is part of a bad system. If the MC decides to be quite pacifist/open to others then they can influence that character to change and their interactions with the MC will change their views. Obviously it’s a bit harder when we’re talking about societial slavery as you can’t really get rid of it but I think you just need to write them the way you’d write anyone, if the slavery is a massive turn off for someone and how they view the character it would likely happen regardless.

If you wish to focus on it then do but if this is a part of the world building and not a massive plot thing it’ll likely be best to just write it the way you’re writing the world. Roman era was fucked up with terrible things happening, let those terrible things happen, let those characters be a part of it and as long as the MC has freedom in how to feel about it (or doesn’t if there’s a reason you need to limit it but heads up that could be unpopular?) then it should be alright?

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I think it depends entirely on what kind of story you want to tell. If you want to tell a story in which themes regarding the treatment of enslaved people (usually foreigners) and women is important, then you should include it, but you should be very mindful and handle the topic with sensitivity. For example, I believe “Defiled Hearts” deals with homophobia and sexism in Rome. If you choose to play a female character, you have to pose as male, and your character has to be careful of implying any type of queerness around others. You could go this route, or not.

If you do make a different path based on gender, make sure it’s not just “women can’t do anything.” If certain paths are blocked from female characters, then there should also be certain paths opened up. Gender roles don’t only affect women – men are also restricted by them.

Since this is alternate history, you don’t necessarily have to address these topics exactly as they were at the time. I’m working on a historical fiction rom-com set in medieval England. My coauthors and I decided not to include queerphobia or racism – though we do address classism – because we thought it would take away from the story. Instead, we built same-sex marriage into the lore of the world – for example, right out of the gate we clarify that, among the gentry/nobility, it’s typical for parents to arrange marriages regardless of the sexuality of their children, and there are particular benefits and drawbacks to each type of marriage. Most of our historical accuracy is more in the small details anyway – the types of material used to make clothes, travel arrangements, and things like that. The purpose is to add authenticity and make it feel like a historical setting, not write a history book.

It is my personal opinion that historical accuracy should always serve the story, not the other way around. If historical accuracy gets in the way of an awesome joke, I put the joke in. If historical accuracy adds tension to a scene, I go with it.

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I think something that I find pretty impressive from Defiled Hearts specifically [huge kudos to @ghostboi btw for initially bringing up that WIP. I remember reading it like 2 years ago and completely didn’t see the connection, it’s literally based in Titus’ reign, Domitian’s brother and direct predecessor, based off of text in the game] is the way that it does handle those serious issues but it manages not to dwell on them at all…? Like, obviously there is the confrontation Tinsae has with a cruel slave owner, the MC can react with disgust at the practice and Niall will remark concerns of being put to death if they were exposed as being lovers.

Yeah I know that I could always just remove these things but a society in which there wasn’t slavery would not functionally be the same. I would probably have to replace it with basically an indirect equivalent [such as relying on contracted spirits who are basically trapped in the mortal realm until accomplishing their work, essentially a proxy for slavery while not being humans but then what is the tangible difference here?]

Part of it too for me is being interested in not just capturing the essence of Ancient Rome but also wanting to like… help people learn things? My current concession is that I am working on a very large Encyclopedia doc using all of the books and resources I have been reading that has all of the ‘real facts’ and I can keep that then alter it to whatever I need after the fact once I know the history. The more I know the more I can change things while being able to hazard a guess to how those changes would functionally change other parts of society.

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If this is your goal, then yeah, I totally see wanting to include harsher topics. I’m curious as to what your main concerns over including these topics are. Are you worried that you’ll alienate readers?