Why I write fantasy and secondary worlds. If I write a contemporary setting, where would I set it? I live in a small, non-English speaking country. My jokes and references would alienate my readers. Setting a story in a place in the US where I’ve never lived, well, that would feel really weird, especially since I would be drawing most of my reference points from movies and TV.
Of course, there are also entire genres that rely on either UK settings or ones that are heavily referential of the same. Surely there are a few games like that, although I don’t recall playing many – because of my aforementioned slant for fantasy.
I’m probably speaking for just myself, but I’m not sure if that’s largely the case. I’ve got a small anecdote to bring up here.
Many years back I witnessed a primary school Geography class. There was a large world map being flashed on an OHP transparency (anyone remember those things?) and the kids were being quizzed on major cities around the world.
The kids had little trouble with South East Asia. Many of the ASEAN countries were small enough on the map that all the kids had to do was point to the landmass itself to identify the city. Tokyo? Kuala Lumpur? Bangkok? Manila? Not much issue there. And Singapore is so tiny that Island = Capital = Country.
Then the transparency flipped to America and the class suddenly went silent. Where was Washington? New York? San Francisco? Houston? LA? Everyone knows they’re in America, but from what I gathered the overall extent of knowledge in that class was “They’re somewhere in that great bloody patch of land.”
I’m sure the kids got sorted out after that, but I guess it shows that those American cities weren’t immediately any more familiar than e.g. Beijing, Guangzhou, Chongqing, Hangzhou etc.
Well I am done with school for today, and several times I fell asleep during class…well that’s what I get for being unable to sleep until 3:30am last night, I lasted though mathematics, struggled to stay awake in science (one of my favourite subjects, the other one is history) Evenchaly I fell a sleep in that class! Then in history (normal not elective) I think I sleep through most of the lesson!! Yeah… I’m really sleep deprived today. Well I’m sleeping well tonight!
I’m fine with the majority of games (which aren’t set in a fantasy world) set in the US. What I’m not okay with is if a character from a foreign country mixes in words, expressions in their native language when they speak without the author doing the research to see if it’s actaully used that way in the country the character is from or not.
Why even the need of expressing characters foreignes that way? Just say the character has an accent. If I would be in an english speaking country and I know english then I wouldn’t mix in hungarian words. Even if a word doesn’t come to me easiely I’d try to find another word which is similar enough to what I’m trying to say.
I’m an Aussie and proud of it! This is a part of the reason why I started this topic because I read on one WIP A regular life in New York to be egsact wich was written by an Aussie and that got me thinking, this exact question that is the topic!
In January of this year, I overheard one of my classmates talking about how his girlfriend, a Swede, is always teasing him for being stereotypically American in not knowing about outside countries or cultures. Case in point (that he brought up, mind) was a trip they had taken the year before to Egypt. He pauses and turns to stare at each of his tablemates and asks them, “Did you guys know it was in Africa?”
I just about had a heart attack right then and there, but I mean, this guy also nearly got a perfect score on the TEAS Test (the entrance exam for nursing schools—notoriously difficult) so I suppose everyone’s skillset lies in different areas, but hot diggity daffodil I could feel my soul crush when his tablemates seemed surprised at that fact as well.
I dared not ask them where Canada was. I was afraid of what they might have answered.
While this might probably be a rather personal reason, I choose the US as the setting for my story because of the overall linguistic context. I would have really loved to set my story in my home country Germany, but since the whole story, including all dialogs, must be written in English it wouldn’t have made much sense. I mean, for me at least, it would have been extremly strange to write an entire story set in Germany were none of the characters even speaks the native tongue
Thats the reason why I choose the US instead since it made things much easier.
I think US, Britain and Japan tend to be the three big power houses of it all…
But in regards to the us, I guess because most people either, are from the us and are comfortable writing about it or find it much easier without having people complain about it.
I’ve seen some people try and set a game or story in a different country and even though they were 100% respectful with their works, even taking to hiring people of that specific race to help setting up the cultures properly, get screamed at for “appropriating someone elses culture”
Basically, from what i’ve seen, people don’t really care about the us so it’s kinda the go to thing.
To be fair I think that has a lot to do with the education system.
I did not know that about Egypt. We were never taught that in school. I only found out a few years ago after looking up information about the Nile river myself
If I would make a game set in reality I would choose it to be in germany, just because I can^^
The apokalyptic setting I am in for at the moment is set in a part of Romania, for story reasons
I thought about the Banat, because it is less crowded than other places, so the governtment agreed to sell a lot of land to a corporation that they could build a Dome there.
@Jacic I had to take geography too, it is normal here
But americans have to learn 50 states? That’s impressive too if someone can name all that? There aren’t even that many countries in Europe. As for my home country all I had to learn was 19 territories (shows how small Hungary is) so I guess regarding that I had an easier job than an american kid.
That’s one of the benefit of being a football/soccer fan, in World Cup Qualifying Stage we could learn about the countries in different continents .
and only in football i realise Gibraltar is part of the United Kingdom in Iberian Peninsula
Haha Cari, you will be surprised that there are at least 51 countries in Europe… Oh and in medieval history , Hungary used to be quite a powerful Kingdom as well
Really? I was too lazy to count it myself so I did a quick search… Shame on you Google for betraying me! I’m really disappointed in you now.
Edit: Yeah, sure I learned history, but I try not to be one of those people who are hung up on the past and are still complaining about lost territories after WW2. I don’t see what good that would be. (tho it’s still nice to see a non-hungarian to mention that)
