I have been running 13th Age 2e lately. The PCs have been going around the default setting of the game, the continent called the Dragon Empire. They have been saving and improving the world in many ways, and are very nearly epic-tier.I will be sending the PCs off to adventure in other continents (which they have made contact with previously), but now I have to justify why these other continents have been nowhere near as important to the overall fate and well-being of the world. I also have to strike a balance between "Yes, you are epic-tier heroes who can solve problems that nobody else can" and avoiding the "These other continents have been totally helpless backwaters until you brave heroes from fantasy Europe came in and fixed everything" cliché. It would be anticlimactic to go "Nah, these other continents' icons and heroes can handle things themselves," after all.Which got me thinking: published fantasy RPG settings seem to have "Sure, there are other lands, but nearly everything of significant impact just so happens to take place in the Europe-themed part of the map" often:• Pathfinder's Golarion: Nearly everything of import (e.g. Adventure Paths) is centered around Avistan, including the bulk of the strongest, most important gods.• Forgotten Realms' Toril: Nearly everything of import (e.g. adventures) is centered around the Sword Coast, also including the bulk of the strongest, most important gods.• Draw Steel's Orden: Nearly everything of import (e.g. Ajax, Capital, adventures) is centered around Vasloria and Rioja.• Eberron: Occult powers and events of metaphysical weight just so happen to be centering around Khorvaire.I do not know. The whole "Why, yes, the Europe-themed place is indeed the center of the world" contrivance irks me. I understand why it happens (setting authors and GMs just want to focus the spotlight on the Europe-themed place, but want other lands to exist), but it still bothers me as a GM.What do you think?
And yes, I am aware that one solution is to say that these other places and continents have their own heroes and world-shaking events that the Europe-themed area simply does not hear about. It probably works well as a justification for other GMs, but I trend towards the Eberron-style model of "The PCs are the only heroes, and they are unprecedented," so such a rationale is harder for me to employ.
>>98278437Hate to break it to you OP. But you've engineered a situation where your only option is to make them white saviors bringing stability and civilty to the heathen hinterlands. That or every other continent has their collective shit together and the PC's is viewed at as basically Red Cambodia if the Nerdslayers occasionally got their hands on Nukes. You could also accept that rationale is fucking dumb. And give the other continents world shaking events and heroes who respond to them.
>>98278411>These other continents have been totally helpless backwaters until you brave heroes from fantasy Europe came in and fixed everything" clichéWhy is that a problem? They're the heroes and they've been forged into that by their experience, it makes perfect sense for their homeland to be a distinct from the world.
>>98278411Why not the other places have been perfect utopias until an unexpected evil took root?
>>98278411there's a conversation to be had about eurocentrism in fantasy but i dont think you really want to have that conversation and you just posted this as bait
>>98278411>What do you think?How "Europe-themed" is a game that mostly takes place outside civilization, as anthropomorphic creatures with mixed taxonomic features and mechanical weapons fight the invasive robots that pepper the landscape across beaches, jungles, highlands, deserts, mushroom forests, and such, as these heroes try to at least deter the menace enough for humanity to rebuild?How European is it, to travel across the wilderness and live in it, crafting heavy munitions from extra-dimensional machines who can only be harmed by the spirit energy channeled by these chimaeric adventurers?Regardless of the actual answer to these questions, I care not to think about it; I'd rather focus on the game itself, than think about "is muh settan too European !?" or some other shit.
>>98278411No, you pretty much are an ignorant moron who doesn't actually read the books you claim you have read.
>>98278852It's probably because most ttrpg players and writers are of european extraction. I'd imagine that asian settings put asian people at the center. Why would you expect people to put others at the center of worlds they are creating?
>>98278437>What's 2+2?>I've already decided I'm not going to accept 4
>>98278411Can't have a team of RPG wish fulfillment heroes and have them come and save non-european countires. Even when its within the europe coded country its still just white saviour tropes. It comes with the setting when everyone else is literally NPCs. If you want to make a world thats not that you need to do research and base your characters on non european worldviews and ontologies
>>98278852There's a conversation to be had about eurocentrism in fantasy but this is the last place where it's worth having
>>98278411>try to represent non-Western culture>inevitably make some kind of mistake or omission>get boycotted by twitterfagsPandering to these retards is a fool's errand. It's a lot easier to just not engage with their bullshit at all; they'll still grumble at you for not being diverse enough, but being an apostate is better than being a heretic.
Kys edna
>>98278411This is bad advice but it's be pretty fun y if they reached the other continent a d found themselves completely outclassed and their premise of their "quest" in this new continent was found to be completely facetious so now they concentrate all their efforts on getting enough money to go back home>A demigod huh, well the gods are very fond of mortals in these parts of the world, you'll fit right in! >An archwizard? Have you come to study at the Great Library of Lorollin?>Rogues, rangers, thieves,monks, and all other manner of roving scoundrels eh? So you've left the orders and decided to go at it freelance. Lady Fortune's blessings upon you my friends. It's a tough business out there what with all the professional temples and fraternal orders. Even the comelybtavern wenches have no want for competition
>>98278411Sending them? You mean the players decided they want to go there?
>>98279800Just hire foreigners to do it for you, dumbass.
>>98278852European civilization is better than all others.
>>98278411OP is a woke hack.
>>98279729white saviors are good
>dragon empirenigga Zhongguo literally means "middle kingdom" because they believed they were at the center of the world
>>98278852OP is a flip so it's not bait.
>>98278411Would not the answer to this be that most civilizations are largely inwards-facing and most civilizational crises are, if not unrelated to each other, at least not generally the sort of thing that all civilizations are aware they are simultaneously facing?I.E., the Chinese and Hungary were both fighting existential wars against the Mongol Ordu (against the same individual guys, even) in the 13th century, but neither of them had more than a passing awareness that the other existed and certainly they weren't sharing technologies or anti-mongol tactics. The world need not be particularly interconnected, the problems need not be collaboratively faced, and they might manifest themselves in entirely different ways. Maybe the Dragon Empire's sphere of influence ("the world" according to them) really only reaches a relatively short distance. By the time you get to Fantasy Europe nobody there is even aware that they stopped the moon from falling into the sea or slew the spider demons that were trying to hatch the world-egg, they just know the price of silk went up 12% two years ago.
>>98279774That's true.
>>98279774This.(I don't even think it's "real" eurocentrism, just repeating the mouldy dnd scenery tropes of castles and inn, stale even back in the seventies)
>>98278411I really really like how Rifts handles it. Having Africa be under the thumb of the literal four horsemen of the apocalypse while its returning to primal and shamanism is just kinda...Based.Like this is a mythical place that "America" heroes just straight up DO NOT want to go there. That way only the fools and true heroes go to "Africa."
>>98282800To some degree, this.>>98278411The easy, cheap answer is to have the characters learn from NPCs in these new countries about the world ending disaster that a local party fought, simply mentioned like it's another day in the wild. You're not the center of the world, you are however the view point. I like to imagine the whole world is active, just silently.
Pre-industrial humans rarely had any idea of what lay beyond the corners of the map but generally, for encounters, I ran with five general states as a DM:>Middle East: decadent dynasties that LOOOOVVVVEEE slavery. The Merchant Kings always send out raiding parties to the coasts in search of humans to abduct while they party in magnificent palaces. The source of Pirate/Corsair encounters when I need to shake things up and exotic women. >Africa: Orc world. The humans got displaced a long time ago, occupying a narrow fringe on the desert while Korgoth battles the rising Thri-Kreen for territory. It's also where I stuff all the freakshit races for that one player, and where I use as the source of my lizard folk encounters. >East Asia: forcibly united by the Great Khan. The Golden Horde, after having destroyed the eastern islands, burning the cherry blossoms and building pyramids of skulls in the incinerated carcasses of pagodas, looks westward. A major menace and source of combat encounters in slav games. >'Merica: a bunch of tribals save for a set of city states that practice human sacrifice at the equator. Unknowingly ruled by Demons or Ayys, which one differing by my mood at the time. It's where I pull up pulp stuff and arctic encounters. >Polynesia: shamanistic, druid stuff. The tribals here are cannibalistic warriors. This is where you'll encounter the true power of nature, and the horrifying nature of the oceanic abyss.
>>98280191>flipi think he never disclosed that? but why obsess over chinese gacha aesthetics then
You're too lazy to look up alternatives and this is the reason why productive White people write your fantasy for you.
>anon sees castles and armor>immediately thinks of europeSkill issue
>>98278437Your solution is simple. These places have the same heroes. There is a notAfrican version of the party and a notSEA version and a notMutt version and what have you. And they are the same people outside some cosmetic differences. Shenanigans ensue. Maybe there can be only one, maybe they get to control all versions of their character in order to face the ultimate threat or maybe they just fuck themselves like in pic-rel.
