How has fantasy changed in your opinion over the years? Do you like the direction it's gone?
It's diverged into so many different paths that you can easily find something that appeals to you, no matter how insanely specific it is.
Fantasy hasn't changed enough. It's stagnated.
Some elves, some dwarves, some orcs.
And all bland Western fantasy too. How about going even just a TINY bit further east? Historical Constantinope/Byzantium was radical. And that's before even touching cool shit like the golden age of Islam.
I hate that in the recently released 'Dark Eras' for Chronicles of Darkness, we could have gotten 'Book of Judges' Hunter. Monster slaying in the ancient Middle-East?
but lolnope people voted for Japan instead.
>>47483314
The "golden age" of islam is incredibly overblown. Do you even know what elements of these cultures you would want to adopt into fantasy?
>>47483016
I dunno, but I wanna buttfuck that barbarian woman on the upper right.
>>47483314
Golden Age of Islam was pretty much just the reintroduction of Roman knowledge.
>>47483314
You seem inordinately focused on wanting a middle eastern setting. Go back and play Al Qadim or something.
>>47484231
>Roman knowledge
Actually mostly Greek and Indian, as well as some Persian and any other old world knowledge they could find. They collected it all, then translated it into Arabic the lingua franca of that era, and then actually built on that knowledge. It wasn't only Muslims though, the Caliphs would patron other groups as well as part of the effort. Christians, Jews, Buddhists, Hindus, and other middle eastern minorities were all involved along with the Muslims.
>>47483016
Is that picture trying to make a point, besides the artstyle? Or are the changes to the characters random?
>>47485358
I think it's just illustrating the difference between generic fantasy now and 20 years ago.
Both are pretty middling quality imo.
>>47483016
Is that bottom one supposed to be Everquest as well? Why did they change the characters so much if so? I mean I don't give a fucking shit about skimpy outfits, and several in the second pics have them as well. But the dragon and orc in the second pic look literally ripped from Warcraft.
At least the top pic tries to be somewhat classic fantasy. Second one looks like it's just carbon copying Warcraft and D&D.
>first pic has blacks
>second pic has furries
looks like fantasy was always shit
The top illustration has basis in reality and shows the artist is proficient in illustrating human anatomy. The bottom is comic/video game bullshit.
>>47485358
The top is official artwork from EverQuest, the bottom is a spoof of the same image reproduced in the style of World of Warcraft.
>>47485381
The top picture of "middling quality" is a Keith Parkinson (RIP) orginal you philistine.
>>47483016
Fantasy hasn't changed much.
Fantasy art has changed.
I'm 36 years old. Everquest came out when I was 19 in March 1999. Really makes me feel old seeing so many changes to fantasy, vidya graphics in 17 years. Aesthetically I like the 1980s dare I saw Old School art better.
>>47483016
the top dragon could use a bit of the other dragons flare in design but otherwise the top images art style looks fucking sick against its competitor
>>47483016
The question is stupid. "Fantasy" can encompass all fiction. If you want to be more specific, then its just fiction with a fictional setting. Oh boy.
There's still anything and everything from Pratchett to Tolkien to Martin to Barks to Clarke to Rowling to Ende and so on ad infinitum. Trying to give fantasy descriptors is like trying to give descriptors to humans other than the most definitive biological descriptors.
>>47483337
>Global center of art, science and technological progress
>Foundation of modern mathematics
>Primary place that preserved Greek and Roman insights for the Renaissance
>Overblown
>>47483016
>that bottom pic
>underbite retard dragon
>boxy Blizzard armor
>strongk wimminz cuz they're in armor
>top pic
>nigger
Both have problems desu.
>>47483016
20 years later the booty still be getting checked out
>>47485467
>Primary place that preserved Greek and Roman insights for the Renaissance
Oldschool fantasy art will never not be completely badass
>>47483016
That dark skinned elf looks shit in both, but at least she's fighting a fit bitch in the bottom.
>>47485390
Yes, the bottom picture was everquest next. They did a early access scheme where you got to get into land mark, where you would help create shit for the game.
Then the game went belly up and they took everyone's money and cancelled the game.
Which, as a huge everquest fan, I'm actually happy with since that bottom picture is the abortion of an idea they were taking the art design. It was basically wow mixed with guild wars with an everquest label.
>>47485611
The funny thing is the dindu race in everquest are shunned to their own island for being dindus.
>>47485795
>Call a spade a spade to their face
You must have a very disjointed nose from getting punched so damn often.
Unless you only feel confident enough to belittle people who don't look like they'd fight back.I don't actually believe you do or say shit, you don't even talk a good game
Top: Everquest, a game that still produces expansions and has a fan base (albeit no where near the old days)
Bottom: Everquest next, it's supposed next step, that got cancelled in production and was literally muting people in its reveal stream for anyone that said literally anything negative
Lesson to be learned? STOP. FUCKING. TRYING. TO.
BE. WORLD OF WARCRAFT.
How the fuck have people not learned this after the string of failures of mmos for the last fucking decade?
All I fucking want is an original mmo that focuses entirely on mmo fans and appeasing its core user base and maintaining a sense of community, how is this so fucking hard?
>>47483016
>giant sword in one hand
>bow in the other
...was she going go shoot the sword at people with the bow? I love how she looks photoshopped over the background.
>>47483016
it got a different kind of camp
>>47483314
I see Germany still has an active presence on /tg/
>y-yeah it's stagnated
>gotta, uhh, mix things up
>Like, pshh... I dunno, maybe work a little more Islam into your setting?
>>47486589
you can always make them the villains
>>47483016
Shoulderpads, anime, magical realm and faggotry.
No sir, I dont like it
>>47485467
BUT what elements would you adopt into fantasy?
Yeah, people kept reading and shit but what was so cool that you liked?
>>47483314
>golden age of Islam
>>47486114
I don't remember the history very well, but didn't they pull a Liberia?
>escape persecution and slavery
>settle in a distant land
>immediately enslave the locals
>>47486735
Peace be with you.
>>47483314
Why does mentioning an era of Islam that wasn't absolutely fucked trigger so many people? It's not really a statement about the Islamic world today.
>>47485422
It's still generic 90s fantasy art.
>>47486790
Because it means that western civilization and intellectual history owes something to the middle east.
Translated: It means that white people's knowledge was touch by filthy arab hands. This makes the stormweenie shit his pants in confusion, so he spergs out and demonstrates his complete lack of knowledge on the subject. Pre-Mongol invasion Arabia was honestly one of the better places to live on earth at the time.
>mfw I found out that the arabic name for Aristotle is literally "The Greatest" they thought he was so cool.
>>47486889
Which fits with EQ, being the generic fantasy MMO.
EQ is to MMOs as Tolkien is to Fantasy.I mean all of this as a positive.
>>47486790
Because people who mention the Abbasid reign are almost exclusively revisionists who don't know a fucking thing about how horrible the time actually was (easily one of the most oppressive slave-trading racist group of people prior to modern times), what their artisans actually achieved (not anywhere near as much as mentioned ITT and their best work was actually in the field of medieval medicine) and just want to push their favored political bullshit of the month.
There are settings who did the orientalism schtick back in the day quite well like Empire of the Petal Throne which most people don't play because, get this, it's hard to get players to relate to Mughal India with a smattering of the Byzantine Empire and most people in the West haven't heard the term "baksheesh". (the kind of people who really want to push what they consider exotic would scream "racism" at the top of their lings if you include basic facts of life as they exist outside of the Americanized conception of the "West" for that matter)
What's more what you'd call "European" fantasy is never actually historically European but a fiction/anglo pastiche. (this includes those horseshit "realistic" attempts to make it grimdark or an exaggerated take on English feudalism which bears no relation to the rest of Europe at the time)
>>47483314
When you look for it fantasy still has good novels. They're just harder to find. As much as I dislike Sanderson's writing his fantasy is still pretty original.
It's still as boring an uninteresting as it was when Tolkien first penned the bore fest 'Lord of The Rings'.
>>47487775
>Hurr durr, I hate fantasy
Then move along, friend
>>47487779
Lord of the Rings was the peak of fantasy originality. His children's book version (The Hobbit) was better fiction. Sadly modern fantasy is all derivative from LoTR and its silly balck and white world view.
>>47485191
Yes, because most of the mideast at that time was ruled by Muslim conquerors but still majority Christian and other religions. It's only recently (last few centuries) that Muslims have wiped out all other religions in the region. Which is why the mideast is such a shithole now.
>>47486966
>this includes those horseshit "realistic" attempts to make it grimdark or an exaggerated take on English feudalism which bears no relation to the rest of Europe at the time
So very much this. It's not even English feudalism, it's a cartoonish parody of what the English saw in French feudalism with a tiny dash of their own system.
Ironic, because the political systems in Lord of the Rings were explicitly pre-feudalism Anglo-Saxon era stuff.
>>47486760
>Peace be with you [in the grave], says the Muslim.
>>47487803
>Lord of the Rings was the peak of fantasy originality.
LotR is a lot of things, but the 'peak of fantasy originality' is not one of them.
Hell, The Broken Sword was published in the same year and that had warring armies of elves and trolls.
>>47485843
Hah, I almost missed that.
>>47487803
Where the fuck have you been for the last few years? Modern fantasy is ALL about muh moral greyness.
test
>>47483016
fantasy used to have a mythic flavor, a diverse, semi-historical cast.
now, it's all MtG / WoW clones
i've gone full Sci-Fi.
tech...tech never changes....
>>47483314
I think this guy is on to something, sandniggers or no.
One of the best ways to freshen up D&D is to keep the standard medieval setting but move away from Western Europe. Go north and makes things more viking. Run an Oriental Adventures campaign.
One of the coolest campaigns I've played in a while had an ancient Hawaiian theme.
Remove elves. Racial profiling should not be a substitute for characterization.
>>47485411
>HURR WHITE HUMANITY FUG YEA
no, you are shit
>>47487803
>lotr was peak originality
If you mean taking all the creatures and races from Norse and other mythology as original ideas, sure.
>>47483016
I hate it. Wizards are too powerful, magic shouldn't be able to do everything. Dragons are faggots who strike up friendly conversation with folks and fuck women to make half-dragons. People whine about always evil races and treat horrible monsters in the same way a first world human treats another first world human of a different ethnicity. People only want to play as a super powerful magic badass that wipes out their opponents instead of as a brave human pushing themselves to face actual danger in the world's dark corners.
I only got into tabletop a few yeas ago and have been in two different groups but this shit has been prevalent in both. Has it always been like this? It's like some kind of horrible moeblob fantasy where nothing means anything.
>>47489887
Not really. I feel that magic would be less powerful in anything that isn't D&D, that is assuming you play it of course. Try looking at anything that isn't D&D.
>>47489887
>People whine about always evil races and treat horrible monsters in the same way a first world human treats another first world human of a different ethnicity.
More detailz, please. Why do you dislike this?
>>47483016
It's all over the place. Now you have grimdark and grimderp next to each other, silly lighthearted fantasy sitting next to silly (but totes serious, I swear on me mum) fantasy and everything in between. This is both good and bad.
Good in that you can find whatever, bad in that much (if not most) is shit either due to it being rehashed tropes or people trying (and failing) to present their game/setting well.
With regards to tabletop RPGs, the loosening of restrictions for playing different fantasy races led to their "domestication" wherein they somewhat lost their uniqueness. State bonuses and racial powers provide incentives for non-human play, but role-play is no longer regulated by penalties and alignment/class restrictions, so people are led to play a dwarf for instance, but tend to play them as they would a human. From my experience, this has a negative effect on the fantasy atmosphere.
In fantasy itself, this can be seen in the application of a realistic moral system on a fantasy world. Part of classic fantasy's invigorating feel was due to its black-and-white morality in emulation of myths and legends, and I feel like the sentiment is lost in a current trend to inject realism into a purposely unrealistic genre.
>>47490019
Because my party keeps making friends with mind flayers and snake men and fiends instead of killing them and they act like some kind of noble progressives while they do it. The GM doesn't even depict them as "good" or bettered versions of their races, the players are just eager to be contrary to the expectation of "holy shit dude that's evil you've gotta kill it" and bask in how not racist they are.
When non-humans act like humans and get treated like their violent murder rape race is just a different culture whose customs should be respected it destroys a chunk of the fantasy vibe for me. No hero in their right minds should be sparing mind flayers, let alone getting buddy buddy with them.
>>47483016
>everything in the bottom image is just shitter
>>47490739
And it didn't backfire? Like, a mindflayer making the party its marionettes, snake men backstabbing and eating them?
>>47490815
It hasn't backfired yet. I'm really hoping it will but I don't think the GM is going to do anything.
>>47489237
Found the nigger.
>>47490861
Hmmm. Talk about this with GM, maybe. GM may be clueless about your attitude to this stuff...
>>47490953
You missed, mr. /pol/lack, I'm a Slav
>>47490019
Not him, but treating fantasy races as just different shades of funny-looking humans is tiring. Monsters should be monsters - they serve a purpose. They're basically sentient predators like lions or tigers that threaten the human position as apex predator. You don't need to make every enemy sympathetic (also hate the villain with a sob backstory cliche too).
>>47483016
I feel that's a tough question. Do you mean fantasy games? Pretty much the same. Fantasy novels? Aside from prose they aren't much different. Most are awful, some are good, just like in Tolkien's time.
Your pic tells me you're talking about fantasy aesthetic though. That has changed. It's gotten a lot more cartoonish, and there's always so much visual noise. I think the art design for Pathfinder iconics is one of the biggest offenders. Every character is strapped with a bunch of pointless bullshit, to the point where none of them have any real silouhette. I blame the popularity of vidya like WoW and Final Fantasy for this, mostly.
I liked the old school art like up top a lot more, just because I subscribe to less is more philosophy. I dunno, I just really love that 80s/90s Ultima aesthetic for fantasy art style.
>>47483314
While I do like other parts of the world, trading your poorly-understood interpretation of Medieval Europe as a setting for your poorly-understood interpretation of [Insert Non-European Region] will not automatically improve anything.
Branching out to other sources of inspiration is a good idea, but just understand reliance on European tropes is not the crux of the genre's issues.
>>47483314
Golden Age of Islam is literally the most boring thing you could pick even if we're just going for the middle east.
>>47485467
Okay now how do you build a fantasy world on those things?
Now im depressed they canceled ever quest next again.
>>47485415
No, the bottom one isn't a spoof. Look at the copyright. It's new art that references the general idea of the old art, made for a reboot of Everquest.
>>47486790
It's like saying "The French Empire" or "the Holy Roman Empire". By itself, it's vastly inadequate to build a setting. Yet people act like they're being super fucking clever and original by bringing it up, and need to do nothing more to have made a magnificent contribution to society.
>>47486966
>their best work was actually in the field of medieval medicine
If your benchmark is Europe, they had great medicine. If you're comparing them to the world as a whole, it wasn't in particular. It's just that Europe had shit medicine.
>>47491235
This, really.
People always go on and on about "I want to run a Byzantium game" or a "Medieval China game", or a "Mesoamerica game". And then they leave it at that, never going into why that particular era is appealing, what a game set in a world like that would be like, or even exactly what parts of it they're interested in using.
Basically, what I found they usually mean a game world functionally identical to what you'll find in any other fantasy RPG but the buildings look different.
>>47486966
How can one man be so right?
>>47491134
>Study Philosophy
>Have to take a course about Philosophy between 600 and 1400
>Always wanted to know what exactly happened during that time, Science and Philosophy-wise
>You know what, I'm interested in this shit, I'm going to both Islamic Philosophy and European Philosophy
>Sit down in European Philosophy
>Hear about how everything went to shit and how Europe started to pull itself from the shitter, the Irish Libraries preserving the knowledge, the Church trying to keep everything together and furthering learning, while getting more and more corrupt at the higher levels
>Sit down in Islamic Philosophy
>40 hours of wanking about how the Middle East was super amazing and the bestest thing ever
>Everything that ever happened of note more or less happened between 800 and 1000
>"Oh, but European Cities or sewers! And because all learning was Church-controlled, they didn't have any Philosophers either!"
Golden Age of Islam is a Meme. It started out okay and rapidly spiralled off into complete shit.
>>47486896
Western Civilzation owes a lot to the Middle East.
But most of that was in spite of Islam, not because of it. And people always mix this shit up.
Fucking hell, translators of greek works were actively persecuted at times.
>>47491261
What's 'the world as a whole'? India, China, that whole area isn't 'the world'. Give me an example of shit European medicine. Because I know they had the best surgeons at the time of the Romans. Medicine was well established and studied in Europe by monasteries, universities, doctors etc. Do you really think some nomadic tribe in sub-saharan tribe has better medicine than that?
>>47491445
Sounds like you had a shit teacher though. If you had one who didn't buy into the meme, you could have learned a lot about how the high arabic academia mixed with indigenous folk paradigms.
>>47491445
>>"Oh, but European Cities or sewers!
I meant to say
>but European Cities had neither Street Lights, nor Sewers!
>>47491510
Probably. I don't know, it's the only fucking professor doing anything about that time period in the middle east here, so it's not like there's a lot of choice.
>>47491484
Asia, Africa, the Americas. Nobody had better mental health practices than the Americas.
>>47491474
Islamic civilisation is just Roman + Persian civilisation translated into Arabic. Look at Islamic architecture - it's a straight copy of Byzantine architecture. All of their advances came from conquered peoples. The 'Golden Age' of Islam is only admired because it didn't decay like knowledge did in the West thanks to the fall of the Roman Empire, not because it particularly advanced knowledge (though obviously it did in some things), thus allowing the old knowledge to spread back.
>>47491291
It doesn't help that so many people can barely understand complex structures of society and culture that's not their own. Even if the GM understands the basics, there's no guarantee his players will, so the game will just be a reskinned classic fantasy game, fantasy being more European than of any other cultures. The Chinese governer, the Mayan lord, and the Byzantine kephale will all be treated like the exact same questgiving noble.
>>47491711
>decay like knowledge did in the West
Nice meme.
>>47483314
Reminder that Dark Eras has two separate sections about the Ottomans. Do you really really really need a third setting for a slightly different time period in the same city? You're as bad as the weabs who voted for samurai Japan.
>>47491601
Really? This intrigues me, because I'd never heard of medicine being particularly advanced in the Americas. I'd love to hear more. Though you may want to be more specific - I really doubt, say, the plains indians of North America were better at medicine than Europeans who had professional doctors. This goes for most of the world. I get the feeling you're thinking of specific places in specific points in time when you say 'the world' because I am 100% sure that no, the majority of the world was not more advanced in medicine than Europe which had professional doctors, surgeons and the training to provide them since the Romans.
>>47491731
I will say certain civilizations or historical eras do lend very nicely to RPGs, provided the GM is smart enough to apply them appropriately.
Ancient Greece is a perfect groundwork for a game world. A bunch of autonomous city-states with a shared culture but each having its own unique society, history, and philosophies. Perfect setting for a Conan-style game where players are mercenaries and adventurers.
Conquest of the Americas is great for a horror fantasy game. Players are conquistadors who travel to this strange new world for adventure, for king and country, for riches, or all three. They're in a strange, exotic place where bastions of familiar civilization are few and far between. They're beset on all sides by hostile terrain, barbaric natives, and the omnipresent threat of occultism, monsters, and black magic.
17th Century Japan is a good bedrock for Cowboys, but With Swords.
>>47491814
The whole shamanism thing was as much about mental health medicine as it was about religious stuff. The plains nomads weren't known for their medicine, but there was a lot of good knowledge traveling along the trade routes too. The best in terms of chemical/herbal medicine might have been the folks from the Pacific northwest, but the most sophisticated system of hospitals and professional would have been the aztecs and friends, and in Mexico the doctors in the old tradition are still popular, although economic reasons are a major factor now, and they've picked up some modern drugs.
I don't know much about inca medicine though.
>>47491733
This is where that quote about "a little knowledge can be dangerous" applies. I assume you're thinking of the whole Dark Ages thing? Because while yes, historians now agree it's a bad term and it's unrepresentative, it doesn't mean that post-Roman society was somehow exactly the same. The city of Rome itself for example, went to down to just 50 thousand people at one stage, and this kind of thing happened all over due to the loss of trade routes that supported those large cities, meaning civilisation became more rural and less cosmopolitan.
What this means is you no longer have the big cities which can support specialisation into fields that are purely theoretical. Knowledge wasn't 'lost' per se, just confined to an incredibly small number of people, making it practically useless to society.
>>47491987
Infrastructure degraded hugely. Standard of living did too. But knowledge was still available, and anyone with the wealth and motivation could have accessed and utilized it. Sure, it's not immediately useful, but it's still there just waiting until circumstances allow for its use again.
>>47491906
Right, I get that 'tribal/shamanistic' type medicine isn't useless as was once thought, I just don't think that kind of system which is the best capable for nomadic peoples is ever going to be as good as systems with universities and trained professionals like the Aztecs. I'm fairly certain in my assumption that the civilisations with the best medicine are the ones we traditionally think of as civilisations - densely populated areas with large cities like Europe, China, Middle East, Mesoamerica etc.
>>47492133
The people of the pacific northwest weren't nomads.
>>47492091
I mean, you're right in that the wealthy had access to that knowledge, but some knowledge was definitely lost. Remember how that knowledge is preserved - monks in monasteries, copying old tomes repeatedly over a period of a thousand plus years. There's bound to be losses. Add to that since monks replaced scribes to a large degree, they were the ones that decided what knowledge to keep for the next generation and what not to - surprise surprise, much of it was religious. It's not as bad as the Dark Ages meme suggests, but knowledge was lost.
>>47492217
They were also studying and making new academic discoveries at the same time, though.
>>47492151
There's actually a LOT of North American native who weren't nomadic.
In a lot of cases they didn't even need to BE nomadic; they farmed like everyone did, but Europeans often literally didn't recognize their farms because they were smaller (for the less dense population) and less organized (because they didn't need to be because again, less dense population).
>>47492270
You're mixing up your stories. Europeans initially didn't recognize the ruined overgrown farms that were left when everyone died and stopped cultivating them due to plague. That's pretty much the only case of that happening on a significant scale, though.
>>47492133
China is not a great example of medicine actually, because they largely used Chinese Folk Medicine.
This is a highly disciplined and complex doctrine that takes years of training to master and had much difficulty to learn just as western medicines, but unfortunately it was all complete garbage and the remedies literally were for treating things (qi flows, energy imbalances, psychological problems) that didn't physically exist in real life.
If a Chinese medicine expert helped cure you with his herbs, it was coincidence and not purposeful intent to cure the disease, as there's literally no concept of "disease" in Chinese medicine, only "imbalances".
>>47492296
That was where the lower population came from, I just didn't clarify because the point had been made before here.
>>47492353
And then the communists promoted the hell out of it because they had promised the unwashed masses a better life but knew they couldn't deliver on real medicine.
>>47492151
Sure, but did they have large cities that could support multiple full-time doctors and universities to train those doctors? The point stands.
>>47492247
That's true, of course. Many things advanced during the 'Dark Ages' or Medieval age, I forget the proper term desu, the most notable in my mind being metallurgy. Doesn't mean that an influx of old lost knowledge wasn't a boon, no matter how overstated or a meme it may be.
>>47492403
>did they have large cities
Not like Paris-tier, but they had Germany-tier city sizes.
>>47492388
Well there's that and sheer cultural inertia; a lot of the practices of Chinese Folk Medicine date back to the Song Dynasty, and given how generally socially conservative Chinese culture became afterwords when the Ming overthrew the Song it meant people had been doing that stuff for over 500 years without much changing about it.
>>47492353
Was it though? I don't actually know much about Chinese medicine from the medieval age, but I feel like you're projecting current traditional Chinese medicine which is bunk on to that period. My understanding is that basically all 'folk medicine' is a combination of medicines that worked and medicines that were just a placebo. China had bureaucrats and strong institutions, so I would find it very odd if they didn't have good professional doctors for their time period. But hey, I could be wrong and would love to learn so.
>>47492957
It was for pretty much all of history after the Song Dynasty.
Problem is that the prevailing cultural attitude of China is Confucianistic values, and Confucianism is NOT big on change of any kind. During the Song Dynasty there were lots of attempts to reform the government to then-modern (15th century) needs to make New Confucianism, but there was still resistance to it.
Unfortunately when the Yuan Dynasty happened and the Mongols took over these reforms never happened, and when the Ming overthrew the Yuan they decided that since it was adherence to traditional cultural values that allowed them to Sinicize and weaken the Yuan's hold they we're obviously superior and founded an EXTREMELY socially conservative society compared to the Song.
After that when the old-fashioned methods stopped working rather then reform an incredibly bloated government (which would also remove a lot of court officials and eunuchs from power, neither of whom wanted that) they founded a freakin' secret police to ensure rebellions and dissent didn't happen.
It's kinda seemed like every time China wanted to reform the tiny elite in power didn't want it to happen because this would lessen their hold, immediately followed by some kind of horrible internal turmoil that set back reforms again.
Part of it is that they were often a nation near half the size of North America that tried to be a centralized state WELL before such a thing was really easy to do for any length of time, and just like how the US has difficulty undergoing reforms because our nation is so large we're like four to six regional subcultures pretending to be one culture, China had the same problem before the invention of tv, radio, telegraph, or anything that makes nations like that work.
>>47490997
>I'm a Slav
Yes?
>>47493176
>It's kinda seemed like every time China wanted to reform the tiny elite in power didn't want it to happen because this would lessen their hold, immediately followed by some kind of horrible internal turmoil that set back reforms again.
Actually I would guess it's the other way around. It's the large base of lesser bureaucrats who run things that the elite at the top rely on to be able to run government effectively who are the most resistant to change. Which makes sense to me, since all bureaucrats had to be Confucian to become one in the first place.
>>47490953
Niggers don't care about this shit, only white people get sensitive for other ethnicities
>>47483016
>/pol/ invades a thread
You fucktards are so inbred that I'm nothing less than amazed you can operate a computer effectively. I am ashamed to share the same genes as you.
>>47490629
You've absolutely nailed (what I see) as the problem with post 3.5 rpgs. There was some small bits of this shittiness in 2E D&D, but (imo) it wasn't anywhere near as prevalent.
3.5's permissiveness also led to this problem leaking out into other games. Whereas previously, a player would need the GM's permission to play a non-standard race or need to ask what races where suitable in *this setting*, it's become the expected status quo that players can play any race they like with no drawbacks. It really bugs me seeing a party of two different types of Elves, a half-orc, a dragonborn, and no humans in a setting where the predominant race is (supposedly) human.
>>47483337
I'd say it wasn't even a real thing. The goat fuckers of Mohammad conquered the civilized East by a fluke of history, rode high on its accomplishments for a few centuries, then descended back into the barbarism they came from, dragging the entire region with them, never to recover.
>>47491881
Conquistadors were there mainly for the pussy. And land too, they were pretty feudal with those things.
>>47483016
The art used to be better. I'll take the Vallejo knockoff even though I find that style of composition boring over the Reynold's-esque shit
>>47491601
> nobody had better mental health practices than the Americas
You mean taking them out of society and putting them in prison? Which is exactly what we did until asylums, which is really just a prison for the mentally ill and the retarded. Which is all we did till the Kennedy era when better anti psychotics were created and Kennedy threw a bitch fit after his sister was lobotomized in one.
He pushed for there to be in community care for the mentally ill, which had its funding massively cut for years after Kennedy and a shit ton of mentally ill ended up homeless or in prison because there was no where else to send them.
It's kind of hilarious that were back to basically the same plan we had for mentally ill that we were using hundreds of years ago, and we still electroshock people and think of it as a viable
>>47491733
But knowledge was lost. A large portion of Greek and roman writing was lost in libraries in Spain. Quite a bit of it was translated into Arabic which is how the west attained the knowledge when Spain was retaken. Then the church would have people translate it into western languages and attempt to preserve and teach the findings.
There's a reason quite a bit of creations and findings came from those associated with the church, they were the only ones with translations. That's why when you were an educated noble your teacher came from the church.
>>47483016
I kinda wish there was more EarthSea and less Tolkien. It's not like Tolkien is bad, but man I wish people would steal from someone else for a change.
>>47486966
This.
Give this anon a potato!
>>47497202
It might sound asinine, but you can simply tell players X, Y, and Z races are unplayable because htey don't exist in your setting. Or at least don't exist in any capacity where a bunch of tavern patrons would tolerate one walking in. This is why coming up with your own settings is a good thing. Granted, it's a little harder to do this in D&D/Pathfinder because the system is built around kitchen sink fantasy.
>>47483314
>Islam
>cool
>>47485467
>Primary place that preserved Greek and Roman insights for the Renaissance
This is complete bullshit. Greek and Roman manuscripts were preserved by the Church. Muslim contributions were only useful as comparative translations.
>>47486896
You fucking muslim lover.
No one gives a shit if Arabs or Turks did science a favor by translating already translated texts into their languages.
We're more pissed about the fall of great empires like the Persian and Romans. All of which, is the fault of the fucking Muslims.
Keep on talking out your rear mate.
>>47499358
>translating already translated texts into their languages
>fall of great empires like the Persian and Romans. All of which, is the fault of the fucking Muslims.
>>47486790
>Why does mentioning an era of Islam that wasn't absolutely fucked trigger so many people?
Because it's largely a false image. It's a product of the "Orientalism" of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Islam and it's history were romanticized by western historians during that period. Islamic contributions were exaggerated by protestant scholars to down play the role of the Catholic Church in preserving a promulgating classical knowledge, and the contributions of other cultures were falsely attributed to Muslims. The western concept of "Arabic numerals" is symptomatic of this. That numbering system was actually developed in India; Muslims simply spread it to the west.
The Islamic world did make some contributions to the fields of optics and astronomy. However, the reality of history is that those accomplishments pale in comparison to Islam's destructive influence. Islam tore down both the Roman Empire and the Persian Empire, and replaced them with a totalitarian regime that existed in a near constant state of warfare with the West for over a thousand years. You can't expect reasonable people to react positively to that, anymore that you'd expect reasonable people to want to hear about all the great stuff the Soviets were doing back when they were running gulags and starving Ukrainians.
>>47483016
>They got rid of the black guy
kek
>>47483016
>That bottom image
Man, fuck Warcraft.
>>47483039
First post, best post.
>>47483016
>Couple of people mention the blackguy and complain that he's black
>No one mentions his fucking huge forehead
>It's a fivehead.
>>47500021
I think it might just be a silly hat, anon.
>>47500034
A hat that happens to blend perfectly with his skin color?
A hat with holes in it that show his skin underneath showing a huge head anyway?
It's his head, and a tattoo.
>>47499849
You mean fuck EQ Next?Good news its already dead.
>>47483039
This, this guy, this guy gets it.
>>47498816
>Granted, it's a little harder to do this in D&D/Pathfinder because the system is built around kitchen sink fantasy.
That's what I mean though. With the old group I used to play with, they'd kick up a stink if I dared to say anything so bold as "normal Elves only in this setting", because they'd been so used to playing 3.PF. Ffs, I'd use GURPS which *specifically states* that you must ask your GM's permission to take any supernatural traits (which covers races), and they'd still crack the shits that I wouldn't allow their super-snowflake.
My new group is much better though, they were all new to rpgs, so they don't have the expectation that they can just play whatever they want.
This is a completely shit-tier grognard bait thread and I'm amazed so much interesting historical discussion has come of it. Well done, angry Islamaphobic historians.
>>47497202
>>47500905
I still don't get why dwarves being normal or orcs not automatically being there to be killed cheeses you off, though. The post you quoted mentions they lost their uniqueness, but uniqueness doesn't count for a lot if nobody's allowed to play them in the first place.
>>47485445
>being 36
>vidya
>>47485611
>desu
really? I mean, really?
As for fantasy? It's broken. Rule of cool broke it.
>>47501739
>desu
>he doesn't know about the word filter
hey newfag
>>47499560
He's not wrong. While not the Roman but more the Byzantine Empire (which could have reunified into the Roman Empire).
>>47501871
He's not completely wrong, but they did preserve some texts that were completely lost to the West, and moreover they didn't have the same dogged devotion to some scholars that the Europeans did.
The Persian empire did more or less collapse with the rise of the Arabs, but even if you stretch the Roman Empire into the Byzantine Empire, their death knell is still the fault of the 3rd Crusade. The Ottomans might have actually finished off the rump state, but at that point they were more a petty Greek kingdom than any sort of remnant of a Roman Empire. It'd be like dragging Sassanid Persia into the Samanid Empire.
>>47483016
I wish EQ Next wasn't cancelled tbqfh
>>47500905
to be frank you sound like an unpleasant dick
>>47494437
>Whining about /pol/
You're just as bad you little faggot
>>47502141
Do you think that there's a chair somewhere in front of those pictures, where someone just sits down and drinks while staring at them for a while? Or did everyone stop caring?
>>47483016
>Erudite mirin' Firiona's magic
Man I miss EverQuest.
>>47502141
It's not a good homage. The painting has awful composition in comparison to the original.
>>47486790
Remember, you're on a board that venerates people like Anders Breivik. Mentioning anything about muslims triggers people here like mad.
>>47502264
> you're on a board that venerates people like Anders Breivik
> implying that's a bad thing
Found the SJW.
>>47502264
Venerate? No. That's leftist garbage. We acknowledge that he had the right idea because that's fucking obvious to anyone who knows the first thing about mudslimes and the leftists that want to import them.
>>47486966
>(the kind of people who really want to push what they consider exotic would scream "racism" at the top of their lings if you include basic facts of life as they exist outside of the Americanized conception of the "West" for that matter)
>most people in the West haven't heard the term "baksheesh".
Indeed good sir, those "social justice warlord" types haven't partook in the odd Michael Palin travel documentary or the occasional spell of a foreign affairs program while channel surfing like we worldly gentlemen.
>>47502318
>leftists
>importing muslims
I guess Cameron and Merkel are both leftist, true.
>>47502355
If it looks like a leftist, imports shitskins like a leftist, and babbles about "cultural enrichment" like a leftist, then it's a leftist.
I think it goes in very bad direction, as "on average" but not as a whole.
From very long perspective, look at the sources of fantasy, before gaming has been irrevertibly glued to them, literature, and, at by the end movies. Tolkien, Moorcock, White, Howard, many, many others. Fantasy with a soul, when moderation wasn't yet obsolete thing worth forgetting Modern legends full of mystery and emotion.
Then, the RPGs hit the market, and quickly got very popular in certain millieus. Don't get me wrong, TTRPGs are and awesome idea, narrative cooperation with a game element is a medium of infinite possibilities. But unluckily, first to have this idea had to be Gygax, and first rpg was D&D - game with roots in cheapest pulp, retardized to square power, mixed with miniature wargames, so quickly it focused on combat and "cool powerz". If instead of Gygax and his contemporaries (Greg Stafford, at example) would be first to invent RPG, it could be so much better nowadays. And then the cancer did spread from rpgs to wargames, card games, and, finally and most importantly, vidya. All those forms of ententainment were growing in popularity quickly, and still are. D&D, then Warhammer, then MTG, Warcraft and the likes poisoned fantasy forever but... not entirely.
There are still good things produced. I'd say, no less than before. But also no more. Fantasy had grown BIG since 70s, but while it core stayed mostly intact, most of "new" things are cancerous tumor (but not all, mind you. Morrowind is a perfect example of good things that are far from traditional fantasy, and use new medium).
>>47502370
Admit it faggot, in every european country bar Sweden, only right-wingers have ever imported muslims by the boatload.
>>47502383
cont.
So what's bad with cancerous tumor if it doesn't kill the healthy organism in it's core? It obscures it. It gives fantasy bad associations in a wider society. It pushes away some decent people, who could be potential lifeblood for millieu, who, seeing the outer, tumoric layers of overblown, grotesque games and books about cute sexualized elves and knights in 3-inch thick plates with slabswords massacrating evul things, and are like nope. While it draws even more people who like this shit, feeding the cancer even more in a snowball effect.
That of course also means most works of the genre, media doesn't matter, is tailored for the tastes of majority of it's target audience. That's how LotR movies, which still were done with care and feel of the old good fantasy, get degraded to monstrosity that is Hobbit. That's how almost every good TTRPG today is "indie".
I really hoped that sudden popularity of GoT will maybe change something, but no. People watch it, like it, but the wall of shit is still blocking their views. Literal quote of conversation between my friends:
>do you watch game of thrones
>no it's fantasy, it is surely some juvenile nerd shit about colorful elven knights fighting dragons or something like those stupid vidyas
>no, it's different! I dislike what you describe too, but GoT is really cool.
Except it's not that different. It follows slightly different themes and paths, but this is the healthy core of fantasy. Like Tolkien. Like LeGuin. Like others. Others that will be never discovered by people who could like it, because of this stigma.
>>47502397
Fantasy art is another thing, but it is also going in bad direction, though, paradoxally, there are more good things than before. They just drown in the sea of shit. Look at OP's pic. The one below is clearly worse, retarded plastic shit designed to attract 15yo's upbrought by Warcraft and LoL, but the upper isn't good either, it's bland and uninspiring. As most of "old" fantasy art. While curently many skilled artists work, they aren't just the ones that are most visible. Alan Lee at example, and pic related.
>>47502387
> implying those are right-wing
The right wants to shoot the shitskins at the border. It's leftists who want to flood Europe with them.
>>47486966
>Game designers and writers can't into history
Yes, and?
>>47502277
Alright, so apparently thinking it's wrong to venerate a mass murderer who killed 77 people makes you a SJW. Good to know.
>>47502412
But importing third worlders to drop wages down is the staple of the right wing and has always been.
>>47502436
> murderer
Everywhere they have gotten the chance, leftists have wrecked entire nations and tried to destroy any culture that dares to promote productivity or family. Killing leftists isn't murder, it's self defense.
>>47502436
To be fair it was a youth politics camp.
Anyone that has been to a university knows that he was ultimately doing a whole lot of people a huge favour.
>>47502462
>live in a country where 90% of the muslim scum has been imported by right-wingers
>live in a country where the culture has entirely been wrecked by right-wingers
>read this
From crap to shit
It could be worse
>>47483397
Get in line, fuccboi
>>47483397
the ogress?
ewww
>>47502513
> live in a country where the culture has entirely been wrecked by right-wingers
Apparently you live in a fantasy world.
>>47487809
Bullshit. During the Islamic golden Age, most of the people living in Abbasid Caliphate were Muslim. Most of the thinkers were Muslims as well (not all Arab).
And the religions weren't wiped out. Unlike Europe, Islamic regions in the Middle East still preserved religious communities like Chaldeans, Assyrians, some Jewish populations, etc... But in Europe, all Jews were either kicked out or killed. The Moors in Spain were kicked out (not talking about rulers but everyday people). You're projecting your own wish for extermination on others or at the very least looking at the past with a modern twist.
>>47486966
>Abbasids
>racist group of people prior to modern times
That's funny.
inb4 bringing up quotes about a scholar saying bad things about uncivilized subsaharan tribes when the same author says negative things about bedouin Arabs.
Culture=/= Race.
>>47491711
>>47491711
>Look at Islamic architecture - it's a straight copy of Byzantine architecture.
I wonder how can idiots like you be allowed to write anything. But I guess that's free speech...
Look at this picture. There is nothing Byzantine about it.
>>47499672
Islamic history existed long before Western historians touched it.
>>47499672
>Islamic contributions were exaggerated by protestant scholars to down play the role of the Catholic Church in preserving a promulgating classical knowledg
The religious tension between the Catholic Church and protestant thinkers was not big during the late 19th and 20th century. You're quite ignorant of European history.
>Roman Empire and the Persian Empire, and replaced them with a totalitarian regime
Both of those entities were very totalitarian.
>>47499672
>existed in a near constant state of warfare with the West
First, there was no "West".
Second, Islamic civilizations were not at constant warfare with the West. Ottoman Empire experienced a long period of peace with Christian neighbors. Different factions in Iberia weren't always fighting.
>>47502589
It could be one of those African countries, "patriotic local warlord" is technically right-wing government. And Islam is most common religion in Africa, so whoever they import has a high chance of being muslim.
>it's a "thread devolves into /pol/-arguments"-episode
You guys are worse than furries about shoving your interests down everyone's throats.
>>47502606
> African countries
Their "countries" only exist because Europe gave them civilization on a silver plater. They are incapable of the kind of abstract thinking needed to develop nationalism, and thus are incapable of actual right wing thought.
>>47502606
No I don't live in the UK.
>>47502624
> bitching about "muh-/pol/" boogieman
backtotumblr.jpg
>>47502643
No fuck off. It's not about whether or not I agree with you, it's that threads on /tg/ keep derailing into arguments about muslims and I'm FUCKING TIRED OF IT.
>>47502093
You mean the 4th Crusade.
Christianity killed Rome, not Islam. But all things have to die one day or the other.
>>47502629
Ethiopia has been a nation before many European countries.
>>47502629
But is only the true nationalism right wing?
Isn't fake misguided idea of would be nationalism also technically right wing? Because if it isn't that, then what it is?
Download Free Ancient Indian Books in Hindi http://hindiibooks.blogspot.com/
>>47502629
On a scale of 1 to 10, please indicate how often you visit /pol/ and your related level of retardation.
>the Pope drew the maps using a ruler therefor ensuring unending civil wars because the countries he created had no cohesion or structure
>>47502650
If you're just tired of the argument, then focus on the tumblrcunts that are constantly shitting up the board. But the truth is you are one, so you invent a /pol/ boogieman to try to find someone else to blame.
>>47502723
>drew the maps using a ruler
hey, it worked for United States, they had like.. one civil war in forever
>>47502741
To be fair, the US is pretty young. Hell, my house is older than the US.
The problem with africa is also that it has been the best proxy war battlefield for the last 50 years
>>47502650
jesus this. I AGREE with you cunts on most everything. SJW is gay, tumblr is gay, build a wall, own guns, islam is bullshit, yada yada. But when the exchange essentializes to this on the TRADITIONAL GAMES board, one anon is trying to help and one guy is being a faggot:
>anon1: I would like a fantasy setting based on the XYZ golden age.
>anon2: XYZ golden age was overblown! WHY DIDNT YOU CAVEAT YOUR DESIRE FOR ELFGAME INSPIRATION WITH THIS!!!!!!!!!!
Yes there is debate about the length, importance, uniqueness about the Islamic golden age, but anon2 is clearly trying to derail in bad faith. He doesn't care about our special elf games, he just wants to argue about Islam.
>>47502724
>le pol bogieman (sic) is just a meme meme
Lets just ignore from which camp the derail happened...
>>47502741
That's because they killed all the people that were actually living there.
And besides, most of the states that have tons of straight borders have fuck all for people living near those borders. Hell, even places like California that have tons of people and straight lines for borders at least have all their people no where near those borders. They're mostly concentrated in little patches along the coast.
>>47502741
Many states joined in the first half of the 19th century. So if you want a better start of what you know as the US (in terms of territory), that's a better one than 1776.
And the civil war happened in the 1860s. Not that long after. US is a very young country and had one of the most devastating civil wars in history.
>>47502760
The SJWs. They started this shitstorm because someone who actually knew what he was talking about pointed out that their "golden age of islam" was leftist fiction, nothing more than a meme endlessly repeated by mudslime apologists until they convinced themselves that it was real. They couldn't stand to have their precious feeling hurt, so they started bitching and whining like they always do.
>>47502741
Except that those states were mostly founded by immigrants. Africa was divided into countries without respecting any of the existing tribes, ethnic groups and whatnot. Groups that were already living there for ages. Or maybe, I'm not an expert, their definition for countries was also different since some tribes are nomadic or some other less western style of living
>>47502801
>poster claims he likes X setting
>bunch of idiots reply with rage with arguments based on no source and that virtually no historian will agree with
There is no SJWs in this thread, just vermin /pol/tards who repeat memes from their bubble to justify their hatred against anything islamic, just like SJWs that hate anything white and male...
>>47502763
>That's because they killed all the people that were actually living there.
Oh, I see. Uou think it's too late for Africa now or can we still catch up on that?
>>47502763
So what you're saying is the Europeans should have slaughtered and/or raped all of Africa and Asia?
>>47502810
cool cool, so should we have some of that in an rpg or something?
>>47502849
> loaded question
Faggot
>>47502810
That's only really the case in Nigeria, Sudan and D.R. Congo. Somalia is 99.9% Somali and they still tear each other apart.
>>47502849
Yes.
>>47502410
>oh that art must be LoTR or something-
>charlemagne and ogier the dane
>>47502829
> There is no SJWs in this thread
The level of denial needed to make this statement is hilarious.
>>47502763
Maybe we could use a conflict over a poorly drawn border as a campaign hook yeah? Or we could fucking argue about colonialism like its Freshman Sociology 101 at the DePaul University Department of Shit Tier scholarship. Both seem reasonable for a tabletop discussion board.
>>47502849
Yes.
>>47502856
fantasy modern Africa would be pretty cool to use as a setting. Lots of space for conflicts and the party can really mean something.
Either by installing themselves as warlords or by trying to a small utopia by carving out a small country for some ethnic group or tribe. Enemies could be evil corporations/traders or rival warlords or the remnants of the colonial oppressor
>>47502836
You're dumb.
>>47502810
No, you're right. Most African countries don't make sense. Ethiopia makes sense. Rwanda? Not at all.
North African countries were not that distinct but some of those countries already existed for a long time in a more unified way (Morocco, Egypt for example).
>>47502856
All settings should exist and RPGs should take and mix inspirations for past cultures as much as possible. Doing the typical medieval European inspired fantasy gets very boring, unless it's done through the eyes of another culture (for example Japanese) but that's also been done for long.
But then again, some European fantasy inspired settings already take from other fantasy inspired cultures. For example, Ghouls are present in a lot of settings. There's also that horned looking thing in Dragon Quest. Bahamuts and sometime Genies.
>>47502882
It's only hilarious to a paranoid idiot like you who views the world in black and white when it's much more complex. But of course, simple viewpoints from simple minds isn't that surprising...
>>47502863
Not an expert, so that could be true. And the native African is not without fault but the West sure ruined a lot of stuff and Africa.
It will take quite a lot of time before Africa recovers from colonialism and starts coursing its own course. And the west still contributes to the victim complex of Africa.
>>47502905
It's mostly central Africa that just doesn't make a lick of sense imo.
>>47502894
I would say yeah, but also kick a little MGS and 1980s action movie into the mix.
>>47502863
Somaliland (that "country" to the north) is far better than Somalia and it's just as ethnically homogeneous.
>>47502863
And Mali, and Ivory coast, and...
>>47502341
Baksheesh is a concept among large parts of East Europe you retarded anglo fuckwit.
>>47502959
Depends if you play 'normal' fantasy or more modern style cyberpunk or something. Lot of potential for conspiracy shenanigans.
>>47502383
>>47502397
Gygax's D&D editions were significantly less overpowered than Runequest's bullshit god magic that's everywhere in Stafford's setting, a less abstract combat system does not make it less about "muh powers".
And the stigma you're bitching about is largely due to people like yourself who cling tightly to preconceptions and disdain for "pulp" and has been around since long before D&D was a thing, as you'd be aware of if you knew a thing about Fantasy and Science Fiction authors from the 70s and back. (at least half of whom spend their biographies bitching about how mistreated they were by the rest of the literature business up until the last 30 years)
In short: You're full of shit.
>>47502919
You can blame a lot of Africa's current state on the Cold War
>Europeans start to come around to the idea of self-rule for Africa
>Start to set up parliamentary systems and civil society
>Both superpowers hate empires unless it's them doing it
>Fund rebels and threaten to withhold aid unless independence now
>Europeans don't want to waste money on land that's not going to be theirs soon, fuck off
>Weak parliamentary systems left in place by Europeans easily overthrown by American or Soviet-backed strongmen (Mobutu, Mengistu)
>horrible dictatorships everywhere
>Cold War ends
>USA & Russia go isolationist
>civil wars everywhere as dictators lose their grip/die
>eventually people start getting tired of that shit (except in Somalia & Congo)
>Invention of mobile phone leads to explosion of prosperity, average Rwandan four times as wealthy as he was in 1991
>most remaining dictators die off, replaced with parliamentary systems
>Radical Islam starts to rise
And now here we are.
>>47502863
>>47503022
Pic related, different color different ethnicity. To expect democracy out of some of those countries is ludicrous. Europeans had to fight constant wars just to keep each other small and different.
European implementing their own view of nation states to others doesn't make sense.
>>47502724
No seriously, fuck off with your politics. If there were SJWs derailing things here I'd want them to fuck off too, but but it wasn't they who shit the bed this time. You're not being fursecuted, you're being obnoxious.
>>47502603
Not quoted but there's so much bullshit in here I felt the need to debunk it.
>During the Islamic golden Age, most of the people living in Abbasid Caliphate were Muslim.
Because of the Mihna religious persecution which executed scholars who did not recognize Mutazila doctrine.
>And the religions weren't wiped out.
They were in large part, they simply took a longer time to do so.
>Islamic regions in the Middle East still preserved religious communities like Chaldeans, Assyrians, some Jewish populations, etc... But in Europe, all Jews were either kicked out or killed.
Utter horseshit. The Abbasids, just like the parts of Europe that had non-Christians, treated them like third-class citizens and there were pogroms when they stepped out of line like in Granada.
>The Moors in Spain were kicked out
The Moors in Spain were all invaders. You might as well bitch about Americans and Frenchmen being driven from Vietnam.
>Abbasids
>>racist group of people prior to modern times
>That's funny.
The Abbasids have some of the earliest racially denigratory writings towards black Africans, deeming them a "naturally born slave race" (ala Aristotle), calling them the least of men in intellect and temperament and refers to them as closer to beasts. There's writings where they say they only know two things, to fornicate when sated and steal when hungry.
That is on top of their slave trade which caused the Zanj rebellion of over 500,000 slaves rising up against their inhuman treatment.
>>47502703
This was so unexpected it even cracked me up
>>47503144
>>47503144
>Because of the Mihna religious persecution which executed scholars who did not recognize Mutazila doctrine.
This was torwards other Muslims. You're not refuting the fact that most people living under the Abbasid Caliphate were Muslim.
Bullshit lie refuted.
>They were in large part, they simply took a longer time to do so.
Those religious communities existed still after the Islamic golden age and onward until recently (before ISIS activities).
Chaldeans and Assyrians were still a thing until very recently. Copts still exist in Egypt.
Where are the Iberian Muslims? That's right, they were all kicked out during the 1600s. Jews were forcibly removed during the late 15th century.
>Utter horseshit. The Abbasids, just like the parts of Europe that had non-Christians, treated them like third-class citizens and there were pogroms when they stepped out of line like in Granada.
Abbasids treated Christians far better than Europeans treated Jews.
There was a massacre against Jews in Granada but that was a very rare instance and one of the only very few that there was. Further, unlike Christians, Muslims had Jewish viziers.
>>47503144
>The Moors in Spain were all invaders. You might as well bitch about Americans and Frenchmen being driven from Vietnam.
Doesn't justify kicking the inhabitants out.
The Americans in Vietmans were mostly soldiers.
>>47503144
>The Abbasids have some of the earliest racially denigratory writings towards black Africans, deeming them a "naturally born slave race" (ala Aristotle),
Citation needed.
>There's writings where they say they only know two things, to fornicate when sated and steal when hungry.
Again, citation needed.
Muslim scholars also wrote negative things about bedouin Arabs, does that mean they were racist against Arabs? There's a difference between criticism of race and culture.
>slave trade
Like the Romans before them. Still it wasn't exclusively about a race.
>>47498362
>talking about medieval period
>the Americas
>clearly this means the USA
>>47502651
>Christianity killed Rome,
Rome fell both directly and indirectly due climate changes you fucking mongoloid.
When will this meme die.
I want to say its more political now, but I was probably just too young and naive to notice back then.
>>47502603
While Persia was totalitarian in structure, it didn't exert much direct control over people's lives and the different administrative regions had a fair amount of power too, at one time or another.
>>47503282
>Climate change is responsible for everything!
I hate this meme. Just because we're only now starting to correlate it to events it doesn't mean literally everything was because of it. Rome had all kinds of problems, only a few of which were due to climate.
>>47503355
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science/science-news/11726459/Did-American-volcanoes-trigger-fall-of-Roman-Empire.html
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3153753/Volcanic-eruptions-caused-freezing-temperatures-crop-failures-famine-early-Roman-times-changed-course-history.html
>Volcano erupts in North America
>Eruption so fucking cataclysmic even Eurasia suffers from drought
>Germanics and other migratory tribes start migrating to find less shit lands
>Meet Roman civilization which is barely keeping itself together due to famine
>Rome collapses due to external and internal pressure
I won't deny that Christianity didn't instill a mentality of pacifism in the Roman population. I just want to say that the Roman Empire would've fallen even if it kept to paganism
>could have had a cool thread about worldbuilding.
>just turned into another Muslim thread.
Thanks /pol/
>>47502763
And in places where this isn't the case, exceptions were made - see for example the Montana/Idaho border.
>>47502810
The African countries were too. The blacks living there were tribal and often nomadic, pretty much the same as North America.
>>47503401
>did*
>>47503329
Well, Abbasids copied a lot from Sassanid Persia. In fact, it had many Persians administer its government (then again Abbasid capitalized on Persian support for overthrowing Ummayads).
Rashidun before had different administrative regions under governors with lots of power (which is arguably one of the reasons as to why internal strife that's quite potent in a newly formed empire was inevitable).
Still, they're totalitarian by modern standards influenced by liberal democracy.
>>47503401
Religion is also not the only reason why. Both of those positions are narrow-sighted sand stupid. Yes, these were factors, but Rome was also a geographically vast empire with member states made of different and disparate ethnic communities. The size made power gravitate towards the military over time, which I would argue was the main driving cause to Rome's instability, and the other factors were catalysts for change there, and helped foment the conditions that drove the nail into the coffin.
>>47503411
This isn't what /pol/ looks like. We've been doing this since before /pol/ existed. And since before /new/ existed, for that matter.
>>47503282
Rome as a concept, culture and nation died after Christianity took over. The customs, and religion were almost all abandoned.
What is Rome besides the Roman culture and the Roman religion? How the heck can Rome be Roman when it adopted a Jewish faith?
I'm not bashing Christianity, just stating the obvious.
>>47503553
It wasn't that extreme and frequent.
>>47492353
I do like the whole story of Hua Tuo inventing surgery and anaesthesia, but then all his notes were destroyed because Cao Cao had him executed.
>>47503564
Rome as a political entity - Which is the only Rome that actually fucking matters - fell in 1453. Keep your retarded "muh spirit of the nation" shit to yourself.
>>47503575
>Extreme
There is nothing all that extremely political going on now. This is pretty much how it has always gone.
>Frequent
I agree only if you fail to account for the slower post rate.
>>47503411
>repeat tired lies about Muslim superiority
>expect not to be corrected
When the Arabs tried to take New Rome, they saw what an actually technologically advanced civilization was as their ships were burned by napalm and they got roasted or drowned.
>>47503564
shoo shoo gains gibbon
>This was torwards other Muslims.
It was against theological scholarso of any kind, the majority of whom were muslim. Abbasid "tolerance" towards non-muslims only went so far as to allow them to deal with their own issues internally, if there ever was an issue between a muslim and a non-muslim the courts were heavily, heavily biased in favour of the muslim.
>Those religious communities existed still after the Islamic golden age and onward until recently (before ISIS activities).
So just like jews in Europe whom you claim were all executed or kicked out.
>Muslims had Jewish viziers.
The existence of a Jewish vizier is exactly what the Granada pogrom was about.
>Abbasids treated Christians far better than Europeans treated Jews.
Bullshit. The Abbasids treated non-Muslims like garbage. Only the Ottomans were worse in their treatment of Christians.
>Doesn't justify kicking the inhabitants out.
Yes, it does in fact justify just that.
The Moors themselves drove out tons of actual natives when they invaded.
>Citation needed.
The Curse of Ham: Race and Slavery in Early Judaism, Christianity, and Islam by David M. Goldenberg for one scholarly source on the subject.
Here are numerous racist excerpts against black people specifically and if you note the years almost all of them were from the Abbasid reign:
https://wikiislam.net/wiki/Qur'an,_Hadith_and_Scholars:Racism#Islamic_Writers_and_Scholars_on_Black_People
>Muslim scholars also wrote negative things about bedouin Arabs, does that mean they were racist against Arabs?
Yes, there's a lot of racism towards the "wrong" Arabs tribes in Islam. The Quraysh are specifically held up as spiritually and fundamentally superior several times throughout their texts.
>Like the Romans before them.
The Roman slavery, despicable as it was, doesn't hold a candle to the savagery of Abbasid slavery as is obvious to anyone whose read about either even ignoring the highly racial nature of the latter.
>>47503591
Rome was more than just a political identity. Denying that is an insult to Roman history.
>hurr durr byzantines
They were Roman when they had Romans in control.
>>47503638
>Rome as a political entity - Which is the only Rome that actually fucking matters - fell in 1453. Keep your retarded "muh spirit of the nation" shit to yourself.
>>47503638
So it was only Rome prior to granting the Italians citizenship, got it.
>>47503564
>>47503591
Didn't all their robust civic institutions besides military institutions essentially die out after Sulla and Caesar, or, at best, after the rest of the Julio-Claudians finished raping the corpses?
>>47503638
Romans were just Central Italian hillbillies, m8. They didn't have some kind of magical mojo about them; everything that made "Romans" distinctive could be and was transferred to many other Europeans, North Africans, and Near Asians.
>>47503638
India was more than just a conglomeration of political identities. Denying that is an insult to Indian history
>Hurr durr anglos
They were Indian when Indians were in control.
>>47503623
> repeat tired lies about Muslim superiority
The idea that a group had a comparatively good run for a limited time period at some point in the past isn't "superiority." A lot of people have had those at one point or another, for varying lengths of time.
>>47503638
>hurr durr byzantines
Exactly his point, I should think. Calling them Byzantium is """"enlightenment"""" bullshit from one of your paganaboo mates Gibbon you cunt.
>>47503632
>can't even reply properly
Typical dumbass.
>It was against theological scholarso of any kind
You're still not arguing against the previously stated assertion that most of the inhabitants under Abbasid rule were Muslim.
>heavily biased in favour of the muslim.
Based on what account? Abbasids wanted to minimize political power of their fellow Muslims so they didn't have to share the booty. Heck, the reasons why Christian thinkers trived in the House of Wisdom is proof of it. You're arguing my point. Abbasids treated non-Muslims better.
>>47503632
>So just like jews in Europe whom you claim were all executed or kicked out.
>So just like jews in Europe whom you claim were all executed or kicked out.
ISIS doing their shit is a very recent example. Europeans kicked Jews out and murdering them left and right happened frequently during the last 1000 years of European history. You're doing a false equivalency. I'm not even going to bring up what happened during the last 100 years in Europe.
>The existence of a Jewish vizier is exactly what the Granada pogrom was about.
And yet, Muslim rulers had Jewish viziers and they continued to after that massacre. Unlike the so called "tolerant" Christians...
>The Abbasids treated non-Muslims like garbage.
If their treatment of them were like garbage, than medieval European treatment of religious minorities were demonic at best.
>The Moors themselves drove out tons of actual natives when they invaded.
Not true. They drove out the non-native goth in charge (the rulers).
You're basically saying a hypothetical native American kicking whites out is okay (not just the US government).
>liking wiki islam
Find a reliable source. Most of the "sources" linked in that blog are fabricated.
>Goldenberg
Quote a citation or don't bother.
>The Quraysh are specifically held up as spiritually and fundamentally superior several times throughout their texts.
That's not racism.
to be cont.
>>47503694
No, the Imperial institutions were superior and more efficient. Foreign possessions were basically administered privately under the republic. It was not professional and corruption was crippling.
>[Blacks are] people who are by their very nature slaves. - Avicenna
>"[Blacks] are ugly and misshapen, because they live in a hot country." - Ibn Qutaybah
>"If (all types of men) are taken, from the first, and one placed after another, like the Negro from Zanzibar, in the Southern-most countries, the Negro does not differ from an animal in anything except the fact that his hands have been lifted from the earth -in no other peculiarity or property - except for what God wished. Many have seen that the ape is more capable of being trained than the Negro, and more intelligent." - Nasir al-Din al-Tusi
>The Zanj differ from animals only in that] their two hands are lifted above the ground,... Many have observed that the ape is more teachable and more intelligent than the Zanj. - Nasir al-Din al-Tusi
>"Of the neighbors of the Bujja, Maqdisi had heard that "there is no marriage among them; the child does not know his father, and they eat people -- but God knows best. As for the Zanj, they are people of black color, flat noses, kinky hair, and little understanding or intelligence." - Al-Muqaddasi
>"Their [Zanj] nature is that of wild animals. They are extremely black." "Among themselves [the Sudan] there are people who steal each other's children and sell them to the merchants when the latter arrive." - Hudud al-Alam
>"[inhabitants of sub-Saharan African countries] are people distant from the standards of humanity" "Their nature is that of wild animals..." - Hudud al-Alam
>"Like the crow among mankind are the Zanj [African Blacks] for they are the worst of men and the most vicious of creatures in character and temperament." - al-Jahiz
>"Even the Zanj, despite their dimness, their boundless stupidity, their obtuseness, their crude perceptions and their evil dispositions, make long speeches." - al-Jahiz
Yep, sure seems like an issue of culture and not at all outright racism on the part of the Abbasid scholars.
>>47503678
>Ignorance: The post.
>>47503691
No.
>>47503706
Look up ethnicity and culture.
>>47503711
There was never an "India" though. You're equating things wrongly.
>brits
>They were Indian when Indians were in control.
That's stupid and you're very stupid.
>>47503733
It's called proper classification. Or was Russia the New rome as well?
>>47503757
Sounds like scientific observation to me.
>>47503632
cont
>>47503632
>The Roman slavery, despicable as it was, doesn't hold a candle to the savagery of Abbasid slavery as is obvious to anyone whose read about either even ignoring the highly racial nature of the latter.
Based on what? Both had slave trades. Actually Rome was worse because they had their slaves kill each other for the satisfaction of others.
The racial connection is nonsense. You're seeing through the modern liberal eye that fails to differentiate between culture and race. By that "logic", Romans were very racist against norther Europeans because they deemed them barbarians.
>>47503771
>Or was Russia the New rome as well?
Their claim was religious and their ruling family married a princess of Byzantium (A state where blood claims were tenuous at best). Very weak.
New Rome, aka Constantinople, was founded by a Roman Emperor and his capital was officially moved there in what was a smart strategic move, since it was closer to the richer and more important parts of the Roman Empire.
>>47502412
>>47502387
>>47502451
It's the same retard game that America plays.
The rightwing SAYS it doesn't want immigrants but won't actually do anything to get rid of them because they're relying on that cheap illiterate Mexitard labor for corporate profits.
The leftwing says it wants to import immigrants but in most places they just don't have the power.
They just get blamed for what the entire government is doing as a whole.
>>47503811
And for some time Eastern Rome was Roman but then it wasn't. Rome died in the East before 1453.
>>47503771
>Or was Russia the New rome as well?
Byzantium/the ERE was the direct political descendant of the Roman Empire. Russia is the "New Rome" in the sense that the Russian royal family has been offered the title, nothing more nor less.
>>47503811
Futhermore, is America no longer the same state founded in 1776, because the founding Anglo-Saxon race has been almost entirely pushed out of control and is a minority of the population?
![7f827581865b2c9da1dfe2be7a6867b0[1].jpg](https://i.imgur.com/wBeY4sl.jpg "7f827581865b2c9da1dfe2be7a6867b0[1].jpg")
>>47503771
>a weak claim by marriage is the same as the literal eastern administrative region of the Empire simply outlasting the West
shoo shoo Gibbon
