"Are You Multi-Cultural…" Topic

I do try, particularly with different species, but I don;t always succeed to my own satisfaction.

x42

Definitely, gaming Vietnam a good number of my figures are painted as Hispanics and afro-american. Then there are the goddam VC/NVA too!

Multi-cultural yes! PC – Nah.

Well considering my TMP name , I'd say yes. I'm with TunnelRat, multi-cultural but definitely not PC.

I'll happily command anyone, but I seem to be more tactically focused than a lot of TMP, so diplomacy and such don't enter in. If someone wants me to make a poor tactical move because that's that those people would have done--no, thank you. I don't play games to act stupid. Write the rules so that IS their best option instead. or make the move compulsory. I've seen both of those done well, and played them happily. But if someone writes rules without "national characteristics" don't expect me to lose a battle to provide them.

I often design my armies to reflect the culture of the time period. Tactical decisions – no, I just play to win (or at least to retain some shred of dignity)

For sure – when I command ACW Rebs I attack at the earliest possible chance, when I command SYW Austrians I am a very very solid defender

"Do you consider the background and context of your forces and make (political, military, ethical, etc.) culturally appropriate decisions for them?"

No, never. The only decisions I make are those which help me win the game; anything else is irrelevant.

A well-designed game should already incorporate cultural aspects into the forces so that the player's tactical/strategic decisions are necessarily influenced to at least some extent by those aspects. So in SF, the alien force should behave in different ways because its tactical makeup, victory conditions and objectives are different. Ditto for orcs, dwarves, etc., in fantasy settings, or Fuzzy Wuzzies and Brits (or whathaveye) in historical settings.

Having said that, I do have a tendency to favor some level of "in character" play for my forces (it may be the writer in me that demands this). So I will more likely treat goblins as a wild (yet somewhat cowardly) horde, orcs as brutal and ruthless, dwarves as stubborn and unyielding, and so forth. But I will still strive to make the best choice to win.

For example, in two recent games of Ogre, this is what occurred:
Game 1.) My opponent played the Ogre in full-bore, "I'm an Ogre. I am invincible. I will crush all in my way" mode, just rolling straight towards his objective. He won, though he took a lot of damage en route.
Game 2.) On my turn as the Ogre, facing the 4 Howitzer defense, I instead chose the "I am an Ogre, a cybernetic genius. I will calculate every possibility and lure the enemy to my advantage, then strike." So I danced the Ogre tantalizingly out of howitzer range, drew his other forces out from the umbrella, took them out, and then turned toward my objective. I also won, but with somewhat less damage done to the Ogre.

However, both approaches were quintessentially within the character of the Ogre, and both were effective. So playing "in character" doesn't necessarily mean the tactics are going to be bad.

(On the other hand, if I'm playing a lopsided historical battle which featured really stupid commanders, then character be damned— there is no way I'm repeating their same idiotic decisions if I can at all help it. I'll make my own, thank you very much! )

Its an interesting question.

I own Japanese armies which were assembled based on Japanese history and culture. However, like USAF Pilot, once the battle game is on, I'm not really trying to ape anyone's culture.

Perhaps if I was playing in an RP with a Japanese setting I might take it into consideration. However, I feel like I have a lot to learn about Japan before I could truly claim to be sensitive and sensible regarding its values and habits.

Something to consider is whether your opponent is doing the same. If you are, but he or she isn't, then its kind of a wash.

+1 to Parzival for a thoughtful post.

I really just game Western Europe horse and musket. As my ancestry covers Latvia to Scotland to Spain- I game mostly ancestors vs each other.

Funny thing now that I think about it.

I voted no and I expected it to be the majority response. I never considered anything like this. I go with what is historically correct. Is this a Millennial thing? What am I not getting here?

So the majority of you guys ponder the cultural ethnicity of your figures and armies? Good Grief! I pride myself on being open minded and inclusive but not with my figures. I get enough of that in the real world. Now I have to worry about it in my gaming world? Talk about PC run amuck.

I do FFL so I have a lot of Arabs some are black, some are white and everything in between. But I only have them because that's what they were. I had no grand plan.

Talk about PC run amuck.

I'm relatively certain the poll asks about cultural accuracy, not political correctness.

When I play various modern warlord forces, I enjoy (viscerally, tactically) playing them like a bunch of marginally trained idiots with extremely dangerous weapons and no regard for others. I think it (the experience, the game) would suck to play such a force like a Western military special forces team.