Culture Is Everything

World Building Wednesday #14: The importance of bringing your culture to The Table.

Transcript:

Your D&D game may have kingdoms, dragons, monsters and magic items, but — does it have a loctician?

Now, I'm assuming that not everyone in your world is walking around with a straight bob Edna Mode. So there has to be people out there with curlier and kinkier textured hair. So, who's doing their hair?

Does your D&D world have a loctician?

I know some of you might be thinking. Daniel. That is the least of my concerns when I'm creating a world in my TTRPG. And I completely understand that.

However, I want you to think about that question, because that question is actually asking you something deeper about your approach to worldbuilding and your approach to storytelling in general.

You see, what we're talking about is something that you can't really replicate with dice rolls or a specific mechanic. What we're talking about is replicating the culture.

You see, I'd argue that creating the culture of our fictional world is the most important part of world building, and that's because it's a reflection of how we interpret the real world around us and the people in it.

Culture is everything. It's our food, our dances, music, our history, our customs. It's even our hair. You see, we draw from what we know, right? Life imitates art. Art imitates life.

So the question is, what do we stand to gain as storytellers from exploring the vastness of human connection and the creations that come from it?

You see, the answer is simple We get better stories and more unique ones at that.

So let's apply this practically. I'm going to show you how I use my own unique cultural experience to enhance a story that was being told at the table.

The example I'm going to be using is our Daggerheart campaign, Bitten. Imagine your classic fantasy setting, but throw a little zombie apocalypse on top of it.

In this story, my costar Meadow and I play as twins who grew up in a fanatical religious cult prior to the outbreak and a key part of my character's backstory is that his head was always shaved.

But the reason I chose for that to happen in my character's backstory is because hair is political.

I'm not joking. Like, really think about that for a second.

Hair can be a signifier either of status or political leaning. It can be a way to show unification amongst a group of people or solidarity with a group of people.

But in the case of my character, hair is used as a tool of assimilation, and it's also reclaimed, in a sense, as a way of self-expression.

And the inspiration for that is my real life. My hair has been politicized for as long as I can remember.

Not being allowed to grow certain hairstyles because it's being associated with being a "thug" or "ghetto" or "unprofessional", when someone can imitate my hairstyle from another culture. And then that makes them a "free thinker" or "wild spirit". Whatever.

[Laughter] I'm getting off script.

The point that I'm trying to make is that control over one's hair is control over one's autonomy. The fictional cult in our game, forcing my character to shave his head is a reflection of how the society that I currently live in does whatever it can to assimilate individuals into specific hegemonic beauty standards.

It's a form of indoctrination that encourages one to reject their own culture and heritage because it doesn't fit the vision of the one who set the standard in the first place.

So that's all the setup you need for this quick clip.

[Plays clip from Bitten]

Okay. So I'm going to go off script here for a bit because I really need you all to understand how much this scene meant to us being there between myself, Meadow and Noire, who is at the table. We are all black. And the connection between getting your hair done and by someone you care about, it's something you can't quantify.

It's a feeling you can't replicate because it's so authentic. It's an authentic cultural experience. My mother is a licensed cosmetologist ever since I was a kid. As long as I can remember, she's always been the one who did my hair.

I twist my wife's hair . The connection between working on someone else's scalp is deeper. It's cultural, it's community. It's being able to connect. It's a form of intimacy. It's a form of care. It means so much. And it's something that wouldn't have happened if we weren't at the table, if we weren't bringing our own unique cultural experiences, we wouldn't have that moment between those two characters to show that bond.

That's why when people say things like, you know, diversity at the table is so important. This is why I'm asking the question about “does your world have loctitian?” Because how willing are you to go to understand and just immerse yourself in the culture of others, the diversity that's out there to enhance and enrich the stories that you're telling.

It is about the loctitian, but it's not. It could be anything. It could be a specific form of dance. It could be a specific type of music. It could be a specific instrument that culturally means so much to somebody understanding these cultural nuances and implementing these in the stories that we tell that so much that I can't even put into words.

So again, does your world have a loctitian? No. Why? Because culture is everything, and it is the key ingredient that I think can make any story great.

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My name is Daniel K Hargrove, and I hope you enjoyed this video and I hope you use this as a launching pad. Essentially into having deeper discussions about how you interpret culture, how you interpret the world around you, and how you can use that to tell even more authentic and empowering stories.

Be kind to yourself, be kind to others, and remember that joy in and of itself is an act of revolution.

Peace.