12:19am July 28, 2015

This American Indian Dungeons and Dragons lets you weave powerful stories

princessnijireiki:

avatar-dacia:

mostlysignssomeportents:

Ehdrigohr, a game created by a black, American Indian game designer, gently reflects the Native experience, and how that approach to storytelling differs from Western narratives.
I grew up in an American Indian household. Almost every weekend, my mom would take me out to see an elder. A fidgety, impatient child, I would ask when we were leaving. “Mom, I want to play Smash Bros. with my friends,” I’d say, but the response was always the same.
“We’re on Indian time out here. Everything happens when it needs to. We’ll leave when it’s time.”
As an adult, I’ve had a lot of trouble explaining the concept of Indian time to others. It’s not hard to understand why. Modern society would crumble if it treated airline schedules or surgeries with the same nonchalant attitude as a traditional Native ceremony. But those values are also an important part of the Native perspective. They’re also why I’ve seen so many attempts to incorporate Native influences into games fail.
Ehdrigohr is nothing like those haphazard fumblings. Designed over the course of several years by black, American Indian game designer Allen Turner, Ehdrigohr filters Dungeons and Dragons-style roleplaying experiences through a distinctly Native cultural lens rather than a European one.
“Ultimately it came down to wanting [a game] that spoke to me, where I could see myself and my friends as characters or heroes, and feel like they belong,” says Turner. Although he’s a big fan of table-top roleplaying games, he made Ehdrigohr precisely because he couldn’t find anything that integrated Native culture into its play and treated Natives as equals.Dungeons and Dragons may have some Indian-inspired tribes in its expansions, but they are always treated as different or inferior. Indigenous weapons do less inherently damage than an equivalent weapon wielded by a dwarf or elf, not to mention the gross depiction of Natives using primitive clubs. In all cases, we’re treated as intrinsically lesser.
Read the rest…

Hubby showed me this last night; unfortunately, I was too zonked to really get a good look at it. It must be mine.

They have a free preview ebook, full game books starting at $10 for a PDF, and a starter story/first adventure set in-world for $5!

Oooh.
I wish I had folks to play with around here.