Most fantasy and sci-fi settings are based on medieval Europe. But are there any TRPG settings you know of that are, for lack of a better word, Burgercore? Settings based on American culture, mythology, and history?
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Star Trek, at least TOS, where the Federation is basically the United States.
The Federation is socialist though, so wouldn't it be more akin to the USSR?
>The Federation is socialist though
Haven't watched much TOS like I specified, have you? Kirk makes reference to being paid and to currency at least a few times.
You do realize the USSR had currency, right?
There’s also an elected President, guaranteed rights, people working for profit, an episode that more or less deifies the American Constitution, etc.
WELL THAT MIGHT BE WHY I SPECIFIED THE ORIGINAL SERIES, MIGHTN’D IT?
TOS was more 1950-60 optimistic America, TNG and after was more obviously socialist.
Please stop repeating that meme. It doesn't hold to scrutiny.
Star Trek was made by a very liberal American that was very forward looking. Conservatives are very very loud, but them being loud doesn't mean they get the final say on what the American character is.
>Conservatives are very very loud
Marxists are very very loud.
and very very Wrong.
Conservatives are what America has always been about.
Nihilists only destroy societies, never build them up.
>other tribe is loud and my tribe is one true tribe
nope.
evil is evil.
there is no moral equivalency.
it is not like making a choice about what kind of ice cream you prefer.
>other tribe evil my tribe good!
yep.
kinda tough when it's backed up by facts, isn't it?
but sophists gotta sophist, carry on mate.
The federation is largely a post-scarcity society with infinite room for expansion; even if it would be socialist it would not be Marxist, and it doesn't exhibit any of the issues relating to Communism. It unironically has more in common with the constitutional republicanism of the USA than anything relatable to the USSR.
Definitely Star Trek. For all the ideals of its creators, it is very much rooted in American-like exceptionalism, de facto manifest destiny, and the idea of liberal democracy as the only "true" way, even in the episodes that try to complicate that very view and how various groups differ on a fundamental level.
I love Star Trek, but it is what it is.
You're coping with WH40k and you're right about Battletech, but
>The core message of Dune is 'separation of church and state is essential or else le fascism'
You're monumentally fricking moronic.
Battletech isn't a cold-war based setting, it's much more medieval-based. The inner sphere all agrees that feudal monarchism is the way to do things, the periphery is irrelevant, and the clans are like a barbarian mongol horde invading.
90% of sci fi settings are based on American culture, mythology, and history. The other 10% are BBC britfi from the 70s that was furiously trying to compete with Doctor Who.
>90% of sci fi settings are based on American culture, mythology, and history
Name them.
No. You name a single sci fi setting that isn't.
If you don't, you're an enemy of Super Democracy.
>You name a single sci fi setting that isn't.
Warhammer 40k. Battletech. Dune.
>elves and orcs
>sci fi
disdain for plebs.jpg
>Battletech
its lore is literally built around the Cold War between the Americans and the Soviets
>Dune
The core message of Dune is 'separation of church and state is essential; if it's ignored, you get a fascist hellscape'.
>its lore is literally built around the Cold War between the Americans and the Soviets
That's like, the first 5 minutes of the lore. Almost immediately afterwards Europe then proceeds to annex America, and European/Asian ideas of feudalism with knights and samurai proceed to dominate the rest of the setting's history.
>The core message of Dune is 'separation of church and state is essential; if it's ignored, you get a fascist hellscape'.
And the good government that Dune advocates for is still a feudal aristocracy ruling over peasant fighting with swords and knives. It's just more fricking medieval Europe, with a bit of Arabia thrown in.
>'this is fundamentally a political war and a knife would be the ideal weapon. too bad we're stuck with bombers' -t. american officer's famous vietnam war quote
purely cohencidentally dune had a plot device enabling knives.
Dune is a fundamentally post-nuclear international diplomacy setting centered around oil ('spice') aka American foreign policy 1945-2000.
Would seem more likely that spice represents actual spice given the culture and location and way that it’s made.
>Dune is an allegory for spicy food
This website is an allegory for what happens a few hours after I eat spicy food.
"Plop plop, Fizz fizz... Oh, what a relief it is"
It's the enabler for international [er excuse me 'interplanetary'] transport alongside being the backing for their monetary system and global [uh, 'galactic'] stock market system which doubles as the proxy for political power.
Putting it on a desert planet everyone at the time of writing knew was a standin for Saudi Arabia was the cherry on top.
Ofc zoomers today may understand but they don't instinctively get it because fracking [offworld worm transport] has ruined the centralized control meta.
Doesn’t explain why they chose to make it a setting about European style feudal politics
Feudal politics is a way of putting a face on the big factions being described. If you're grimmer, more /misc/, or think Herbert was especially insightful it's also how the pedo blackmail systems of the Cold War he's describing worked.
It’s easy to put a face on Republican politics, people just don’t do it because European culture and history is inherently more interesting and fun than American culture and history.
The Harkonnens are new money heavily implied to be an industrialized republic. Steering the hearts of the masses by exploiting their appetites is their signature leadership method.
They're probably Americans lol.
>The Harkonnens are new money heavily implied to be an industrialized republic
Ah yes, that’s why they’re explicitly a feudal barony and not a republic at all
Paul's coup is the Standard Oil Company swapping Saudi allegiance from neutral/Europe (the Harkonnens aka Hapsburgs) to America (le enlightened Atreides who [oh no!] have a crusading heart, are well-loved, have dubious propaganda machines [burgeoning television] and distant family relations to the inbred pedos. They're True Neutrals larping as Lawful Good).
Dan Dare
>The other 10% are BBC britfi from the 70s that was furiously trying to compete with Doctor Who.
Most modern fantasy and scifi is written by americans who inject their own "culture" at every oportunity either intentionally or out of ignorance and historical illiteracy. Almost all generic fantasy and scifi already IS burger core
>Most modern fantasy and scifi is written by americans who inject their own "culture" at every oportunity
Would be based if only it were true.
Modern fantasy is as european as the fortune cookie is chinese and the chicago deep dish is italian. You just cant see the american taint because as an american you're saturated in it all the time. Find a kid who needs glasses but has never worn them and ask if their vision is normal, do you think they'll say no? They say yes because they're too young to find context and think introspectively. Generic fantasy is american culture as it is.
What you're asking for is an american fantastical glorification of american nationalism as pervieved by nationalist americans, optionally as a parody. But that isnt "american" in the sense that its anything real, its purely an artifact of american self-perception
Except most fantasy is inspired by LOTR, written by a European about European culture
"Inspired by" does not mean "modeled on". Not to mention that hasnt been true for about 40 years, generic fantasy has been built on works drawing elements from tolkein, iteratively layering in more and more innate cultrual bias as it went, and thats ignoring dilution from explicitly american authors and works like robert howard's conan and all the slop Hollywood produces constantly. Something is not european just by having one english ancestor four generations ago
Except every time they change the formula they just add more European culture to it. You don’t see them adding American stuff like Wendigos and Cheeseburgers and Republicanism and Paul Bunyan, it’s always more European stuff like fairies and dwarves. Europe has so thoroughly colonized fantasy and even most of sci-fi that the idea of an American fantasy setting by and large doesn’t exist.
Wrong. Americans inhereted those folkloric elements and americanized versions are added. You create an american projection of european culture and history mixed with your own assumptions. You dont add a draugr, you add universal studio's dracula. You dont add sun wukong, you add jackie chan. You dont add culturally historical oe period apropriate clothing, you add leather trench coats. Besides, generic fantasy is choked with american inventions. The rust monster, the owl bear, the buff green orc, the dark elf, the barbarian... you just dont add stuff thats explicitly americana. If you explicitly want that then thats what you should say, but the reality is generic fantasy IS american fantasy made by americans for the american audience and seasoned with american spices to american tastes
>generic fantasy
>rust monster, owlbear
That's fricking grim.
Yes i know
moronic
And yet my english is fluent and your english is broken
>and your english is broken
me speaky pidgen for my little wog bruddahs
What Europeans don't seem to understand is that Europe culturally conquered America, not the other way around. European culture has so thoroughly dominated America, that Europe now associates "American culture" with American perceptions of European culture.
nope
no it isn't.
So the entire world is oriented around European culture, and that's supposed to be American...how? The fact that no American cultural ideas are able to survive while European culture thrives even in American TRPGs is just more proof of how overwhelmingly dominant European influence is.
>So the entire world is oriented around European culture
Sorry, couldn't stop laughing at that.
>is just more proof of how overwhelmingly dominant European influence is
Riiiight...
>Riiiight...
>his 1/16 Cherokee hands type in English
gosh, I've never even met Liz Warren
the best thing my ancestors did was to leave Europe and come to America
the glorious Euros will be speaking arabic in a decade because their culture is so 'vigorous' and dominant
it must be sad being from some poor failed state and envy of America driving your life
>Find a kid who needs glasses but has never worn them and ask if their vision is normal, do you think they'll say no?
He will say no.
That's how I got glasses, because I knew I started to not see correctly, what a shit analogy.
Imperial chauvinism is not nationalism.
>sci-fi settings based on medieval Europe
A few, but I feel like way more are forward-projections of American culture.
In /tg/, Shadowrun, Transhuman Space, and BattleTech are all mostly like that, off the top of my head.
Battletech is about feudal Europe
Also feudal Asia too
I could name some America frick yeah settings but I feel intense disdain for plebs like you who make moronic assumptions about entire genres so no. sage.
Everyone already talking about sci-fi but no one is talking about the most American TTRPG setting of all: Unknown Armies.
The metaphysics and ideas behind Unknown Armies only make sense as they are in the context of 20th- and 21st century America. The insane occult shit, the conflict between a broken egoism and a parodical idealism, the dysfunction of a society defined by memes and slogans, the vague and ominous powers-that-be which everyone hates but no one can really identify, the coagulation of ideas and cultures from all over the globe that gets warped and melded into an unrecognizable gestalt. It is perfectly American.
Also, the idea that in spite of that, a team of motivated activists can still make things better. Which is a weirdly wholesome trope for a setting that gave us Cannibal Ghost Slavers.
American exceptionalism at its finest
American mythology and history? Bruh, that's the wild west. FIREFLY. Anything that puts cowboys in space or otherwise has a frontier-like setting.
Otherwise, literally anything modern. This is PAX AMERICANA. You're welcome.
>ctrl+f deadlands
>0 results
I'm not mad, just disappointed.
That's not just inspired by America, moron. It's literally set IN America. Of course no one mentioned it, that's not the point of the thread.
>American culture
Anything sword and sorcery related that involves a newcomer to a foreign land using their wits and guile to overcome barbaric savages. Better still if they have nubile women worth fricking.
That's the tough part of this question. There's a shitload of westerns and Lovecraft slop out there clearly inspired by American ideas. But because it's set in America instead of some theme park generic fantasy world, it doesn't count? If that's true then you're basically left with scifi stuff like Starship Troopers or scifi adjacent things like John Carter of Mars.
That's just conquistadors, like Pedro de Alvarado, Lope de Aguirre etc
The ones than had a hundred and one concubines if you believe Martín González or sold mirrors for gold.
There is no European culture because all of Europe was rebuilt with American dollars, labor, and resources after WW2. If this was 1910, you could claim European sphere of influence but everytime a EU resident even takes a breathe they should thank America for that breathe. Anything European produces is by extension American. In fact your point is effectively moot as you type this on an American website designed by yet another American colony (Japan) utilizing technology created by Americans. I think the hard truth is Europeans don't realize the cushy life that was handed to them is given by benevolent masters. We give them cheap education, subsidized medical care, great working conditions. In return they belong to us. Not a bad deal. Its like being the dog to Paris Hilton. You're welcome!
Bro, there was also the second part of Europe that did't get Marshal's Plan - Soviet Block within Warsaw Pact. Your claim only makes sence after 1989 when USSR collapsed and most post-socialist countries joined the american sphere of cultural influence
You're posting over a wifi mate, pretty sure that means your post is Australian
Anon, the reason America is giving Europe resources and defense is because America is Europe’s vassal state. We’re basically just a colony for European interests, and Hollywood is pretty much just the propaganda arm of European culture.
I prefer European culture because it actually exists and is an extension of indigenous beliefs tied to land they lived on. American culture is non-existent. America as a nation was founded with capital as it's god, and it poisons everything it touches. Indigenous American culture was destroyed, indigenous African culture was destroyed, and indigenous European culture was destroyed all in the pursuit of capital. American cope in this thread is funny shit. The only fantasy of value America has ever produced was Howard and Smith and Lovecraft.
that 'proud' european culture won't last very long when your elites won't even defend it
I'm not sure why ameri-anons and euro-anons are always so hostile towards each other, especially when both parties seems to have similar issues that they call out to make the other look bad and none of those seem to even be
>you wronged me in this way
>no, you wronged me in this way
but shit that entirely different third parties seem to frick up for both them.
Euro-Anons look down their nose at Ameri-Anons and Ameri-Anons get sick of their shit and shoot back.
It's "cut vs uncut" but even more penis-centric.
I'm American and uncut though
what does that make me?
Basically it boils down to who is #1 and how much copium we need to inhale to believe our own lies. I've hear politicians of my yuropoor countries explaining how we understand freedom of speech better than americans and that's why it must be moderated. You just can't make this shit up.
>But are there any TRPG settings you know of that are, for lack of a better word, Burgercore?
D&D. Not even kidding. All those stories about the Savage Frontier and building your Castle in a new Land at 9th level and defending it against Greenskins is only superficially medieval, it's American through and through in spirit and I'm tired of pretending it isn't fricking great.
>All those stories about the Savage Frontier and building your Castle in a new Land at 9th level and defending it against Greenskins is only superficially medieval, it's American through and through in spirit and I'm tired of pretending it isn't fricking great.
If it were just you homsteading in your castle along that'd be one thing. But a castle implies serfs or peasants, and all that comes with it. The only part of America that really resembles that is the South before the civil war and during reconstruction, and even then that was literally just because they were LARPing as European nobility.
>general western expansion and the extreme political power of local landowners
GURPS has a setting about the Egyptian Gods coming back to the mortal world and settling on US.
>Burgercore
At least! I didn't know why I can't enjoy this grind repetitive shit of a game.
Thanks anon, an sorry for the vermin oftopic.
Uniornically Werewolf: the Forsaken had a shitload of Native American stuff in it and it's great
>But are there any TRPG settings you know of that are, for lack of a better word, Burgercore? Settings based on American culture, mythology, and history?
5e Planescape is basically Fantasy California
>5e Planescape is basically Fantasy California
damn - and now i'm going to be hearing Hotel California for the rest of the day
>Settings based on American culture
Legend of the Galactic Heroes' Free Planets Alliance is based off the 80s United States. It is a nice contrast to the Empire which is essentially space Prussia.
I know it is anime stuff, but hopefully it can serve as good inspiration for your setting.
The helldivers fandom is so fricking lame. Probably the most annoying group of homosexuals since Deep Rock Galactic except the game is vastly more popular so they're everywhere.
There aren't any fantasy settings based on American culture because America doesn't have an old enough culture or history for proper fantasy, much less a mythology.
It's really all just European fantasy, but with some modern cultural contexts or features significant to america.
Boromir with a Colt .45, if you will.