The Mezzanine

I am rewatching much television, and find myself newly fascinated by a series of four episodes that all came out in fairly quick sucession. They are:
Spirits (from Stargate SG-1)
Pangs (from Buffy)
The Indians in the Lobby (from The West Wing)
Skinwalker (from Smallville)

I find these interesting, because:
- They are all clearly written in an attempt to get Native Americans represented on television more (a fairly good idea).
- They are all clearly trying to be highly respectful of Native American culture (a fairly good thing).
AND YET
- They all fail horribly (with one exception).

So, here's my theory. I think the writers were each handed instructions of "write an episode of your tv show about Native Americans", and did the best job they could. But, because of the complete dearth of Native Americans in the previous few decades of television shows, the writers were all flying blind.

And, if you look at the episodes in question, they're all taking a very logical approach to fitting this episode into their show:
Stargate puts Native Americans in space, and relates Native American mythology to aliens (as they do with EVERY OTHER CULTURE).
Buffy raises a vengeful Native American spirit, to take vengeance for past wrongs (one of the more common Buffy plotlines).
The West Wing raises a political discussion on a subject of concern, and come up with absolutely no solutions (see: EVERY OTHER episode of The West Wing).
Smallville gives Native Americans an important link to Superman's destiny (as they do with EVERYTHING ELSE).

But, comparing and constrasting, I think there's a simple reason why the West Wing episode works, while all the others fail so horribly. All the other shows are taking a stereotype of 18th century Native American culture, dumping it unchanged into their script, and talking about "how connected these people are to their culture!". Which… doesn't work at all.

Whereas The West Wing is talking to Native Americans NOW about issues which affect them NOW. They're treated as real people, rather than mythical, totally-connected-to-their-really-awesome-culture stereotypes.

Still on a total Stargate binge.

One thing I'm really impressed by is the amount of thought that went into the spaceship design - both inside, and out. You can tell at a glance which culture the ship is from.

That might not sound that impressive, but that means there has to be a clear distinction between:

- Goa'uld
- Asgard
- Ancient
- Replicator
- Wraith
- Ori
- Earth

...on both the inside and outside of each spaceship (and city, in the case of Atlantis). And they pull it off so successfully that it took me until season 8 of my second watch through before I even realised that I've never had to think about it.

Been watching a lot of Stargate recently. I finally got curious and googled to see whether there was currently a Stargate RPG available. And I found out: there is about to be a new Stargate RPG. Also, it's going to suck.

Sure, technically it's hard to determine the suckiness level of an RPG until it's actually published. But it's going to be done using 5th ed, so chances are high.

Granted, there's nothing wrong with 5th ed, in and of itself. But when RPG creators say "We used 5th ed because we're familiar with it, and the players will be familiar with it", it doesn't fill me with confidence. It sounds like they:
a) don't know much about the variety of RPGs out there
b) don't know enough about RPG design to understand why you'd choose different things for different games
c) don't know enough about Stargate to understand why it wouldn't really mesh well with 5th ed.

It reminds me of people posting to RPG discussion forums, saying "I've got a great new idea for an RPG! It's totally unique: it doesn't even have classes!" To which the only correct response is "...oh, honey."

The thing with Stargate is:
- it relies on conversation - lots of conversation
- they avoid combat whenever possible

Both of these things make D&D a bad fit. Instead, I'd go with something like Cortex Prime, to be backed up with a lot of planet design from Stars Without Number.



(Of course, because I am a crazy person, I am now designing my own Stargate RPG, just to prove to myself that it's possible. This is the sort of thing that happens when you can't leave the house for several months.)