CMW5: Cultures and Power Panel Video

[Jubal]

In this panel, we have specialists giving views on different parts of the medieval world, especially those outside the expected 'norm' of western feudal states. Cultures with imperial concepts of power, or with less sedentary cultural roots, or with less land-focused systems of control, may require different models in games to those treated as precursors to a modern nation state. How people understand these cultures through games, and how we might model them differently, is the starting point for this discussion.

This panel featured the following people:

Maria Vrij is the coin curator at the Barber Institute, and a specialist on Byzantine coinage. She has a keen interest in how the public relate to Byzantine history, both through active work on and through an interest in games. Her work on game cultures has explored the ways in which Byzantium has received renewed public interest through games such as Crusader Kings III, and how its dual role as Christian empire and Roman state creates complex and sometimes problematic intersections with modern understandings of Christian or European identity.

Fionnuala Fisk is a tabletop roleplaying game GM and the founder of Swan and Raven Studio, an indie art and game studio focused on social good. She is based in Vienna, Austria, where she also runs the GM Supergroup for people running and designing tabletop RPGs. Her current projects include the early development stages of a prehistoric strategy game and a tabletop game project with a setting based on the Mongol Empire. You can find her at swanandravenstudio.com.

The panel was chaired by James Baillie.