Can this question on real-world corollaries to Forgotten Realms civilizations be salvaged?

Question

I asked this question: Are any of the kingdoms/realms of the Forgotten Realms based on real world civilisations?

It was closed for asking about Designer Intent, which is off topic.

I've run into pages on the web where people have equated various civilizations/peoples in the Forgotten Realms to real world ones (extant or historical). I was curious to know if there is evidence of actual correlations. The problem is that it's hard to ask the question without running afoul of RPGSE site policies:

Are any Forgotten Realms civilizations based on real-life civilizations?

This is essentially a question about designer intent, which is off topic.

Do any of the Forgotten Realms civilizations represent real-life civilizations?

This would lead to answers that are opinion-based. Again, off topic.

Is there evidence that any of the Forgotten Realms civilizations represent real-life civilizations?

This is probably the closest thing to a stackable answer but it arguably still falls within the scope of "designer intent."

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For example, the introduction to Curse of Strahd is written by the designers of the original Curse of Strahd module (which is, admittedly, not within the Forgotten Realms but we just finished up the campaign so it's forefront in my mind to use as an example):

Laura and I launched into researching the mythology and folklore surrounding the vampire. We started with the vague, black-and-white image of Bela Lugosi in 1931, but found so much more.

The Bela Lugosi vampire was Dracula & Transylvania, who was in turn inspired by Vlad the Impaler of Wallachia* (Romania). So we see evidence that Barovia is possibly representative of mid 15th century Wallachia/Romania.

I suppose, if the question is salvageable, I might need to expand to ask about fictional inspirations that fall between the D&D civilization and a possible original real-world state.

Is there any possible way to rework the question so that it asks about these connections while avoiding falling into the scope of designer intent or individual opinion?

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^{* Hmm... Is this where the Barovian town of Vallaki got its name?}

Answer 1

It's salvageable, because it does express an actual concrete problem the author is actually facing:

I'm looking at building a new character for an upcoming campaign and I think it would help me to role play better if I can contextualize it as a citizen of a real country or region [...]

So, they have a character and they want to understand an analogous culture to that character's culture.

However, what they're asking isn't about their actual problem, it's several steps removed from it. It's sort of XY problem-ish. They're not asking about their character's culture, they're asking about every culture in the Forgotten Realms. It seems they're also trying to find out whether there's actual evidence the civilisation was specifically and deliberately based on another real-world counterpart? (I'm not sure.) Again, for the Forgotten Realms broadly.

So the question they've actually asked is simultaneously much bigger in scope than it actually needs to be in order to resolve their actual problem they're facing, and in fact, actively unhelpful to resolving it. Their question at current (revision 3) asks:

Is there any evidence that there are real world corollaries (current or historical) for any of the civilizations or peoples of the Forgotten Realms?

If someone answers “Yes! Forgotten Realms civilisation X has a direct corollary in real-world civilisation Y”, that's a correct answer, but it's not remotely helpful to the querent's original problem if their character is not actually from X. (Note they just want to know if this is the case for any civilisation, the way they worded it.) If we get bigger, more comprehensive answers, that's still a lot of unhelpful work if the character is from none of the cultures that wind up getting listed.

What should the querent do?

Let's go back to first principles:

You should only ask practical, answerable questions based on actual problems that you face. [...] Your questions should be reasonably scoped.

The querent should focus on the actual problem they're facing and ask just about that. Meaning they should do this:

• They should tell us about the one specific character they're having trouble understanding.
• They should tell us the character's culture in the Forgotten Realms. What's their tribe, city, whatever?
• They should ask us whether that's got a real-world corollary it's like that will help them understand how to roleplay a citizen of that culture.

The following are things the querent should avoid:

• The querent should not try to anticipate multiple potential future characters or cultures; they should focus on just the one.
• The querent should not request direct designer evidence the authors deliberately and consciously based their work on that civilisation. Besides the fact it probably won't be forthcoming like most D&D authorship, it's entirely unrelated to actually solving their problem. They are seeking a corollary of a particular civilisation, and it can be that way even if the authors were accidentally and unconsciously deriving from one or more real-world civilisations. (The querent may request evidence it is a comparable corollary, and a good answer should demonstrate this even if they don't, but we don't need anything from the designers for this.)

We have a guideline about generic real-world topics I think this is fine within, since a Forgotten Realms expert will give a better, different, and more complete answer than e.g. a historian or anthropologist, because they can exercise their understanding of the Forgotten Realms and give an applied answer for the purpose of roleplaying a character. “Your character's civilisation is sort of a mix of these two real-world civilisations, but one of them was kind of shallowly interpreted. Also, you'll want to lean into these specific features as they're heavily emphasized in the FR civilisation compared to their real-world counterparts,” etc.

The querent can also be told straightforwardly no if the culture they're referencing doesn't really have a good real-world analogue.