Performative nationalism: Combat capybaras and capoeira-practicing elves

06 Jun, 2026

Here are my thoughts on something I've named:

Performative Nationalism

Because in all those years of consuming RPGs and spending a lot of money, it's something I encounter quite often, and it's frequently presented as something good and commendable.

But to talk about it, I need to explain it, right? What I see as Performative Nationalism is "a way of displaying a false pride in your nation and/or culture with the goal of gaining engagement."

In RPGs, it's quite a matter of taking Brasilian representation and only using it as a costume because it's commercially viable. You don't create a capybara knight because you're going to do something cool with it, but only because it apparently symbolizes Brasil, so people will buy it because "look, it's Brasilian," and you'll get pats on the back for representing our culture.

But what did you really do? Did you represent us? Or just the most commercial aspect of our culture to sell? If that's the case, you're just using Brasilian culture as clown makeup hoping for laughs. Where's your true love for Brasil? You can incorporate the Brasilian experience, you can bring Brasil beyond football, carnival, capoeira, and capybaras. But many people won't do it because it doesn't sell, it doesn't score points as a representative of Brasil in the market.

But what to do?

Sorry for what's said above, it's kind of a rant, but this is Sheep Fantasy so I don't just complain, I give useless tips!!!

To avoid being performative, don't treat bringing in Brasilian things as a checklist to tick off so you can say "this system is Brasilian" because nobody can deny their nationality, so you don't have to keep proving yourself and doing design where you're just filling a gap is a pain! Make the culture part of the system, adventure, or whatever else your disturbed mind can create. One of the most important parts to achieve this is research. How much do you know about our culture beyond stereotypes? Let's say you're going to make a JRPG (which many people wouldn't consider Brasilian). Do you know the history of JRPGs in Brasil? Do you know that Tectoy, which was a large Brasilian game company, brought Phantasy Star in 1987? Did you know that "Fly the Little Warrior," a Dragon Quest cartoon that's one of the most famous JRPGs in the world, was dubbed in 1991?

Or let's talk about the classic "capoeira elf" how much do you know about capoeira beyond the stereotype of "dance fight"? What styles are you familiar with? How much of capoeira will you incorporate so you're not just another character who fights without a weapon? Do you even know that certain forms of capoeira involve the use of bladed weapons? Or are you going to take your D&D monk and put on Brasilian clown makeup to get pats on the back? Because that's not very different from how foreigners consider us "soccer, carnival, and beach," or how they treat Mexico with a yellow filter.

Consume, experience your country first and foremost, or I don't know, go out on the street and understand what life is like for a homeless person here, the life of a travesti, the life of a priestess of Candomblé, the life of a construction worker, or anyone who walks this land we call Brasil. It's no use trying to be decolonized by only using things that everyone sells as Brasilian (capybaras are found in almost ALL of South America, and a bunch of wannabes use them almost like keychains to say they're Brasilian) if everything that makes up your repertoire and your experience is from abroad.

I'm not saying you become less Brasilian by doing that, far from it, but you don't become more Brasilian either, so why just use all that fantasy for others to see?

Calm down, but why all this?

My discontent stems from two things. The first is that I see a lot of bad stuff being delivered and people consuming it with a smile on their faces because it's Brasilian-flavored even though it's often a stereotypical or shallow version with little care and effort. The second is that, in response to this, there's a lot of gatekeeping about what constitutes Brasilian RPGs. For example, I don't like Tormenta20, neither the setting nor the system, but there's no denying it's incredibly Brasilian. Its "half anime, half medieval" world draws heavily from what was shown on Brasilian television and in magazines at the time of its creation. Along with all this adapting of everything on top of everything else, resulting in this "brown amoeba-fantasy," it ends up being a huge reflection of the hobby's origins in Brasil, almost like the marginal cinema of RPGs (quality cultural references here).

It's a nationalism that goes so far that it becomes a kind of inferiority complex, you're only Brasilian if you hit these checkpoints we've put here—but the same parameters aren't applied to works from other countries. Fabula Ultima is an Italian RPG for everyone, but its production was largely in English, and it's not a pasta and wine RPG, but rather an RPG about JRPGs, which, I don't know if you know, but the J stands for Japanese, not an I for Italian with a bent leg.

This was just another reflection I wanted to get out there.

Take it however you want, prove me wrong if you want, I'll be eating Brasilian grass here.

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