D&D 5E Oriental Adventures 5e: How would you do it?

A couple of points:

Orient simply means "East" from Latin, so it's an old term and a lot of words in European languages originate with Latin. Oriental to me refers to medieval / pre-medieval China/Japan/Korea/etc. I don't see that it's offensive as used in "Oriental Adventures" any more than "Medieval European Adventures" which is the base setting of D&D, would be. D&D historically is like pulp fantasy which borrows heavily from many real world sources to create a fantasy world.

With that said, unless there is a latin-like culture in your setting and the fantasy China/Japan/Korea is to the east of it, there are probably better titles than "Oriental Adventures" for describing that kind of setting.

ITT: A bunch of white people discussing what is and is not racist.

Phasestar said:

A couple of points:

Orient simply means "East" from Latin, so it's an old term and a lot of words in European languages originate with Latin. Oriental to me refers to medieval / pre-medieval China/Japan/Korea/etc. I don't see that it's offensive as used in "Oriental Adventures" any more than "Medieval European Adventures" which is the base setting of D&D, would be. D&D historically is like pulp fantasy which borrows heavily from many real world sources to create a fantasy world.

With that said, unless there is a latin-like culture in your setting and the fantasy China/Japan/Korea is to the east of it, there are probably better titles than "Oriental Adventures" for describing that kind of setting.

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#1 - The origin of words has little bearing on their present meaning.

#2 - The reason it was called Oriental Adventures and we don't have European Adventures is because of ethnocentrism. It is the idea that Whiteness is the default and everyone else is 'other'. That's the real problem. It treats white people as special while others are less than white.

ad_hoc said:

ITT: A bunch of white people discussing what is and is not racist.



#1 - The origin of words has little bearing on their present meaning.

#2 - The reason it was called Oriental Adventures and we don't have European Adventures is because of ethnocentrism. It is the idea that Whiteness is the default and everyone else is 'other'. That's the real problem. It treats white people as special while others are less than white.

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If the 'Oriental' in the title refers to a person or people, I'd agree that it could be taken as offensive. And we can and do refer to items, objects, history, language, literature and other cultural elements as oriental, both within and outside of academia.

Oriental Adventures can be read quite literally as adventures with/concerning these elements.

On the flip side, within architecture at least, we can and do refer to aspects of architecture from 'the west' as... wait for it.. Western Architecture.

So yes, the origin of the word has little bearing on the present meaning - and the meaning, unless direct at a person or persons, can be used in a perfectly sound and sensible manner.

But again, as WOTC is based in America, and while I have lived and loved in the magical, mystical oriental lands for many years and never heard the phrase used in a derogatory manner (perhaps because there are simply so many other physical and social slurs for some folks to choose from!), I realise that at least within America the word has come to represent something more. As such, it would be wise for WOTC to drop it in preference of something else.

The first thing I would do if I were creating Oriental Adventures 5E is float the idea on an internet forum just to see whether anybody reacts negatively to the word "Oriental."

ad_hoc said:

ITT: A bunch of white people discussing what is and is not racist.

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Speaking of offensive, that comment seems pretty out of line to me.

#1 - The origin of words has little bearing on their present meaning.

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I've never heard Orient or Oriental used in a derogatory way in the present day. Honestly, I have no idea where the idea that this is offensive came from, it just means "east".

#2 - The reason it was called Oriental Adventures and we don't have European Adventures is because of ethnocentrism. It is the idea that Whiteness is the default and everyone else is 'other'. That's the real problem. It treats white people as special while others are less than white.

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You seem to be very focused on skin color. Yes, people in Europe would say that people in Asia are to the east of them, or "Oriental". It has nothing to do with skin color or being "less than". I'm sure the folks in China or Japan looked at the Europeans in the same way. If Gary Gygax had been born in Japan, the default setting would have been different and we'd have a "Occidental Adventures" expansion.

ad_hoc said:

ITT: A bunch of white people discussing what is and is not racist.

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And you know the color of someone's skin color on an internet forum...how? Are you assuming it just because they hold a certain opinion? Stereotype much?

Certain words have been used in order to establish superiority of one group over another. I won't list them here but it is easy to think of words for Africans, Italians, Irish, Jews, Europeans, Asians and on and on that are specifically intended to belittle people. Orient isn't one of them. Life is much better if people give each other the benefit of the doubt instead of taking offense when none is intended.

Chuck Ocenasek said:

Considering it is an offensive term for Asian cultures I hope they call it something different.

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I thought the term was offensive when applied to *people*, not *things* (like adventures).

ad_hoc said:

ITT: A bunch of white people discussing what is and is not racist.

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How do you know this?

Sacrosanct said:

I understand that Western European countries have exponentially more history than in the US, but as far as current cultural differences go, from what I've seen there are greater differences between say, New York and Alabama, than between Germany and France.

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As someone who's traveled a fair bit both in the USA and Europe, I agree with you that there are more differences between certain states that some outsiders realize... but I also think there are a lot more differences between European countries that *you* realize.

Uller said:

And you know the color of someone's skin color on an internet forum...how? Are you assuming it just because they hold a certain opinion? Stereotype much?

Certain words have been used in order to establish superiority of one group over another. I won't list them here but it is easy to think of words for Africans, Italians, Irish, Jews, Europeans, Asians and on and on that are specifically intended to belittle people. Orient isn't one of them. Life is much better if people give each other the benefit of the doubt instead of taking offense when none is intended.

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But, but, but... What will people with too much time on their hands do if they can't use it to express manufactured outrage over non-issues that don't even matter to the majority of the people they are allegedly defending against said words?!?! My God, man - where's your sense of fake victimhood and false outrage ripe for the exploiting?

In all seriousness, though - it's been titled Oriental Adventures through 3 editions of the game. No need to be revisionist about titling it. The fact is that Zeb Cook was obviously in love with historical Asian cultures - just read the intro in OA 1e. That carried over into the Kara-Tur boxed set. It's evident that those products were created with a genuine love of the people and cultures they modeled them on.

But, I'd definitely be revisionist about taking that 1e content to make it 5e and focus on fleshing out the setting to a greater degree. While there is a lot of fluff about Shou Lung vs. T'u Lung and Wa vs. Kozakura, why not spend more scope of a 5e product(s) on fleshing out Tabot, Malatra, Bawa, Petan, etc.? There is literally a section of the Kara-Tur map of nothing but jungle titled "The Warring States" to the east of Petan. Whats there? Who are the people who live there? Why are they at war?

I'd rather have more fluff than having a bunch of crunch on the different varieties of samurai depending upon their clan like they did in the 3e Rokugan products. Who cares about that much variety if I want a campaign to focus on a culture modeled after ancient China or Korea?