Eliminating Eastern Flavor From D&D?

[Kid Charlemagne]

Back on the topic of the OP - there are some classes in the complete books that would need to be outlawed - kensai, samurai, etc. A handful of martial arts and ki-related feats in those same books. A few Forgotten Realms books also have eastern-flavored classes and feats.

I think Rechan makes a good point in that you can take the mechanics and put them into other places in the world - for example, I did the exact same thing you are doing. In my campaign world there is no "orient." No samurai, etc. I have pulled out bits of flavor to use elsewhere. For instance, gnomes have a tradition of hand-to-hand combat and competition that in my world reflects them keeping in touch with their history, so there are several schools of gnomish monks. I've used Ninja as members of a particular group of assassins and just filed off the eastern name and weaponry. I use the OA shaman as a variant cleric class, but its more of a general shamanistic thing that can encompass native american style shamans just as well as eastern ones.

There are so many books out there that its difficult to give an all-encompassing answer. My recommendation is to tell your players to use "core-only" with the caveat that anything else needs your approval. Let them know what you're looking to avoid, and that way they can do some of your work for you.

 

[Dausuul]

If its the latter, then you might try what I do: Give your players a very basic outline of the campaign, and then ask your players what classes and races they want to play. Cut everything they didn't list unless you need it for a specific, known reason. So if you've got two humans, an elf, and a tiefling, great. You've got your sentient humanoids. Dwarves, dragonborn, halflings, all gone.

Man, why did I never think of that?

Yoinked for my next campaign...

 

[pawsplay]

Kidding aside, the OP could be a lot more about what they want to include and what they want to exclude. For instance, Warhammer is basically set ina 15th to 16th century central Europe analog, plus screaming hordes of Chaos. There is actually a Cathay, but it's not part of the featured milieu. OTOH, Red Box D&D is clearly not set on Earth, and clearly has plenty of Eastern influence even if you remove Mystics.

So to really address the OP, we would have to know whether, for instance, a tiger is acceptable, since it lives in Asia. What about the sabre or scimitar? It comes from China, but that was a looong time ago. Gold dragons are clearly an importation of the Chinese dragon, but do we count them, since they were integrated into other dragon types? The Celts are ultimately from Asia... irrelevant in a Warhammer type world, but if you set your game in the Hyperborean age they would still be fleeing before the Huns.

Clerics turning undead has its basis in Christian mythology, which in turn inherits the Judaic concept of ritual purity. If you go far enough East, you can find plenty of priests and monks warding off ghosts with prayers, rice, and everything else. If you look at Roman and Greek mythology... not so much. To the Western Ancients, priests were concerned with oracular readings and maintenance of the social order. When Odyssesus needs to bypass a gang of undead, they don't haul out a priest, they distract them by feeding them blood. The early church actually considered belief in vampires and such to be superstitious and even an invitation to blasphemy if taken too far. So turning undead enters Western mythology about the time of the Latin bible, in the first few centuries CE.

So to answer the OP, we need to know:

- What geographic area and approximately what century you do want to use as a basis
- Or, alternately, what fictional sources are being used for the basis
- Whether to count Asia Minor, Western Asia, Central Asia, China, India, Japane, and Polynesia
- how far back you want to look

 

[jdrakeh]

Rakshasa, Naga and Ogre Magi.

True. I had forgotten about monsters, but those seem like something that can be taken care of with spot judgements, not things that need to be planned in adavnce (as they aren't PC options).

Also, half of the psionic bag is inspired by Eastern mysticism.

I think that's pretty arguable. It seems more inspired by Hollywood's reinvention of Eastern mysticism (which is very Western).

 

[Brennin Magalus]

Paladin comes from pallatin, "of the palace," and referred to Charlemagne's retainers. Charlemagne was Frankish, not French properly. The chivalric ideal was molded in part on Christian mysticism, which in turn was influenced by Plato. Plato was part of a philosophical tradition that stretched back to such characters as Heraclitus, who lived in an area now called Turkey. Turkey was then and is now a meeting place of East and West.

EDIT: A little "Eastern philosophy" from Heraclitus:

We both step and do not step in the same rivers. We are and are not.

Yeah, I remember that part of the Chanson de Roland
where Roland waxes verbose about the Forms in the midst of battling the Islamic Saracens. And it is well known that Galahad always carried a copy of the Laws in his saddle bag as he searched for the Holy Grail.

 

[Brennin Magalus]

You'll have to rename divine magic, since divine comes from daeva/deva,

Ahem. Indo-European.

Online Etymology Dictionary

from which we get both deva (Sanskrit) and devil (Sumerian).

The word devil has a distinct etymological pedigree from deva.

 

[ProfessorPain]

Kidding aside, the OP could be a lot more about what they want to include and what they want to exclude. For instance, Warhammer is basically set ina 15th to 16th century central Europe analog, plus screaming hordes of Chaos. There is actually a Cathay, but it's not part of the featured milieu. OTOH, Red Box D&D is clearly not set on Earth, and clearly has plenty of Eastern influence even if you remove Mystics.

So to really address the OP, we would have to know whether, for instance, a tiger is acceptable, since it lives in Asia. What about the sabre or scimitar? It comes from China, but that was a looong time ago. Gold dragons are clearly an importation of the Chinese dragon, but do we count them, since they were integrated into other dragon types? The Celts are ultimately from Asia... irrelevant in a Warhammer type world, but if you set your game in the Hyperborean age they would still be fleeing before the Huns.

Clerics turning undead has its basis in Christian mythology, which in turn inherits the Judaic concept of ritual purity. If you go far enough East, you can find plenty of priests and monks warding off ghosts with prayers, rice, and everything else. If you look at Roman and Greek mythology... not so much. To the Western Ancients, priests were concerned with oracular readings and maintenance of the social order. When Odyssesus needs to bypass a gang of undead, they don't haul out a priest, they distract them by feeding them blood. The early church actually considered belief in vampires and such to be superstitious and even an invitation to blasphemy if taken too far. So turning undead enters Western mythology about the time of the Latin bible, in the first few centuries CE.

So to answer the OP, we need to know:

- What geographic area and approximately what century you do want to use as a basis
- Or, alternately, what fictional sources are being used for the basis
- Whether to count Asia Minor, Western Asia, Central Asia, China, India, Japane, and Polynesia
- how far back you want to look

Kudos on possessing all that historical knowledge, but I think you are over thinking this one. He said 'eastern flavor', which probably means things that scream asian, possibly middle eastern. So katana is out, monk is out. But golden dragon is in, because we usually associate it with high fantasy based on Northern Europe in the middle ages. I don't think he is concerned with origins of things, just whether we conciously associate them with Asia.

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

Let's take the exercise in the absurd to its conclusion:

You also should remove all the Core books because they are written in the English language, because English comes from England, which is part of Europe, which shares air, space, and weather patterns with the Middle East and Asia. And since Asia and the Middle East are on Earth, you should remove everything in your house because it exists on earth.

I know you're just joking, but there's a difference between causality and degrees of separation. Of course, I have lots of philosophy major friends who would gladly argue that there is no causality, but that's an entirely different matter.


To the OP: It'd help if we knew what books you use to determine what to exclude. Because there really is a lot in the splat books. Not that there isn't also in the core, but that'd certainly be a much easier list to compile.

 

[Remathilis]

Above and beyond everything mentioned here...

Assassin PrC. Its more ninja than any "ninja" named class out there.

 

[lutecius]

The easiest way would be to remove the monk and the monsters you or your players would associate with Asia. You may want to do some research before including a monster, but assuming it's a fantasy world, historical or cultural accuracy aren't that relevant. Flavour is subjective.

I think refluffing the monk's abilities is more work than it's worth. Unlike cleric and wizard/sorcerer, he is by no means indispensable. Rogues and fighter types collectively cover the "role" just fine.

As for Psionics, they’re optional and not so much Asian as sci-fi or New Age, which may or may not fit the flavour of your campaign.

You'll have to rename divine magic, since divine comes from daeva/deva, from which we get both deva (Sanskrit) and devil (Sumerian). You will also need to remove Bahamut and Tiamat.

By this logic, you shouldn't even play in English because it's an Indo-European language and ultimately originates from Anatolia (mainland Turkey) or the Pontic Steppe (only partly European)
Also "divine" doesn't come from deva/daeva. The three words have the same root, though. But "devil" doesn't. It's from Greek dia+ballein "throw across, slander", also of Indoeuropean origin, not Sumerian.

Bahamut and Tiamat may have Semitic names, but the dnd versions are quite different from the originals myths. Rename them and you’ve got your medieval european dragons.

- umber hulk, rust monster, and bulette (all of Chinese origin)

whuh? I’m sure there’s a story.
I’ve never used them anyway. Not because they were Asian, because they looked stupid.