D&D 5E Do you think we will get an Oriental Adventures setting for 5th edition?

[Azzy]

I don't think there is a problem with the incorrect depiction of eastern religions. Yes, the religion of Rokugan for example is vaguely inspired by shinto, but it is a not that, and Shintao is not taoism. Where is the problem with that? Where is it "offensive"? Western settings completely ignore western monotheisms, and depict totally made-up religions which are vaguely based on greek-roman-norse polytheisms, but as depictions they are totally inaccurate, starting from the fact that they overly stress the idea that each person worships mostly one deity, while people of the past rather worshipped entire pantheons. I don't think many people are offended by this, nobody thinks that the game is subtly telling "all westerners worship wacky deities of agriculture, death, crafts, disease, commerce, war..."

Who are you responding to?

 

[Mirtek]

The same problem does not exist when you present a whole setting that draws from Asian cultures rather than European cultures, because the world in those settings is "the real world" where the important stuff happens, and if they occupy the same planet as the Western pastiches, the Western cultures become the strange foreigners. The problem with Kara-Tur is that, as part of the Realms, it doesn't have its own Elminsters and its own gods to contend with; it's still an appendix to Eurocentric Faerûn. One of the little details I've always appreciated about Spelljammer is the fact that the Shou were the major Torilian faction in Realmspace.

But Kara-Tur has it's own deities (as little RL-accurate AS the faerunian ones) and in the Kara-Tur and Al-Quadim settings the people from the West/North are viewed as the unenlightened barbarians.

If anything those suffer from the "foreign is cooler" syndrome, when those books state that while mechanically their fighters are the same as in the West/morth but one should describe their fighting as mich more gracefull than the crude hack&slash of cormyrean Knights (something thats still present in current works linke those oft GRRM)

 

[GreenTengu]

Seeing easterners as backward? I guess from about 1800. Not for most of European
history.

????

Most of European history, everyone in the continent was a Catholic Christian and, if not, they were killed in horrific manners until the remainder converted. They were literally viewed as being servants of the evil god aka "devil" and thus no matter what cruelty was exacted upon them, it was justified in order to convert them.

Jews and Muslims were marginally, just marginally, accepted although forced to live in certain districts and had their travel and employment opportunities greatly restricted and, intermittently, the church would try to exterminate them here or there every few generations.

So-- yeah, the weird people from way out east who were devil worshippers with strange picture writing who ate who sat on the floor and ate with sticks and such were seen as quite odd and backwards.

 

[delericho]

Most of European history, everyone in the continent was a Catholic Christian and, if not, they were killed in horrific manners until the remainder converted. They were literally viewed as being servants of the evil god aka "devil" and thus no matter what cruelty was exacted upon them, it was justified in order to convert them.

You do realise that absurd over-statements of this sort really undermine your argument?

 

[Parmandur]

Thank you, I knew I was getting that mixed up—it's been a long time since I played in the Realms.







It's the ol' "Ed's not here, so let's just phone it in" that plagued so much of the expanded Realms.

Yeah, it's not even necessarily bad; just odd, comparing the Greenwoodian areas to the strict parallel areas...

 

[Parmandur]

????

Most of European history, everyone in the continent was a Catholic Christian and, if not, they were killed in horrific manners until the remainder converted. They were literally viewed as being servants of the evil god aka "devil" and thus no matter what cruelty was exacted upon them, it was justified in order to convert them.

Jews and Muslims were marginally, just marginally, accepted although forced to live in certain districts and had their travel and employment opportunities greatly restricted and, intermittently, the church would try to exterminate them here or there every few generations.

So-- yeah, the weird people from way out east who were devil worshippers with strange picture writing who ate who sat on the floor and ate with sticks and such were seen as quite odd and backwards.

Soooo, I agree Orientalism can be offensive...is this intentionally offensive to make a point? This seems to transgress board standards, a wee bit...

 

[Mirtek]

?So-- yeah, the weird people from way out east who were devil worshippers with strange picture writing who ate who sat on the floor and ate with sticks and such were seen as quite odd and backwards.

and that's different from how foreign people and citizens of lower classes were seen and treated in asia at that time? Most areas oft the world weren't shining examples at that age

 

[epithet]

Soooo, I agree Orientalism can be offensive...is this intentionally offensive to make a point? This seems to transgress board standards, a wee bit...

How? He's pointing out how Europeans in the dark and middle ages regarded unfamiliar people and practices, and generally tried to eliminate or exterminate anyone or anything that varied from the norms promulgated by the Catholic Church. It is not an inaccurate representation. What part do you find offensive?

 

[epithet]

You do realise that absurd over-statements of this sort really undermine your argument?

I suppose he should have said "recorded European history" to make it completely accurate. Still, how do you figure it to be an "absurd over-statement?" Even when Spain was an Islamic state, the majority of Europe was Catholic. While earlier expansion of the Catholic Church (eg, under Pope Gregory) focussed on appropriation (making your goddess a saint,) once the Church was secure in its dominance of the continent any non-Catholic was regarded as being in league with Lucifer, and therefore whatever was done to them in order to compel conversion to Catholicism was ultimately to their benefit, whether they survived the experience or not.

The history of medieval Church is not pretty.

 

[delericho]

How? He's pointing out how Europeans in the dark and middle ages regarded unfamiliar people and practices, and generally tried to eliminate or exterminate anyone or anything that varied from the norms promulgated by the Catholic Church. It is not an inaccurate representation.

It's spectacularly inaccurate.