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

[epithet]

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

In fairness, the Europeans of the time were not masters of modern cutlery. While basic crude forks existed, meal times in the West generally featured knives, spoons, and dirty fingers as the ways to get the food into one's face. I'd say that any superiority the asians might have felt with regard to eating habits was, at the time, largely justified.

 

[epithet]

It's spectacularly inaccurate.

No, it isn't.

Back up your position.

Edit: You may easily find exceptions, such as the merchant vikings who traded East of Europe or the receptiveness of courts to foreign emissaries who offered trade or entertainment. In general, however, medieval Europe was ignorant and insular, and violently hostile to non-Catholics. Jews were forbidden to own or hold real estate, and forced to live in ghettos. The Cathars were butchered. Pagans were burned.

 

[delericho]

I suppose he should have said "recorded European history" to make it completely accurate.

Still not. Recorded European history goes back to more than 200 years before Christ. By that measure, the Catholic church hasn't even been around for the majority of the time. When you factor in the time it took for Christianity to become the dominant religion, not to mention the time before the dominant sect was Catholic, and consider that the rise of Protestantism and indeed the Enlightenment saw that dominance challenged and then over-turned, you're struggling to get a majority even in the years AD.

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 powers-that-be may have thought that, and indeed may have engaged in various efforts to compel obedience, but the powers-that-be are always a highly-privilidged but very small minority.

The history of medieval Church is not pretty.

No, it's not. And if he'd said that, it would be fine. But he didn't, hence "absurd over-statement".

 

[delericho]

No, it isn't.

Back up your position.

Burden of proof lies with those making the claims. TheHobgoblin needs to back up his claims first.

 

[epithet]

Still not. Recorded European history goes back to more than 200 years before Christ. By that measure, the Catholic church hasn't even been around for the majority of the time. When you factor in the time it took for Christianity to become the dominant religion, not to mention the time before the dominant sect was Catholic, and consider that the rise of Protestantism and indeed the Enlightenment saw that dominance challenged and then over-turned, you're struggling to get a majority even in the years AD.
...

The Catholic Church saw some its greatest expansion under the leadership of Pope Gregory I, who became Pope in 590. Martin Luther published his Ninety-Five Theses in 1517, and Henry VIII enacted the Statute in Restraint of Appeals (introducing a papal bull in England became a capital offense) in 1533. Still, Spain and France remained militantly Catholic for centuries after that. If you constrain "recorded history" in Europe to the past 2200 years, as you seem to suggest, I think it is a safe assertion that the Catholic Church has been the dominant religion in Europe for more than half of that time period.

 

[delericho]

The Catholic Church saw some its greatest expansion under the leadership of Pope Gregory I, who became Pope in 590. Martin Luther published his Ninety-Five Theses in 1517, and Henry VIII enacted the Statute in Restraint of Appeals (introducing a papal bull in England became a capital offense) in 1533. Still, Spain and France remained militantly Catholic for centuries after that. If you constrain "recorded history" in Europe to the past 2200 years, as you seem to suggest...

Gah! A typo, I'm afraid - recorded European history goes back more than 2,000 years before Christ. So 4,000 years, rather than 2,200.

Edit: even if we take it from the founding of Rome (which we really shouldn't), that's some time in the 8th century BC, giving a range of some 2,750 years. Now, my history is only really solid from 1689AD onwards, but I know the depiction given is really not true at that date. So even if I were to concede 590AD - 1689AD, that's still less than half.

But even before that, much more of the strife in Europe was due to English Christians killing French Christians (and vice versa) because one royal cousin stole the crown claimed by another royal cousin.

 

[epithet]

I'll admit I was wondering where you had come up with the 200 number, but I figured you were maybe talking about the British Isles, where the overwhelming majority of the folk history was unwritten, and therefore lost forever when the druids and bards were wiped out by the Romanised Christians (after having apparently coexisted with the pre-existing Celtic Christians in Wales, which is interesting.)

Worth noting is that the resulting near-vacuum of pre-Christian British folklore is what inspired Prof. Tolkien to create the fantasy of Middle Earth, which was his expression of European archetypes. Middle Earth is really the germ of the fantasy genre which gave rise to D&D, so it should not come as a shock or surprise to anyone that the game and its oldest settings similarly express those European archetypes. Of course oriental and asian elements will be exotic and different, the game and its settings were originally created by westerners, writing in English, based (often directly) on Middle Earth. I don't see anything inherently wrong with that.

 

[Parmandur]

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?

The term "Dark Age" is offensive, in the same way as "Oriental," for similar reasons, and has no modern currency in academic circles. The rest is a cartoon version of the Middle Ages and Catholicism as perpetrated by the History Channel or some similar tabloid non-history source, and "proving" that falls outside the stated bounds of talking about pretending to be an Elven Wizard as I understand board rules.

 

[aramis erak]

I think Kara-Tur will rear its ugly head again... I would prefer Wizards to cut a deal with FFG and continue with the D&D OA Rokugan, but that's because I love the L5R setting.

And yes, I do know that AEG does L5R - and that L5R is being purchased by FFG... so at this point it would be "cut the deal with the new owners"

 

[epithet]

The term "Dark Age" is offensive, in the same way as "Oriental," for similar reasons, and has no modern currency in academic circles. The rest is a cartoon version of the Middle Ages and Catholicism as perpetrated by the History Channel or some similar tabloid non-history source, and "proving" that falls outside the stated bounds of talking about pretending to be an Elven Wizard as I understand board rules.

How is the term "dark age" offensive? What are you on about?