D&D General Kara-Tur vs Rokugan

[Sword of Spirit]

Why would we want them to stick Mahasarpa in the Forgotten Realms?

 

[jayoungr]

Why would we want them to stick Mahasarpa in the Forgotten Realms?

Because if they did it right now, it would probably be in the form of giving it a nice hardback adventure?

 

[gyor]

Why would we want them to stick Mahasarpa in the Forgotten Realms?

Here are some reasons.

1. It no longer has a home in
2. It can be set in FR without being disruptive.
3. It adds cultural types and tropes FR doesn't have yet.
4. It's cool
5. FR needs a proper Fantasy India.

 

[Desdichado]

Whatever WotC does with an East Asian fantasy supplement, it needs to not be Japan-centric at the expense of all other East Asian cultures like the earlier Oriental Adventures books and Rokugan were. Stop trying to shoehorn samurai and ninja into everything.

Why does it need to do that?

 

[gyor]

I really do think they should add a fantasy India to F because the Kara Tur region of Malatra actually suggests their is one, something different Durpur.

 

[Azzy]

Why does it need to do that?

Because otherwise it's like going on a "tour of Europe", but you only actually go to Lichtenstein.

If you do an East Asian fantasy supplement, and only focus on one culture—you're not doing an East Asian fantasy supplement, you're just doing a supplement of that one culture. That's boring and disingenuous. Not to mention, it's falling short of the inherent potential of covering China and other East Asian cultures.

 

[Azzy]

I really do think they should add a fantasy India to F because the Kara Tur region of Malatra actually suggests their is one, something different Durpur.

I'm surprised there isn't one, tbh.

 

[Desdichado]

Or it's like doing a tour of Lichenstein and visiting Lichenstein. Most of "fantasy Europe" is actually "fantasy England" and that's fine. I mean, when's the last time your fantasy Europe included anything like Albania or Hungary? There's nothing wrong with basing your fantasy East mostly on Japan.

 

[Urriak]

Or it's like doing a tour of Lichenstein and visiting Lichenstein. Most of "fantasy Europe" is actually "fantasy England" and that's fine. I mean, when's the last time your fantasy Europe included anything like Albania or Hungary? There's nothing wrong with basing your fantasy East mostly on Japan.

This is really accurate. Most medieval fantasy is based exclusively on medieval England and France. The Sword Coast, despite being mostly city-states, fits with that aesthetic too, mostly because it's hard to describe more than one medieval culture (in a satisfying way) within one adventure path.

If WotC does an East Asia supplement, they will probably focus on one culture, or at least a handful that are very related. You can do China, Korea and Japan in one because although all are distinct, they are all heavily influenced by one another (especially in their feudal eras).

Doing fantasy India and China in one book isn't going to work well though, those are pretty distinct.

 

[Azzy]

Or it's like doing a tour of Lichenstein and visiting Lichenstein.

No, it most assertively is not.

Most of "fantasy Europe" is actually "fantasy England" and that's fine. I mean, when's the last time your fantasy Europe included anything like Albania or Hungary?

More like Western Europe—from Itallian citystates like the City of Greyhawk and Waterdeep, to Hundred Years War England and France, the Holy Roman Empire, Vikings, etc. Plus, we even get non-European influences from the Middle East, plus civilisations from antiquity, like the Romans, Celts, Egypt, Mesopotamia, etc. Then there's a whole slew of non-historical/non-mythological things like tieflings, dragonborn.

There's nothing wrong with basing your fantasy East mostly on Japan.

Yeah? If you want it to be a hack. We've gotten that twice already (with both Oriental Adventures), it was boring and not well done. It's time to move on and a take a broader brush and give a smorgasboard to let DMs make the most of their East-Asian inspired campaigns rather than a narrow focus on a single culture that had only a limited impact on other cultures around them. I mean, if you had to go mono-cultural, you'd think that China would be your goto considering how much impact that it had on surrounding cultures and the wealth of history it brings.