D&D 5E Kara Tur vs Tarkir vs Kamigawa vs Plane of Mountains and Seas vs Ikoria

[humble minion]

Regarding Kara-Tur though - I certainly recognise and understand that yep, it wholesale appropriates real-life cultures and is in many cases a bunch of white guys idea of what 'Asian fantasy is'.
'
But the thing is - there's been no significant Kara-Tur releases for something like 30 real-life years as far as I know, and there's 120+ years of Realms history in between. Given the tendency of FR for wild retcons and upheavals etc, and the near-random introduction of new setting elements that were casually decided had been there all along, what a 'new' Kara-Tur might look like could be very different to the old one. Places like Thay have changed or updated wildly in concept over the last couple of D&D editions after all, and the impact of things like the Spellplague and the Second Sundering on Kara-Tur have never really been delved into, as far as I know - and that could mean anything from an entire reconfiguration of the gods to new nations and continents showing up overnight. There's plenty of scope for the place to be taken apart and put back together better.

Is Kara-Tur 'salvageable', on a thematic level? If WotC hired a bunch of Asian writers and dumped the whole Kara Tur back catalogue in their laps and said 'this is your playground now, update it so it works, trim off the sucky orientalist bits, advance the timeline 150 years, then we'll put it all out in a standalone setting book that only vaguely mentions the possible existence of the rest of FR somewhere off to the ill-defined west' - could they come up with something compelling and interesting? Old-school FR fans could have their Kara-Tur sourcebook (and there's so little hard-and-fast Kara-Tur material from the past 30 years that continuity and realmslore shouldn't be a huge deal), and WotC could have their 5e 'Oriental Adventures' update.

 

[Parmandur]

Regarding Kara-Tur though - I certainly recognise and understand that yep, it wholesale appropriates real-life cultures and is in many cases a bunch of white guys idea of what 'Asian fantasy is'.
'
But the thing is - there's been no significant Kara-Tur releases for something like 30 real-life years as far as I know, and there's 120+ years of Realms history in between. Given the tendency of FR for wild retcons and upheavals etc, and the near-random introduction of new setting elements that were casually decided had been there all along, what a 'new' Kara-Tur might look like could be very different to the old one. Places like Thay have changed or updated wildly in concept over the last couple of D&D editions after all, and the impact of things like the Spellplague and the Second Sundering on Kara-Tur have never really been delved into, as far as I know - and that could mean anything from an entire reconfiguration of the gods to new nations and continents showing up overnight. There's plenty of scope for the place to be taken apart and put back together better.

Is Kara-Tur 'salvageable', on a thematic level? If WotC hired a bunch of Asian writers and dumped the whole Kara Tur back catalogue in their laps and said 'this is your playground now, update it so it works, trim off the sucky orientalist bits, advance the timeline 150 years, then we'll put it all out in a standalone setting book that only vaguely mentions the possible existence of the rest of FR somewhere off to the ill-defined west' - could they come up with something compelling and interesting? Old-school FR fans could have their Kara-Tur sourcebook (and there's so little hard-and-fast Kara-Tur material from the past 30 years that continuity and realmslore shouldn't be a huge deal), and WotC could have their 5e 'Oriental Adventures' update.

You are not wrong, this is doable. But is it worth the effort? Maybe.

 

[Tonguez]

Anyways moving past Kara Tur for a moment, none have made any arguements why Tarkir, Kamigawa or Plane of Mountains and Seas, why would they be better or not?

Plane of Mountains and Seas has the benefit of being designed by Chinese Artist, game designers with the express goal of introducing the Chinese market to MtG, it brings in Chinese viewpoints so avoids the arguments regarding authenticity. It is however a limited setting, just focussed on China.

Tarkir I think has the most scope as Parmandur states the Asian aspects are there but its the story themes that build the setting and its story rather than just being faux-Asia.

 

[jgsugden]

I'm familiar with the fact that Kara Tur origined in OA thanks. But it was more fully detailed in the Kara Tur box set and parts in the Hordelands Box Set.

But … you said … NEVER … sigh

Anyways moving past Kara Tur for a moment, none have made any arguements why Tarkir, Kamigawa or Plane of Mountains and Seas, why would they be better or not?

A few did, however, many posited that the better option is to start with a clean slate rather than carry the baggage of the past. As we do not have much in the way of how the last few major events impacted Kara-tur, there is room to clean up a lot of what is there.

I just wanted this thread to be a fun thread were we'd compare the cool things to be found in different settings and make reasonable arguement why this or that setting would be better.

Instead it's been used as an excuse by some to slander the good names of a lot of folks and try to make them unfairly look like racists. Very disappointing.

Have you ever heard the little ditty that everyone is a racist? Google the phrase for a plethora of support for that notion.

If you go back and read what has been said, a lot of it boils down to racial sensitivity is a moving target. It evolves. A lot of what was acceptable in the past loses the acceptability and needs to be avoided. Some of it should never have been acceptable at all - other parts shift around a bit. There are numerous references in this thread and in the article I cited that note that the original authors of Kara-tur and OA did not have ill intent - they just lacked creativity and they engaged in characterizations that were acceptable for the time, but are no longer as acceptable.

 

[QuentinGeorge]

I'm not going to be satisfied until the Kara-Tur sourcebook is written by a Qing-Dynasty era Chinese scholar for that extra level of authenticity.

 

[gyor]

But … you said … NEVER … sigh
A few did, however, many posited that the better option is to start with a clean slate rather than carry the baggage of the past. As we do not have much in the way of how the last few major events impacted Kara-tur, there is room to clean up a lot of what is there.
Have you ever heard the little ditty that everyone is a racist? Google the phrase for a plethora of support for that notion.

If you go back and read what has been said, a lot of it boils down to racial sensitivity is a moving target. It evolves. A lot of what was acceptable in the past loses the acceptability and needs to be avoided. Some of it should never have been acceptable at all - other parts shift around a bit. There are numerous references in this thread and in the article I cited that note that the original authors of Kara-tur and OA did not have ill intent - they just lacked creativity and they engaged in characterizations that were acceptable for the time, but are no longer as acceptable.

That is the opinion of a tiny amount of people who are responsible for counter culture, no thank you.

 

[Mecheon]

That is the opinion of a tiny amount of people who are responsible for counter culture, no thank you.

It hardly is the opinion of a tiny amount of people. Kara-tur is -lazy- as a setting. It is literately just "Let's take some stereotypical fantasy Asia areas and file the serial numbers off". And that's even before I get to my usual complaints about this and my ongoing hatred of "Let's just slap like 6 standalone mythological creatures together as a single race, call 'em Hengeyokai, and don't look into how actually these things are portrayed"

No ill intent, they just didn't make a setting that felt organic or alive

 

[Parmandur]

It hardly is the opinion of a tiny amount of people. Kara-tur is -lazy- as a setting. It is literately just "Let's take some stereotypical fantasy Asia areas and file the serial numbers off". And that's even before I get to my usual complaints about this and my ongoing hatred of "Let's just slap like 6 standalone mythological creatures together as a single race, call 'em Hengeyokai, and don't look into how actually these things are portrayed"

No ill intent, they just didn't make a setting that felt organic or alive

In their defense, there was a deadline and the company was teetering on the edge of bankruptcy. They threw together something they hoped would sell...

 

[gyor]

Plane of Mountains and Seas has the benefit of being designed by Chinese Artist, game designers with the express goal of introducing the Chinese market to MtG, it brings in Chinese viewpoints so avoids the arguments regarding authenticity. It is however a limited setting, just focussed on China.

Tarkir I think has the most scope as Parmandur states the Asian aspects are there but its the story themes that build the setting and its story rather than just being faux-Asia.

Do you know how it was recieved in Asian?

I will note that they never did a global series ever again after this, not a good sign.

From what I've gathered the story isn't that interesting, and neither is the setting, but I have limited details.

There just isn't enough meat to do a campaign setting book, to be fair it never got a full set, just two planeswalker decks with some reprints. I will say some really gorgeous art. It's hard to build a flesh out setting when the writers and artists got crumbs to work with. Not even a novel.

So I don't want to be too hard on them, because there are some cool cards, like Heavenly Kirin, but there really isn't room for them do much or build much.

 

[Parmandur]

Do you know how it was recieved in Asian?

I will note that they never did a global series ever again after this, not a good sign.

From what I've gathered the story isn't that interesting, and neither is the setting, but I have limited details.

There just isn't enough meat to do a campaign setting book, to be fair it never got a full set, just two planeswalker decks with some reprints. I will say some really gorgeous art. It's hard to build a flesh out setting when the writers and artists got crumbs to work with. Not even a novel.

So I don't want to be too hard on them, because there are some cool cards, like Heavenly Kirin, but there really isn't room for them do much or build much.

In this case, broad sketches that can be expanded upon is an advantage.