Xenonnonex
Hero
If inspiration cannot be treated with respect. Then more work needs to be done with it.Bolded word included by myself.
But like another poster wrote some time ago about this very same issue:
If inspiration cannot be treated with respect. Then more work needs to be done with it.Bolded word included by myself.
But like another poster wrote some time ago about this very same issue:
If inspiration cannot be treated with respect. Then more work needs to be done with it.
All small and very vocal (and sometimes violent) group is calling for change. And claiming the change is for the better. It is not.Times change. The world changes. Things change for the better. Things change because we know better. Do not persuade me otherwise.
Ethnically are you Asian?I watched the first episode a while ago because someone said the series was a good explanation of why OA 1e is problematic. I did not find it so.
The two hours are on the beginning of the book, the intro, the ability scores, and the races. It has been a while so these are my memories of it. The two guys started with 3e and did not play 1e. They go on and on for almost half the time talking about Comeliness. They mistakenly say that 1e Comeliness as a stat is introduced here (it was introduced in Unearthed Arcana) and how this was motivated by asian stereotypes of ugly asian men and dragon ladies, how asian sexuality is portrayed as overwhelming everything else and determining how your character acts and this is Gygax targeting asians as the people without agency driven by sexual attractiveness in a way that does not apply to non-Asians. Comeliness is a terrible, generally misogynistic agency removing mechanic, but it was not targeted or inspired by Asia, it was just a terrible non-ethnic beauty mechanic.
There is also some criticism of wisdom being described as enlightened and samurai requiring a minimum score. Also about racial maximum and minimums and how it is based on rolls and restricts character concepts.
They talk about races focusing mostly on the barbaric low charsima dwarven Korobokuru are Mongolians and play into drunken stereotypes and how they are restricted to being ugly barbarians who people by the rules hate because of their low comeliness. I am not familiar with stereotypes of Mongolians or the mythological basis of Korobokuru, in the 80s I saw them as barbaric dwarves as presented in OA.
The majority of the specific criticisms seem based on mistaken understandings and general 1e AD&D non-asian specific mechanics, the bits on Korobokuru as Mongolians seemed the most relevant to a criticism of a stereotype possibly targeted at an Asian ethnic group.
It is mostly a preaching to the choir sort of vibe, assuming that just showing things you will be offended without a lot of explaining why things would be offensive.
I had gone in thinking it would explain why people would be offended by OA and it was not really that. I was not inspired to spend any more time on the rest of the series.
Your evidence that the number of folks bothered by "Oriental Adventures" is small?All small and very vocal (and sometimes violent) group is calling for change. And claiming the change is for the better. It is not.
Complacency is not what is needed. Especially if there are issues to be addressed.All small and very vocal (and sometimes violent) group is calling for change. And claiming the change is for the better. It is not.
I wasn't talking about this group in particular, but responding to the sweeping remarks that things are changing for the better.Your evidence that the number of folks bothered by "Oriental Adventures" is small?
And violent? What? What are you smoking my dude?
It is not a racial slur. It can be tied to racial offensive language (but so can Asian), but the word itself is not a slur. Primarily it has fallen out of favor as way to describe people. It is still used to describe objects (like rugs). So because its usage has changed, it can seem racial motivated to use it in a certain context.It bothers me that the term Oriental is being seen as a slur, because in origin it isn't. ... It shouldn't be a slur, and it disgusts me if ignorant fools have made it such.
Bolded word included by myself.
But like another poster wrote some time ago about this very same issue:
@Skepticultist said:
]If you're just find with plundering Irish, Scandinavian, Greek, and other European cultures history and myth for fodder for your role-playing games, then why should Asian cultures and history be treated any differently? This right here is why this entire line of argument just pisses me right off. It's handwringing nonsense motivated by white guilt.
I'm not Scandinavian, therefore I should not use Vikings in my game, right? No? Well, then, why is orientalism an issue, but scandinavianism isn't an issue? It's dumb.