The difference is that I NEVER complained about it in the '80s, and won't do it now. As I already said I had enough maturity in my teens not to get offended by inaccurate or comical portraits of my country and language, whether that was in Asterix comics, Japanese manga, American comics, Mel Brooks movies...
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WotC Dungeons & Dragons Fans Seek Removal of Oriental Adventures From Online Marketplace
- Thread starter Dire Bare
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The difference is that I NEVER complained about it in the '80s, and won't do it now. As I already said I had enough maturity in my teens not to get offended by inaccurate or comical portraits of my country and language, whether that was in Asterix comics, Japanese manga, American comics, Mel Brooks movies...
Horwath
Legend
wingsandsword
Legend
Given WotC's attitude in modern D&D of doing big compilation books that put a lot of stuff into one book appealing to a broad section of fans, a "Beyond Faerun" book that has information Kara Tur, Zakhara, Maztica, and maybe touching on some stuff on Toril not previously touched in any depth like Osse and Katashaka, and some stuff on Realmsspace WOULD be something that WotC would do, and it would avoid the controversial name issues.
darjr
I crit!
I wrote this in another thread.
I’ll add I meant including authors from those cultures.
I do think the author of OA did his best to not make something racist or even problematic. He’s someone I trust. But we are all just human beings.
And yes, a mish mash of myth from these cultures done D&D style would be cool too.
But the knee jerk anger towards the suggestion or the discussion seems to me, in some cases, over the top.
I’ll add I meant including authors from those cultures.
I do think the author of OA did his best to not make something racist or even problematic. He’s someone I trust. But we are all just human beings.
And yes, a mish mash of myth from these cultures done D&D style would be cool too.
But the knee jerk anger towards the suggestion or the discussion seems to me, in some cases, over the top.
So because you weren't willing to do it, nobody else should either? Okay then. So to make things easier, why don't you post a list of the things that have bothered you over the last 30 years, so everyone else can also know what they're allowed to be upset about?
wingsandsword
Legend
No, it's a commentary on the overreaction, groupthink, and paranoia.
A LOT of people who bought into the "Satanic Panic" story had no idea what D&D was beyond the vaguest idea of the game, and a lot of those only knew from an "everyone knows" rumors and secondhand stories version that D&D was evil. It's that kind of "OMG that's racist!" overreactions I'm seeing. In 1998 I had a preacher tell me I wasn't welcome in Church anymore unless I burned all my D&D books and publicly repented my "satanism" before the Congregation. . .when all he knew was that I had a D&D game on Saturday nights, he knew nothing about the game, and wasn't interested in learning or discussing the issue, he just knew it was "satanic". It's that "OMG that's racist!" overreaction that I'm seeing now.
One big reason I have trouble taking this sudden offense over Oriental Adventures seriously is that the actual Asian-American gamers I've known never had a problem with OA. They liked it, heck I knew a Chinese-American family that played 1e OA as their home D&D game for years. They played it, they loved it. The last game I ever played with them was a 3e OA Rokugan game. If "Oriental Adventures" or D&D's various depictions of fantasy-derived Asian cultures was offensive, they sure as heck never voiced it, they were actively suggesting that as the kind of D&D they wanted to play. . .so I've got the RL experience I had, vs. people on the internet getting upset that there's a 35 year old D&D sourcebook that somehow suddenly became offensive.
That would be a notable observation... if the rest of the world already operated symmetrically. But it doesn't. The socio-economic differences in the real world are relevant to the situation.
If a bunch of European-descended folks want to put their own ancestry in a blender, that's their own lookout, and folks of European extraction should be free to critique that blendering. We don't usually see such complaints because 1) it is seen as their own culture in the blender, and they have some right to do that with it, and 2) because folks of European descent are more often well-respected enough in general that this bit of disrespect is easy to put up with.
If a bunch of European-descended folks put someone else's culture in a blender, for their own profit, while broadly around them the people of that culture are not really treated with respect... that's a problem. They don't really have a stake in the culture they are using, and they are "punching down," so to speak.
There is a kind of kindergarten lesson to be learned here - you won't be allowed to play with other people's toys if you are mean to the people, and tend to abuse their toys.
And, yes, the big kid on the playground will tend to see this as "unfair" when it gets enforced.
darjr
I crit!
@wingsandsword if you really read my post you liked you’d see it isn’t a “sudden” issue with OA.
I know it seems that way to you but it’s been an issue for me and others for a while.
I know it seems that way to you but it’s been an issue for me and others for a while.
How many is that, exactly? Do you want to claim your personal experince is a representative sample?
I'm pretty sure this has been the point. A lot of good people do things or say thing or act in ways that are unintentionally racist or at the very least, unintentional hurtful to some people. It doesn't mean they are bad people or that they need to be shunned or "cancelled" or anything like that... merely that other folks can and should point it out to them that "Hey, that thing you did? It kinda hurt me when you did it."
It's then up to that person to decide whether or not they care that they hurt the other person. If they don't... if they think the other person had no reason to "be offended" or that it was stupid that they were hurt... that's fine. They can behave however they like. Hell... that's how our societies have always behaved so it's not like this is some new idea.
But they just need to know and realize that eventually what goes around comes around and who knows what the future will bring? If the short-term gain of getting to behave how they want now is worth the risk of how people may seem them in the future... that's on them. But they shouldn't be at all surprised if in the long-term, sometime down the line more people step up and say "Nuh uh!" and they now finds themselves in greater trouble. Especially if they aren't willing to acknowledge the mistake they made previously.
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