WotC Dungeons & Dragons Fans Seek Removal of Oriental Adventures From Online Marketplace

[billd91]

How well did that work? Did that "slippery slope" end up removing all traces of sexually charged and casual misogyny in music and comedy heading into the 90s? Uh... nope. The worst we got is having "Parental Advisory - Explicit Lyrics" plastered on the front of all the CD cases. Ooh boy! What a hardship that was!

Hold on a minute there. That label was enough for some pretty big outlets like Walmart to refuse to stock the material - and that most likely did affect potential sales. Same with NC-17 ratings for movies because big rental places like Blockbuster would refuse to carry them. Warning labels and ratings may seem pretty small potatoes, but they can have significant effects thanks to the nature of the marketplace in which they appear.

In a case like this, I think a disclaimer statement on Oriental Adventures isn't a bad way to move forward because I don't think there's a strong likelihood of it causing trouble due to the lack of an independent gatekeeping "family-friendly" retail outlet (like Walmart or Blockbuster) to screw it over.

 

[jasper]

Solution. Break D&D down by countries. License each country to come up with their version of D&D books. These books will not available to be use in the countries they not license for. Kind like the region locks on bluerays etc.

 

[Voadam]

I wrote this in another thread.

I’m of Japanese descent. I was thrilled in my youth when I heard about that book. Actually getting it was, well I don’t own a copy now nor will I ever. I don’t wan’t to see it go down the memory hole, however. What I want? Is an authentic treatment of Japanese myth done D&D style. Same for Chinese myth and Korean, and several others. Done with respect and including experts from those cultures.

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 liked Rokugan for a D&Dified fantasy Japan similar to Nyambe for fantasy African D&D and Hamunaptra for fantasy Ancient Egyptian D&D.

I cannot say whether or not they were written with experts from Japan or Africa though.

 

[Guest 6801328]

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.

Really I thought this should be obvious. And yet the argument you are refuting keeps coming up. Again and again and again.

 

[Derren]

Well, as soon as the Black, Asian or Hispanic cultures of the world produce a product that stereotypes White cultures in a less-than-informed way... you will be more than free to complain about it.

Have you seen any anime?
Also why limit it to those cultures? What about the american culture producing disrespectful content about european cultures? (and vice versa)?

 

[wingsandsword]

How many is that, exactly? Do you want to claim your personal experince is a representative sample?

Well, when I've got a choice between my own personal experience, and people complaining on the internet, then yes, I'll trust what I've seen with my own eyes and ears over people suddenly getting in a tizzy over political correctness out of nowhere.

Reminds me of the Edition Wars. People out in the real world were telling me that 4e was terrible and a flop, that most gamers hated it, that it was a bomb and most players avoided it like the plague. . .but I remember people on ENWorld shouting at me that 4e was a huge hit, that 3e sucked, that only a tiny number of people didn't adopt 4e and love it, and was called all kinds of awful things for not liking it and not switching over to it. I remember having people on here a decade and a half ago sincerely claim that Castles and Crusades was more popular than D&D, based on the enthusiasm they saw on message boards online for C&C.

Yet we see in the long run that one thing the internet is good at is making a small number of angry people seem much larger than they are in real life, whether that's "4e is a huge hit and everyone loves it" or "OA is really racist and most D&D players think so and you're racist if you disagree".

So, when my real-life experiences after a quarter-century of gaming conflict with what someone is suddenly yelling about on a forum post, I'll go with my real-life experience over a small group of fans who suddenly made a crusade out of fighting a 35 year old D&D sourcebook.

 

[Sacrosanct]

One side benefit of threads like these is that whenever someone says something pretty deplorable (not a disagreement of opinion, but something actually totally out of perspective and insulting), I not only get to identify who not to have discourse with, but I also get to see who loves and likes their abhorrent post, and avoid them as well.

 

[billd91]

Really I thought this should be obvious. And yet the argument you are refuting keeps coming up. Again and again and again.

I think part of the problem is that it's not all that obvious, particularly when it comes to things like food, hair styles, and marginal pop-culture products. Where are the lines drawn between cultural diffusion and cultural appropriation? That's not obvious.

 

[Sacrosanct]

As far as the OP, I suppose my solution would be to keep it, but to have a disclaimer. Keep it more for historical and academic reasons, don't charge for it, and have an accompanying explanation on how and why things included are problematic, and company philosophy going forward.

*edit I..e, I think it's better for them to acknowledge the mistake rather than remove it completely as if it never happened. Since WoTC has the IP to it, if they remove it, then it can't be referenced going forward, and I think having it widely available is good for purposes of having discussions around it, and to use it in conversations about how the game has needed to move forward when awareness is increased.

 

[Umbran]

So, when my real-life experiences after a quarter-century of gaming conflict with what someone is suddenly yelling about on a forum post, I'll go with my real-life experience over a small group of fans who suddenly made a crusade out of fighting a 35 year old D&D sourcebook.

It has pointed out repeatedly here that the complaint is not sudden. The only sudden thing is your awareness of it. It is hardly their fault if you weren't paying attention.