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

[wingsandsword]

I'm 10 pages into comments, but please listen to the podcast with Mr. Kwan that points out the stereotypes first before you get upset about why they feel the book needs to go. It's 2 hours long and they don't get far in those 2 hours, so if you don't have the time, here's a summary of some points:

1. Written by white guys from America who had good intentions (to spotlight asian culture) but through lack of understanding actually diminished a culture by turning it into an absurd stereotype.
2. They explain why the term "oriental" is an outdated offensive term. It was once (perhaps still?) used by white people, in media and literature, to portray anyone from the "east" as one and the same and the "east" as a place of "violence, fanaticism, and needing to be saved."
3. Asians are all about honor and mysticism and martial arts.
4. Asians are about Dexterity, not Strength. The original book had Intelligence limits on certain types of asian characters.

I don't agree with completely erasing the book from history, but I do agree that HBO, Disney, and others are right to tag things as containing outdated and/or offensive cultural references. D&D can do the same.

Those are some pretty ridiculous reasons.

1. D&D is built on absurd stereotypes. The game focuses on character classes, which are inherently stereotypes. D&D settings are usually pretty stereotyped as is, and that includes places based on European culture.

2. Getting that much in a tizzy over the title is just looking for something to be offended by. Yeah, it's an archaic term, but as others had pointed out, it's never been used as a slur.

3. A book that provides a gaming setting for D&D focusing on parts of east-Asian culture that are highly condusive to an action-adventure game and play to popular media of the time's focuses? Wow, who would have thought it. Clearly OA needed to have more focus on large families and bureaucracy, other things that have a place in some East Asian cultures that would have made for a lousy game book, but wouldn't have offended people decades later.

4. 1e AD&D was all about various limits (ability scores, levels etc). Note that it doesn't apply those limits to HUMANS. They were for some demihumans, you'd see similar limits on demihumans in regular D&D's European-inspired characters. It's literally treating demihumans from those cultures the same way European-inspired characters were, with ability score limits and level limits.

Seriously, this is all about one guy with a podcast trying to drive up hype for his podcast by looking for things to complain about.

 

[billd91]

So I checked and there are 9 5e Monster Manuals in the system, none for any other edition. Its funny, I checked out a 3e MM II about a decade or so ago, must have been purged at some point.

It probably wore out. A life of circulation can be hard on books, particularly popular ones.

 

[wingsandsword]

No.

What on earth made you think that?

Because that sure seems to be what people are offended by.

They're getting upset that OA relied on stereotypes and presented a fairly superficial look at a fantasy version of East-Asian culture, instead of being some detailed monograph on a fantasy culture derived from East-Asian cultures but didn't use anything that could be called stereotypical.

 

[Bedrockgames]

I posted in the other thread on this, but my view is a robust discussion and debate is fine. That is healthy in any hobby. Where I have issue issue is the call to take the product down. To me that gets much more into censorship territory. I also think overall, in discussions like this there is less and less room for reasonable disagreement over the details (whether something is offensive, whether the context of the times are important, whether it is okay for something to be dated in this respect, and still be okay to enjoy, etc). Good people can disagree about the right and wrong of something, and even people who agree on the right and wrong, can disagree about the best solutions.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

Those are some pretty ridiculous reasons.

...

Seriously, this is all about one guy with a podcast trying to drive up hype for his podcast by looking for things to complain about.

I don't think that this is fair. Based upon his twitter feed, I think that he has issues with the presentations of Asian cultures and stereotypes in D&D, and I think that those are fair criticisms. He has thought about these issue a fair amount.

I also think that he has additional issues with how 5e touched on the issue of Kara Tur and Honor (however briefly). But I don't think he ever experienced OA (given my assumptions about his age and experience) and is likely tracing back his current feelings about D&D over the last decade to this- a product that I'm guessing (?) was released before he was even born.

Again, his feelings are personal and valid. And I would support having a disclaimer on the book. Just not removal.

 

[Sacrosanct]

It took literally 30 seconds for me to find it in the Boston Public Library's website. Have a nice day.

Let's be honest here though. Have you ever actually seen the book? It made Unearthed Arcana look like a well made quality book by comparison. If a library does have a copy, I guarantee it's bound together by duct tape and nails, and will probably disintegrate the next time someone actually tries to read it.

 

[billd91]

Those are some pretty ridiculous reasons.

<snip>

Seriously, this is all about one guy with a podcast trying to drive up hype for his podcast by looking for things to complain about.

Whenever there is a detailed analysis of something, it's always from one person's perspective - so there's almost always going to be something another perspective will disagree with. That's the nature of the process. There will be things to nitpick over, there will be points that aren't cogent.

But there will also be points that are. The term oriental is broadly considered problematic. The maximum intelligence, not so much in the context of AD&D overall.

One thing to consider is that any time the podcasters misunderstand something within the AD&D context (like the stat tables), you're probably misunderstanding something within the Asian reader context.

 

[Reynard]

I don't think the world is going to fall apart if every single person cannot instantly have a copy of an outmoded game book from 1985 for a game that is no longer supported in their hands quickly. If that's how we handled history, we would be literally buried in items of the past, with no room for the present, much less the future.

Look, pal, I don't know where you're from, but in America we don't suffer minimal inconveniences for the benefit of others, especially anyone marginalized or under represented. So take that respect, compassion and civic duty back to where you came from!

 

[Aldarc]

I suspect there will be some sellers of Oriental Adventures on eBay who are very happy about the speculative conjecture of OA no longer being published by WotC.

 

[briggart]

No.

What on earth made you think that?

The article linked in the OP?

While the book was a best-seller at the time, none of its writers were Asian and the book has been heavily criticized by Asian fans and designers for its liberal use of stereotypes of various Asian cultures and by mixing those cultures together to form one homogenized fictional culture meant to represent an entire continent's worth of cultures.

The twitter posts referenced in the article?

If you disagree, you have clearly never had a piece of pop culture harm you. Books like this take my culture, oversimplify the nuances that make it beautiful, mash it together with other cultural reductions, and present it as THE WAY others should view our stories.

I understand there are other issues in play, but the fact that OA was not a nuanced and accurate representation of Asian cultures seems to be a central point of the discussion.