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

[Giltonio_Santos]

Its hardly book burning.

I wouldn't say it's the handbook definition of book burning because there are no physical objects or fire involved, but it's probably the nearest you'll get from burning digital books. We don't even have other expression for what it is. If you want to keep any book that does not reproduce hate speech out of the market just because you don't like the content, I wouldn't be kind to call you anything but a book burner, sorry.

Its moreso "WotC leaving these up there is sort of a bygone conclusion they are completely fine with the content of this book being publicly available with no warnings or comments about it".

I'm not against a disclaimer in the product page but I hope they never put it inside the book, though. I wouldn't like to have to go through the work of removing it before printing my copy. The DRM watermark is already bad enough.

And OA is a mess

And who'll get to decide what's a mess? I hope it's not the Catholic Church again. They didn't appear to have the best criteria the last time.

 

[Voadam]

I am a fan of putting the explanatory page at the front (like was brought up elsewhere with Gone with the Wind). If the issue is making money from it, then donating the proceeds to charity or putting it at a no-profit price point would fix that.

I am not a fan of putting in extra stuff into the book itself. If one were to add something the text of the OA PDF sales page seems much more appropriate. People would then be alerted before buying about the content, rather than having it show up afterwards.

 

[Sadras]

I am a fan of putting the explanatory page at the front (like was brought up elsewhere with Gone with the Wind). If the issue is making money from it, then donating the proceeds to charity or putting it at a no-profit price point would fix that.

I have no objections to including an explanatory page at the front or include it as a loose page.
And I do believe there is a slippery slope here despite what others may believe - so they might as well slap it on every movie and book before 2020, let's stop with the recalling and removals, and let's call it a day.

 

[Chaosmancer]

No one is bringing up how racist Faerun is (it isn't) they are pointing out if you treat Asia the same as you've treated Europe, that isn't being racist. If you treat both cultures by the same method of cherry picking the cool weapons, armour and myths and ignoring the bits of culture you don't find useful to the heroic adventure stories you want to tell with D&D, then it isn't racist. It is just how you treat the source material in general, you take all the cool interesting naughty word you find and throw it in a blender and there's your setting.

Applying different methods to Asia than Europe would be racists, treating both cultures in the same way isn't. It isn't an issue to cherry pick with Europe and it isn't an issue to then do the same with Asia.

Okay, but who here has actually advocated for something extreme?

Let me give an example.

Faerun has knights right? Knights are from about three different cultures that I can pinpoint from memory, but they all were nobles, heavily armored, and served kings.

Samurai? To my knowledge, a Samurai was very much a Japanese style of knight. I'm sure the Chinese had something similar in a heavily armored warrior, but I'm not familiar with it. But, if I'm going to have a Chinese style Imperial Bureaucracy, I don't think calling the heavily armed nobles Samurai is any better than calling them Knights.

OR, how about that Honor system. Because Samurai were super honorable right? Well... knights have a Chivalric code and were also highly honorable in myth and legend, so why is it we only need an Honor System when dealing with Samurai or other Far East tropes, and not when dealing with Knights?


So, I fully agree, treat them both the exact same way. If you've got a heavily [blank] influenced culture, use their terms for things. If you are going to a new land, don't go calling it "exotic" or "mysterious" . We don't say that the people from Baldur's Gate are going to the "Exotic and Mysterious land of Cormyr, where honorable warriors on horseback duel in great jousts" So why say it for Kara-tur?

PoP culturism is also fascinating. I didn't know we were now striving for realism and accuracy within D&D.
Cannot wait for you to start the petition to rename the Medusa a Gorgon.

Why not, it be better than the Iron Bull we currently have. (I still don't know what myth that is supposed to be from)

 

[Olrox17]

I have no issue with adding a disclaimer at the start of the book, pointing out how oriental adventures is a product of its time and may offend some modern sensibilities.
I am completely and utterly against removing the book. I'm also against editing it: this is a 35 years old book, the ink is dry. Let it go.

 

[Mecheon]

I wouldn't say it's the handbook definition of book burning because there are no physical objects or fire involved, but it's probably the nearest you'll get from burning digital books. We don't even have other expression for what it is. If you want to keep any book that does not reproduce hate speech out of the market just because you don't like the content, I wouldn't be kind to call you anything but a book burner, sorry.

"Saying no to reprinting problematic nonsense that people have issues with and I specifically do not have issues with, and am ignoring the issues the communities affected are having, is book burning" is a pretty dang hot-take, mate.

My view is "Let's listen to the people affected and adjust as necessary" so we're going to be very disagreeing on this, but I'm also following that up with "You're being utterly ludicrous"

I'm not against a disclaimer in the product page but I hope they never put it inside the book, though. I wouldn't like to have to go through the work of removing it before printing my copy. The DRM watermark is already bad enough.

Its a PDF. Just slot in an extra page, call it a day.

And who'll get to decide what's a mess? I hope it's not the Catholic Church again. They didn't appear to have the best criteria the last time.

I mean, the D&D community over time pretty much hasn't cared much about OA as a rulebook, and given people from the affected communities (IE: Asians) are calling this book out, I'd say we're two for two on this one

Why not, it be better than the Iron Bull we currently have. (I still don't know what myth that is supposed to be from)

Its the Catoblepas. Some book somewhere gave it the name of Gorgon and it just spread from there

 

[Sadras]

OR, how about that Honor system. Because Samurai were super honorable right? Well... knights have a Chivalric code and were also highly honorable in myth and legend, so why is it we only need an Honor System when dealing with Samurai or other Far East tropes, and not when dealing with Knights?

For Flavour. A dirty mechanic to make it distinctly different. How is Honour now identified as something negative?
Eurocentric Knights - Christianity - sinful to commit suicide.
I am not well verse in Japanese history or culture, only the little I have read or seen on tv (so all pop-culture), but Samurai could commit seppuku.

 

[Giltonio_Santos]

"Saying no to reprinting problematic nonsense that people have issues with and I specifically do not have issues with, and am ignoring the issues the communities affected are having, is book burning" is a pretty dang hot-take, mate.

Well, if you cannot see for yourself how dangerous it is to pressure for books that contain no actual hate speech to be removed from the market because someone has issues with them, I won't be the one to open your eyes.

I just want White Wolf to know that if they ever decide to apologize for Rage Across the Amazon, I'd prefer my part to me issued as product credit at the Storytellers Vault.

 

[Derren]

For Flavour. A dirty mechanic to make it distinctly different. How is Honour now identified as something negative?
Eurocentric Knights - Christianity - sinful to commit suicide.
I am not well verse in Japanese history or culture, only the little I have read or seen on tv (so all pop-culture), but Samurai could commit seppuku.

Also, which class is the stereotypical knight? The paladin. And what happens when the paladin messes up?

So much for them not having a honor system.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Its the Catoblepas. Some book somewhere gave it the name of Gorgon and it just spread from there

Huh, neat. Especially since we also have the Catoblepas (and it is a cool monster)

For Flavour. A dirty mechanic to make it distinctly different.

I'm sorry, why does it have to be different? We don't need it for Euro-centric games where honor was also a thing (think noblemen dueling at dawn) so why do we need it here? Why does it need to be different

Eurocentric Knights - Christianity - sinful to commit suicide.
I am not well verse in Japanese history or culture, only the little I have read or seen on tv (so all pop-culture), but Samurai could commit seppuku.

There is a lot more to seppuku than that, and also if that is the only difference between the two groups, then again, why a new system?