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

[briggart]

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.

But several times the reason they stated something would be problematic to an Asian reader, it was because of how they though those fit within the AD&D context. So if the point of the video was to explain to somebody lacking the proper cultural context why OA is problematic, I don't think they made a good job.

To give you a specific example, in my native language (Italian) there is a single word denoting both eastern and oriental, so finding out that oriental has a negative connotation in US, but eastern is a (relatively?) neutral term was pretty puzzling*. I started watching the videos because I was interested in a better understanding of the issue, but most of the times I felt that they stated that something was problematic, but they failed to explain why.

* The only explanation I came up with was that given that Oriental literally means Rising, there was some association with the Rising Sun flag used by Imperial Japan, and that could be offensive due to WWII.

 

[Mecheon]

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.

Hate speech isn't all of the bad stuff out there. Pushing outdated and harmful stereotypes isn't technically hate speech, but its still far from good

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.

See, what ended up going down for White Wolf is what happens when you throw all of this to the wind and don't care about the impact the books have. It ends up with you causing an international incident

 

[Giltonio_Santos]

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

Before Crawford and the rest of his crew started to show up with a dozen UA surveys indicating that this is bad for the game, we used to have our supplements full of wacky subsystems just because we could. I loved (still love) that.

 

[toucanbuzz]

...there are 13 parts each nearly 2 hours long. (Although I'm taking the time to watch the first one at least)...

Yeah, they rambled off-topic, a lot. It was not an organized scholarly exposition and that hurts any message they're wanting to send along with randomly nitpicking things like the "comeliness" attribute (which had nothing to do with any asian culture). I watched and tried to summarize because I wanted to get some idea of where the idea originated. I'm also not saying everyone has to agree with all their points. I simply tried to summarize their point-of-view succinctly given the length of the first podcast.

Your counterpoints along with those of others on this forum I hope will be part of a greater conversation WOTC has about whether a product is or is not culturally dated. Ultimately, I hope there are no "knee jerk" reactions but rather an in depth discussion, such as whether the term "oriental" is actually an offensive term that would deserve a "tag" like certain Disney movies my kids watch.

 

[Bagpuss]

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?

Erm but you effectively did with the Paladin code, those were the chivalric knights. They had all sorts of restrictions and rules they had to live by.

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?

Because Baldur's Gate to Cormyr was like moving from the UK to Germany (it's barely 700 miles away), very similar culturally. Exotic literally means" originating in or characteristic of a distant foreign country" not your neighbour. Kara-tur is distant.

 

[MGibster]

As an Asian, I stand with Margaret Cho: "I think what it is is that white people like to tell Asians how to feel."

When I was in high school, back when Clinton was in office and Aerosmith's "Livin' on the Edge" was rocking the airwaves, I had to come up with a survey as part of a group project for my sociology class. I cannot for the life of me remember what the survey questions were, but we did ask for respondents to check a little box for race and we included Oriental as an option. One of our sources was of Asian descent and told us that our use of Oriental was wrong. She was polite about it but told us we should have used Asian.

From an editorial in the Chicago Tribune by J. Tsuchiyama: "As an Oriental, I am bemused. Apparently Asians are supposed to feel demeaned if someone refers to us as Orientals. But good luck finding a single Asian American who has ever had the word spat at them in anger. Most Asian Americans have had racist epithets hurled at them at one time or another...But Oriental isn't in the canon. [/QUOTE]

For what it's worth, probably not much I know, but I used to play some Oriental Adventures AD&D with an Asian kid back when we were all wearing Hammer pants and those pale girls with the dark lipstick were really into Edward Scissorhands. If he or his parents were unhappy about the name nobody ever said anything.

Like many things, I guess some people are okay with it and others aren't. I generally don't refer to people as oriental though. Just in case. Generally can't offend someone with Asian. I bet someone might prove me wrong on that last point though.

 

[Giltonio_Santos]

Hate speech isn't all of the bad stuff out there. Pushing outdated and harmful stereotypes isn't technically hate speech, but its still far from good

Man, the book is from 1985, isn't it? I have shown my support for WotC to make changes like the one they're making to Curse of Strahd, for example. Also, I stand by my statement that Zeb Cook may have failed once you look 30 years in the future, but he still tried to present the source at the best light he could. I doubt it that Perkins somehow believed that presenting the Vistani as a bunch of lazy drunks was the best light he could bring to the culture that inspired them.

Is OA an outdated book? Both in flavor and mechanics, really. Is it harmful? In a world where Mein Kampf is still in print, even if only for academic study, calling a book harmful because it allowed some 80's teenagers to run a crossover between D&D and their favorite Ninja movies is more harmful than the book itself.

 

[Mercurius]

Bidding on my copy of Oriental Adventures in good to very good condition starts at $666.

 

[Bagpuss]

If you’re one of those people who only pop up in this type of thread, we’ll likely be asking you to leave in the near future.

Sorry. Can I help it if I find these topics more engaging than if this or that class/spell is balanced, what's the best/worst XXX?

You get some decent debate in topics like these, you get some unreasonable types as well, but generally here I think you have a nicer class of discussion.

 

[Mecheon]

Is OA an outdated book? Both in flavor and mechanics, really. Is it harmful? It a world where Mein Kampf is still in print, even if only for academic study, calling a book harmful because it allowed some 80's teenagers to run a crossover between D&D and their favorite Ninja movies is more harmful than the book itself.

I mean, in the grand scheme of things its not the most harmful thing. But it has problems, and presenting as-is with no commentary isn't the best look

Slap in a one page "This is presented as is from 1985 for the purposes of just putting it out there" and I think most issues would be resolved