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

[Khelon Testudo]

This is another place where I actually see the opposite problem. The issue I see withnit it that it pretends that "asia" is just China, Japan, Korea, Mongolia, Vietnam, etc and kind of ignores the fact that India, Pakistan, and most of Russia by area are in Asia as well

I don't know. Is that how India, Pakistan and Russia see themselves? I know that the British tend to see it that way, calling India "South Asian", for example. I'm not sure if Indians see it that way. I know in Australia we only refer to what you'd call "East Asia" as Asia, and suspect that's true of Americans. At the very least it's a definitional difference.

 

[Umbran]

Stereotypes are bad.

Unfortunately, our brains and language cannot operate without them. Our brains cannot physically deal with only specifics for every object we encounter. We do not have the processing power for that. So we have to make generalizations. "Apple". "Hedgehog". "Car". All stereotypes. That all stereotyeps are bad is itself... an inaccurate stereotype.

So, no, not all stereotypes are bad, nor is all use of stereotypes bad. "I like Cajun food," is a perfectly acceptable thing to say.

It is where stereotype intersects with people that we run into problems, and those generalizations tend to fail us, because people, being dynamic, often defy those generalizations in ways that apples don't - so using them with respect to people often leads to inaccurate judgements and results that are harmful.

 

[SkidAce]

Yeah. Greenwood's kind of a hack.

Was this a serious statement or sarcasm?

 

[Bohandas]

Was this a serious statement or sarcasm?

Well I think the whole it-also-connects-to-earth thing is kind of hackey

 

[Bohandas]

I think WotC are completely off the rails of late. At this point, I wouldn't buy a WotC product even if I DID want it

Hasboro as a whole has been off the rails for years. I still haven't forgiven them for D&D 4e and the third season of My Little Pony.

 

[Umbran]

I don't find it obvious that positive stereotypes are harmful.

Stereotypes are cognitive tools.

Any tool can be used in a harmful manner.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

While the same kind of disrespect is totally ok when directed at "white" cultures...

If you’re mad about inaccurate Viking analogues, speak up in your own thread. Don’t try to derail a conversation about AoE thing else.

 

[Bohandas]

It's fantasy. If I want Italian Ninja Halflings in a book, it's my call.

I would very much like to buy that book

 

[PsyzhranV2]

I'm a person of Chinese descent living in Singapore, and my view is very likely coloured by my being in a relative position of privilege in my country: upper middle class in a majority ethnic Chinese country.

I was probably in my mid-teens when I got my copy of Oriental Adventures. I had already been playing D&D (specifically, 1E/AD&D) for some time and I was also familiar with Unearthed Arcana. So, I saw nothing wrong with the Comeliness attribute or racial ability score penalties and maximums. To me, they were part of D&D as a whole, and not something specifically "exotic" or "oriental".

To me, it was just another sourcebook. I was more interested in investigating the powergaming potential of a kensai/ninja character than whether the korobokuru portrayed the Japanese in an unflattering light. For that matter, I would no more equate the korobokuru with Japanese than I would dwarves with Germans, elves with the French, or halflings with Italians (despite drawing heavily on German, French and Italian cultures and accents to portray dwarves, elves and halflings in my games).

More to the point, it was a sourcebook written by Westerners viewing Eastern cultures through a Western lens. Of course they would get something wrong. Anyway, my teenage self's reaction wasn't to be offended. It was more along the lines of: fancy getting that wrong. You really should have done better research. Heh heh heh.

That said, I would encourage those gamers who feel more strongly about it than I do to actually create material that is more repectful of and more accurately portrays Asian culture. One of the great advantages of this day and age is that you don't need to be a major publishing company to make your creations accessible.

As for me, I'm currently working on a paladin solo campaign and I sincerely hope the Westerners (and the French in particular) don't criticize it for not being respectful of the Twelve Peers of Charlemagne.

Yeah, that tracks. I can see where you're coming from.

Others in the thread have already discussed the difference in experience and worldview between Asian peoples living in countries where their culture/ethnicity is the majority, and disapora Asians of all stripes living in the West, which is definitely a contributing factor between our differing views.

I will admit though; had this conversation been happening a couple of years prior, I probably would have said something along the same lines as you. Even now, I can't say that I'm viscerally "offended" by WotC's work here, but while right now I intellectually think it has a lot of problems, younger me wouldn't have cared at all. It's only in the past year or so that I've become interested in decolonial theory, and even then my area of focus is on Black and Indigenous (lack of) voices, both in real life and in media. Asian representation in Western media is something I've only recently been seriously thinking on.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

How often will you hire a sensitivity reader when he finds nothing? No, in order to ensure future employment he has to find something to show that you need sensitivity reader.

Wild speculation based on willful ignorance of the topic.