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

[Azzy]

"Florida man is crazy!" Same.

As a native Floridian, I can tell you that Florida Man is not just a lazy generalization or stereotype. We have an inordinate amount of ignorant, stupid, and cray-cray in this here over-glorified sandbar.

 

[Bohandas]

The Greek and Hellenistic period you are talking about came to an end around 2,300 years ago.

The wounds Moonsong is talking about regarding Spanish colonialism, that period of history came to an end about 200 years ago.

You are comparing a literal order of magnitude, a difference of over two thousand years.

It's an order of magnitude less, yes, but two-hundred years ago is still TWO HUNDRED YEARS AGO

There's like 3 Aztec or Maya books left total.

Might not be 100% correct but there's very few sources from themselves.

Spanish destroyed the books/scrolls

Yes. The Spanish took offense to their contents. They were not compatible with their ideology.

 

[GreyLord]

Was it something like the second cataclysm that led to the Age of mortals? Or that came later?



Yes, the "end of the world" is often used as a last resort card to traw attention to a product or line that's slowly dying in order to see if it can be saved (and, let's admit, when fresh ideas start to finish). Rarely works, though. I remember something similar was done with Planescape with Faction War.

A little late, but I enjoy Dragonlance so I'm replying.

Dragonlance was missed at first with the changes to various plots of campaign settings. Instead of much occurring they merely updated it with Tales of the Lance box. This had another class and got rid of the level limits that put the higher end of the levels one could get of level 18 (level 18 was no longer the highest level most got in DL, or at least could get).

Then, they decided on the great experiment. They wanted to change it up and progress it. Originally meant to open the setting up to whatever plots the players wanted, TSR went a different direction and changed the entire game for Dragonlance. Instead of AD&D being the game rules, they created the Saga version, also known as the Fifth Age. It was a narrative system driven more by cards and Player and GM storytelling than numbers and dice.

No deities, instead they created Dragonoverlords. Many did not like this.

Eventually 3e and Hasbro/WotC came about and tried to repair the damage...with the Age of Mortals, the War of Souls, and a New Dragonlance Campaign setting book that put it back utilizing the D&D rules of the time period. A lot of it was promoted by one of the original DL writers (Mararet Weiss) and they put out most of the support for the campaign beyond the original campaign setting book.

PS: Yes, there are a lot of generalizations with what I wrote above. I figured you wouldn't want something 10x longer to read in more detail.

 

[Sadras]

@Chaosmancer and @MoonSong I do not believe you'll have anyone against cultural consultants being hired by larger RPG production companies like WotC. Even @The Glen was fortunate enough to have assistance from 1 for his revised Atruaghin Clan Gazetteer.

BUT two things I need to highlight, which you would already know

1 - Hiring cultural consultants is no guarantee, that something will not offend someone.
2 - It is the nature of setting books to cherry pick content from cultures for the RPG fantastical people, to pull flavourful customs, cuisines, peculiarities, superstitions, monsters, mythology and the like. Now if there is a book on Asia, LatinAmerica, Africa, Ancient America - it will not and cannot cover all cultures, all people, all whatever. It will likely be a pastiche that will satisfy a certain page count, enough to slap a title on it. It is not a history text book and not every word is meant to offend.

i.e. the mystical lands of Kara-Tur
IMO, the word mystical is not a word that should be viewed as offensive - it is an evocative word yes, but as gamers we thrive on the use of beautifully evocative words that help bring to life these words in our imagination. It is not meant to slight any nation or culture. There needs to be some understanding on this.

 

[Aldarc]

It's an order of magnitude less, yes, but two-hundred years ago is still TWO HUNDRED YEARS AGO

The United States is still struggling with the wounds of slavery, which ended 155 years ago, and at our current rate, I don't think that the wounds will have healed in 50 years.

 

[Zardnaar]

The United States is still struggling with the wounds of slavery, which ended 155 years ago, and at our current rate, I don't think that the wounds will have healed in 50 years.

Started working on our ones 40 years ago and we never had slavery, Jim Crow or redlining, or segregation.

 

[Bohandas]

The United States is still struggling with the wounds of slavery, which ended 155 years ago, and at our current rate, I don't think that the wounds will have healed in 50 years.

Maybe it would heal if they stopped picking at it

 

[Sadras]

One, the Greeks were huge exporters of Culture, by both trade and military conquest. For the longest time Greek was the Lingua Franca of the Mediterranean. Ancient Greeks were eager to share their culture. Very different case from the Mayans, Nahuas, Zapotecs, Mixtecs and all other inhabitants of the Precolumbian Anahuac, they didn't ask nor choose to share. They were conquered, basically enslaved and then deprived of their own cultural practices. To this day they still struggle to keep their own cultures alive. It is an apples to oranges comparison.

Just as an aside, Greeks were conquered too, in fact their 200 years of independence (1821) after being 400 years under the Ottoman Empire is coming up next year. And those 200 years have not been easy on them.*

* Not going into it as that would be heavily political.

 

[Enevhar Aldarion]

Just as an aside, Greeks were conquered too, in fact their 200 years of independence (1821) after being 400 years under the Ottoman Empire is coming up next year. And those 200 years have not been easy on them.*

* Not going into it as that would be heavily political.

So the 4 years being controlled and crushed by the Germans during WWII did not interrupt that 200 years?

 

[Aldarc]

Maybe it would heal if they stopped picking at it

I'm not sure what you mean here, and I would almost rather not know, because I fear that you are about to shove your foot in your mouth in a spectacularly gruesome manner.