D&D General (Anecdotal) conversations with Asian gamers on some problems they currently face in the D&D world of RPG gaming

[Mercurius]

Not everybody agrees the world is round apparently, so whether or not everybody agrees with something would seem to be a poor metric for determining its validity.

The vast majority of people agree that the world is round. Do the vast majority agree that D&D is built on colonialist assumptions?

(By the way, I personally think that D&D has colonialist assumptions, although my solution is less to get rid of those but to broaden the scope of the game, thus this thread).

 

[Bedrockgames]

I mean, the roundness of the earth is pretty hotly contested. It’s just that the people who contest it do so on an irrational, anti-intellectual basis. Again, something being contested doesn’t speak to its validity per se.

Yes, but the roundness of the earth is an objective fact. When you are dealing with the roots of a genre, and applying an idea like colonialism to a game, you are in much more subjective territory. Once again, I really don't think it is worth getting into here. Just pointing out a lot of people don't buy this argument, and they have well thought out reasons for not buying into it. People can look at the old threads to see the different points of view and decide where they fall. But I don't think "D&D is built on a colonialist framework" is anywhere near an objective fact like the roundness of the earth.

 

[Charlaquin]

“This time it’s different.”

The cry of everyone who knew better about what speech should be allowed.

I can’t even. You just used a bunch of buzzwords to say, “Speech I agree with is great, speech I don’t needS to be banned.”

Given the terrible provenance of this type of argument, and how often it has been used to suppress speech and minorities, I cannot and will not agree with this.

My, or anyone else’s “agreement” with the speech in question is not the metric being used here. There are plenty of things I disagree with that I would never advocate for censoring. The key issue is not agreement or disagreement with the speech in question, but its material effects. It is disturbing to me that the difference between censoring material that contains same-sex romance and removing a book that perpetuates racist stereotypes is not immediately obvious to you.

 

[Charlaquin]

The vast majority of people agree that the world is round. Do the vast majority agree that D&D is built on colonialist assumptions?

I don’t much care what the majority of people think. Argument ad Populum is fallacious logic, which is the point I was using the hyperbolic example of flat-earthers to illustrate.

Yes, but the roundness of the earth is an objective fact. When you are dealing with the roots of a genre, and applying an idea like colonialism to a game, you are in much more subjective territory. Once again, I really don't think it is worth getting into here. Just pointing out a lot of people don't buy this argument, and they have well thought out reasons for not buying into it. People can look at the old threads to see the different points of view and decide where they fall. But I don't think "D&D is built on a colonialist framework" is anywhere near an objective fact like the roundness of the earth.

I’m just saying “not everybody agrees with this” is not an argument, much less a refutation of my assertion. If you want to argue my point, go ahead. If you want to point to arguments you have made against it elsewhere, go ahead. But simply saying “not everyone agrees” doesn’t add anything to the conversation.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

My, or anyone else’s “agreement” with the speech in question is not the metric being used here. There are plenty of things I disagree with that I would never advocate for censoring. The key issue is not agreement or disagreement with the speech in question, but its material effects. It is disturbing to me that the difference between censoring material that contains same-sex romance and removing a book that perpetuates racist stereotypes is not immediately obvious to you.

And it is equally disturbing to me that you are using the exact same language and arguments that was used to suppress art featuring same-sex characters and trans characters, and somehow saying that this time it's okay. Because the cause is good.

It used to be that I heard that same argument, except it was "for the children." You can't have same sex characters (let alone trans ones) because ... what would the children think?

Your speech censorship was used to hurt people I know and love in the past, and to the extent you haven't picked up this yet, yes, I am 1000% angry with people like you.

Your blasé "know better" attitude has had serious harmful effects. and I will never allow people like you to once again decide what is appropriate for other people.

 

[Remathilis]

Eh, not a mistake, just built on a colonialist framework. As is much in our modern world. It’ll take work to deconstruct and rebuild on better foundations, but it’s work worth doing.

You're advocating tearing down a forty-year old house to the studs and rebuilding. That's not remodeling, that's rebuilding a different house. A a certain point, it's worth asking if a new house is just a wiser investment.

 

[Charlaquin]

And it is equally disturbing to me that you are using the exact same language and arguments that was used to suppress art featuring same-sex characters and trans characters, and somehow saying that this time it's okay. Because the cause is good.

Someone made the argument that depicting same-sex and trans characters was oppressive to minority groups? Seems like a pretty easy argument to discredit if so.

It used to be that I heard that same argument, except it was "for the children." You can't have same sex characters (let alone trans ones) because ... what would the children think?

That is a meaningfully different argument than I am making, and easily recognizable as such.

Your speech censorship was used to hurt people I know and love in the past, and to the extent you haven't picked up this yet, yes, I am 1000% angry with people like you.

Your blasé "know better" attitude has had serious harmful effects. and I will never allow people like you to once again decide what is appropriate for other people.

I’m not claiming to “know better” than anyone else. I’m stating that there is a meaningful and clear difference between suppressing representation of oppressed groups and removing racist content from sale.

If you’re so worried that removing OA from sale is going to harm people as the LGBTQIA community has been harmed by censorship, maybe explain who you think would be harmed and how instead of just drawing false equivalences.

 

[Charlaquin]

You're advocating tearing down a forty-year old house to the studs and rebuilding. That's not remodeling, that's rebuilding a different house. A a certain point, it's worth asking if a new house is just a wiser investment.

That’s a fair point, and I would say it’s certainly worth consideration. Also worth consideration is that a lot of people are very attached to D&D. I think a rebuild of D&D would be more widely embraced than a brand new game.

 

[Panda-s1]

For the record, and for clarity and to head off any assumptions, the above is my position that I posted the other day.

okay, again, you can't just say "this Asian person isn't offended!" and then pretend this is some sort of gray area. let's unpack this article:

It is now politically incorrect to use the word “Oriental,

okay first line and we're already off to a bad start.

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: [lmao]. But Oriental isn’t in the canon.

you don't have to be called something insultingly for that something to be a problem. language can be racist even if it's not a slur. there's a certain scientific term that was used to refer to black people that's now considered incredibly offensive, but I don't think I've ever heard of people hurling that word at black people to disparage them. I'm not sure if the Asian equivalent term was used as an insult either OH WAIT

And why should it be? Literally, it means of the Orient or of the East, as opposed to of the Occident or of the West.

okay last I checked I can buy a book called Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting, not Occidental Adventures, but sure.

The problem with “Oriental,” San Francisco Chronicle columnist Jeff Yang told NPR, is that “When you think about it, the term … feels freighted with luggage. You know, it’s a term which you can’t think of without having that sort of the smell of incense and the sound of a gong kind of in your head.” In other words it makes Asians sound exotic because it was in circulation at a time when exoticizing stereotypes were prevalent.

“In the U.S., the term ‘Oriental’ has been used to reinforce the idea that Asians were/are forever foreign and could never become American. These ideas helped to justify immigration exclusion, racial discrimination and violence, political disfranchisement and segregation.” Lee also claimed that continued use of the term “perpetuates inequality, disrespect, discrimination and stereotypes towards Asian Americans.”

yes, exactly, "Oriental" is a dated term that carries a lot of racist baggage. we already say Asian or East Asian (also Southeast Asian) so it's not like dropping it is a radical idea either.

I don’t see it that way; I see self-righteous, fragile egos eager to find offense where none is intended.

oh right, I forgot, we're just being too sensitive

A wave of anti-Oriental discrimination is not sweeping the country.

this hasn't aged well

Are we really going to waste time, energy and millions of dollars to rebrand our entire discipline — rename our schools and boards, redesign corporate identities, websites and publications and send out thousands of revised diplomas — all to wipe away an insult that doesn’t exist?

yeah, this happens all the time. it also happens when things get updated and replaced, it's disingenuous to paint a picture of wasting "millions of dollars" to replace stuff you were probably going to replace anyway, it's not an enormous undertaking to replace "Oriental" with "East Asian" while you're at it. "but what about branding?" same with branding, people change brand identities and advertising strategies all the time, this is probably especially the case with alternative medicine as opinions can shift drastically over time.

We have more important things to worry about. Big pharma is busy patenting[...]

and she ends with a red herring. hmm.

I had to look up who Jayne Tsuchiyama was and her practice is now labelled as "Eastern medicine", and I'm not sure she's entirely aware of anti-Asian racism in this country. she's not exactly a prominent voice in the Asian American community, but that's not the real issue I guess.

look, if East Asian people aren't a hive mind (and clearly we're not) you can still do better than taking a neutral stance and letting the status quo continue. you can educate yourself about Asian American history (especially the history of the mid to late 20th century) and maybe you can understand why you shouldn't just take a neutral stance because this one Asian person thought it was okay.

 

[Remathilis]

That’s a fair point, and I would say it’s certainly worth consideration. Also worth consideration is that a lot of people are very attached to D&D. I think a rebuild of D&D would be more widely embraced than a brand new game.

I think Pathfinder proves you wrong. (Though to be fair, while I'm not familiar with 2e, I know 1e suffers a lot of the sins of it's father). There could be a market for the kind of D&D that is free of the legacy of 5+ editions of bad tropes and that doesn't have an audience of Grognards fighting for status quo.

It won't be easy, but perhaps a project that picks up where WotC has failed might just be what brings the needed change. After all, without Pathfinder, we'd all still be playing 4e...