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

[Sadras]

I'm increasingly sad at the voices here on ENWorld who are dead set on dismissing and silencing the opinions of Asian Americans and Asian American gamers in order to hold onto their nostalgia for harmful, orientalist takes on Asian culture and mythology. Not all Asian Americans and Asians agree on what is and isn't harmful and offensive, heck, the various commentators on the "Asians Read" videos don't all agree on various points . . . . but it's clear that the book is highly problematic in how it treats Asian cultures.

Dire Bare, I think, what you may seem to be missing is that it is not clear that the book is highly problematic.

For you to know, I listened to the first podcast and jumped around some of the others. I found their critique of it to be D&D related and not Asian-offense related. The one thing I did learn is the use of the term exotic to fetishize Asian beauty in the eyes of a non-Asian. It is not however, an offense that would inspire a 26 hour podcast - considering all the other media/entertainment during that period.

There are numerous posts by Enworlders far more eloquent and less reactionary than myself, that do a good job in highlighting the many positives of OA. It seems to me, that feelings, have overtaken critical thinking on this and some of the other issues.

And just in case you may have missed it, I'm all for a disclaimer page, even though I honestly do not believe the work is offensive.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

Why not?

If the current depictions of Roma are offensive to current people referenced and shouldn't be promulgated because of this fact why does an earlier publication date make such depictions ok?

Great question. I would answer this by saying that I think of this in terms of a two-part approach.

1. But What if We're Wrong? This is the name of a Chuck Klosterman book from 2016; I don't want to oversell this, but it's a neat little pop-culture approach that's basically a rehash of undergrad 101 concepts like Rawl's Veil of Ignorance and Holmes's Council of Guardians. The long and the short of it is that, well, looking at history (in all fields), people were always wrong. So very wrong. Which means that we are likely to be wrong right now. I've always had that approach when it came to most things; more likely than not, our ideas are going to be wrong, in whole or in part. And the only way forward was to continue to shine a light on what we are thinking, to discuss it openly, and to allow better ideas to thrive and worse ideas to (hopefully, eventually) be discarded.

More concretely, I believe that my positions and assertions are correct. I believe bigotry and racism are wrong. I believe that some books are better than others. I believe that some art is better than other art. I believe that some music is great, and other music is noise. But I do not appoint myself the arbiter of those decisions; I do not allow my self the luxury of thinking that this is the end of history, and I will be correct. And because I don't trust myself to make those decisions, I don't trust anyone else to either. As a fundamental belief and process, my worry that I might be wrong requires that I defend the rights of other people to speak opinions that I disagree with.

2. Even so, racism is bad, but the past is a foreign country; they do things differently there. So on the second part of the analysis, let us assume for a second that I have lifted completely any veil of ignorance. I have become omniscient, and I can extrapolate perfectly that my beliefs today are the correct ones always and forever (something I wish I had when I was getting tattoos). I believe racism and bigotry are bad. I believe slavery is bad. That's pretty unobjectionable, right? Here's the problem- racism, bigotry, and (yes) slavery ... those things happened. A lot. In history. How do I start making those choices? Is it about the creators' issues? I mean, that takes out most of the founding fathers, but also most of the Greeks and Romans. Is it about the text? If we are looking at works that reflect some aspects of bigotry, or misogyny, or racism, or colonialism, or slavery, homophobia, or denigration of religions, or transphobia, or any one of a number of things that I find objectionable, there won't be anything to read, because the works of the past reflect the past, which doesn't have the luxury of the knowledge of the present.

It's a mug's game. The past will always be offensive if we are looking to be offended, because the past should be offensive! We should be able to look at it critically, and understand what it is and what it represents, but if our method of engaging with the past is to shut our eyes and pretend it didn't exist, that's not critically engaging with it.


Now, I would further specify that, pace (1), I continually question my commitment to the values of free speech (which probably have been tried more in the past three years than ever before). What if I'm wrong? Things are, in fact, different now. Another poster in another thread ( @Todd Roybark ) had an excellent and thoughtful post detailing some of the pain that he has dealt with, and that is not something I ignore. Social media and the internet's ubiquity may have made things different. I do not doubt that speech can cause real, measurable, pain. I just have seen, in my own lifetime, the immeasurable progress and benefits that have been gained, sometimes in fits and starts, from this commitment to this principle.

Moving it back to the issue of TTRPGs, I have no objection to people pressuring WoTC to do better; I want them to. I have no objection to people pressuring WoTC to not profit from objectionable material (or to provide the proceeds of said material to a charity, etc.). I have no objection to people pressuring WoTC to providing additional context to historical objectionable material. But as a matter of principle, for me, I strongly object to attempt to permanently remove that historical material, especially given that OA is not even the most objectionable content from the early period ('74 - '89), and was, for its time, much better than most depictions (see also, 16 Candles).

 

[Immeril]

what part of "you can still buy a print copy" do you not understand? that's not piracy. getting a pdf is piracy but has a very different context when that item isn't officially available anymore.

"God complex"? I never said no one should read it, I said WotC should stop selling it. how is that saying others shouldn't read it? keep in mind there are many intact copies that still exist in the world that can be bought online or in physical stores and pdf is fairly easy to find on the internet apart from WotC's storefront. how is me saying they should remove it from their store at all the same as saying no one should read it?

As if banning the book's digital version isn't going to influence the price of the existing physical copies.
And since there isn't hardly any difference (in profit) between WotC selling it and another online store selling it: are you're suggesting that we need to resort to piracy?

You either want everyone to stop selling it (since WotC still gets payed if a customer buys it from another online store), or don't want OA to be removed. There is no inbetween.

 

[GreyLord]

They still have the Orion Black scandal.
They still have the Zaiem Beg scandal.
They still have the #FireMikeMearls scandal.
They still have the ProJared / AtelierHeidi scandal.
They still have the Lizbeth Eden scandal.
They still have the Terese Nielson / Autumn Burchett scandal.
They still have the Noah Bradley scandal.
They still have to deal with "orcs are always evil and they kinda seem to be de-humanized in ways that minorities have historically been de-humanized".
They still have to deal with "alignment isn't absolute".
They still have to deal with "we should've called them ancestries and not races and we shouldn't have modifiers that make races physically predetermined".

And that's just stuff new within the past year.

But, nope! Let's stop and deal with stupid 1e Oriental Adventures! Can the community come up with a lower bar? An easier target? A less relevant issue? A scandal less likely to actually impact the future of the hobby? Some aspect of the game that fewer people know and care about and are outraged by? Probably not. Oh, wait. We could complain about the orange Palace of the Silver Princess again.

It took me awhile to figure it out, but this is what actually infuriates me. There are massive systemic issues at WotC and major issues with the current edition of the rules in print right now that WotC is using to attract new players to the hobby that need attention. And you want them to stop and deal with a 1e book that just doesn't matter anymore. You want to fight over the name of a public building or a book from 40 years ago. That's as symbolic and toothless as you can possibly make your progress. Fight over the murder of a black woman by police who still haven't been arrested. Fight over the fact that there are daily protest marches in every city that aren't covered by the media. Fight over the systemic racial and gender discrimination problems at the company producing your current and future content. Aim for maximum change instead of exhausting the momentum with minutiae that won't actually move the needle.

And, yeah, I'm sure to Asian players it does feel like a big issue and they genuinely do find it very offensive. But, I'm sorry, it's really not a huge problem right now. You could've been complaining and pushing about this for years, and you probably have been but nobody was listening. Instead it's just coming up now when it feels like it's just not that critical because the books haven't been relevant in so very long and the number of bigger scandals coming out is just ridiculous.

This is very similar to the reason I posted the thread. It's NOT to say there are NO problems with OA (and these problems probably should be talked about and addressed) BUT, that there are more relevant problems affecting players today currently with the games being actively developed, played, and created.

Honestly, problems #1 and #2 are probably the MOST problematic (though, it is just the one mentioned the most by the players I talked to, that doesn't mean it is at the top of their lists as well), but there are things they deal with daily which impact them more and should be talked about in how to make the gaming culture more diverse and welcoming.

 

[Panda-s1]

I think the aim was more to try to get an actual Asian view of things rather than American. That's just my take (as I said, the real experts would be Mr. Gygax who is, unfortunately no longer available, and Mr Cook. In essence, much of what Ggyax had planned got tossed and what we now have for OA was put together hastily by Mr. Cook. The degree of what he used from Ggyax is debatable, and some say he used a LOT while others say he used almost none of it).

I think some of the original plan was to have more Chinese information and influence on the Book than what came out with Mr. Cook, but again, as I said, Mr. Cook is the one to probably ask more questions about that.

I mean that seems fair. at the same time it's not like Asian Americans are so far removed from their heritage as to not have meaningful contributions.

actually, given that the book was going to primarily be sold in the US they should've felt a little behooved to get at least some Asian American input, as they're more likely to come across the product in the first place.

Regarding Japanese culture at the time, I'm not sure I am qualified to actually truthfully say it how it was. I can talk about it as an OUTSIDER, and form an OUTSIDER's PERSPECTIVE, but that is going to be entirely biased and not quite what one wants to probably hear. That said, I can give a small bit of it, but understand it is NOT from a Japanese perspective, but someone from the West with all the incumbent biases and fallibilities that go with it.

The influence on D&D was small in the 80s. It was there, but it was not like it was in the West IN MY OPINION. Most of my time wasn't even spent in Japan, it was spent in the West. There was a small but fanatical group of gamers there. Now, Games were not really seen as adult occupations (nor were cartoons, or what we know as anime in the West, and manga wasn't really an adult thing either). Adults were expected to do adult things, and games were not really seen as that. If you did play games it would be doing things seen as respectable such as going golfing with your boss or peers, going to the baseball games with the company, etc, or ensuring your family had the best things in life and were comfortable.

In many ways it was even more conservative in it's outlooks and customs than the US (without the Christian influences being as strong, obviously).

A LOT of those playing RPGS though were young, and as they were young and upcoming, they used their enthusiasm in things that they were creating and things they started up. Thus, in new areas such as video games where younger individuals were the ones at the forefront, you see them inputting a LOT of this D&D influence (and D&D was a MAJOR influence, it was not the ONLY influence, you also have Wizardry and a few other things being strong influences on their creations of CRPGS and computer games at the time). You could say, though small, this group of players created the foundation for modern entertainment (at least children's entertainment) today. It's a different mixture of D&D influence with Japanese influence, which you can see in things from Yu-Gi-Oh, to other forms of entertainment in their manga and even toys.

So, while small, I'd say they had a rather LARGE influence of the future (which is today).

In my unqualified thought on the matter.

no, that's a fair take, I'm just more interested in the gritty details of what it was like to play at that time, and what exactly that culture was like, and who specifically was inspired by D&D vs. CRPGs.

You either want everyone to stop selling it (since WotC still gets payed if a customer buys it from another online store), or don't want OA to be removed. There is no inbetween.

.....um. you do realize if I buy the physical book from a second hand retailer none of that money will ever make it into WotC's hands, right? even if I found a copy as new old stock the book has basically already been paid for and the money went to TSR which no longer exists. the only person getting money off the sale of that book would be the store I bought it from.

 

[GreyLord]

I mean that seems fair. at the same time it's not like Asian Americans are so far removed from their heritage as to not have meaningful contributions.

actually, given that the book was going to primarily be sold in the US they should've felt a little behooved to get at least some Asian American input, as they're more likely to come across the product in the first place.

That's fair. I'm not sure it would have changed the Title all that much. There's a lot more unhappiness around the term Oriental in the US today, even than there was back in the mid 80s.

I honestly do not know what differences it may have made, though I imagine it could have resulted in a big more American ideas tossed into the book itself. On the other hand, though there are already a lot of American inspired stereotypes in OA, but it may also be that they would have pointed out things to be more culturally sensitive to Asian-Americans. I don't know. It's a path that perhaps should have been trodden.

 

[Panda-s1]

That's fair. I'm not sure it would have changed the Title all that much. There's a lot more unhappiness around the term Oriental in the US today, even than there was back in the mid 80s.

I honestly do not know what differences it may have made, though I imagine it could have resulted in a big more American ideas tossed into the book itself. On the other hand, though there are already a lot of American inspired stereotypes in OA, but it may also be that they would have pointed out things to be more culturally sensitive to Asian-Americans. I don't know. It's a path that perhaps should have been trodden.

I also doubt the title would have changed, Oriental was still problematic back then but people were more okay about it at the time.

I'd imagine suggestions back then might be like "don't treat us like weird exotic people" or "not all of us know martial arts, you know that right?". I could probably think of other things but I'm tired.

 

[Immeril]

.....um. you do realize if I buy the physical book from a second hand retailer none of that money will ever make it into WotC's hands, right? even if I found a copy as new old stock the book has basically already been paid for and the money went to TSR which no longer exists. the only person getting money off the sale of that book would be the store I bought it from.

Hence me stating in post #195 (which you conveniently decided to overlook) that removing legal online access will negatively influence the price of physical copies, and thus limit the public's access to the book.

 

[Stefano Rinaldelli]

No, it isn’t. Fascism is an ultranationalist, authoritarian form of government characterized by (among other things) dictatorial power, forcible suppression of opposition, and strong regimentation of society and of the economy. Consumers utilizing their collective spending power to express their desire for the removal of a product to a corporation, and that corporation capitulating is 100% normal capitalism at work. If you’re recognizing that something about that seems vaguely authoritarian, well... welcome, Comrade.

I'm not interested in Wikipedia definitions. I'm italian and i know what fascism is

 

[Panda-s1]

Hence me stating in post #195 (which you conveniently decided to overlook) that removing legal online access will negatively influence the price of physical copies, and thus limit the public's access to the book.

...dude. this book was not available in any official capacity between the time it went out of print and WotC started selling the pdf. none of the books from 1st ed. era were terribly expensive at this time, they're not gonna skyrocket in price now.