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

[Haldrik]

I want to mention the Bard. Amazingly, the 5e Bard seems pretty good. A mythologically accurate Bard (including Merlin) is a kind of mage, according to various Celtic cultures. It is easy to use the D&D 5e Bard to create a reasonably mythologically accurate Bard that can do the things that a Celtic Bard might do. WotC intentionally looked into Celtic lore about the Bard, such as about the figure Taliesin, and is informed by respect and some degree of intimacy with the Celtic culture.


The word "faction" keeps coming to mind.

As long as you have one faction to represent a mythologically accurate Bard, it becomes more tolerable if a second faction of Bard deviates from it creatively. The contrast itself helps inform the gamer about the difference between what is more authentic to the culture and what is less authentic to the culture.

 

[Haldrik]

People are more than just their identity labels.

A human is an infinite being, capable of learning, and infinite possibilities.

At the same time, this infinite being can ONLY express ones existence in finite ways, in other words, by means of identity labels.

Our self-expression and self-actualization employs many different labels at the same time. Sometimes we adopt new identities.


So both are true at the same time. We are ONLY identity constructs. AND infinitely more.

 

[Mallus]

Dont use the names "Samurai" (or "Druid" or "Viking" or "Thunderbird" so on) unless one is making an honest effort to use the reallife name accurately and empathetically.

Would you also suggest not using names like 'cleric' or 'paladin' if their (European) Christian context is removed, ie the way everyone uses those classes.

People can critique other an other culture − but only if they are empathetic and intimate with that culture and know what they are talking about. Otherwise, stick to the critique of abstract principles that can apply to any culture equally.

Inaccuracy isn't automatically critique. Or automatically disrespectful, for that matter. All I can think of is the overwhelming amount of the Asian popular culture I'm familiar fails to meet the standard you're trying to sketch out.

Gone would be Steven Chow's gonzo cartoon Buddhism in Journey to the West, the Zatoichi series and it's lovely & terrible gangster-and-ronin-choked Japan, gone too the most luminous kung-fu epic Touch of Zen, and all of Evangelion, for God's sake. I could keep writing this list for days.

 

[Myrdin Potter]

That last statement can't possibly be true, but whatever.

As for the rest of the post, I don't know what to tell you; I bolded the parts that are problematic. 1) DOES someone necessarily know what to modify? Would it not be better if the product was more sensitively written and didn't need to be modified? 2) The group is not the world at large. I just don't think that repeated engagement with ethnic stereotypes would somehow remain confined to the game room. That's not how the brain works.

No one plays the game with the whole world. The percentage of the world that cares about RPG is so tiny that this is not relevant. That is just moving the goal posts once again. I cannot see how a rulebook of any scope can be offensive to no one in the world. People even get offended at the cost. That is not arguing in good faith, especially for an older rulebook that now has a disclaimer. My brain does not carry forward role playing to regular life.

Otherwise my opening sentences are perfectly clear. If the player does not know something needs to be modified and no one else does as well, then there is no offense, If the DM does not know the group, use X cards and stop it and adjust.

 

[Remathilis]

I want to mention the Bard. Amazingly, the 5e Bard seems pretty good. A mythologically accurate Bard (including Merlin) is a kind of mage, according to various Celtic cultures. It is easy to use the D&D 5e Bard to create a reasonably mythologically accurate Bard that can do the things that a Celtic Bard might do. WotC intentionally looked into Celtic lore about the Bard, such as about the figure Taliesin, and is informed by respect and some degree of intimacy with the Celtic culture.

The Bard hasn't been Celtic since 1e. It's been an English Minstrel in all but name since 2e made it a real class.

 

[Haldrik]

I don't think "thunderbird" is a good example because it's an umbrella term to refer to multiple deities in a variety of indigenous tribes, not any specific cultural figure.

Your comments on Wendigo sound interesting.



You mentioned Thunderbirds as if "deities".

My goodness. Already wrong.

This is small example of how cultural appropriation and misrepresentation happens. But elsewhere misrepresentations can happen in massive ways.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Thunderbirds arent "deities".

My goodness. Already wrong.

I think we are reaching a point with this, where however well-intentioned, people are making it so no one even wants to venture outside their own culture or knowledge. Is this kind of response to someone being innacruate about something encouraging anyone to explore other cultures? I see this attitude a lot these days and I think it does a lot more to stop people form wanting to learn. It also creates a bar for creative efforts, where things always have to be 100% accurate and can't be changed or reimagined outside their original culture. I don't see that as healthy for anyone

 

[Immeril]

why are you equating this to "banning". if OA were "banned" it would be because DriveThruRPG or it's host removed it from their website. nobody's asking for that, we're asking for WotC to make the conscious decision to remove their own book from sale.

People aren't 'asking' for a removal, they are 'boycotting' (or trying to) WotC. Kwan has stopped using 5e for his livestream in favor of Quest. I couldn't care less what he does or doesn't play, since that is entirely up to him.
And about one of his previous tweets, by the way: "I refuse to pay money for these dated, and frankly racist, products." I apparently missed the video in which a WotC employee is forcing him to buy OA at gunpoint.

and again, why is it that OA is so trivial that I shouldn't be offended by it, but so important that its "banning" is the worst possible thing WotC could ever do? someone like me saying "hey this book is full of outdated stereotypes about people like me maybe you shouldn't sell it?" is not outweighed by the want of being able to buy a decades old book in digital form that is readily available elsewhere.

This was already answered by some people, including me. You seemed particularly incensed by the term 'god complex'.

"Al-Qadim, Maztica, VRG to Vistani, the Horde, and the Old Empires all share similar issues in that they are fantasy interpretations of real world cultures not written by members of said culture" yeah we should assess all of these things. these are rulebooks, they have rules, I'm not saying we should automatically drop them because they are without merit, but we should go through the D&D back catalog and really think about what is something worth keeping and what's just a weird cultural artifact that's mostly fluff with fluff specific rules.

Again with the 'we should decide what is worth keeping'? Who is 'we'? I refer to the aforementioned complex.

this could very well mean nothing gets removed from the shop. it might mean some things do. at the very least they need to do better than just copy and pasting a (likely plagarized) blurb on every D&D product like that solves the issue at hand. if they can put a lengthy history blurb on every legacy product (sometimes with newly revealed information) they can take the time to put an additional blurb talking about why specific (not every) titles might be problematic and haven't aged well.

Guess what? Writing an individual blurb for all those titles takes time. Isn't it a bit early to tell whether or not WotC is working on this? Isn't it at least possible that the current statement is a placeholder for individual blurbs?

and before someone says something about speaking with their wallet, right now OA sits as the 4th best selling official D&D title on drivethruRPG, so y'know y'all who want to keep OA are definitely winning on that front.

Now that you mention it, I should practice what I preach.

Would you also suggest not using names like 'cleric' or 'paladin' if their (European) Christian context is removed, ie the way everyone uses those classes.

Kudos for referencing paladins. They are just as culturally specific as a samurai.

 

[Remathilis]

yes, to all of these lol

That is some take! I'm generally not a fan gaps in a body of work, partially because so much history is already lost to time (many classic Doctor Who stories are forever gone, as an example) that the idea of intentionally creating larger gaps seems counter-productive. Further, Its not like we today have figured out what media is/isn't acceptable, and as society changes, the gap becomes bigger and bigger as more is added to the taboo list.

A world where media is scrubbed to avoid offensive thought is a little too dystopian for me.

why are you equating this to "banning". if OA were "banned" it would be because DriveThruRPG or it's host removed it from their website. nobody's asking for that, we're asking for WotC to make the conscious decision to remove their own book from sale.

Banned is a quicker way of saying "not allowed to be legally purchased on the website". Semantics.

and again, why is it that OA is so trivial that I shouldn't be offended by it, but so important that its "banning" is the worst possible thing WotC could ever do? someone like me saying "hey this book is full of outdated stereotypes about people like me maybe you shouldn't sell it?" is not outweighed by the want of being able to buy a decades old book in digital form that is readily available elsewhere.

It sets precedent. It becomes policy. I wasn't happy with the notion that WotC would remove products the moment there is a Bell of Lost Souls article posted about it being "problematic"

this could very well mean nothing gets removed from the shop. it might mean some things do. at the very least they need to do better than just copy and pasting a (likely plagarized) blurb on every D&D product like that solves the issue at hand. if they can put a lengthy history blurb on every legacy product (sometimes with newly revealed information) they can take the time to put an additional blurb talking about why specific (not every) titles might be problematic and haven't aged well.

Honestly, that's my hope. And it seems WotC is on board with that. They might have to do some more research to update blurbs (at the cost of time and money) but its a far-cry better than leaving holes in the collection.

 

[Haldrik]

I appreciate the spirit of your post, but think you go a bit too far here. Today's global context with regards to culture is rather unique: we're all mixed together and have access to more cultural ideas than ever before, if in a mostly facile way (media, internet, etc).

We can't possiblly avoid "borrowing from an other culture," and the act of borrowing isn't necessarily aggressive or harmful, depending upon context.

Secondly, one could argue that the only people who are intimate with samurai culture are samurai and academic experts, whether or not they are Japanese. Following your logic, that narrows the field as to who "can" borrow from samurai culture down quite a bit.

Gygax--and every D&D writer after him--borrowed from other cultures, whether "other" geographically, ethnically, or historically speaking. The act of creativity in all fields involves "borrowing." If one could only borrow from one's own culture, in some instances that would generate a very narrow (and depressing) range of options.

I know that the standard is high. Dont appropriate from what one doesnt understand. Dont use real cultural names inaccurately. I feel these two principles are necessary.



Especially BECAUSE our ethnicities are all mixing together it is necessary to make an effort to preserve different ways of being human. Otherwise, we will soon be one global monoculture of homogenization. A dystopia. We have to preserve our diverse humanity now. Before it vanishes.

All around the planet, languages and ethnic groups are going extinct, becoming assimilated into economically dominant neighboring cultures. This process of cultural genocide is historically normal. But today, the world is shrinking and communication connects us everywhere. I can walk on the beach in America talking with my friend who is also on the phone talking with her daughter in China. If our diversity goes extinct. Our human capacity to relate to humans who are beyond our own selves will go extinct forever. Our humanity will go extinct.

No ethnic group is immune to this new kind of global cultural genocide.

Speaking accurately about an other culture (and about ones own history) is an existential urgency. Not quite yet, but almost a life-or-death emergency.

We must figure this stuff out now.

How do we transmit our diversity to future generations of humans?