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

[Remathilis]

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.

To be fair, we can toss them on the pile with assassin, barbarian, bard, druid, monk, witch, and warlord in the "classes with problematic names" list.

 

[Haldrik]

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.

That is precisely why WotC announced that they will routinely consult with experts and identity groups who are relevant to a particular trope or narrative.

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.

Borrow. Dont misrepresent.

Most of the time, the right thing to do is obvious. In a few ambiguous situations, one can pay a bit more attention and make an effort to listen to others a bit more carefully.

 

[Remathilis]

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.

I know you mean well, but do you know how close this comes to the "14 Words" rhetoric? Perservation of culture against one-world homogenization is the heart of that movement. This is shaky ground; I recommend you tread carefully.

 

[Panda-s1]

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.

you mean Asian popular culture made by Asian people for Asian people?

actually we shouldn't lump them in together. Stephen Chow took inspiration from Captain Tsubasa when he made Shaolin Soccer, but it's still a movie by a Chinese person for Chinese audiences. they can enjoy the movie with the understanding that it's all a fantasy, not every Chinese person knows kung fu, and obviously no one can make themselves fly through the air on qi alone. same thing with Zatoichi or Lone Wolf and Cub, very few people in Japan were like "oh man this is EXACTLY what is was like in Edo Japan all the time!" when they watched it.

we can also get into stereotypical portrayals in Asian media of Asians. in a lot of Chinese period movies that takes place in the first half of the 20th century the Japanese are the bad guys, or somehow involved with the antagonist. even in some movies with contemporary settings this is the case. this is, in fact, very understandable and similar to how Nazis are the bad guys in a lot of American movies taking place around that time, but that doesn't mean there aren't weird stereotypes either; Ip Man comes to mind. I also saw a Jet Li movie, the Killing Angel, which takes place in then modern day Hong Kong. the main bad guy is a Japanese CEO whose shown in the opening scene... enjoying time with women wearing kimono. and in the final fight at the end of the movie? he's using a katana to fight the good guys. not to mention anime and manga and some of the portrayals of Chinese people, especially in the 80's and 90's, some of those are caricatures on the level of... that one Japanese guy Mickey Rooney played, I forget his name. actually, a recent example would be Yo-Kai Watch, a game from 2013 for children has a Chinese restaurant run by a guy with slanted eyes and broken Japanese. on the softer side of things, there's still the trope of "Japanese kid who's actually of Chinese heritage whose parents own a Chinese restaurant" and I'm sure those characters are intended to be good representation.

the point isn't "complete accuracy", we can make characters based off tropes from Asian media and have fun with them, it's when we start portraying Asian culture at large where it becomes concerning. the more contemporary version of this would be the insistence that anime fans would be disappointed if they ever actually visited Japan (I want to post links to memes here, but I know better). another example: I sometimes watch a youtube channel, Dianxi Xiaoge, by a woman living in rural Yunnan province making traditional food using plants and vegetables from the countryside, or meat and other processed foods made by her equally rural neighbors. and I know better than to believe this is the day to day life for all people in China since some parts of China are highly urbanized with little to no wild-grown food, but sometimes the comments show some people think otherwise.

 

[Mallus]

Dont misrepresent.

Do you realize you're arguing against the existence of Hamilton, sir?
Well I've got some friendly words for you, sir.
(okay so I'm stealing them from Burr)
Talk less, smile more
Don't stake out a position that throws good works out the door!
(though in your defense a certain work about the Orient
Might not make the cut and get cut out from the store)

 

[Myrdin Potter]

To be fair, we can toss them on the pile with assassin, barbarian, bard, druid, monk, witch, and warlord in the "classes with problematic names" list.

Toss the base system that has violence as a core theme. Right?

 

[Immeril]

not to mention anime and manga and some of the portrayals of Chinese people, especially in the 80's and 90's, some of those are caricatures on the level of... that one Japanese guy Mickey Rooney played, I forget his name.

Mr Yunioshi in Breakfast at Tiffany's. I LOVE that movie as a whole, but I have to admit that Rooney's character is very cringeworthy.

 

[Immeril]

Toss the base system that has violence as a core theme. Right?

I wanted to DM an adventure that wasn't combat heavy back when the country was in lockdown, because it was too big of a hassle with the map.
Came across 'Hellscouts - Tiefling Summer Camp' on the DMs Guild. Long story short: I had planned for 1 session of 3 hours, but it turned out to be 2 sessions. They really enjoyed the RP, which was something that I wasn't expecting.

 

[Panda-s1]

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.

why do we have to take the whole world into the equation? yes, the RPG community is small compared to the rest of the world, vastly so. but in that community there's still minorities in it who still want to feel welcome, and can bring up real world problems. also the community can grow, but think about it: if someone who is Asian wanted to get into D&D but saw people going to great lengths to defend a D&D book called "Oriental Adventures" do you really think they'd feel welcome? certainly some of them might not care, but others would have to begrudgingly accept that this is a thing (like me!), or just drop their interest entirely.

in a similar scenario, (and I can't remember the exact story) six months ago the guild centered around romance novels nearly collapsed because of controversies involved in its board of directors and their attitudes against BIPOC and LGBT writers. now we could just write this off as not being important, romance novels are just a small part of literature, they're all trash, compared to the rest of the world they're small, etc. but it started coming out how hard it was for writers of color to write stories about minority characters or to have LGBT themed romance novels, and this sort of thing had been going on for decades.

we shouldn't dismiss something like this because we're a small community. I'm Asian and this fact doesn't change in the context of RPGs.

 

[Myrdin Potter]

why do we have to take the whole world into the equation? yes, the RPG community is small compared to the rest of the world, vastly so. but in that community there's still minorities in it who still want to feel welcome, and can bring up real world problems. also the community can grow, but think about it: if someone who is Asian wanted to get into D&D but saw people going to great lengths to defend a D&D book called "Oriental Adventures" do you really think they'd feel welcome? certainly some of them might not care, but others would have to begrudgingly accept that this is a thing (like me!), or just drop their interest entirely.

in a similar scenario, (and I can't remember the exact story) six months ago the guild centered around romance novels nearly collapsed because of controversies involved in its board of directors and their attitudes against BIPOC and LGBT writers. now we could just write this off as not being important, romance novels are just a small part of literature, they're all trash, compared to the rest of the world they're small, etc. but it started coming out how hard it was for writers of color to write stories about minority characters or to have LGBT themed romance novels, and this sort of thing had been going on for decades.

we shouldn't dismiss something like this because we're a small community. I'm Asian and this fact doesn't change in the context of RPGs.

I was dismissing the argument in the post I was responding to that moved the goal posts beyond people that game or would use the book to the world.

I said who cares what the world thinks about when almost none of the world cares about an RPG book. Focus instead on the people that use it and within that group, the people that would be offended.