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

[Weiley31]

Them's fighting herds words. Twilight Sparkle was awesome as an alicorn!

If My Little Pony was a Fire Emblem game, Alicorn is her Class Promotion.

 

[pemerton]

For example, while it is a trope to use improvised weapons in a fight. Such as, say, a barstool. they have never been listed on the weapon table (to my knowledge) which the chopsticks were. It is equivalent of opening a book on Fantasy Irish DnD and seeing "Beer Mug" on the listed weapons or an American Biker DnD and seeing Pool Cues. Sure, it is a trope that you pick up and fight with whatever you have on hand. But, that is what the improvised weapons rules are for. Improvising weapons.

AD&D has not improvised weapon rules. The closest it gets is the rules for pummelling in an Appendix to UA.

The issue with honor is actually a lot deeper and systemic beyond OA and even DnD. Yes, Paladins had oaths and restrictions on their morality. However, Paladins were not knights, they were very specifically Holy Knights of the Religion, based off a very specific set of people. Actual European knights would include things like, the cavalier or the fighter. In fact, the Cavalier is a much closer analogue to the Knight, and their only restrictions were on which weapons were deemed dishonorable (from what I can tell).

Cavaliers (in UA) have restrictions about weapon use, armour use and who and how they fight in battle. But there is no numericaltracking system like the honour score in OA.

However, in the Fantasy settings for Japan and China and other countries where these systems are always introduced (even in 5e, it was called out for Kara-Tur and has an Asian inspired art next to it) there are massive social restrictions placed on all members of society. A peasant thief can lose honor for the same reasons a noble samurai of the court could.

Ths isn't an accurate description of the OA honour system.

Samurai were quite famous for a variety of weapons, but are only depicted or sometimes by the rules explicitly expected, to wield Katanas. Which would be the equivalent of saying European knights only ever used the longsword and nothing else.

In UA barbarians, rangers and cavaliers all have similar weapon requirements.

In OA for a samurai it is katana, wakizashi and daikyu. For a cavalier in UA it is lance, one-handed sword (broad, long or scimitar), and one-handed hafted (horseman's flail, mace or pick). I can go and look up rangers and barbarians if you like.

And, as to the mish-mash, while yes, DnD often paints with a broad stroke, much of that is connected to other aspects. For example, while the hydra is clearly a greek monster, the Greek works were spread liberally around the world, and such stories circulated around the entirety of western audiences. and, we can easily identify that Hydras are from greek myth, because we know Greek Myths intimately. But, I doubt many posters would be able to accurately place the origins of the Kumiho or the Kaichi.

And this is the problem. If you are specifically pulling from every source over there, and combining them and mixing them with no thought or mention to the public, the public's own ignorance in the cultures being presented will wash that entire section of the globe in a beige hue. Everything would be "oriental" and nothing would be from the specific people whom it came from.

"The public" is a reasonably broad notion. I'm not sure it's precise enough to support this sort of analysis.

When I was a teenager I could make a pretty good guess at which set of folk beliefs varioius OA creatures came from based on whether the name seemed Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese or Malay. Given my lack of linguistic skills not a perfect guide, but it's not the case that everything was "oriental" and washed in a beige hue.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

Demands that things must be said are also censorship.

A. You must remove Beyond Magenta, because we can't have books about trans people in the library.

B. You should keep Beyond Magenta, since free speech is good and we shouldn't keep people from information. Even if that information offends some people.

Umbran: Keeping books in the library, and demanding that those books be removed are BOTH CENSORSHIP.

Okay. Pretty sure we've been over this a few times, and I don't think you're suddenly going to get me to agree with your pithy formulations.

Are we good, or should I expect more of this?

 

[Cadence]

A. You must remove Beyond Magenta, because we can't have books about trans people in the library.

B. You should keep Beyond Magenta, since free speech is good and we shouldn't keep people from information. Even if that information offends some people.

I don't think those are both censorship, but should all the libraries have to keep out of date science and history books?

e-copies (which there probably aren't of random old books) obviously wouldn't take up space. For libraries, is there a fee to keep e-copies, or are those licenses eternal with the first payment? If the later, should the libraries have to keep the copies in the main catalog, or can they make you click a check box to access the out of date materials, and check another disclaimer box saying that you recognize you could be getting out-dated information?

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

I don't think those are both censorship, but should all the libraries have to keep out of date science and history books?

e-copies (which there probably aren't of random old books) obviously wouldn't take up space. For libraries, is there a fee to keep e-copies, or are those licenses eternal with the first payment? If the later, should the libraries have to keep the copies in the main catalog, or can they make you click a check box to access the out of date materials, and check another disclaimer box saying that you recognize you could be getting out-dated information?

No, of course an entity shouldn't be required to keep material it would otherwise dispose of due to space restrictions; a fancy term for this is that they are using "content-neutral" criteria to decide what to keep and what to discard.

What I find somewhat annoying is when people torture the language in an Orwellian fashion in order to make "censorship" and "not censorship" mean the exact same thing.

It would be like someone saying, "I got fired!" And then a person saying...

"No. You weren't fired. You agreed to leave the company after the company determined that you were a surplus redundancy. So, really, you quit. You get that, right?"

....It's bizarro world when someone keeps asserting, "Yes, we want it removed because it offends. But do you know what real censorship is? The people that don't want the books removed! That's the real censorship!"

I mean, it's kind of brilliant, if obnoxious. It's a good thing the American Family Association didn't think of it.

As for the question, I am hopeful that this current moment will pass, and we will eventually remember that the past will contain material that is not the same as the present. And it's good, too, because that should remind us to keep making the present better .

 

[mordenkainendogpissbeer]

Shhhh

no one tell them about Ruins & Ronin

 

[MGibster]

I don't think those are both censorship, but should all the libraries have to keep out of date science and history books?

There are different types of libraries and I've worked for two kinds. A public library will routinely rid themselves of books that nobody checks out, become outdated, or are damaged beyond reasonable repair. However, most public libraries are loathed to restrict access to books on the basis that some people disapprove of its contents.

In fact, the American Library Association celebrates Banned Books Week every year which "focuses on efforts across the country to ban or restrict access to books" and "draw attention to the harms of censorship." No reasonable person believes getting rid of outdated chemistry books is a form of censorship. Restricting access to Of Mice and Men, Beloved, and How to Eat Fried Worms because you find the contents objectionable is a form of censorship.

 

[Lanefan]

For example, while it is a trope to use improvised weapons in a fight. Such as, say, a barstool. they have never been listed on the weapon table (to my knowledge) which the chopsticks were. It is equivalent of opening a book on Fantasy Irish DnD and seeing "Beer Mug" on the listed weapons or an American Biker DnD and seeing Pool Cues.

So does that mean I'm a bad Canadian for having Hockey Stick on my list of weapons?

If yes, then tough, as it's been there for 35+ years and ain't coming off anytime soon.

(never mind that the hockey Stick is a holy symbol to one of our game's deities...)

 

[Chaosmancer]

DC and Marvel have both been selling access to their back catalog for years now. As for whatever Mercurius may have written, I can't really address that. Do you think it would be appropriate to ask that DC stop selling Wonder Woman because of the unfortunate depictions of African Americans and Asians in the 40s and 50s? Should we petition Penguin Press to stop selling the works of H.P. Lovecraft because of his harmful depictions of African Americans and others throughout many of his works?

Should they stop selling modern Wonder Woman? No. Should they stop selling those issues? I don't know.

Frankly, I really don't know. I'd never buy and read a work of Lovecraft directly by this stage, I've seen and heard far too much about what some of his works are like, and I can get my existential horror somewhere else. If they stop selling his works, because no one buys them, because the consensus is that the racism is too much to stomach... isn't that still censorship like has been claimed here? Silent and slow, but it is still a product no longer being sold because people find the subject material objectionable. Does doing it that way somehow make it more morally justified than pointing it out to people and removing it quickly?

I don't know. But I can't say that calling for something to no longer be sold is the same as banning books.

I don't think these have much to do with OA, though. First of all, it is a PDF and requires no up-keep to remain available. Removing it would be entirely due to pressure from offended parties.

That would be false, there is some upkeep and cost to keeping it for sale on the Guild. It is a minor cost, but it is there. And sure, it would be removed now do to that, but what about in 2040 or some other arbitrary date where the site has gotten enough content on it that they have to start deleting old content to fit new, or buy new servers. What if it was removed then?

Secondly, the reason OA is available now is because in 2014, WotC decided to be as inclusive as possible in terms of the D&D community, and made old products available. I remember many people--players of older editions--being quite pleased by this, feeling that they were being invited back into the fold.

Okay... so what?

There seems to be this weird corollary being drawn between the people and the product. Like if this book got removed the the store suddenly every player over the age of 50 would have "racist" stamped on their license.

There are schools near where I live that probably have some troubling names, definetly some stereotypes that could one day be called out and changed. If they are, does that suddenly make every student who ever graduated from that school a racist? No. It means the school's name was probably a little racial insensitive and it was time that got changed to something better. It has zero reflection on the students.

So, yes, players from 1e liked having this book available again, especially if their old copy was destroyed in a flood or fire or whatever, but removing it would not have reflected badly on those players. So, I don't understand why telling me that old players liked having old stuff available is supposed to change anything.

AD&D has not improvised weapon rules. The closest it gets is the rules for pummelling in an Appendix to UA.

Okay, so why did OA need to introduce a weapon like that then? Fighting with bar stools was still a trope, but not one worth exploring, but fighting with chopsticks was?

Cavaliers (in UA) have restrictions about weapon use, armour use and who and how they fight in battle. But there is no numericaltracking system like the honour score in OA.

I skimmed the breakdown so I might have missed the armor use and who they could fight. The how seemed to just be "no ranged weapons" and "no big weapons until high levels"

But, not having the numerical tracking system was the point that I was making.

This isn't an accurate description of the OA honour system.

Well, every honor system I've ever seen as applied it broadly and statically to all levels of society. Did OA's honor system give different types of systems and rewards for different classes or social groups? And, did everyone have to deal with it or just the highest echelons?

Because, again, honor was a thing in Europe too. There were many tropes of honorable individuals, but there was never an "honor system" made for them. That only ever seems to come up, with point tracking for your honor score, when we go to the Fantasy Far East.

In OA for a samurai it is katana, wakizashi and daikyu. For a cavalier in UA it is lance, one-handed sword (broad, long or scimitar), and one-handed hafted (horseman's flail, mace or pick). I can go and look up rangers and barbarians if you like.

Not needed, you really are proving my point here. Though, if that Daikyu is a bow like I think it is, I'm pleasantly surprised.

But, while the cavalier got lances, swords, flails, maces or picks (all of which they might have actually used) the samurai were limited to two swords and a their bow (which again, I'm surprised they actually put in there) but the samurai also used polearms (the Yari or Naginata if you were a noblewoman) and great clubs.

And I'm sure the barbarian and ranger lists are also extensive.

"The public" is a reasonably broad notion. I'm not sure it's precise enough to support this sort of analysis.

When I was a teenager I could make a pretty good guess at which set of folk beliefs varioius OA creatures came from based on whether the name seemed Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese or Malay. Given my lack of linguistic skills not a perfect guide, but it's not the case that everything was "oriental" and washed in a beige hue.

Well, I'm glad you tried guessing which name was which, but I don't see why it is so hard to ask that they actually pay attention to the differences between them going forward.

So does that mean I'm a bad Canadian for having Hockey Stick on my list of weapons?

If yes, then tough, as it's been there for 35+ years and ain't coming off anytime soon.

(never mind that the hockey Stick is a holy symbol to one of our game's deities...)

1) I laughed at the holy symbol bit, especially since it is probably true

2) You are not a major publisher of a game system being sold across the country. So, I don't care what your weapon list says.

 

[JiffyPopTart]

Well, I'm glad you tried guessing which name was which, but I don't see why it is so hard to ask that they actually pay attention to the differences between them going forward.

Note: My use of you in this post refers to the reader not @Chaosmancer. I quoted them to establish the conversation starter.

If you had to put a number on it....what percentage of 5e players do you think know that the Rakshasa from the Monster Manual is a reference to ancient Hindu mythology and not some made up thing without a real world historical basis?

Do you think that there is a Rakshasa problem in D&D on par with the issues some have with OA?

Is there a similar issue with portrayals of the Sphinx , or Baba Yaga, or Coatl, or Wendigo, or any other non-European source material?

Do you think it's D&D's job to explain the real world historical basis of each thing included in the game and how the game presentation differs from other historical sources?