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

[Bedrockgames]

When there's a real power imbalance, I think you need to do a whole lot more work to be sure you aren't abusing your social power.

Again, this sounds like a recipe for resentment, reducing empathy and exotizing the culture further by placing special taboos around it. I would agree with you if we were talking about actual society and people not abusing power in the streets or in the way they hire people. But when we are talking about art and media, and suddenly making different rules for different people depending on what their background is and their perceived level of power, I really think that is a recipe for worsening things. And it also sets the bar along class and educational lines. It is going to be much easier for someone with an advanced degree to play by these rules because a person with a university education or a masters, has been exposed to the arguments all of these ideas are built on. It is going to be harder for people who don't come from that background (and that is what I see all the time in real life around these discussions). There are a lot of fancy terms that get thrown around this kind of discussion, but when you step back and look at it from afar, it starts to look more like snobbery than real compassion to me.

 

[FrogReaver]

Well, maybe you missed how all this conversation started - in the US, we are all in theory equal, but in reality, some are more equal than others, to the point where the less-equal are abused by police. And the community started talking about how that status plays out within the hobby, and what should be done about that.

I disagree. But I don’t think I can actually reply to this without running afoul of multiple rules. So a simple assertion that not everyone agrees will have to suffice.

 

[Umbran]

Again, this sounds like a recipe for resentment, reducing empathy and exotizing the culture further by placing special taboos around it.

It comes to this - the big kid in the schoolyard should not treat the little kids badly, but still expect to play with the little kids' toys. And yes, the big kid will be upset if someone enforces this, and will argue how it is unfair, and only make the big kid more bad.

And that's when we get into the language of abuse - "Let me have what I want, or I'll be EVEN WORSE." Sorry, no. Eventually, someone needs to tell the big kid that they've lost some of their privileges.

If you don't like this situation, maybe you should focus less on how you aren't allowed to use the toys, and more on fixing how the little kids are treated badly? Just my opinion there.

 

[Bedrockgames]

I might well be wrong. I remember reading something time ago that said that many Chinese viewed Bruce Lee as a sort of a "turncoat" for doing martial arts "the American way".

Well, I think Bruce Lee is a whole other topic. It might be interesting if someone started a forked thread on him because he has come up multiple times. On this I have no idea. I used to read a lot of biographies about him when I first got into martial arts, and I love his movies. In my opinion one of the greatest and most charismatic martial arts action stars ever. But reading about it, it was so hard to separate the myth and legend because people would use his memory to advance ideas they were advocating. So I don't know how much of what I read about him was true or false. I do think he had a lot of forward thinking ideas about martial arts. And when I have met Chinese people who talk about him, they are always enthusiastic and positive. I do remember reading that there was an issue when he first started teaching here, that some of the Chinese martial arts community didn't like him teaching to Americans (but most of those accounts I read were from Americans and don't know if that is true, false, exaggerated or not).

 

[Bedrockgames]

And that's when we get into the language of abuse - "Let me have what I want, or I'll be EVEN WORSE." Sorry, no. Eventually, someone needs to tell the big kid that they've lost some of their privileges.

This isn't my argument. And I don't think this kind of rhetorical tactic is persuasive or helpful.

 

[Danzauker]

I think you'll have to explain why before I will understand.

I'll try to explain the best I can, bear with me because english is not my native language.

You said: " put another culture and its myths in a blender, and make money off it, while at the same time have their dominant culture treat the other culture badly".

I see those aspects of so different magnitude to be nearly disjointed.

There's social injustice? Fight that! Police brutality? Punish the guilty! People having a hard time getting jobs, houses, education, medical treatment because of ethnicity? that's where you have to look and act.

A book, a movie, a RPG that makes a pastiche of cultures is not a problem. You said it yourself, when you said that there's no problem doing it with European cultures. It's only a problem in reflection of the real big problem, which is racism and prejudice in the real world. You can't solve the real big problem by looking into the insignificant one. At best it's just wasted time. At worst it's a diversion from tackling the real problem

Well, maybe you missed how all this conversation started - in the US, we are all in theory equal, but in reality, some are more equal than others, to the point where the less-equal are abused by police. And the community started talking about how that status plays out within the hobby, and what should be done about that.

I'm noting that, in that context, those who are effectively more-equal making use of the cultural traditions of those who are less-equal is apt to be an abuse of their more-equal status. "Punching down" as it were.

The context between folks in the US and in Europe is different. I have not myself seen signs that Europeans here are by and large less-equal in anything like the way African-Americans and other groups are.

I am a little aware of the situation in the world at large, sure. It's not that I don't know what happened lately in america or I don't know (or support) the Black Lives movement. I disagree in the way to fight the big beast of racism.

I think that focusing on putting restrictions on creativity and art is never good per se, whatever the rationale, and it oscillates between a pyrric victory and a red herring. The fight is harder and is to be fought in a much larger and difficult field.

 

[Aldarc]

This isn't my argument. And I don't think this kind of rhetorical tactic is persuasive or helpful.

Helpful rhetorical tactic as opposed to what? Oh, I know. Like when you dropped a reductio ad Hitlerum on Umbran by saying that his argument was akin to blood and soil ideologies.

 

[Bedrockgames]

If you don't like this situation, maybe you should focus less on how you aren't allowed to use the toys, and more on fixing how the little kids are treated badly? Just my opinion there.

I think we are getting to a point where we are going to have to agree to disagree, which is fine; you are under no obligation to be persuaded by what I say, and vice versa. I do want to comment on this. This statement assumes I can't both be interested in making things better for a particular group, while disagreeing with one particular set of arguments about how to make things better for them. I just don't agree with many of the assumptions behind the 'no pastiche' or 'only pastiche with special rules' argument. And it isn't because I am upset about how I am personally treated (I will continue to make the kinds of games and designs I always make regardless of what other people are saying----and to be fair to myself, I think I do a pretty good job of being respectful and treating the source material well, as well as reaching out to people from the cultures in question for input). But my point goes beyond myself. If you limit how people can interact with a culture creatively in this way, you are making it harder from them to actually appreciate and understand that culture (and understand the challenges of people who come from that culture). All you are doing is making them afraid to even try by elevating sloppy handling of a cultural detail to some enormous sin. Me disagreeing with the approach you are taking to cultural diffusion and creative use of cultural elements, doesn't mean I want people from a particular group treated badly. I made clear throughout this thread, I have no issue with the criticisms being made. I watched the youtube channel in question and don't have anything personally against the participants (in fact I look forward to some of the RPG material they have been talking about putting out and look forward to seeing them do more design work). I want more asian RPG designers in the hobby. I think all that is good. What I don't want are byzantine rules governing how are creative with culture in the hobby. And I think there are a lot of good reasons for being wary of the approach you are suggesting. I think it makes some people feel good (mostly the people advocating for it). But I think it actually, in the end, reduces peoples ability to truly interact from those who are different from them. I've spent a lot of time in my personal life working with, living with, and being friends with people from other cultures. I am not coming into this, as someone who wants the hobby to stay white or something. I am coming into this as someone who is concerned a well intentioned but misguided set of ideas, are going to lower our empathy for one another, make it harder to understand one another, intensity resentment (and tension), and just generally take the oxygen from the room so people don't feel like they have the freedom to explore and grow. I don't think you improve things by making more taboos

 

[Umbran]

This isn't my argument.

I don't doubt you didn't intend it to be so, but it is.

You argue that denying access to a thing for the privileged class will end up poorly for the non-privileged. That is rationalized, intellectual, but of the same general form of, "Let us do what we want, or you will be harmed even more."

Folks can learn about other cultures without having access to making pastiches. Go to actual members of that culture, and engage with them. Make more space for them to actively present their cultures to you. Don't take it on yourself to do it for them - they don't need you to save them.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Helpful rhetorical tactic as opposed to what? Oh, I know. Like when you dropped a reductio ad Hitlerum on Umbran by saying that his argument was akin to blood and soil ideologies.

That wasn't something I just dropped on Umbran. I have been very consistent on this particular argument. I almost never invoke Hitler in these kinds of discussion (because we are talking about games and the Third Reich killed millions, they didn't simply make bad books or something). But I think this specific idea that connects peoples bloodline to culture, that associates people through their ethnicity with a particular nation, and limits what cultures it is appropriate for them to explore creatively, feels awfully reminiscent of the ideas underpinning something like blood and soil. I only mention it, because I think people don't realize how close this idea gets to that. I am not saying the bad intentions of blood and soil are there. I don't think they are. I just feel like we have to be very cautious about tying ethnic descent to culture in that way. It is one small step from that, to tying culture to genes.

Edit: I got to point out here too Aldarc, I feel I have been very civil. We are like thousands of posts into this topic, and this is one of the few times I've mentioned something so charged (and it genuinely is because that particular line of thinking bothers me, whether it is coming from someone trying to make the hobby better or coming from someone who is advocating human biodiversity: it is just an idea that demands pushback when it arises). My goal here isn't to get into the dirt with people and sling mud. I want a real conversation. And for the most part I feel that we have had a real dialogue. But there are times when certain types of rhetoric get used where it doesn't feel like a dialogue. And that is largely what I was responding to with that post.