Oriental Adventures, was it really that racist?

[Voadam]

I am loathe to re-enter this conversation given that this was thoroughly hashed out before. However, I think that it is important to note several of the overarching criticisms of OA used in the series were .... shall we say exceptionally similar to the 2016 article in Analog Game Studios. And as @Alzrius and others pointed out, many of the specific criticisms in that article that were later used in the Asians Represent series were pointed out to be incorrect at that time (in 2016). Flagrantly so.

The most famous example is, of course, comeliness. This was not some attempt to "exoticize" the other or make Asian men seem effeminate (??), instead it was a new statistic that was driven by Gygax and previously included in Unearthed Arcana to be applicable to all D&D games.

I watched the whole 2 hour first episode of the Asians Represent series of reading 1e OA. The factually inaccurate 1 hour discussion of comeliness mechanics as being created for OA to play up sexualized stereotypes of sexy dragon lady Asian women and unattractive or desexualized Asian men was very offputting. The comeliness mechanics can feed into those stereotypes, but it was factually not created for OA to sexualize and otherize Asians by being only applicable to Asian characters.

Comeliness was a terrible sexualized mechanic but prior to OA it was developed and published for generic 1e AD&D in Dragon Magazine issue 67 (November '82), The World of Greyhawk Campaign Setting Boxed Set (October '83) and Unearthed Arcana (June '85) all before Oriental Adventures (October '85). OA was a full player's handbook type book with all the player rules for a complete 1e game using the new OA classes and such and so included comeliness as part of that.

I had heard Asians represent was a good explanation of criticisms of OA. It was mostly not an explanation, I found it was mostly looking at things and then shaking their heads about how things were self-evidently problematic.

I did not find their criticisms or discussion persuasive or informative. I did not watch any more episodes.

 

[Lyandelill]

Advice for the future: stay as far away from r/KotakuInAction as you can. Further than that. It is a toxic cesspool that spends a lot of effort going out of their way to find things to be offended about, particularly for a group of people who purport to be against that exact sort of thing.

Quite. They certainly are pretty thin-skinned, considering.

 

[Umbran]

The factually inaccurate 1 hour discussion of comeliness mechanics as being created for OA to play up sexualized stereotypes of sexy dragon lady Asian women and unattractive or desexualized Asian men was very offputting. The comeliness mechanics can feed into those stereotypes, but it was factually not created for OA to sexualize and otherize Asians by being only applicable to Asian characters.

Comeliness was a terrible sexualized mechanic but prior to OA it was developed and published for generic 1e AD&D in Dragon Magazine issue 67 (November '82), The World of Greyhawk Campaign Setting Boxed Set (October '83) and Unearthed Arcana (June '85) all before Oriental Adventures (October '85). OA was a full player's handbook type book with all the player rules for a complete 1e game using the new OA classes and such and so included comeliness as part of that.

So, they got a fact wrong there. However, that the mechanic was not made for that purpose does not mean that the mechanic is not problematic in the OA context. There's still a solid argument that, given the stereotype issues, Comeliness should have been left out of OA.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

So, they got a fact wrong there. However, that the mechanic was not made for that purpose does not mean that the mechanic is not problematic in the OA context. There's still a solid argument that, given the stereotype issues, Comeliness should have been left out of OA.

No. That's a terrible argument.

The actual argument is that comeliness was a terrible idea, and should have been left out of all products.

But while I don't want to harp too much on this single point, it's endemic of the problem people have when discussing these types of issues. The assertions made about this were not just wrong, they were laughably and provably wrong. It literally required a bare minimum of knowledge about either the history of D&D, or just a quick google, to see that it was wrong.

When an actual error is pointed out, the correct response should always be, "That was a mistake." It should not be, "Well, even though the entire premise of this point is completely wrong, I'm still right because reasons."

To be clear, this would be the same as someone saying OA is racist because it introduced wisdom, and the "wise Asian" is a stereotype. If someone else correctly notes that this has nothing to do with OA, you can't then go, "Well, um ... I'm still right because people might misconstrue wisdom, so the failure to not include a basic ability is racist."

There are actual and valid concerns raised, and there are serious issues regarding how to correctly incorporate Asian influences (and whether and how those can be brought in, given both history and genre tropes) that are worth exploring. Doubling down on things that just aren't true tends to detract from the other points.

 

[TheSword]

It’s not, in my mind, about historical accuracy in general, but about which bits get messed up. Again to use a context we all know, a game about America that presented Benjamin Franklin as the first President would be funny. A game that portrayed the “happy slave” myth would not be acceptable.

I don’t know Asian history well enough (nor have I read OA since the 80’s) so I have to defer to those who do.

I think wholly aside from the question of accuracy in historically inspired works, there should be a strong disincentive to be grossly offensive, which I think the happy slave example would fall under. So too would several other areas of history could be classed as such. Minimizing or justifying the holocaust for instance. Causing gross offense isn’t the same as doing something we disapprove of though and the bar should be set accordingly.

On a separate note, two of the areas of criticism of OA seem substantiated to me.

- The portrayal of all Asians as honourable to the point of self destruction, unable to exercise free will, perpetrating wicked (though honourable) acts even to the extent of psychosis.

- The depiction of women in the artwork as beguiling and erotic. (Admittedly a problem with plenty of other products it feels like 3e OA was still bad even when these things were rare in standard products of the same time)

 

[Umbran]

When an actual error is pointed out, the correct response should always be, "That was a mistake." It should not be, "Well, even though the entire premise of this point is completely wrong, I'm still right because reasons."

One can (and indeed, at one time or another, almost all of us surely have) stated true things, and then given poor justifications for those things. The lousy justification does not actually invalidate the point. It just means we ought to re-validate the point.
Given the stereotypes, re-validation seems trivial to me - the support it provides for the stereotypes is sufficient to make it problematic for the product.

You may also feel it shouldn't have existed at all. That's fine. It is still reasonable to feel it is even worse in the context of those stereotypes.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

One can (and indeed, at one time or another, almost all of us surely have) stated true things, and then given poor justifications for those things. The lousy justification does not actually invalidate the point. It just means we ought to re-validate the point.
Given the stereotypes, re-validation seems trivial to me - the support it provides for the stereotypes is sufficient to make it problematic for the product.

You may also feel it shouldn't have existed at all. That's fine. It is still reasonable to feel it is even worse in the context of those stereotypes.

No. That's a rationale in search of an excuse.

Let's be clear- comeliness has nothing to do with OA. The assertions made are 100% incorrect. Period.

To try and recast it as you are doing could be done for any ability score. "How dare they include strength? It reinforces stereotypes of weak Asians. How dare they include wisdom and intelligence? It reinforces stereotypes of wise/intelligent Asians. How dare they include dexterity? It reinforces stereotypes of nimble Asians."

This is such a monumentally stupid point I hate to keep harping on this, but it's true. The only reason for the inclusion of this assertion (which, again, is almost identical to the incorrect points raised 4 years prior, which is a separate issue) is because they were falsely and incorrectly alleging that they put this in OA.

OA has serious problems- this isn't one of them.

 

[Dire Bare]

These tend to be discussions about discussions (about discussions and sometimes yes about discussions).

There is very little reference to the actual text...whatever it might be.

Yeah, I thought so. All I'll say is to recommend (again) that you listen to the Asians Represent podcast, where they do go over the texts page by page to discuss problematic stereotypes and other issues.

They cover Oriental Adventures 1E & 3E, the Kara-Tur boxed set, Al-Qadim, and more texts from other games/publishers.

But I think you're aware of the textual criticism, despite your protests to the contrary here. That's all.

 

[Dire Bare]

So, @GreyLord - if I'm parsing what you said correctly, your Japanese (Japanese American? I'm not sure) friends have no problems with Oriental Adventures and that makes it not racist?

Well, that's a take I suppose. But, considering that the entire problem with OA is that it pretty much wipes away all cultures from Asia, except Japanese culture and makes Japanese culture the primary culture of the setting, I'm not really sure that "doesn't offend Japanese people" is really the bar that we need to clear.

The question was asked, why is OA a problem. The question was answered. Whether or not is a problem for a specific person isn't really the question.

Frankly, "I have some Japanese friends who aren't offended" isn't really much of an argument.

Yeah, I'd be more interested in the take from some Chinese descent or Korean descent gamers, like, I don't know, the nerds behind the Asians Represent podcasts.

It reminds me of an argument I've had with students (middle school teacher) when I've asked them not to use the n-word. "But my friend is black, and he's okay with me saying it". Well, racism solved I guess.

 

[Mallus]

Yeah, I'd be more interested in the take from some Chinese descent or Korean descent gamers, like, I don't know, the nerds behind the Asians Represent podcasts.

Would a Polynesian/Japanese/German/Ukrainian/%100 Pure Son of New Jersey do? It's all I got, man.

If it helps, people born in China mistake me for Chinese all the time!