Oriental Adventures, was it really that racist?

[Bedrockgames]

When it comes to stuff like Samurai, I think there is difference between embracing tropes from a genre or from a style of cinema (Samurai Cinema, Westerns, Knights etc), accuracy in representing the historical reality of those things, and being disrespectful. If you just take a look at Medieval Europe for example, D&D and most fantasy RPGs are not an accurate representation of Medieval era or of knights in general. And there are tons of anachronisms in these RPG genres as well. That doesn't make them bad. Part of what makes them what they are, is these inaccuracies.

One of my criticisms of this conversation (and it isn't limited to this, you see it elsewhere in the gaming community even when politics and culture isn't being discussed) is this equation of accuracy with good, and of accuracy with respectful. And I am not sure that is a good measure. When concepts get translated into other cultures, they are going to make them their own (that is why you as Spaghetti Westerns and why you have western tropes translated into say the wuxia genre). And there is a big difference between emulating history and emulating a genre. I am also a little wary of this idea of entertainment being wholesome or pure. I think entertainment and art are designed to move us, and occasionally shock or jar us. I am not saying these criticism conversations shouldn't happen. I am totally fine with different conversations being had in any fan community about its media. I think where I tend to get frustrated is it seems like one point of view about media analysis is dominating and being accepted as the way. But them I grew up admiring the gritty films of the 1970s, and the bloody martial arts movies of that period as well.

 

[MGibster]

The samurai isn't (in my experience) a NEGATIVE stereotype, but it is a reductive and historical inaccurate stereotype. How much that bothers you depends on your knowledge of the historical samurai, awareness of the stereotype, and your own personal experience with appropriation. The fact remains, for at least some of Asian-descent, it's problematic.

And if it's problematic for some, so what? I don't mean that to sound flippant, but there's almost always going to be a small group of people who find something problematic. It seems fairly sensible that if a lot of people find something problematic we should push for change. But if only a small percentage of people find something problematic what then? From where I'm sitting, I don't care if the samurai is reductive or historically inaccurate any more than I care about the Druid in D&D or the knight in Pendragon. So when someone tells me the samurai is reductive and historically inaccurate I can agree, but what then? Is it still okay for me to enjoy the character class? Is it okay for a game published in the United States to include such a samurai?

 

[Bedrockgames]

"Debate techniques" . . . at least the ones I'm familiar with . . . are adversarial and the purpose is to "win" the debate,

This followed on my point so I should probably address it a little. I didn't bring up inconsistencies as a rhetorical tactic (though I can see where it might be taken that way). I do think pointing out inconsistencies is a way to identify an argument that may have flaws. And I think when we are engaged in a moral argument about race, it can be very important if there are inconsistencies in how some people from a given group are being listened to and how other people from that same group are being listened to. I understand there are reasons why these inconsistencies are justified in some peoples minds. I haven't found those reasons very persuasive personally, but people can disagree with me. I was just making an observation regarding a point another poster had made. And I think the issue was a much larger one that the consistency side point I had been making (we are all guilty of inconsistency at some point, myself included, so I don't think of it as a terminal point in the debate).

not come to a consensus or to uncover truth.

Some of this though there are just going to be different schools of thought on these issues and we may have to learn to live with that. I think the time for consensus for most people was long ago when all these arguments were initially laid out. At this point, most people, I think, have had time to weigh those arguments and reach their conclusions. I am sure some will change their minds or be persuaded by a new set of points here or there (or by a rephrasing of older points). But my worry in the hobby is around how divided we are becoming. And I think part of being in the hobby going forward is going to involve learning to post side by side with people who disagree with us on some of these thorny topics (or at the very least trying to understand where people are genuinely coming from). In these latest rounds of conversations I have tried to be a lot more charitable in my judgment of people arguing for positions I disagree with. I doubt I will ever agree with them. But I can at least try to understand they probably think they are coming from just as good of a place as I think I am coming.

 

[gamerprinter]

Going back to Asia more specifically using Japan as a bellwether for anything pan-asian even if designed to be mainly Japanese inspired, isnt a good idea as it again asumes it's all kinda the same thing. Ask a Japanese person if the term "Asiajin" (Asian person) in Japanese includes Japanese people and they'll be offended.
Japanese people like the British judge a lot of their standing in the world based on how much attention the US gives them and tend to be quite forgiving with how it is portrayed.
The Last Samurai was very popular in Japan despite the inaccuracies and the whole white saviour thing as the japanese characters were portrayed well and the actors in it got a lot of respect and attention in the US. Whereas in the same year Lost in Translation was greeted kind of negatively as it is based on the premise of ooh look Japan is so strange, which was kind of insulting to a lot of Japanese people and Memoires of a Geisha shortly afterwards went down like a lead balloon after they cast a Chinese actoress in the main role but the book had been fairly popular.
Getting actual Japanese people to test your game is good but assuming that means it's then Asian approved is just another way of saying "but you're all the same aren't you" when you get down to it.

In my development of my published Kaidan setting of Japanese Horror (PFRPG), I made emphasis that Kaidan (like Japan) is an island nation, a defining characteristic of Japanese culture - Japan is exactly geographically defined as an archipelago. In other fantasy Japan depictions of a large landlocked nation surrounded by mountains and the sea - is a depiction of China. Landlocked nations that trade or have even infrequent encounters with other peoples, do not have the same sense of otherness, that islanders do. The Chinese and Japanese have a close historical relationship (often not a good one). The concept of "the other" from a Japanese point of view, is anything not from Japan. There are some shared ideas between China and Japan (ie: Buddhism), even shared genetics, but they are very different people, each with unique history thousands of years old. You cannot conflate one with the other. The sense of "the other" was a defining aspect of Kaidan, so I kept it an archipelago, not a fantasy China, geographically speaking.

 

[Mordhau]

Legend of the Five Rings does this weird thing where it wants to keep the Japanese diet centred around sea food, (and goes even stricter by putting prohibitions on meat) but in a China like empire.

It really doesn't make sense for people hundreds of kilometres inland to forgo meat for a diet of fish.

But this isn't just an Asian setting thing.

The thing that bothers me is the sheer ubiquity of Japan in anything gaming related compared to anything else in Asia.

You would think with the popularity of Wuxia, and the thousands of years of history and fantastical fiction like Journey to the West to draw from, that something more would at least have been done with a China based setting at some point by someone. (Plus a lot of the material from Wuxia just seems flat out closer to D&D than a lot of Japanese sources of inspiration). But it's always Japan. Search for things like Asian theme battlemaps and assets and the like, and they're almost always based on Japan.

 

[Bedrockgames]

You would think with the popularity of Wuxia, and the thousands of years of history and fantastical fiction like Journey to the West to draw from, that something more would at least have been done with a China based setting at some point by someone. (Plus a lot of the material from Wuxia just seems flat out closer to D&D than a lot of Japanese sources of inspiration). But it's always Japan. Search for things like Asian theme battlemaps and assets and the like, and they're almost always based on Japan.

There are quite a few: Tianxia, Weapons of the Gods, Qin, Hearts of Wulin, Art of Wuxia, etc

 

[Dire Bare]

And if it's problematic for some, so what? I don't mean that to sound flippant, but there's almost always going to be a small group of people who find something problematic. It seems fairly sensible that if a lot of people find something problematic we should push for change. But if only a small percentage of people find something problematic what then? From where I'm sitting, I don't care if the samurai is reductive or historically inaccurate any more than I care about the Druid in D&D or the knight in Pendragon. So when someone tells me the samurai is reductive and historically inaccurate I can agree, but what then? Is it still okay for me to enjoy the character class? Is it okay for a game published in the United States to include such a samurai?

Sigh.

How many offended folks is the bar for something to be problematic? You assume it's a "small group" regarding the samurai . . . .

The reductive stereotype of the samurai isn't a uniquely Western stereotype applied to Japanese culture, it also exists within Japanese culture. How different the current Japanese stereotype is from the Western one I'm not sure . . .

Folks have commented on it, and expressed their views it is problematic to some degree, both within and without of the D&D game. How many? I don't know, there hasn't been a survey I'm aware of. I also don't care.

It's not a "small group". Is it a majority? A large minority? And again, where do we draw the line before we acknowledge the problem?

 

[gamerprinter]

(Plus a lot of the material from Wuxia just seems flat out closer to D&D than a lot of Japanese sources of inspiration). But it's always Japan. Search for things like Asian theme battlemaps and assets and the like, and they're almost always based on Japan.

Oh, I don't disagree. I created a fantasy Japan, because it's what I know - I mean I know lots of nuance and put it into the setting. I don't have nuanced knowledge of China, nor any other part of Asia. I know as much as most westerners know of the rest of Asia, but that's not nuance. Regarding the oddball (at least from a western point of view) folklore of Japan... Kaidan is a horror setting, and I presented such things as kappa with a sense of horror, despite being a turtle-like frog-like being that has almost a comical aspect. My kappa have more an air of something to fear rather than to laugh at, even as a player character race. It's still odd, but have a sense of being less than a comical character.

 

[TheSword]

Sigh.

How many offended folks is the bar for something to be problematic? You assume it's a "small group" regarding the samurai . . . .

The reductive stereotype of the samurai isn't a uniquely Western stereotype applied to Japanese culture, it also exists within Japanese culture. How different the current Japanese stereotype is from the Western one I'm not sure . . .

Folks have commented on it, and expressed their views it is problematic to some degree, both within and without of the D&D game. How many? I don't know, there hasn't been a survey I'm aware of. I also don't care.

It's not a "small group". Is it a majority? A large minority? And again, where do we draw the line before we acknowledge the problem?

You can acknowledge the problem while still going on with the continued use. This happens a lot in academia where you can acknowledge known limitations in your work up front (in game products a foreword or sidebar). It doesn’t mean the work isnt still worth making.

As for where we draw the line? Well that depends on the publisher and what the current Overton window is for good taste in the TTRPG world.

I’d suggest something would have to be pretty grossly offensive to not be made at all. It’s not enough to simply criticize or disapprove of a way a product has been handled. Why? Because not everyone agrees on what is problematic and not everyone feels strongly even when it is agreed. There are movements within the rpg industry advocating for different things that might influence overall thought but there are by no means a defined code for what’s in and what’s out. This isn’t a student union where concrete decisions are made by the few dozen folks who turn up to a motion. it’s a world wide industry with tens of millions of consumers and thousands of producers.

Ultimately you have to make an editorial decision. I’d suggest asking a few questions. Starting with will the benefit gained to publishing it outweighs the negative effects of publishing it? Probably a bit obvious but this is the overall judgement you need to make.

• How intrinsic was the problematic element to the work?
• Will the subsequent advocates for the work outweigh the detractors to the point where the product will get traction?
• Are detractors going to be in your target market?
• Will problematic elements prevent you later expanding into new markets that you hope to work in?
• Do detractors need specialist expertise to see the issue as problematic or would any reasonable person reach that point with a small amount of explanation?
• Is the problematic point an established fact or is it still an area for debate?
• Are other publishers already using the problematic elements in question? How were they received? Is it an industry standard?
• What have you got to lose if you take a risk and get it wrong?

Incidentally I would describe an advocate simply as someone who would recommend the product as a whole. A detractor as someone who would actively not recommend.

As an example let’s take the campaign product Odyssey of the Dragonlords, by Arcanum Worlds as an example. I’ve seen criticism in one review that the history of setting involves a colonizing force that the PCs assist and support against the indigenous folks in the campaign setting. It isn’t quite as clear cut as that: the game actually has the PCs work extensively (and even play) indigenous races. It’s the indigenous gods that the PCs are set against (who are unremittingly evil and exploitative even of their own people) not the people themselves. The colonizers were migratory not exploitative. The work sets the original colonizers as a mix of villains and good folks and pits the PCs against some of them. Despite these motivations at least one reviewer felt that element was bad enough to mention in a review and I would describe them as a detractor.

• The element was intrinsic to the setting and the story they were telling.
• This level criticism seems to be fairly unique - limited to a small number of reviewers (possibly just one)
• They probably are in the target market though.
• There aren’t any intended target markets this is likely to excluded from.
• One would need a degree of expertise to understand why this would be an issue. A lay person today would need it explaining at length I think. Particularly with the mitigating points I made.
• The area is still a matter for debate. Not whether colonization is good or not, but whether we can tell stories using that trope.
• It is a common trope in rpg games.
• This was a newly formed design house - albeit working a massive publisher.

All in all. I think they were right to publish the work. It’s success and the intended follow up Raiders of the Savage Sea is testament to the fact that the gamble paid off and was well received. If Arcanum Worlds hadn’t produced the work - despite this criticism - then we would have missed out on an awesome adventure.

 

[Mordhau]

There are quite a few: Tianxia, Weapons of the Gods, Qin, Hearts of Wulin, Art of Wuxia, etc

Rpgs yes. I guess I was thinking specifically in the D&D sphere.