Oriental Adventures, was it really that racist?

[AbdulAlhazred]

I have this other weird take from Japanese culture, that most wouldn't notice, I'd think. When you think of feudal Japan even with it's brutality, the fact that it was a police state across the whole empire - we think of Japanese as refined and cultured, if very alien to our own European examples. However, I see almost a refined and cultured allusion to Native American culture. Here me out. Japanese personal names, at least the old classical styles of names in old Japan are plants, flowers, forces of nature, ideals - they almost sound native. My Japanese grandfather, whom I never met - passed long before I was born. And noting the Japanese put the last name (family name) first, and personal following - in order of precedence. Shimizu Yukio was his name. Shimizu means "purest water" and Yukio means "snow" with the male identifier (Yukiko would be the feminine). Snow of the Purest Water sounds like a Native American name, to me. Shinto, their older religion, while ancient and refined is very much worship of kami, in the form of natural beings and natural places - places of rare beauty like at hot spring, a waterfall, a lush pond, a curious rock formation at the edge of the sea. That's where the shrines are located. So while the Japanese were technologically, mathematically advanced enough to easily adapt to more modern outside cultures with - almost equivalent to Europe, in a completely different way. Yet, at the same time there's a deeper Native American quality about them. I don't know, maybe it's just me - but that seems possible.

Well, I would guess this is true of all cultures if you go deep enough into the past. Chinese names have similar character for instance, my wife's name would literally translate as Bright Jade. My daughter's given name has a meaning of "green grass on the bank of a stream" etc. I mean, the thematic content can be different. So for instance traditional biblical names relate to religious themes, whereas traditional European ones often reflect trades or place of origin, but in most cases the meanings have been worn away with time, though obviously not entirely. My family name is easily enough identified as meaning "Herder of Cows"

But I get what you're driving at, many 'indigenous' names seem to relate to nature pretty closely. Maybe there's some kind of principle at work here in terms of what sort of names survive or get adopted in different cultures. In a few games I've run I did something like giving all the names of places and people literal meanings in modern English. One might argue that this gives an impression that is closer to what a lot of names would have sounded like to people in past cultures (at least some).

 

[billd91]

I'm not sure if you aren't getting my point, or we just disagree.

Yes, their initial reaction was an honest reaction based on a slight misunderstanding of where Comeliness is coming from. My point is . . . it doesn't matter where Comeliness first appeared. Their first reactions were not wrong, and they don't need to be re-evaluated.

From a purely game-centered perspective, Zeb Cook included Comeliness because it was the latest in AD&D technology at the time, it didn't (likely) have anything to do with his views on Asian culture. Any resulting cultural insensitivity was unintentional. Explain this to the panelists of Asians Represent . . . . and it changes nothing.

But if you are familiar with the racist tropes the West often uses towards Asian cultures, focusing on the physical beauty, femininity, of both Asian males and females is a real problem. The inclusion of Comeliness in OA inadvertently plays right into that, and is therefore problematic and hurtful. Unintentionally so.

Had Zeb Cook, back in the day, been more aware of these cultural issues, he would have likely decided NOT to include Comeliness in OA, and saved it for a later book.

I think there's a yes, but... in here that does get to the issue of holding people to differing standards.

In order for Zeb Cook to have avoided treading on a racist trope by including comeliness in OA, he'd have to have taken things to a high standard of research and sensitivity editing. Whereas you're basically giving the Asians Represent panelists a pass on even being familiar with the 1e AD&D context in which OA was published. I'm not saying that you're entirely wrong in doing so because some of their criticisms are about topics not inherent to the structures of AD&D but are about broader stereotypes (particularly using Japan for all of Asia), but it is one of those issues that gives people pause in how the concepts of identity and appropriation are used.

 

[Cadence]

Oh good lord. The "smart student" and "wise elder" are hardly stereotypes unique to Asian cultures. But let's say they were . . . .

That all Asian students are supposed to be smart felt like it was a thing as far as stereotypes go.

Most of the panelists are D&D players, and even D&D creators. They aren't grognards, they weren't around when OA was first introduced in the 80s, but most of them are familiar with D&D.

That's why I set it up as assuming they came to it from a game that lacked Int and Wis. (Because otherwise they would have known it was always in the game.

If both Comeliness and honor had been presented in the core books and applied to the entire game, that actually would be a different situation. But that's not the case. It doesn't matter than Comeliness first appeared in Unearthed Arcana . . . what, months? . . . before Oriental Adventures. It's not part of the core game.

We were all eagerly waiting for OA back then, but certainly took most of the things in it as optional. We might have used comeliness for one or two characters. (We also threw out some things in the core too).

It would probably be good before putting things from any supplement (Xanthar, Tasha, etc ..) into a setting to think about it how they fit too.

By Pelor's beard, Comeliness all on it's own is such a toxic and problematic addition to D&D even before the orientalism issues . . . . I really don't get the pushback from folks on this.

Intelligence isn't also problematic? Intelligence (IQ, labeling folks based on it, etc...) has the connection with the way it is used in real life to marginalize and demean folks, but is also something that is really hard to roleplay at the table (do you come up with better/worse ideas because of the score on the paper).

It's one of the things I'd change in any homebrew I cooked up myself.

 

[Hussar]

Just curious - Can a person legally transfer the rights of their pdf to another person or to a library to lend out? I don’t know the actually answer but it seems pertinent.

if a company sets themselves up as the only way possible to procure a work and then chooses to stop selling a digital copy, and none of those digital copies which were sold can be transferred individual to individual - then IMO that’s not ethical (regardless of whether you call it censorship). I don’t care whether they continue to sell it or whether the simply update their terms to allow the already sold work to be transferred between individuals (if it isn’t legally possible already).

Catching up on the thread, so, sorry if this was answered.

Electronic copies of books are certainly available at many libraries now. And, the fact that the publisher has stopped printing a given book has no impact on that.

As far as person to person, I don't think that's legal no matter what. Well, unless the publisher expressly allows it I suppose. But, if I buy an ePub of some novel, I'm not allowed to transfer that epub to other people.

 

[gamerprinter]

Well, I would guess this is true of all cultures if you go deep enough into the past. Chinese names have similar character for instance, my wife's name would literally translate as Bright Jade. My daughter's given name has a meaning of "green grass on the bank of a stream" etc. I mean, the thematic content can be different. So for instance traditional biblical names relate to religious themes, whereas traditional European ones often reflect trades or place of origin, but in most cases the meanings have been worn away with time, though obviously not entirely. My family name is easily enough identified as meaning "Herder of Cows"

But I get what you're driving at, many 'indigenous' names seem to relate to nature pretty closely. Maybe there's some kind of principle at work here in terms of what sort of names survive or get adopted in different cultures. In a few games I've run I did something like giving all the names of places and people literal meanings in modern English. One might argue that this gives an impression that is closer to what a lot of names would have sounded like to people in past cultures (at least some).

Well that's true. My last name is Tumey, derived from the Celtic, O'Tuama, which meant "of the dykes" - some region in Ireland with predominant Neolithic earthen dykes where they are from (County Cork, Ireland).

 

[Einlanzer0]

I'm not sure if you aren't getting my point, or we just disagree.

Yes, their initial reaction was an honest reaction based on a slight misunderstanding of where Comeliness is coming from. My point is . . . it doesn't matter where Comeliness first appeared. Their first reactions were not wrong, and they don't need to be re-evaluated.

From a purely game-centered perspective, Zeb Cook included Comeliness because it was the latest in AD&D technology at the time, it didn't (likely) have anything to do with his views on Asian culture. Any resulting cultural insensitivity was unintentional. Explain this to the panelists of Asians Represent . . . . and it changes nothing.

But if you are familiar with the racist tropes the West often uses towards Asian cultures, focusing on the physical beauty, femininity, of both Asian males and females is a real problem. The inclusion of Comeliness in OA inadvertently plays right into that, and is therefore problematic and hurtful. Unintentionally so.

Had Zeb Cook, back in the day, been more aware of these cultural issues, he would have likely decided NOT to include Comeliness in OA, and saved it for a later book.

It blows my mind how many basic logic failures are embedded in posts like this.

Firstly - yes, emotional reactions can be wrong, because they emerge from cognitive biases, not so much raw experience, and routinely need to be reevaluated. It's much better to help people mature in that process rather than just enabling blind emotional reactions tied to victimhood-seeking. Doing the latter is a form of infantalization - i.e. what's actually racist.

Secondly, you are taking a 2010s pop culture thought paradigm as though it's just basic scientific fact, suggesting its moral superiority in a way that reeks of extreme elitism, and applying it to someone and something that happened a long time ago when people simply didn't have the same types of indoctrination they do today.

Lastly, archetypcal tropes and heightened beauty standards are common across all forms of fantasy. Western fantasy is also full of the same kinds of tropes. There's nothing particularly unique about Asian-influenced fantasy. Fundamentally, suggesting that OA is racist is extraordinarily pedantic, ridiculous, and rests entirely on the cognitive bias of the observer rather than on any objective evidence that might support such a claim.

 

[Voadam]

Yes, their initial reaction was an honest reaction based on a slight misunderstanding of where Comeliness is coming from. My point is . . . it doesn't matter where Comeliness first appeared. Their first reactions were not wrong, and they don't need to be re-evaluated.

From a purely game-centered perspective, Zeb Cook included Comeliness because it was the latest in AD&D technology at the time, it didn't (likely) have anything to do with his views on Asian culture. Any resulting cultural insensitivity was unintentional. Explain this to the panelists of Asians Represent . . . . and it changes nothing.

But if you are familiar with the racist tropes the West often uses towards Asian cultures, focusing on the physical beauty, femininity, of both Asian males and females is a real problem. The inclusion of Comeliness in OA inadvertently plays right into that, and is therefore problematic and hurtful. Unintentionally so.

I am going to disagree with you.

I think their factual mistake that Comeliness originated in OA was foundational to their initial emotional reaction and to their conclusion that Comeliness in OA was othering and sexualizing Asians.

I think if they had been cognizant of the three year multiple publication history of Comeliness in 1e that preceeded OA, if they had been playing 1e D&D with comeliness before reading OA for instance, they would have considered it terrible and consistent with and feeding into the dragon lady tropes, but would not have felt it was designed to further those tropes for Asians specifically and to specifically otherize and exoticize Asians. I think they would still feel it was terrible given the context of the Asian tropes, but their view of its role in OA would be different.

Being specifically targeted by OA to be portrayed as uniquely exotically sexualized and alienated from the default because of Asian racial identity is different than everyone being sexualized by D&D.

 

[Hussar]

Why are people pretending that the comeliness thing is the sole criticism of the youtube series, ignoring the fact that they bring up several hours more of reactions, and then pretend that being wrong about this one thing somehow completely invalidates all of their thoughts?

Never minding that focusing on this one specific thing pretty much derails any conversation that has been going on about the larger context and issues surrounding the book?

Why is it, every single time we try to talk about this sort of thing - whether it's chainmail bikinis, or cultural expression or whatever - people want to endlessly myopically focus on one tiny little thing?

So, they were wrong about comeliness? Who cares? Why does that matter? Does having comeliness in the OA suddenly redeem it in your eyes?

"Oh, here I was thinking that a book that trivializes numerous cultures by presenting one single culture, with TONS of historical baggage" as the only culture of note was a bad thing, BUT, they have a comeliness stat so, I guess everything is okay?"

WTF?

 

[MGibster]

Why are people pretending that the comeliness thing is the sole criticism of the youtube series, ignoring the fact that they bring up several hours more of reactions, and then pretend that being wrong about this one thing somehow completely invalidates all of their thoughts?

Can you point out someone in this thread who is engaging in such skullduggery?

So, they were wrong about comeliness? Who cares? Why does that matter? Does having comeliness in the OA suddenly redeem it in your eyes?

It seems to matter a great deal to people who say it doesn't matter whether they knew anything about comeliness in D&D in general. So you tell me. Why does it matter so much?

 

[Mordhau]

Maybe someone should summarise some of their other main criticisms of the book for discussion?

Part of the problem with discussion of the issue is the main source of criticism is an interminably long podcast discussion going on episode after episode. Is there someone here who actually watched the whole thing?