D&D General Drow & Orcs Removed from the Monster Manual

[pemerton]

At a certain point in changes like the one's discussed here, more harm than good is done.

What harm has been done by WotC publishing a book that uses the term "soul jar" rather than "phylactery"?

 

[Parmandur]

Seriously I wouldn't even begin to try and make a product like OA. I don't know enough about East Asia.... and more importantly I know that I don't know enough to always distinguish between good reliable sources and bad sources. Wikipedia can only get you so far when trying to write about another culture. And obviously the earlier editions of the game didn't even have the benefit of that.

Dave Cook checked out every book on East Adia that was available at the Lake Geneva Public Library. Which is nowhere near enough to have done the concept justice.

 

[pemerton]

I think part of the issue with orientalist is it is a pretty muddy concept.

It's not that muddy, especially in this context.

From the back cover of the original OA:

The mysterious and exotic Orient, land of spices and warlords, has at last opened her gates to the West.​

There is then some more text, more prosaic, that concludes "The world of samurai and ninja awaits!" This already implies that I can't build a samurai using a D&D fighter, or a ninja using a D&D thief, assassin or monk. But why not?

 

[Scribe]

What harm has been done by WotC publishing a book that uses the term "soul jar" rather than "phylactery"?

The same as calling it a phylactery.

 

[pemerton]

The same as calling it a phylactery.

Can you elaborate?

 

[Scribe]

Can you elaborate?

lol no.

 

[Parmandur]

The most recent RPG book I recall reading that tried to have something African-themed was the 4e Dark Sun book, and it was pretty racist.

And people were complaining at the tone about all the changed WotC made, and hoe much better things were in the 90s, etc.

More recently, Tomb of Annihilation had a Sub-Saharan Africa Setting, that was somewhat problematic: the response was intense enough that WotC admitted that they had not run the book by any PoC readers, which directly led to adopting sensitivity readers.

Even more recently, Journeys Trugh the Radiant Citadel included a number of African-themed Settings by Black writers 4 IIRC: one an 18th century Southeastern US diaspora Southern Gothic setting replacing the slave trade with a magical exodus, o e an Afro-Carribean/New Oreans style Cty State going through a Mardi Gras, and two West African Settings.

 

[Chaltab]

You shouldn't work on something you feel uncomfortable doing. But I think we have kind of turned historical accuracy into an idol in these conversations.

It has nothing to do with historical accuracy. It's about not walking face first into stereotypes like a cartoon character stepping on a rake. Like, for example:

The mysterious and exotic Orient, land of spices and warlords, has at last opened her gates to the West.

 

[billd91]

At a certain point in changes like the one's discussed here, more harm than good is done.

Is it? Or is that an assumption? A guess?

 

[Azzy]

I think part of the issue with orientalist is it is a pretty muddy concept. I don't think we should get into that here. But I do think taking Said's book and applying it to all kinds of media is a flawed lens (or at least only one among any lenses you an apply). I did have to read it in college. But it has been a long time. So it isn't something I would want to get deep into since I am hazy.

I don't know what Chariot of the Gods has to do with anything. It is a terrible book in terms of history. But it is also not something I have a whole lot of interest in. I don't think anything I have said here was in any way an argument for taking him seriously as a source. When it comes to history sources, I would say trust reliable, peer reviewed, university press sources when you can.

It's only relevance is as an example of someone that knows jack about something (eg. Nazca Lines) and then writing a book that has a nonsense take on that something as opposed to something written by someone who has expertise in the subject. I'm comparing a game designer who has no ties to the culture he's writing (and who's only knowledge of the culture consists of reading texts about it that were written by someone that also doesn't have a lived experience of that culture) to von Däniken as opposed to someone that is a part of that culture.

Sometimes it is less respectful to walk on eggshells. I think we've erected a lot of taboos around being creative these days, that are actually making it harder for people to connect with each other across cultures. I am not saying, let's just be offensive and rude. That isn't my point. My point is we can lighten up a little on this stuff and be more charitable in how we interpret peoples efforts to include cultural inspiration outside their own

I think that it's best to try to learn about others by listening to them. If they say that there's a problem about how they are represented in media, then there's a problem.