AD&D 1E Best 1E AD&D rulebook?

[Sacrosanct]

This will seem like an irony, especially with all the hatred it's gotten (and those who defend a singular Asian-Canadian who has a strong vendetta against it), but...

I play (now days, far more occasionally, as we have spread apart quite a bit), or played in the past with (now days, it's more like once or twice a year) a bunch of players from Asia (mostly Japan, but also one from China and Korea).

Universally they choose to play Oriental Adventures. If they play D&D, they want to use the OA. So...we use Oriental Adventures when we play. (We actually tried the 3e version once, they didn't like it, they preferred the 1e version).

So, with that memory fresh in mind, I chose the OA. I was highly tempted to choose D&DG (it has use to me outside of the actual game) or the DMG (as that is what I may normally choose, and I see many others chose), but the mood just struck me this time, especially with that period of time coming up this year where we will get the old group together again to play OA for our annual/bi-annual game session from parts all over the world (I being the lone non-asian gamer among them).

I think OA gets a bad rap--kinda. By today's standards, there certainly a lot of things problematic with it. Even by 1980s standards, some things were pushing the line (like the title). But, and I said this guardedly, at least they made an effort to make it a book that respected some of the cultures within. They actually made an effort to reach out to several Asian players (all credited in the front page) and review it in an effort to avoid being offensive. In the 80s, that was a big deal that no one else was doing at the time. As everyone growing up in the 80s remembers, western culture had an infatuation with east Asian historical culture and myths (especially ninjas). That's when the urban legend about a samurai sword's power started lol. "It can cut through an M60's barrel!" Not to mention all of the ninja movies and TV shows.

I'm certainly not saying that players of East Asian heritage shouldn't be offended, or should give OA a pass. I'm not the smartest person, but I'm smart enough to know not to speak for an impacted group of people I don't belong to and tell them how they should feel. As someone who lived in Korea for 4 years, I know a huge problem is the assumption that all East Asian cultures are similar or the same. You can't (or shouldn't) just mix and match Chinese culture with Japanese culture with Korean culture with Vietnamese culture, which OA did on a certain level. "Hey! We had a bunch of Japanese people review the book, so we're good!" What about the Chinese players? Taiwanese? Philippines?...

I'm only saying that at the time, TSR made the additional effort that wasn't being done by anyone else to try to avoid these issues and try to be respectful. And more importantly, to give representation to a group of people who had been ignored in the game prior.

 

[overgeeked]

Yeah, that's really tough.

Have to go with either the PHB or the DMG.

 

[overgeeked]

I think OA gets a bad rap--kinda. By today's standards, there certainly a lot of things problematic with it. Even by 1980s standards, some things were pushing the line (like the title). But, and I said this guardedly, at least they made an effort to make it a book that respected some of the cultures within. They actually made an effort to reach out to several Asian players (all credited in the front page) and review it in an effort to avoid being offensive. In the 80s, that was a big deal that no one else was doing at the time. As everyone growing up in the 80s remembers, western culture had an infatuation with east Asian historical culture and myths (especially ninjas). That's when the urban legend about a samurai sword's power started lol. "It can cut through an M60's barrel!" Not to mention all of the ninja movies and TV shows.

I'm certainly not saying that players of East Asian heritage shouldn't be offended, or should give OA a pass. I'm not the smartest person, but I'm smart enough to know not to speak for an impacted group of people I don't belong to and tell them how they should feel. As someone who lived in Korea for 4 years, I know a huge problem is the assumption that all East Asian cultures are similar or the same. You can't (or shouldn't) just mix and match Chinese culture with Japanese culture with Korean culture with Vietnamese culture, which OA did on a certain level. "Hey! We had a bunch of Japanese people review the book, so we're good!" What about the Chinese players? Taiwanese? Philippines?...

I'm only saying that at the time, TSR made the additional effort that wasn't being done by anyone else to try to avoid these issues and try to be respectful. And more importantly, to give representation to a group of people who had been ignored in the game prior.

Yeah, it's just one of those things.

I'm glad we've moved to a point where we understand that we should be sensitive to other cultures and how they're represented. But I'm not sure how much exposure I would have had to some of those cultures without the admittedly mostly bad representations of them in books like Oriental Adventures, Al-Qadim, Maztica, etc. It was learning about them in those books that got me interested in the real-world equivalents.

 

[Sacrosanct]

Yeah, it's just one of those things.

I'm glad we've moved to a point where we understand that we should be sensitive to other cultures and how they're represented. But I'm not sure how much exposure I would have had to some of those cultures without the admittedly mostly bad representations of them in books like Oriental Adventures, Al-Qadim, Maztica, etc. It was learning about them in those books that got me interested in the real-world equivalents.

Same. It's just unfortunate that while most of the material was great at expanding my imagination and respect for other cultures, there were some negative stereotypes and inaccuracies that also snuck in there that I didn't realize until after I became an adult and learned better. One of the reasons why I'm a big proponent of sensitivity and cultural editors for stuff I write today. In fact, at this very moment I'm working on Shadow Fables (a Shadowdark book including monsters and creatures from all over the world's mythology and folklore) and I made it a point to have artists who belong to the culture the creature comes from doing the artwork. I.e., Chinese artists for the Chinese creatures, Greek artists for the Greek mythology, Japanese artists for the Japanese creatures, etc. It's been a bit of a challenge to find and vet all of this, and a lot of extra work, but I think it's important.