D&D 5E WotC to increase releases per year?

Oofta said:

Which I understand and also don't. Nobody bats an eye when my Korean heritage buddy plays a cleric of Thor.

But I also get that we're ripping off a "dead" culture that was crushed and assimilated long enough ago that no one cares any more.

So I'd love books on a whole variety of mythological backgrounds from around the world. I'd also like to be able to fly and that's not going to happen any time soon either.

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Urriak Uruk said:

That said, that means if there is an "Asian-Inspired Book" it's probably not going to be "Oriental Adventures" (definitely not that name)! I think if they pick up an older WotC setting like Kara-Tur or Kamigawa, there are going to be some big retcons and rewrites. Otherwise, they will make something entirely different and new (and that may just be the better way forward).

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Urriak Uruk said:

I'll add, I've been listening to Three Black Halflings (a D&D podcast with a focus on the racial factors of D&D), and people do want more diverse material for all sorts of settings and character archetypes.

But the key to do this right is obviously by not only being properly respectful, but also having the writers of this diverse material be of the same culture as the material that is being inspired.

If you look at the material being published in the upcoming Ravenloft book, you can see some domains are inspired by different cultures, and THANKFULLY their writers are from those some ethnic backgrounds. Hopefully this is a harbringer of good diverse writing material going forward.

That said, that means if there is an "Asian-Inspired Book" it's probably not going to be "Oriental Adventures" (definitely not that name)! I think if they pick up an older WotC setting like Kara-Tur or Kamigawa, there are going to be some big retcons and rewrites. Otherwise, they will make something entirely different and new (and that may just be the better way forward).

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Faolyn said:

I think they'd almost certainly keep with the established names, like Kara-Tur--they'd just make the cultures within quite different (and more culturally accurate) from the way they were originally depicted.

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Dire Bare said:

Norse culture isn't dead, it's just evolved. There are folks today who still revere Thor and the other Norse deities.

The difference is power and discrimination. In the West, very few of Norse descent experience any real racial or ethnic discrimination. Asians, including Koreans, most certainly do.

D&D adapts Western European cultures about as well as it does Asian cultures (and other world cultures). But, if you are of Norse descent and/or knowledgeable about ancient Norse culture, you might get irritated that D&D gets it wrong, but you'll be unlikely to be offended.

If you are Korean, and you experience how D&D (both the game and the players) gets Asia wrong, and that's on top of all the racism and discrimination you've experienced over your life . . . you just might get offended.

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Oofta said:

That's ... debatable. There are some people that have psuedo-Norse religion but we lost most of the original religious beliefs centuries ago when everyone was forced to convert. All we have left is a bit of symbolism and what Christian monks felt was important. Many people believe the monks added in Ragnarok as an example, in addition to paying little or no to the female goddesses which is odd considering the power women had in the culture.

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In any case the numbers are so small they don't have enough of a voice to matter.

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Dire Bare said:

Not really.

It's debatable that there is an unbroken connection between modern neo-pagan Norse beliefs and the ancient Norse beliefs, sure. But it's not debatable that people today still revere the Norse deities.





All I can say is, yes, they do matter. At what point does someone's religion, and the need to respect it, not matter?

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Faolyn said:

I think they'd almost certainly keep with the established names, like Kara-Tur--they'd just make the cultures within quite different (and more culturally accurate) from the way they were originally depicted.

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Dire Bare said:

Not really.

It's debatable that there is an unbroken connection between modern neo-pagan Norse beliefs and the ancient Norse beliefs, sure. But it's not debatable that people today still revere the Norse deities.





All I can say is, yes, they do matter. At what point does someone's religion, and the need to respect it, not matter?

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Urriak Uruk said:

It does feel a little bit like you are taking @Oofta out of context here. I think it is pretty clear that releasing something like Kaldheim is not very controversial, as there are extremely few people in the world who still revere Norse gods. But if you made a card set that makes caricatures of Hindi gods, that would obviously be a much bigger deal (and many more obvious pitfalls), even if it was done with a careful eye and out of respect.

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