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General Tabletop Discussion
D&D Older Editions
About the Asian contributors to Oriental Adventures, or Who even were these guys?
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<blockquote data-quote="wingsandsword" data-source="post: 8031305" data-attributes="member: 14159"><p>Also, when discussing the research that was in 1e OA, the context that this was long before the internet needs to be taken into account.</p><p></p><p>Nowadays people can jump online and find a wealth of information from around the world in moments, but in the early 1980's it's quite plausible that a researcher in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin might be a lot more limited in what he could find, and a book on the region from 1951 would be pretty plausible as what could be found in a local library at the time (recalling what it was like trying to do research as a kid pre-internet in the library of the small, rural town where I was growing up and most of the references on ANYTHING you wanted to find seemed to be 20 to 30 years old at best).</p><p></p><p>Indeed they probably felt that having at least a few actually Asian people at least consult and review on the work on some level was a nod towards making said book with input from the culture involved. </p><p></p><p>. . .and the fact that OA was written first and foremost as a gaming reference, not a detailed cultural study. It was written to provide enough information to let a gaming group run a D&D game with an East-Asian fantasy flavor. It wasn't meant to be a detailed textbook on Asian cultures or mythologies any more than Greyhawk was meant meant to be a textbook on medieval Europe or the Monster Manual was meant to be an adaptation of medieval bestiaries. For a typical gaming group whose ideas about the region (and expectations for the book) were probably drawn largely from 1970's Kung Fu films, Kurosawa's samurai movies, and the various media of the 1980's ninja craze, it would seem to be a wealth of information and sufficed quite well for its design goal. </p><p></p><p>Spending a lot more time and effort on detailed research and consultants on this book to make it a somewhat more nuanced, diverse look at the region would have probably been a lot more expensive and not done a lot for the success of the book at the time. If done, it would have ultimately just gone down as yet another example of wasteful spending at TSR in the 1980's, alongside TSR's needlepoint distributorship.</p><p></p><p>I see a LOT of this strife over 1e OA as people trying to judge a book published in 1985, that was probably written in the early 1980's, as if it was fresh off the press. If it was a brand new book, then it would be pretty weak. . .but for its time it was pretty decently researched and well liked and generally stood pretty well for quite a while.</p><p></p><p>Frankly, the part that's aged the poorest has been the name. The term "Oriental" is pretty archaic, and seems to act like a lightning-rod for complaints. I wonder how much of this controversy wouldn't even exist if the book was released under another name.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="wingsandsword, post: 8031305, member: 14159"] Also, when discussing the research that was in 1e OA, the context that this was long before the internet needs to be taken into account. Nowadays people can jump online and find a wealth of information from around the world in moments, but in the early 1980's it's quite plausible that a researcher in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin might be a lot more limited in what he could find, and a book on the region from 1951 would be pretty plausible as what could be found in a local library at the time (recalling what it was like trying to do research as a kid pre-internet in the library of the small, rural town where I was growing up and most of the references on ANYTHING you wanted to find seemed to be 20 to 30 years old at best). Indeed they probably felt that having at least a few actually Asian people at least consult and review on the work on some level was a nod towards making said book with input from the culture involved. . . .and the fact that OA was written first and foremost as a gaming reference, not a detailed cultural study. It was written to provide enough information to let a gaming group run a D&D game with an East-Asian fantasy flavor. It wasn't meant to be a detailed textbook on Asian cultures or mythologies any more than Greyhawk was meant meant to be a textbook on medieval Europe or the Monster Manual was meant to be an adaptation of medieval bestiaries. For a typical gaming group whose ideas about the region (and expectations for the book) were probably drawn largely from 1970's Kung Fu films, Kurosawa's samurai movies, and the various media of the 1980's ninja craze, it would seem to be a wealth of information and sufficed quite well for its design goal. Spending a lot more time and effort on detailed research and consultants on this book to make it a somewhat more nuanced, diverse look at the region would have probably been a lot more expensive and not done a lot for the success of the book at the time. If done, it would have ultimately just gone down as yet another example of wasteful spending at TSR in the 1980's, alongside TSR's needlepoint distributorship. I see a LOT of this strife over 1e OA as people trying to judge a book published in 1985, that was probably written in the early 1980's, as if it was fresh off the press. If it was a brand new book, then it would be pretty weak. . .but for its time it was pretty decently researched and well liked and generally stood pretty well for quite a while. Frankly, the part that's aged the poorest has been the name. The term "Oriental" is pretty archaic, and seems to act like a lightning-rod for complaints. I wonder how much of this controversy wouldn't even exist if the book was released under another name. [/QUOTE]
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