You are right: It doesn’t remove what is an offensive description. Nor will an entirely new edition. It will always be there. BUT a new edition or reissue means that WotC takes active restitution for the harm it’s words have had.
D&D General (Anecdotal) conversations with Asian gamers on some problems they currently face in the D&D world of RPG gaming
- Thread starter GreyLord
- Start date
You are right: It doesn’t remove what is an offensive description. Nor will an entirely new edition. It will always be there. BUT a new edition or reissue means that WotC takes active restitution for the harm it’s words have had.
Maxperson
Morkus from Orkus
I don't accept that something offensive = something harmful. It's words. I've been offended plenty, a lot of it by racism aimed a Jews. Never once has it harmed me.
I believe the optimal solution is the balance and interactivity of two opposing force.
• Respect and accuracy for reallife cultures
• Creative inventiveness
The thing is, in D&D, these forces have been way out of balance.
Thank goodness, the pioneers of D&D Gygax and Arneson, seem to be decent people. They seem less racist than many other people during their era, for example. They seem to genuinely like East Asian esthetic and military culture.
The problem is ignorance. I can almost here them say something like, "The natives are restless". In other words, they are completely clueless about the cultures that they are exploring/appropriating/misrepresenting/exploiting/invading/colonizing.
To be fair. They lived in a world, when the rest of the world was far away. And to exhibit intellectual curiosity is exoticism. And it seemed impossible to even to relate to an other culture, unless it was a white person who mastered the other culture, like a white American samurai, or maybe like Tarzan.
Gygax and Arneson had lots of
• Creative inventiveness
However, the opposing force was actually difficult to acquire
• Respect and accuracy for reallife cultures
We have today, what Gygax and Arneson lacked in their era.
We have African American D&D players. We have Chinese American D&D players. And so on. We have women D&D players. We have transsexual D&D players. We have gay D&D players. And so on.
And D&D designers among them!
So, when we hunger for exotic adventure in East Asia, we dont need to do a tone-deaf gonzo pastiche that is totally clueless. For example, we can ask Chinese designers who enjoy D&D to integrate Chinese tropes into the game in ways that are grounded, meaningful, and playful.
These authentic living Chinese traditions within D&D become part of our shared D&D experience. It happens in a healthy, organic, way that includes mutual respect and enjoyment. And yes, informed accuracy about the other culture.
Often, friends who are intimate with that identity group are literally at our table gaming with us.
Our resources for D&D are awesome now.
• Respect and accuracy for reallife cultures
• Creative inventiveness
The thing is, in D&D, these forces have been way out of balance.
Thank goodness, the pioneers of D&D Gygax and Arneson, seem to be decent people. They seem less racist than many other people during their era, for example. They seem to genuinely like East Asian esthetic and military culture.
The problem is ignorance. I can almost here them say something like, "The natives are restless". In other words, they are completely clueless about the cultures that they are exploring/appropriating/misrepresenting/exploiting/invading/colonizing.
To be fair. They lived in a world, when the rest of the world was far away. And to exhibit intellectual curiosity is exoticism. And it seemed impossible to even to relate to an other culture, unless it was a white person who mastered the other culture, like a white American samurai, or maybe like Tarzan.
Gygax and Arneson had lots of
• Creative inventiveness
However, the opposing force was actually difficult to acquire
• Respect and accuracy for reallife cultures
We have today, what Gygax and Arneson lacked in their era.
We have African American D&D players. We have Chinese American D&D players. And so on. We have women D&D players. We have transsexual D&D players. We have gay D&D players. And so on.
And D&D designers among them!
So, when we hunger for exotic adventure in East Asia, we dont need to do a tone-deaf gonzo pastiche that is totally clueless. For example, we can ask Chinese designers who enjoy D&D to integrate Chinese tropes into the game in ways that are grounded, meaningful, and playful.
These authentic living Chinese traditions within D&D become part of our shared D&D experience. It happens in a healthy, organic, way that includes mutual respect and enjoyment. And yes, informed accuracy about the other culture.
Often, friends who are intimate with that identity group are literally at our table gaming with us.
Our resources for D&D are awesome now.
okay look even if—no wait, let's clarify something, it feels like 1e OA is something beyond revising, you'd basically have to rewrite large swathes of the book, not to mention have WotC write new rules and mechanics for an edition that's no longer supported. let's take that off the table.
if we're looking at a new edition there's several things at play here: for starters WotC isn't really interested in making huge setting books anymore; Sword Coast, Wildemount, Theros, these aren't the big super detailed settings that used to make up campaign settings back in the day, and only get one book. Eberron may be an exception but it still mostly focuses on Khorvaire (it's creator is releasing another large book with more details, but it's not an official D&D product). the whole of Kara-Tur would be pretty big in scope compared to their current setting offerings so it'd be better to focus on maybe one or two specific nations. but also, we can make something entirely new that takes inspiration from Asian mythology and fantasy, we don't need to remake OA.
or they can place more detailed disclaimers talking about the issues specific books have.
Would several sentences discussing the "Five Grains" and noting some more cultural differences between the north and south in terms of wheat vs. rice have saved that excerpt? (Is part of the next paragraph insulting to some regions too about when rice is expensive or scarce: "... yellow millet, sorghum, or barley is often substituted. This is the poor man's food." ) Doesn't help anyone insulted by being lumped together, but it also treats European diets pretty cavalierly at the end of the paragraph "Like wheat in the west, rice is the stuff of life in Kara-Tur." That leaves out rye, barley, millet and oats if the west refers to medieval Europe (and wikipedia says those would have been pretty important there).
I was surprised that google popped up with quite a bit for - "Have you eaten rice today" really a common greeting? - and is supposedly used in several countries (well, presumably only the portions of those countries that commonly use rice). It was even at the top of the first article I got from the economist when looking up how big of a part of the diet rice is across southeast Asia. (The UN site gave better numbers, granted for today and not back when).
For those without a copy of OA, food is the subject of an entire half page:
Paragraph 2 spends a lot of time on Soybeans
Paragraph 3 is on various vegetables
Paragraph 5 is on seafood
Paragraph 6 is on non-seafood meats
Paragraph 7 is on tea
Paragraph 8 describes a set of typical daily meals
They did have a disclaimer at the front of the section on Daily Life in Kara-Tur that this wasn't designed to accurately describe the real East Asia in all it's variety. It's not a fix, but it seems important to note that they weren't trying to describe it all with perfect accuracy - and they wanted the readers to be aware of that.
Last edited:
I dont know how aware you are about Antisemitic propaganda preceding the Holocaust.
First comes the hate. Then comes the hatespeech. Then comes the hatecrimes.
Dehumanizing someone elses identity causes harm. Immediately. Even before the words become actionable.
Bedrockgames
Legend
Well, it isn't accurate as a description of asian cuisine. But it also doesn't seem evil to me to have an asian inspired setting where rice is that kind of staple. It is just a big simplification, probably because they were basing the food section on limited sources, or a focused region.
A reminder can be helpful.
I am saying that WotC should do both these things. The fact they are not interested in issuing a new book is not a satisfactory reason for them not to. That’s a strategy based on a financial decision. It is not a strategy based on an ethical one. WotC’s approach is reminiscent of Facebook not wanting to call out misinformation
Last edited:
Maxperson
Morkus from Orkus
We have laws to punish the actions. The actions should not ever be allowed without harsh punishment. The beliefs and words must be allowed or free speech doesn't exist. We don't have to like it, and we can use our speech to counter and revile it, but it has to be allowed.
I still don't buy that. And I am Jewish and have experienced the anti-semitism.
Similar Threads
AD6_gamerati_skyscraper
Recent & Upcoming Releases
-
April 16 2024 -
May 31 2024 -
June 3 2024 -
June 4 2024 -
June 18 2024 -
July 16 2024 -
September 17 2024 -
October 1 2024 -
November 12 2024 -
February 18 2025
