D&D General (Anecdotal) conversations with Asian gamers on some problems they currently face in the D&D world of RPG gaming

[Imaculata]

Pardon my ignorance, but, what Middle Eastern cultural representation do we have in D&D? A couple of monsters in the Monster Manual I suppose - genies, for example. Couple of the magic items - flying carpet, ring of wishes. That's about it.

3.5 had the book Sandstorm, which provided content for running a desert themed campaign. It may have included some sort of middle eastern representation, I do not remember.

 

[Sorcerers Apprentice]

3.5 had the book Sandstorm, which provided content for running a desert themed campaign. It may have included some sort of middle eastern representation, I do not remember.

There's also the Al Qadim setting. I'd say there's as much representation of middle eastern culture in D&D as there is Japanese.

 

[Hussar]

Al Qadim was what, almost 30 years ago? A handful of sourcebooks for 2e?

5e has Japanese named sub-classes.

Seriously? You think there's as much middle eastern cultural representation in 5e D&D as there is Japanese?

 

[KentDT]

Pardon my ignorance, but, what Middle Eastern cultural representation do we have in D&D? A couple of monsters in the Monster Manual I suppose - genies, for example. Couple of the magic items - flying carpet, ring of wishes. That's about it.

And, again, remember, this is a panel. Which means that you get what you get. There are any number of reasons they didn't have a Japanese person on the panel - and again, there is a TON of Japanese representation in D&D and always have been - classes, monsters, weapons, art, etc - which don't have anything to do with excluding anyone.

As Sorcerers Apprentice pointed out above, I was referring to Al Qadim which had much more TSR produced supplementary material than either 1e or 3e of Oriental Adventures (although AEG put out a bunch of stuff for the 3e version in Rokugan, of course).
Anyway, I'm not trying to get into an argument about which culture has more representation (problematic or not) in D&D, but I think "you get what you get" is the main excuse traditionally for the perceived lack of PoC in the industry. I don't think it's a good excuse. Especially from people (meaning the panel organizers, not anyone here at EnWorld) who profess to believe in inclusivity and diversity. Again, I just want more inclusivity and diversity, not less.
But, as Mecheon pointed out above, apparently the people who put on the panel have a regular Japanese guest on their podcast show so perhaps I shouldn't be so snarky about them not including a Japanese voice on this particular panel.

 

[Sorcerers Apprentice]

Al Qadim was what, almost 30 years ago? A handful of sourcebooks for 2e?

5e has Japanese named sub-classes.

Seriously? You think there's as much middle eastern cultural representation in 5e D&D as there is Japanese?

I'm always serious.

 

[KentDT]

Al Qadim was what, almost 30 years ago? A handful of sourcebooks for 2e?

5e has Japanese named sub-classes.

Seriously? You think there's as much middle eastern cultural representation in 5e D&D as there is Japanese?

Hussar, first you wrote about Japanese cultural prevalence in Western Media. Then you wrote about a "TON of Japanese representation in D&D and always have been", comparing it to the supposed lack of Middle Eastern themed material. So when Al Qadim is pointed out, you disparage it as being 30 years ago and narrow your focus to 5e D&D. So what? Original OA was 40 or so years ago and as I said before, TSR put out way more Al Qadim material (10 or 11 sourcebooks) then for both 1e and 3e versions of OA. And yes, there's a samurai in 5e, which is expressly pointed out as being based on pop culture, not historical. If you want to limit the discussion to 5e material put out by WoTC then I totally don't get your argument-there's definitely NOT a ton of material representing Japan. And probably never will be because of the current focus on PC, cultural appropriation and all that. I doubt WoTC wants the inevitable headaches.
I think it's a loss. I'd love to see historically, culturally based material for all sorts of cultures, including Middle Eastern and Japanese and many others.

 

[Hussar]

Ok, so, Kara-tur, as a line, had how many sourcebooks? There's been two Oriental Adventures, 1 for 3e and one for 1e. Every single edition of D&D has had Japanese cultural representation - through art, classes, sourcebooks, and various other bits and bobs. For Middle Eastern representation, we've had a single setting thirty years ago. Oh, yeah, totally equal. But, all this is somewhat beside the point.

You're the one, @KentDT lamenting the lack of Japanese representation on a single panel, going so far as to declare it discriminatory, as if you had evidence that it was deliberate. So, what is your evidence that WotC deliberately chose to exclude Japanese representation from this particular panel? What has WotC done or said that makes it sound like Japanese cultural voices are being excluded from the conversation?

I mean, did they have someone from Cambodia on the panel? I guess we're excluding Cambodian culture now too. Laotian as well. Totally discriminatory. The panel apparently should have had a few dozen speakers, in order to make sure that everyone was covered. Gimme a break. Japanese culture has never been excluded from D&D. Ever. Every single edition of D&D has drawn SPECIFICALLY from Japanese culture. Yet, we have two speakers covering a Middle Eastern perspective, oh noes, we're excluding Japan.

 

[Cadence]

Weren't there things OA, for example, trivialized about Japanese history and culture too?

Wait, what? OA trivialized every other culture in East Asia in favor of promoting the idea that Japanese culture was the only interesting culture out there. Good grief they actually USE Japanese language in the books. What are you talking about?

I certainly get that it was very problematic bad about the entire rest of Asia.

I think I was remembering the rice...

This does highlight my issue with OA quite nicely though. The greeting of "Have you eaten yet" is specific to Chinese speakers. Anyone else doesn't say this. The Japanese certainly don't.

... and forgot that you had said...

Do you see the issue now? Like I said, if this was a book about playing in Mythic Japan, then all my issues vanish. I would shut up and go away if that were true. Unfortunately, it's not true.

I guess I'm kind of surprised that it's reliance on movie and pop-culture tropes and things like the way it did the honor system, wouldn't be viewed as problematic, even if restricted to just D&Dized Japan. But ok.

 

[Hussar]

@Cadence - is anyone, to your knowledge, complaining about these things? Has anyone brought it up as an issue? To my knowledge, it hasn't been. So, why are you fishing for additional issues? Why not stick to the ACTUAL issues that people have brought up?

See, again, this is why these things are so hard to discuss. People want to bring in all these "whatabouts" without having any actual basis for bringing them up. It's so frustrating having to wade through all this noise to stick to actual issues. No, not having a Japanese contributor on a single panel is most certainly NOT discriminatory. No, D&D has not trivialized Japanese culture (or hasn't done so to such a degree that it becomes insulting). How do I know? Because no one is complaining about it.

Why is everyone so intent on inventing problems? Why not stick to the ACTUAL REAL problems that people have presented you with?

 

[Cadence]

@Cadence - is anyone, to your knowledge, complaining about these things? Has anyone brought it up as an issue? To my knowledge, it hasn't been. So, why are you fishing for additional issues? Why not stick to the ACTUAL issues that people have brought up?

As I just posted, I had forgotten that you had said it wasn't problematic in your view about Japan. I went through the entire thread and did a brief google search, and was just surprised that it was viewed as having done such a relatively good job on the Japanese-based part.

And the second part of the original post I made was defending the panel and just fine with its make-up so I wasn't contesting that at all.

In defending the panel, I'd add that there are a lot of sizable ethnicities in Asia and panels only contain a handful of people (unlike, say, lists of those who contribute to books could).