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Message: <blockquote data-quote="GreyLord" data-source="post: 8031057" data-attributes="member: 4348">I think the aim was more to try to get an actual Asian view of things rather than American.  That's just my take (as I said, the real experts would be Mr. Gygax who is, unfortunately no longer available, and Mr Cook.  In essence, much of what Ggyax had planned got tossed and what we now have for OA was put together hastily by Mr. Cook.  The degree of what he used from Ggyax is debatable, and some say he used a LOT while others say he used almost none of it).I think some of the original plan was to have more Chinese information and influence on the Book than what came out with Mr. Cook, but again, as I said, Mr. Cook is the one to probably ask more questions about that.Regarding Japanese culture at the time, I'm not sure I am qualified to actually truthfully say it how it was.  I can talk about it as an OUTSIDER, and form an OUTSIDER's PERSPECTIVE, but that is going to be entirely biased and not quite what one wants to probably hear.  That said, I can give a small bit of it, but understand it is NOT from a Japanese perspective, but someone from the West with all the incumbent biases and fallibilities that go with it.The influence on D&D was small in the 80s.  It was there, but it was not like it was in the West IN MY OPINION.  Most of my time wasn't even spent in Japan, it was spent in the West.  There was a small but fanatical group of gamers there.  Now, Games were not really seen as adult occupations (nor were cartoons, or what we know as anime in the West, and manga wasn't really an adult thing either).  Adults were expected to do adult things, and games were not really seen as that.  If you did play games it would be doing things seen as respectable such as going golfing with your boss or peers, going to the baseball games with the company, etc, or ensuring your family had the best things in life and were comfortable.  In many ways it was even more conservative in it's outlooks and customs than the US (without the Christian influences being as strong, obviously).  A LOT of those playing RPGS though were young, and as they were young and upcoming, they used their enthusiasm in things that they were creating and things they started up.  Thus, in new areas such as video games where younger individuals were the ones at the forefront, you see them inputting a LOT of this D&D influence (and D&D was a MAJOR influence, it was not the ONLY influence, you also have Wizardry and a few other things being strong influences on their creations of CRPGS and computer games at the time).  You could say, though small, this group of players created the foundation for modern entertainment (at least children's entertainment) today.  It's a different mixture of D&D influence with Japanese influence, which you can see in things from Yu-Gi-Oh, to other forms of entertainment in their manga and even toys.So, while small, I'd say they had a rather LARGE influence of the future (which is today).In my unqualified thought on the matter.</blockquote>

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