D&D General Asian D&D

[Demetrios1453]

I've had a few thoughts on Kara-Tur. I've tried to write it down in a coherent fashion, but it's just become a jumbled mess. So maybe a random list of questions might work best. (And pardon me if this has been covered.)

1. Is it as easy to ignore Kara-Tur or Zakhara as it would be to ignore Maztica since Kara-Tur and Zakhara are connected by land?

2. While it may be better to go with the new east Asian-inspired lands of the Radiant Citadel, would ignoring Kara-Tur be akin to throwing out the baby with the bathwater? In other words, might there be elements worth saving, even if used elsewhere?

3. Slight tangent...Would we ever be likely to see a Mesoamerican supplement that doesn't have conquistadors? Because I'm guessing there's a lot more tales to tell. Did they cover that in Radiant Citadel?

4. Are there good ways of using some of the player options (i.e. races, classes, armor, weapons, etc.) from the 1e and 3e Oriental Adventures books while still being respectful?

Zakhara, unlike Kara-Tur, has actually had a couple of name-drops in 5e FR products.

 

[Hussar]

There is a Shou man in Candlekeep Mysteries.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

There is a Shou man in Candlekeep Mysteries.

The author of that adventure was asked to remove a mention Kara-Tur.

Frankly, the best thing to do with Kara-Tur is to treat it like the FR equivalent of Cathay - an offensive name that was formally used by ignorant foreigners. Drop in the Radiant Citadel settings in it's place.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

Or the countries from the East could be renamed, something like different names when they are used by people from different languanges. For example Pekin-Beijing, or Confucious-Kǒng Fūzǐ.

And there are marketing reasons because WotC should start from zero. The lore of Kara-Tur and Zakhara can be found in the fandom wiki, and this mean players will not want to spend money for sourcebooks about lore.

Other reason to start from zero is creative freedom to add new elements. Let's imagine there is an update of the ki martial adept classes, and these are perfect for a jianghu setting, something in the same way that psionic in Dark Sun.

Other option is Asian companies (videogame studios or comic publishers) creating their own settings and these being licenced by WotC, to promote their own IPs.

* Now I am thinking an idea for a D&D isekai. Let's imagine the people from Kamigawa: Neon Dinasty discover a planar portal toward other world, and when the explorer arrive, they discover some natives are reincarnated from Kamigawa, and with their scientific knownledge, they have tried to start the industrial revolution (but more eco-friendly with the help of magic).

* I wonder if the tortles could be used for kappa PCs.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I’m thinking WotC should release 5e in Japanese, Chinese, and Korean with a thoroughly updated Kara-Tur. That is a huge market that loves the genre and could lead to a lot of growth IMO. Why haven’t they done this yet?

Edit: I wanted to clarify that I think the translated core books is the primary vehicle for interaction with Asian markets and the reimagined or new fantasy Asian setting being secondary. I watch enough anime and read enough manga to know traditional D&D has quite a following in at least 2 off those 3 markets

Kara-Tur is beyond terrible. Even a total rewrite isn't going to fix it. I mean, sure you could take the names of some of the stuff in Kara-Tur, maybe the maps, a few of the concepts, and maybe a few bits of the 'not Japan' part and sort of salvage them, but why bother? I mean, surely WotC can do better than Kara-Tur?

As for 'why not'? It takes a fair amount of time and money to build up a team of people who have the language skills, cultural understanding, and are able to execute a D&D business plan in these countries. Maybe its just not worth the investment. Remember, there are always competing demands for resources in any business. Even potentially profitable lines of business may not be developed simply because they are not the MOST profitable compared to what resources they require. Or they simply don't fit well with the company's overall business strategy. I mean, we cannot say from here, maybe tomorrow WotC will do this, maybe they never will.

 

[Uni-the-Unicorn!]

Kara-Tur is beyond terrible. Even a total rewrite isn't going to fix it. I mean, sure you could take the names of some of the stuff in Kara-Tur, maybe the maps, a few of the concepts, and maybe a few bits of the 'not Japan' part and sort of salvage them, but why bother? I mean, surely WotC can do better than Kara-Tur?

I tried to get across in the OP that is would pretty much be Kara-Tur in name only.

As for 'why not'? It takes a fair amount of time and money to build up a team of people who have the language skills, cultural understanding, and are able to execute a D&D business plan in these countries. Maybe its just not worth the investment. Remember, there are always competing demands for resources in any business. Even potentially profitable lines of business may not be developed simply because they are not the MOST profitable compared to what resources they require. Or they simply don't fit well with the company's overall business strategy. I mean, we cannot say from here, maybe tomorrow WotC will do this, maybe they never will.

Well, WotC already did this for The Radiant Citadel, so in theory a lot of that work is already done. They could just expand on that content and/or wrap that into or replace Kara-Tur.

 

[Voadam]

I don't think Kara Tur is beyond terrible, but it does have some issues.

For me the biggest is tying 1e/2e Kara Tur to 1e Oriental Adventures mechanics which is mostly fantasy Japanese classes and samurai honor with a bit of Chinese Kung Fu martial artists, while Kara Tur is two different era fantasy samurai Japanese islands, two fantasy Chinese empires, and some other South Asian fantasy analogues.

Having fantasy Chinese be samurai, bushi, and ninjas and have feudal Japanese style clans and samurai honor system is a bad fit.

1e OA is mostly a Player's Handbook of Japanese samurai fantasy stuff with a lot of cool 1e mechanics (classes, weapons, magic, proficiency options), an honor system I had no interest in using, and one of the best implementations of martial arts throughout D&D's editions. Kara Tur is literally covered in two pages at the back of OA briefly describing the two sets of Japanese and Chinese fantasy kingdoms, with four pages of daily life in Kara Tur which is all about fantasy feudal samurai culture.

Later the setting was fleshed out in a series of modules each with heavy individual setting area development for a different part of Kara Tur, and then a boxed set for the setting adding it to the Forgotten Realms.

In 2e it got fleshed out more with the Horde trilogy of novels and modules where the fantasy Chinese Shou gets spotlighted as being very fantasy Chinese and not Japanese. 2e Spelljammer took the FR Shou as getting into Spelljamming. Like every other spelljamming faction they basically get highlighted and fleshed out once then never really mentioned again in any of the follow up products.

3e and later has some Shou as having formed some enclaves in the core Forgotten Realms after the Horde events, so you can have fantasy Chinese canonically in normal FR stuff as part of the setting.

For me I loved a lot of 1e OA, the martial arts, the magic, the monsters, a bunch of the new weapons and armor and some classes and races and some nonweapon proficiencies (which was introduced in this book as a new mechanic). I had zero interest in the samurai feudal culture and honor system though so I never really got into the setting stuff, but I had a couple of the modules and I read the Horde trilogy and the spelljammer stuff and liked a bunch of what I did read.

 

[Uni-the-Unicorn!]

I don't think Kara Tur is beyond terrible, but it does have some issues.

For me the biggest is tying 1e/2e Kara Tur to 1e Oriental Adventures mechanics which is mostly fantasy Japanese classes and samurai honor with a bit of Chinese Kung Fu martial artists, while Kara Tur is two different era fantasy samurai Japanese islands, two fantasy Chinese empires, and some other South Asian fantasy analogues.

Having fantasy Chinese be samurai, bushi, and ninjas and have feudal Japanese style clans and samurai honor system is a bad fit.

1e OA is mostly a Player's Handbook of Japanese samurai fantasy stuff with a lot of cool 1e mechanics (classes, weapons, magic, proficiency options), an honor system I had no interest in using, and one of the best implementations of martial arts throughout D&D's editions. Kara Tur is literally covered in two pages at the back of OA briefly describing the two sets of Japanese and Chinese fantasy kingdoms, with four pages of daily life in Kara Tur which is all about fantasy feudal samurai culture.

Later the setting was fleshed out in a series of modules with heavy individual setting area development, and then a boxed set for the setting adding it to the Forgotten Realms.

In 2e it got fleshed out more with the Horde trilogy of novels and modules where the fantasy Chinese Shou gets spotlighted as being very fantasy Chinese and not Japanese. 2e Spelljammer took the FR Shou as getting into Spelljamming. Like every other spelljamming faction they basically get highlighted and fleshed out once then never really mentioned again in any of the follow up products.

3e and later has some Shou as having formed some enclaves in the core Forgotten Realms after the Horde events, so you can have fantasy Chinese canonically in normal FR stuff as part of the setting.

Any idea how one could tie this into the fantasy Asian cultures that were presented in the Radiant Citadel?

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

One of the interesting things about Japanese CoC is that while the Mythos appeals to Japanese sensibilities (I suspect its the tentacles), a lot of scenarios are non-horror and even romantic in nature. The Japanese and Korean players appear to have embraced the power of CoC rules to give slice of life with a weird creepy twist

Seems like an EXTREMELY awkward system for that sort of thing. I mean, TBH I find BRP almost unusable for Cthulhu either, it is horribly dated. There are vastly better-suited systems for that, though I suppose they may be entirely unknown in Japan at this point. From the sound of it Japanese RPGs have made some innovations and have explored some systems similar to 4e skill challenges or the clocks used in FitD games, but maybe they haven't quite really embraced narrative play?

 

[Voadam]

Any idea how one could tie this into the fantasy Asian cultures that were presented in the Radiant Citadel?

Not personally, I have no experience with Radiant Citadel other than having bought it for my brother.