D&D General Asian D&D

[Paul Farquhar]

I understand that. Earlier in the thread some people were writing that the setting could be used instead of something like Kara-Tur. I'm disappointed that it isn't even close. I don't even really see the point of the adventure being set there (instead of somewhere more generic) with how little setting there was.

You will find that the reality is often a lot more prosaic than the nonsense made up by ignorant foreigners.

 

[I'm A Banana]

Umizu is a city-state and there is no sense of a larger country that it is a part of.

I think the Radiant Citadel civilizations are specifically designed to be modular. I do kind of like that, since it's not giving me the vibe of "Here is this Fantasy Analogue to All of Japan" or whatever, it's "Here's what this particular place is like," and then you can slam your own creations up against it.

Because I do think one of the flaws of previous editions in this space is to try to give us "Fantasy Asia" and erasing some of the important nuance and local flavor of various places in favor of painting with a broad brush.

 

[Hussar]

I think the Radiant Citadel civilizations are specifically designed to be modular. I do kind of like that, since it's not giving me the vibe of "Here is this Fantasy Analogue to All of Japan" or whatever, it's "Here's what this particular place is like," and then you can slam your own creations up against it.

Because I do think one of the flaws of previous editions in this space is to try to give us "Fantasy Asia" and erasing some of the important nuance and local flavor of various places in favor of painting with a broad brush.

Really, I could get very much behind this approach all the way. Highly detailed, but, fairly small settings, rather than very generally detailed big settings. Mix and match to your heart's content and build a setting from smaller chunks, rather than the other way around.

 

[Henadic Theologian]

If you're going to accuse me of racism please show me where I said anything close to what you're claiming? Because I did not. I explicitly talked about D&D using things borrowed from Greek, Celtic and Norse in the same campaign because it was okay to throw things from different cultures and mythologies together as long as they are considered European.



But we do use real world names from European mythology all the time. My ancestors really did worship Odin, Thor and Tyr.



Depends on what you're talking about. I think we have a pretty good idea of Greco-Roman pantheons and practices. Celtic and Norse, not so much.

I'll point out that both the Greek and Romans were transcontiental cultures, to call their ancient cultures european is a vast and misleading simplification. I mean the modern versions of those cultures are European, but the Ancient Greeks were all over the place for example.

 

[Hussar]

If you're going to accuse me of racism please show me where I said anything close to what you're claiming? Because I did not. I explicitly talked about D&D using things borrowed from Greek, Celtic and Norse in the same campaign because it was okay to throw things from different cultures and mythologies together as long as they are considered European.



But we do use real world names from European mythology all the time. My ancestors really did worship Odin, Thor and Tyr.



Depends on what you're talking about. I think we have a pretty good idea of Greco-Roman pantheons and practices. Celtic and Norse, not so much.

I’d say this misses the point.

When you have Greek, Celtic and Norse elements in the game, they are held as distinct. You don’t have obviously Greek inspired temples dedicated to Thor. Your Celtic druids are standing around standing stones, not worshipping in the equivalent to the Acropolis.

That was the problem with Oriental Adventures. You had what was very obviously fantasy China inhabited by very obviously fantasy Japan. Which was a really bad idea.

In other words, borrowing is fine. Just don’t borrow stuff and then pretend it’s something else.

 

[Myrdin Potter]

I often wonder how many of the people, even those with Asian heritages, that pontificate in these threads have been to or lived in Asia. I have and have a Chinese wife and so on, and many friends and former work colleagues, but the views of a Toronto-based Asian heritage person with little to no time in Asia’s opinion matters more than mine because of surface appearances.

Asia is an incredibly fractured market. A few things seem to transcend the differences from country to country, but there are a ton of differences. I have played MtG and RPG in Japan with Japanese and in a China with Chinese and the nuances that people worry about in North America really don’t seem to matter there.

The dumb tropes are there in their TV shows and media and they are not threatened by then the same way minority immigrants in the West seem to be. I was always amazed the common sight of “Fu Manchu” mustaches in historical Chinese TV shows. They lean hard into stereotypes.

I would let them worry about what they want in their markets and we can worry about what we want in our markets.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

Of course, their points of view can be different, even sharing the same roots, for example a Chinese-American living in San Francisco, other from Taiwan, from Hong-Kong and from Beijing could show different opinions, and this wouldn't be wrong.

Somebody could say a chop-suey culture, mixing elements from different nations could be offensive but I dare to say some times these created intentionally could be necessary to stop possible predjudices against the equivalent from the real life. For example in a Chinese player group the lungs(imperial dragons) are the honorable defenders against the invasion by the oni(ogre mages, from Japanese folkore), and in a Japanese group the oni are honorable warriors who defend their homeland against the possible invasion of the lungs, or the formians, whose flag is five yellow stars on a red backroom.

Culture Chop Suey - TV Tropes

Culture Chop Suey is a Fantasy Counterpart Culture cobbled together from two or more real world cultures. As with an Anachronism Stew, the reasons for this can vary from case to case. It can stem from the writer's ignorance on the subject: they …

tvtropes.org

Of course Hasbro will hire cultural consultants, and this is right, but even these could suffer predjudices against compatriots from a different version. And these could disagree about the past, one saying we need more humildity and self-criticism, and other affirm the opposite, about we should recover the lost pride.

I understand Hasbro has to worry about the prestige of its brands, but several 3PPs have created settings inspired into no-Western cultures, and I don't see these suffering complains.

Of couse establishing clear criterias could help to avoid possible unitentional offenses.

The easiest option for Western players could be to read the lore of Asian IPs (videogames and comics) and creating a mash-up with the D&D elements (monsters, PC species and classes). The option for WotC is to unlock a new mini-setting within DMGuild, following the example of the Radiant Citadel, but I guess there the 3PPs are more focused into to create crunch than lore/background.

The self-censorship is not necessary.

My suggestion is Hasbro talking with Asian companies to agree some licence into D&D-Beyond. This wouldn't sell but only free packs about the lore of videogames and comics. These could be see a free promotion for their own franchises.

* Sorry, now I am imagining a supernatural romance where Sumaq (Belle in Quechua languange) a native from Ixalan falls in love with a Spanish vampire named Eduardo.

 

[Hussar]

I often wonder how many of the people, even those with Asian heritages, that pontificate in these threads have been to or lived in Asia. I have and have a Chinese wife and so on, and many friends and former work colleagues, but the views of a Toronto-based Asian heritage person with little to no time in Asia’s opinion matters more than mine because of surface appearances.

Asia is an incredibly fractured market. A few things seem to transcend the differences from country to country, but there are a ton of differences. I have played MtG and RPG in Japan with Japanese and in a China with Chinese and the nuances that people worry about in North America really don’t seem to matter there.

The dumb tropes are there in their TV shows and media and they are not threatened by then the same way minority immigrants in the West seem to be. I was always amazed the common sight of “Fu Manchu” mustaches in historical Chinese TV shows. They lean hard into stereotypes.

I would let them worry about what they want in their markets and we can worry about what we want in our markets.

Couple of points. While I've never lived in China, I have lived in both Korea and Japan. I REALLY wouldn't look to either country for guidance on treatment of minorities and minority views. Plus, let's not forget, that the primary market for these works IS someone who lives in Toronto or Los Angeles and not someone living in Pusan or Osaka. There's likely more D&D gamers in a single large US city than there are in all of Japan and Korea combined. Particularly if you exclude the expat communities in either country.

So, yeah, the opinion of someone living in Toronto is going to have a larger impact because that person is actually a part of the hobby.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

At our home some time we cooked "rice three delights", an Asian recipe, but we use olive oil instead soy. Is this wrong? No at our home, because we would rather with olive oil although the original recipe says with soybean oil.

Hasbro wants to introduce D&D into the Asian markets, but these have got different preferences. Here the first step could start from the lowest with a web novel, but the true hard work is the worldbuilding. The TTRPGs are different because the worldbuilding are designed to happen lots of interesting things in different places, and not only limited to a litle group of characters, like in the MMORPGs.

WotC would rather to create "generic" PC species, not too limited to certain settings.

Any suggestion about worldbuilding? If D&D-Beyond has got space for homebred species, monsters and subclasses, why not a new section for homebred worldbuilding? Maybe some tool to create and edit fictional maps, and some link if the creators wants to tell the lore about this world in their own blog.

* WotC could need special rules for "isekai" characters, people from a more advanced civilitation, for example "Kamigawa: Neon Dinasty".

 

[Voadam]

When you have Greek, Celtic and Norse elements in the game, they are held as distinct. You don’t have obviously Greek inspired temples dedicated to Thor.

That's not quite true.

I have a d20 fantasy viking game with fairly analogue real world countries and the semi-monotheistic southlands fantasy Rome has a universal Catholic church of Odin with cathedrals and such.

Historically one of the bigger popular depictions of Thor has him speaking pseudo-Shakespearian.

Druids get thrown about and slotted in everywhere throughout D&D.