D&D General Asian D&D

[EzekielRaiden]

Oh, man, I'm just going to give you a pat on the back for a fantastic summation of a complex and often controversial topic in a fair, balanced, and informative paragraph.

That's very kind of you to say, and I am glad that it achieved its goal.

 

[humble minion]

With regard to the OP specifically - why Kara-Tur in particular? I mean, it hasn't had a meaningful presence in D&D lore since what, the Horde metaplot in FR, and the dragonships in the original Spelljammer? So 30 years minimum? A quick google doesn't exactly reveal a thriving fan community. It's the next thing to invisible, in fact. Dragonlance, Ravenloft, Greyhawk, and Dark Sun leave it for dead in that department. I can't even remember anyone having lore arguments about the place on this board, whereas we can go on for hundred and hundred of posts about pretty much any other setting. So far as the wider D&D culture, it seems to have pretty much vanished without leaving a trace on the zeitgeist. Quick, everyone, without googling, name 6 Kara-Tur deities! I could do that with the greatest of ease for almost any other D&D setting, even the ones that went out of print before i got into the game in the mid-late 90s. In fact, Kara-Tur seems to be the rarest of rare beasties - an AD&D campaign setting that DOESN'T have a vocal fanbase clamouring for WotC to bring it back! Even Maztica gets more love, and near-universal opinion is that Maztica sucked.

Assuming WotC wanted to put out a product with a more Asian-inspired look and feel, why would they go back to Kara-Tur, and have to deal with or retcon all the hamfisted or problematic stuff rather than make something new? What in particular makes Kara-Tur unique, memorable, and worth salvaging?

 

[Paul Farquhar]

So 30 years minimum?

Mentioned in the 3rd edition FR campaign setting book (2001) so it's only been dead 22 years!

 

[Uni-the-Unicorn!]

With regard to the OP specifically - why Kara-Tur in particular? I mean, it hasn't had a meaningful presence in D&D lore since what, the Horde metaplot in FR, and the dragonships in the original Spelljammer? So 30 years minimum? A quick google doesn't exactly reveal a thriving fan community. It's the next thing to invisible, in fact. Dragonlance, Ravenloft, Greyhawk, and Dark Sun leave it for dead in that department. I can't even remember anyone having lore arguments about the place on this board, whereas we can go on for hundred and hundred of posts about pretty much any other setting. So far as the wider D&D culture, it seems to have pretty much vanished without leaving a trace on the zeitgeist. Quick, everyone, without googling, name 6 Kara-Tur deities! I could do that with the greatest of ease for almost any other D&D setting, even the ones that went out of print before i got into the game in the mid-late 90s. In fact, Kara-Tur seems to be the rarest of rare beasties - an AD&D campaign setting that DOESN'T have a vocal fanbase clamouring for WotC to bring it back! Even Maztica gets more love, and near-universal opinion is that Maztica sucked.

Assuming WotC wanted to put out a product with a more Asian-inspired look and feel, why would they go back to Kara-Tur, and have to deal with or retcon all the hamfisted or problematic stuff rather than make something new? What in particular makes Kara-Tur unique, memorable, and worth salvaging?

I was using Kara-Tur in name only I the OP. I it was just an example.

 

[Weiley31]

Right now, Adventures in Rokugan, Mists of Akuma, and the upcoming Kamon 5E seem to be able to handle my Asian DND style needs.

But it is very interesting to see how CoC is hella popular in Japan and to see the concepts of Replays.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

It is curious, because Kamon is by the Italian Fabio Attoli.

I don't remember complains about Rokugan/L5R, but it was very popular among otakus. (this term shouldn't be pejorative in the right context).

Let's remember in the Japan society there isn't long time for hobby, and in the most of time they are studing. Then they would rather one-shot games.

Let's remember Hasbro's strategy is D&D to become a multimedia franchise, and the manga-anime should be one of the goals.

The Spirit Realm could be redesigned to be a third option next to the Feywild and the Shadowfell.

Koreans could be jealous if D&D was too focused into Japan and China.

* How would be a jianghu country what mixed Russian and Chinese artistic style? This no-Russia could allow more creative freedom. Are Russians to complain about cultural appropiation?

* In this case Japan should enjoy preference above China. This is a great market, but the censorship hasn't got an always coherent rules.

* I don't know if Hasbro trusts Tencent enough for a parntership.

* Kara-Tur appeared in 3.5 Ed in Dragon Magazine, but it was mostly names of places..

 

[humble minion]

It is curious, because Kamon is by the Italian Fabio Attoli.

I didn't end up backing the Kamon kickstarter (and I back a LOT of setting book kickstarters) in small part because of this, but mostly because of the prickly and defensive tone the author had about the whole appropriation issue. To each their own, but it put me right off.

When it comes to Asian-inspired 3pp settings, there's Koryo (Korean-inspired, written by a Western guy, but one who's lived in Korea for over a decade), and Undying Corruption, which is also Korean-inspired. Someone has already mentioned Sina Una, plus Metis Media have an upcoming setting based around the Silk Road, and have promoted another one themed around Mongols and other steppe nomads. I have to admit though, I'm a bit surprised by the LACK of options in this space. Mists of Akuma is pretty cool, but unless you lean hard into the whole steampunk thing it may not be for you. Rokugan is a western mish-mash of bits of Japan and China. Other than those, there seems to be no serious attempt at a Chinese-themed setting, or Vietnamese, Indian, Cambodian, Indonesian/Javanese, Tibetan, and so on. We've even got a number of options for African-themed settings/sourcebooks now, and there's so many viking-based books around that I could roof my house with them and never use the same one twice, but when it comes to much of Asia, the pickings are really slim.

 

[Dragonhelm]

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?

 

[humble minion]

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?

Probably. It's very easy to ignore Zahkara because it shares almost no lore or history with the rest of FR. The Al-Qadim line pretty much never mentioned anywhere in Kara-Tur, Shou Lung etc even if they did nominally share a border. It's actually harder to ignore Maztica since it has such a history with Amn and Helm. It really depends what WotC want to do with FR. It seems from their past releases, annd what we know of the upcoming ones, that they have no intention of leaving their Sword Coast comfort zone, and if that's the intention, then there's almost no reason to mention Kara-Tur at all. They already ignored the Shou dragonships and trade fleets that were a major feature of the original Spelljammer game line, so I see no reason that the deliberate amnesia strategy shouldn't work again.

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?

Good question, and one I asked myself upthread. I'm not familiar enough with Kara-Tur to answer.

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?

Dunno about Radiant Citadel, but there's at least one 3pp supplement in the works that covers that ground (along with other native American societies).

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1514619081/heroes-of-mythic-americas/description

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?

A lot of the 3e player material is fairly heavily Rokugan-focused, from memory, and wouldn't translate so well to a non-Rokugan setting. There's probably some weapons and armour (kusari-gama, o-yoroi armour, maybe a nagimaki etc) that don't have direct 5e equivalents and which could be usefully added. I suspect you're better off saying a katana (or a jian) is just a longsword though, and so on, rather than trying to invent a million different unique weapon stat line for every possible variant like previous editions did. The races, as far as i can remember from more recent reaction, did not score well on the 'cultural sensitivity' scale and probably should go or be massively reworked.

As did many 3e supplements, it devoted a lot of page count to prestige classes, many of which are largely unnecessary in the more streamlined character-construction model of 5e. You probably don't need the 'two-weapon samurai' prestige class AND the 'heavy weapon samurai' and so on. A lot of the bases are covered by base 5e options already - an assassin rogue is all you really need to play a ninja for instance. There might be space for a few feats or fighting styles, perhaps one based around iaijutsu duelling?

Spellcasters are where it gets interesting. 3e OA assumes that most spellcasters will be shugenja, and there might be space for something like this. The traditional heavily-armoured D&D cleric has its roots deep in European myth and culture of course - the Song of Roland, Friar Tuck, and the Crusades etc etc. It's a pretty poor fit for Asian stories - but in game terms you do need to have that healing/protective base covered. 3e OA shugenja are elementalists (because that was ALWAYS TSR/WotCs preferred Break Glass In Case Of Wanting An Exciting New Magic System option - see Al-Qadim and Dark Sun) but I don't think there's any particular cultural reason for this. Personally I'd be tempted to just allow clerics to swap shield/armour proficiencies for a monk's Unarmoured Defence and a couple of extra skill proficiencies and call it a day, but to be fair, I'm not really familiar with the stories that shugenja are based on.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

I suspect our failure is here we don't know the opinions by true Asian players, and these can be different among them. For example a Chinese-American living in Chicago, a Taiwanese, a Chinese from Hong-Kong and other from Beijing would do a Chinese inspired setting in different ways.

Sohei is a too interesteting concept to be only a hibrid between monk with armour and ki-frenzy.

If psionic powers and ki martial adepts are going to return, some setting should be ready to allow space for them.

Now WotC only should worry about to create a right "crunch". For the time being, some creatures and PC species would be enough. I like the concept for dokkaebi from "Undying Corruption".

If mortals never existed, neither could the first Dokkaebi be born into the world. Native to the land of Danguk, Dokkaebi are fey, the lowest-ranked of the natural gods, who are given shape through the innate energies flowing through nature and given will and personality by the unvarnished desires of people around them. Though they take on humanoid forms, their true body is an Object Form: an abandoned object left in the wilds which they can freely transform into and out of. They enjoy nothing more than a good drink, a wrestling match, and throwing festivals in the night, which villagers attribute any strange, inexplicable phenomena to. Though fickle and rambunctious, they carry a strong sense of right and wrong and pay back both favors and insults tenfold.

I suspect WotC would rather all PC species created to can be used in the rest of settings, not only for certain one. And they would rather something with own name, for trademark reasons. They didn't published the "rabbitfolk", but the harengon.

The ardlings, those planetouched whose acenstors were a guardinal, they would be perfect for a D&D jianghu/isekai.

* WotC should talke with some 3PPs for a possible licencing deal. What could earn these? More royalties by manga/manghua/manghwa adaptations. Some anime franchises started as web novels.

* If Mist of Akuma is steampunk... could we see a crossover Transformers/Mist of Akuma?