D&D (2024) Asians Represent: "Has WotC Fixed the D&D Monk?"

[Alzrius]

That's what I thought, but Rokugan was the default setting for the 3rd edition version of Oriental Adventures. Somebody out there wants or wanted to use it for D&D for God only knows what reason.

It was part-and-parcel of the deal that allowed WotC to buy TSR in the first place. Shannon Appelcline goes into more detail on the Oriental Adventures (3e) (affiliate link) DriveThruRPG sales page:

A History of Five Rings. Although Wizards of the Coast decided to revamp Oriental Adventures for D&D 3e, they would focus on a different campaign setting: Rokugan.

Rokugan began life at the Alderac Entertainment Group (AEG). It was originally imagined as the setting of the Legends of the Five Rings CCG (1995), which was later spun off to Five Ringers Publishing to allow for better funding. AEG then received a license from Five Rings to publish a Legend of the Five Rings RPG (1997). It was the first particularly successful Asian-influence RPG since … TSR's Oriental Adventures.

Meanwhile, Five Rings Publishing found themselves involved with the roleplaying business deal of a lifetime. After TSR started having serious financial problems in 1997, Five Rings negotiated the rights to purchase the company, which they then passed on to Wizards of the Coast. As part of the deal, Wizards bought Five Rings Publishing as well.

AEG's license to produce the Legends of the Five Rings RPG ended in 2000, which meant that Wizards of the Coast now owned the Rokugan RPG. Though Wizards would return the rights to AEG in 2001, in the meantime they flirted with the idea of using Rokugan as a new D&D setting … which led to the new Oriental Adventures.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

It's true that the class archetypes have broadened considerably over the past 50-ish years, but each class is VERY culturally coded . . . European culture as seen through an American lens.

No.

You're confusing "culturally-coded" with "written by people of a specific culture".

Those are two separate and not necessarily particularly closely-related concepts.

That's like saying that the Gunbreaker for FFXIV is "Japanese-coded" because Japanese videogame designers came up with it for a primarily Japanese audience, when in terms of actual lore and visual style, if anything, it's very lightly Northern European-coded.

We just see the monk as different because it's THE Asian class surrounded by European archetypes . . . and the game was created by Euro-Americans for a Euro-American audience.

No.

"We" are not that blind. It's kind of ironic that you're asserting that basically everyone but you is.

 

[Tales and Chronicles]

I'd prefer if the asian-coded trope wasnt reserved to only to only one class. Monks should not be '' Asians: the Class''. Just like martial arts (unarmed or not) should be split across the board: brawler barbarian, euro-monk paladin, elemental bender sorcerer etc

We already have a Samurai fighter, give us a Ninja rogue, Geomancer Wizard, Animist Warlock, Iron Rider Barbarian, Cavalry Archer Ranger, Exorcist Cleric etc

 

[Dire Bare]

You're confusing "culturally-coded" with "written by people of a specific culture"

Nope.

You are just confusing "we don't agree" with "clearly, you are wrong".

 

[SkidAce]

... There is a lot of very RPG friendly concepts in kung fu movies, wuxia movies, samurai movies, etc. It is a recognizable trope the way a medieval knight is a recognizable trope. Neither is all that connected to the history they are drawing on (they come out of genre)

Quoted for truth.

And those same style movies are being produced to this day.

 

[Sacrosanct]

give us a Ninja rogue,

And make it more inspired by history rather than the 80s nonsensical stereotypes (Don't get me wrong, I loved ninja in the 80s, but now?....just no... )

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Nope.

You are just confusing "we don't agree" with "clearly, you are wrong".

Ok. But you've presented no examples or argument beyond "All classes in D&D except Monks are European-coded because Americans wrote them", which I have to say, is not overwhelmingly persuasive without more specific examples. Especially when we look at say, Japanese videogames, which are, by and large, very much by Japanese designers for Japanese audiences, but where the coding of classes, regions in those games, and so on varies pretty widely, and a significant proportion of it isn't meaningfully coded to anything real-world at all, but is sort of "fantasy-coded", or to be more precise coded to certain tropes/ideas in fantasy, which are often largely disconnected from any real cultural context. Yet others can be anywhere from lightly to heavily coded to specific cultures. It's not like stuff isn't often European-coded, either - loads of stuff is, and it tends to be fairly obvious.

To be clear, here's no doubt most classes in D&D (esp. Cleric, Paladin, Druid) started off at least vaguely to severely "European-coded", but it was skin-deep in most cases and long since rubbed off, both as a result of wear and tear and intentional de-coding (which has been going on since 2E - 2E is very interesting here because you see both some really appalling coding - c.f. The Barbarian's Handbook, or rather don't, it's awful - and also early attempts to make it so classes aren't coded to specific cultures - instead the "coding" stuff tended to be moved increasingly to kits rather than classes).

The Monk is distinct from much of that because it has particularly weird "throwback" design that hasn't changed as much precisely because it is tightly coded to martial arts movie (particularly HK movie) Shaolin Monks specifically. It's not that we need to be red-pilled by your or something, dear Morpheus. We are aware this isn't air we're breathing, as it were. But the Monk is weird nonetheless.

 

[Scribe]

* a historical ninja from the Iga region would be a combination of a ranger/rogue/alchemist in D&D terms--certainly enough overlap to warrant its own class and not shoehorned into a rogue specialty?

If you asked 100 gamers what a Ninja is, are even 10% going to answer the above, or are they going to go with something like well...the image results for 'Shinobi'?

 

[Sacrosanct]

RE: the discussion around cultural appropriation and sensitivity, I recall an article I read in the 80s. Back then, the west was infatuated with samurai, Shaolin, and ninja. And most of the fantasy coming from Japan was around knights and medieval Europe. Basically came down to people find other cultures exotic, and tend to be pretty popular in books and games.

 

[Tales and Chronicles]

The sad thing about D&D is that, even in 2023, any unarmored or unarmed martial traditions, the one not relying on your usual north-European medieval fantasy equipment, is either put in the Asian-as-Class or Primitive-Brute category.

That comes with a lot of baggage.