D&D General D&D: Literally Don't Understand This

[Micah Sweet]

If it makes anyone feel any better, anachronisms aren't limited to D&D.
View attachment 414550

Is that sci-fi? It's not anachronistic if it's sci-fi.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

One of the main criticisms of the original Oriental Adventures product I’ve heard is how it merged China, Korea, and Japan together into a single setting.

I mean, it's a common but not very accurate criticism, if you look at the actual product.

It's basically Japan and nothing else. And it's notable that it was the first RPG book, and only RPG book, that used cultural consultants, for like, I think over a decade, maybe close on two, despite an awful lot of somewhat racist setting books coming out in that decade and a bit. And the OA consultants were all Japanese.

It does purport to represent a wider selection of Asian culture, but then basically everything but a few monsters, and arguably Shugenja are just Japanese things (even the non-Japanese monsters do appear in Japanese myth and culture in most cases, they just don't originate there).

That's not really to defend OA, but during the now-ancient-seeming fashionable-to-make-YouTube-video-about-OA era (a few years back, maybe even pre-pandemic), there was an awful lot of exaggeration and hot takes that today, people even on the deep progressive side would be a little more skeptical of. OA was definitely guilt of misrepresenting East Asia as being "Japan", and that sucked. But it didn't do some swirly merge of East Asian cultures like an awful lot of people claimed (for better or worse). And its takes on Japanese myth itself were... not that bad? I mean, watch a historical-fantasy anime, you'll get some very similar takes, if not more OTT ones. But again, it did act like this was "East Asia" not just "Japan". I dunno how much of that was Zeb Cook and how much was TSR wanting to sell it as "Oriental Adventures" (given he seems pretty stand-up I kind of suspect the latter) not "Mythic Japan Adventures" - I think it'd be seen as weirdly before its time if it was just the latter, because my god, it didn't even come close to some of the car crash 1990s stuff.

And just to engage in a soupcon of whataboutery, because it's a bugbear for me, what about that Mystara huh? How come people only talk about the nuclear-racist Orcs of Thar, but they don't about how many other Mystara places were "Exact copy of non-white culture - we have replaced the non-white people with animal people" or similar (especially when a lot of the animal-people were evil!).

Agree with your world-building approach though. Hell there are real-world "double-cultures" that people often forget existed too, like Indo-Greek.

I loved Gorilla Grodd in the Flash TV series. He did not present as silly there, at least no after you met him.

Oh really???!?!?!



(I mean I really liked him but come on man)

(And no the context does not make it less silly)

 

[cranberry]

Is that sci-fi? It's not anachronistic if it's sci-fi.

The characters are wearing modern clothing, and one is carrying cell phones in a Sci Fi setting. It's the reverse of D&D where the anachronism is modern stuff in an ancient setting, whereas this is modern stuff in a sci fi setting. Sure, the cloths and phones from our era could exist in the far future, but everyday people wouldn't be wearing/using them - those items would either be long forgotten, or in a museum.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I mean, it's a common but not very accurate criticism, if you look at the actual product.

It's basically Japan and nothing else. And it's notable that it was the first RPG book, and only RPG book, that used cultural consultants, for like, I think over a decade, maybe close on two, despite an awful lot of somewhat racist setting books coming out in that decade and a bit. And they were all Japanese.

It does purport to represent a wider selection of Asian culture, but then basically everything but a few monsters, and arguably Shugenja are just Japanese things (even the non-Japanese monsters do appear in Japanese myth and culture in most cases, they just don't originate there).

That's not really to defend OA, but during the now-ancient-seeming fashionable-to-make-YouTube-video-about-OA era (a few years back, maybe even pre-pandemic), there was an awful lot of exaggeration and hot takes that today, people even on the deep progressive side would be a little more skeptical of. OA was definitely guilt of misrepresenting East Asia as being "Japan", and that sucked. But it didn't do some swirly merge of East Asian cultures like an awful lot of people claimed (for better or worse). And its takes on Japanese myth itself were... not that bad? I mean, watch a historical-fantasy anime, you'll get some very similar takes, if not more OTT ones. But again, it did act like this was "East Asia" not just "Japan". I dunno how much of that was Zeb Cook and how much was TSR wanting to sell it as "Oriental Adventures" (given he seems pretty stand-up I kind of suspect the latter) not "Mythic Japan Adventures" - I think it'd be seen as weirdly before its time if it was just the latter, because my god, it didn't even come close to some of the car crash 1990s stuff.

And just to engage in a soupcon of whataboutery, because it's a bugbear for me, what about that Mystara huh? How come people only talk about the nuclear-racist Orcs of Thar, but they don't about how many other Mystara places were "Exact copy of non-white culture - we have replaced the non-white people with animal people" or similar (especially when a lot of the animal-people were evil!).

Agree with your world-building approach though. Hell there are real-world "double-cultures" that people often forget existed too, like Indo-Greek.


Oh really???!?!?!



(I mean I really liked him but come on man)

(And no the context does not make it less silly)

I don't know what to tell you. He was a scary ape. And to be fair the whole DC TV verse got more silly as time went on.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I don't know what to tell you. He was a scary ape. And to be fair the whole DC TV verse got more silly as time went on.

I mean I can get behind being scared of a big ape because it's a big ape.

The only monster that inherently scares me is well-drawn/rendered, really-scary-looking and bull-like minotaurs for similar reasons.

 

[BrokenTwin]

The characters are wearing modern clothing, and one is carrying cell phones in a Sci Fi setting. It's the reverse of D&D were the anachronism is modern stuff in an ancient setting, whereas this is modern stuff in a sci fi setting. Sure, the cloths and phones from our era could exist in the far future, but everyday people wouldn't be wearing/using them - those items would either be long forgotten, or in a museum.

Maybe they're coming from a future ren faire? "Come on babe, I bought us tickets for Earth 2k cycles ago! So grab your Hawaiian shirt, iphone, and musket. YES I'm sure they're all from the same time period, why do you keep asking that?!?"

 

[Ruin Explorer]

So grab your Hawaiian shirt, iphone, and musket.

Yeah and honestly your average D&D adventurer often has three items from like, 600+ years of history, when in fact there was no period where all three of those crossed over as technologies really, so it's not even that different from that perspective.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

On the topic of pattern recognition:

Start the video at the 11:20 mark and you will recognize a pattern within half a minute.

Mod Note:

Informative? Yes. Political? Also yes.

Don’t go there again.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

I mean, it's a common but not very accurate criticism, if you look at the actual product.

It's basically Japan and nothing else. And it's notable that it was the first RPG book, and only RPG book, that used cultural consultants, for like, I think over a decade, maybe close on two, despite an awful lot of somewhat racist setting books coming out in that decade and a bit. And the OA consultants were all Japanese.

It does purport to represent a wider selection of Asian culture, but then basically everything but a few monsters, and arguably Shugenja are just Japanese things (even the non-Japanese monsters do appear in Japanese myth and culture in most cases, they just don't originate there).

That's not really to defend OA, but during the now-ancient-seeming fashionable-to-make-YouTube-video-about-OA era (a few years back, maybe even pre-pandemic), there was an awful lot of exaggeration and hot takes that today, people even on the deep progressive side would be a little more skeptical of. OA was definitely guilt of misrepresenting East Asia as being "Japan", and that sucked. But it didn't do some swirly merge of East Asian cultures like an awful lot of people claimed (for better or worse). And its takes on Japanese myth itself were... not that bad? I mean, watch a historical-fantasy anime, you'll get some very similar takes, if not more OTT ones. But again, it did act like this was "East Asia" not just "Japan". I dunno how much of that was Zeb Cook and how much was TSR wanting to sell it as "Oriental Adventures" (given he seems pretty stand-up I kind of suspect the latter) not "Mythic Japan Adventures" - I think it'd be seen as weirdly before its time if it was just the latter, because my god, it didn't even come close to some of the car crash 1990s stuff.

Thanks for the correction. I do not own Oriental Adventures, I had just heard that criticism of it before and thought it was illustrative of something to avoid when worldbuilding cultures.

And just to engage in a soupcon of whataboutery, because it's a bugbear for me, what about that Mystara huh? How come people only talk about the nuclear-racist Orcs of Thar, but they don't about how many other Mystara places were "Exact copy of non-white culture - we have replaced the non-white people with animal people" or similar (especially when a lot of the animal-people were evil!).

I don’t know much about Mystara, but the little I’ve heard made me hesitant to learn more about the setting.

Agree with your world-building approach though. Hell there are real-world "double-cultures" that people often forget existed too, like Indo-Greek.

This is one of my favorite parts of learning about history. There’s a lot of interesting stuff from the Hellenistic Period, but the Greek Buddhists in India are probably the most fascinating.

 

[billd91]

Thanks for the correction. I do not own Oriental Adventures, I had just heard that criticism of it before and thought it was illustrative of something to avoid when worldbuilding cultures.

Honestly, it's less the setting information that's a mishmash as much as the character classes are. There are classes that are more Chinese-influenced than Japanese, and vice versa. And yet they're all supposed to be appropriate everywhere for the overall Far East setting.

The Kara Tur boxed set, which I don't think anybody really got to when picking apart OA on YouTube, really does go into differentiated East Asian-style settings, even going so far as to have two different countries based on different periods in Chinese history and folklore as well as two different Japanese countries, also based on different periods and emphasizing different elements of Japanese history and folklore. And STILL the samurai is treated as being as perfectly ordinary in their fantasy Chinas (Shou Lung and T'u Lung) - though they suggest calling them knights instead.