Do We Still Need "Oriental Adventures"?

Orientalism -- a wide-ranging term originally used to encompass depictions of Middle Eastern, South Asian, and East Asian cultures -- has gradually come to represent a more negative term. Should Dungeons & Dragons, known for two well-received books titled "Oriental Adventures," have another edition dedicated to "Eastern" cultures?

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Orientalism -- a wide-ranging term originally used to encompass depictions of Middle Eastern, South Asian, and East Asian cultures -- has gradually come to represent a more negative term. Should Dungeons & Dragons, known for two well-received books titled "Oriental Adventures," have another edition dedicated to "Eastern" cultures?

[h=3]A Brief History of Orientalism[/h]For a time, orientalism was a term used by art historians and literary scholars to group "Eastern" cultures together. That changed in 1978 with Edward Said's Orientalism, which argued that treatment of these cultures conflated peoples, times, and places into a narrative of incident and adventure in an exotic land.

It's easy to see why this approach might appeal to role-playing games. Orientalism is one lens to view a non-European culture within the game's context. We previously discussed how "othering" can create a mishmash of cultures, and it can apply to orientalism as well. The challenge is in how to portray a culture with nuance, and often one large region isn't enough to do the topic justice. The concept even applies to the idea of the "East" and the "Orient," which turns all of the Asian regions into one mono-culture. Wikipedia explains the term in that context:

The imperial conquest of "non–white" countries was intellectually justified with the fetishization of the Eastern world, which was effected with cultural generalizations that divided the peoples of the world into the artificial, binary-relationship of "The Eastern World and The Western World", the dichotomy which identified, designated, and subordinated the peoples of the Orient as the Other—as the non–European Self.


Game designers -- who were often admitted fans of Asian cultures -- sought to introduce a new kind of fantasy into traditional Western tropes. Viewed through a modern lens, their approach would likely be different today.
[h=3]The "Oriental" Books in D&D[/h]The original Oriental Adventures was published in 1985 by co-creator of D&D Gary Gygax, David "Zeb" Cook and François Marcela-Froideval. It introduced the ninja, kensai, wu-jen, and shukenja as well as new takes on the barbarian and monk. It was also the first supplement to introduce non-weapn proficiencies, the precursor to D&D's skill system. The book was well-received, and was envisioned by Gygax as an opportunity to reinvigorate the line -- ambitions which collapsed when he left the company. The book's hardcover had the following text printed on the back:

…The mysterious and exotic Orient, land of spices and warlords, has at last opened her gates to the West.


Aaron Trammell provides a detailed analysis of how problematic this one line of text is. The sum of his argument:

Although Gary Gygax envisioned a campaign setting that brought a multicultural dimension to Dungeons & Dragons, the reality is that by lumping together Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Mongolian, Philippine, and “Southeast Asian” lore he and co-authors David “Zeb” Cook and Francois Marcela-Froideval actually developed a campaign setting that reinforced western culture’s already racist understanding of the “Orient.”


The next edition would shift the setting from Kara-Tur (which was later sent in the Forgotten Realms) to Rokugan from the Legend of the Five Rings role-playing game.
[h=3]Controversy of the Five Rings[/h]James Wyatt wrote the revised Oriental Adventures for Third Edition D&D, published by Wizards of the Coast in 2001. It was updated to 3.5 in Dragon Magazine #318.

Legend of the Five Rings, a franchise that extends to card games, is itself not immune to controversy. Quintin Smith got enough comments on his review of the Legend of the Five Rings card game that he included an appendix that looked critically at chanting phrases "banzai!" at conventions and some of the game's art:

Now, I have no idea if this is right or wrong, but I do know that chanting in Japanese at an event exclusively attended by white men and women made me feel a tiny bit weird. My usual headcheck for this is “How would I feel if I brought a Japanese-English friend to the event?” and my answer is “Even more weird.” Personally, I found the game’s cover art to be a little more questionable. I think it’s fantastic to have a fantasy world that draws on Asian conventions instead of Western ones. But in a game that almost exclusively depicts Asian men and women, don’t then put white people on the cover! It’s such a lovely piece of art. I just wish she looked a little bit less like a cosplayer.


Perhaps in response to this criticism, Fantasy Flight Games removed the "banzai" chant as a bullet point from its web site. The page also features several pictures of past tournament winners, which provides some context as to who was shouting the chant.
[h=3]Fifth Edition and Diversity[/h]By the time the Fifth Edition of D&D was published, the game's approach to diverse peoples had changed. Indigo Boock on GeekGirlCon explains how:

Diversity is strength. The strongest adventuring party is the most diverse adventuring party. Try thinking about it in terms of classes—you have your healers, fighters, and magic users. Same goes for diversity. Different outlooks on life create more mobility and openness for different situations. Jeremy also explained that it was crucial that the art also reflected diversity, as did Art Director Kate Erwin. With this, they tried to make sure that there was a 50/50 split of people who identify as male and people who identify as female in the illustrations.


Trammell points out how these changes are reflected in the art of the core rule books:

First, there are illustrations: an East Asian warlock, a female samurai, an Arabian princess, an Arab warrior, and a Moor in battle, to name a few. Then, there are mechanics: the Monk persists as a class replete with a spiritual connection to another world via the “ki” mechanic. Scimitars and blowguns are commonly available as weapons, and elephants are available for purchase as mounts for only 200 gold. Although all of these mechanics are presented with an earnest multiculturalist ethic of appreciation, this ethic often surreptitiously produces a problematic and fictitious exotic, Oriental figure. At this point, given the embrace of multiculturalism by the franchise, it seems that the system is designed to embrace the construction of Orientalist fictional worlds where the Orient and Occident mix, mingle, and wage war.


A good first step is to understand the nuances of a region by exploring more than one culture there. Sean "S.M." Hill's "The Journey to..." series is a great place to start, particularly "Romance of the Three Kingdoms."

D&D has come a long way, but it still has some work to do if it plans to reflect the diversity of its modern player base and their cultures...which is why it seems unlikely we'll get another Oriental Adventures title.

Mike "Talien" Tresca is a freelance game columnist, author, communicator, and a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to http://amazon.com. You can follow him at Patreon.
 

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Michael Tresca

Michael Tresca

Warpiglet

Adventurer
Many people, especially many Indigenous Australians, would say that "mistreatment" continues (eg incarceration rates, child removal rates, mortality and morbidity, just to pick up on some fairly straightforward indicators).

But if we reverse the idea of "villains on both sides" to "well-intentioned people on both side", Inga Clendinnen's book Dancing With Strangers could be a starting point. It also shows that you don't have to be aiming to commit massacres to contribute to the deaths of many thousands of people, and cultural devastation.

The personal moral character of Arthur Phillip is of only modest relevance in assessing the significance and moral standing of the colonisation process.


I'm an Australian and I teach some aspects of the colonisation of Australia at a university level. I think any adventure that deals with colonisation (whether along British Australian or some other lines) has the potential to be tricky, just as would - say - an adventure that tried to deal with other sorts of wrongdoing whose meaning and consequences still resonate in contemporary life. (I'm hesitant to give examples, but I'm sure you can think of some.)

That's not a reason not to do it. It just means you have to recognise that what you do might be controversial.

There is a reason to try and avoid casual racism, and to avoid treating events that are of great significance to some people in a trivial or frivolous fashion. But while sincerity helps here, it's not self-validating. I know some people who are participants in various social liberation movements who love the X-Men. But I'm sure there are others out there who think the X-Men comics and movies trivialise their struggles.

One way to go wrong is to project yourself in some fashion onto the other person/culture/history/experience you're trying to describe and engage with. "Orientalism" is a type of projection. Framing "the Orient" as "exotic" is one manifstation of the projection.

There would be similar sorts of things to be avoided in your hypothetical Australia adventure. (Unfortunately the standard D&D mechanics may not make it easy to avoid them, because they are designed around certain technologies - eg the use of steel weapons and armour - as the norm. That's not an issue in itself, but it can make it hard to smoothly integrate alternative technologies into the gameworld. The monk's wisdom bonus to AC lives in the margins of this issue.)


This is part of the problem.

There is a difference between something being foreign and something being "exoticised" in the fashion discussed in the OP. Exoticisation, in this context, is a type of projection. If it wasn't, then it wouldn't be a "Western/Occidental view" of anything - it would just be an account of that thing.

It's the projection that makes it racist.

This could have been a really interesting discussion about how to approach portraying a mythic version of non-Western cultures in a respectful way, but predictably, that discussion got usurped by people who want to debate the merits of respectful yet mythic portrayals of non-Western cultures. There could have been some cool, fresh ideas for classes, monsters, mechanics, etc. brainstormed by insiders in those non-Western cultures that people outside those cultures would never have come up with on their own because they didn't spend a lifetime in those cultures.

We could have had something different, interesting and more meaningful than what we've had before, but that didn't happen because the same dominant perspectives and voices are unsatisfied with being dominant in real life. They have to be dominant in imagination too.

It makes me sad.

Unfortunately, it seems that there was an attempt to make heroes from "distant lands" viable and cool going back a long way. They were treated with apparently the same amount of care as their western counterparts were...or even more so.

It appears that some people without "fresh" perspective take issue with being vilified for something natural--referencing their own myths and shared stories.

I think that is the issue here. Its as if something produced in the west should take pains not to overemphasize underpinnings of western culture. Again: someone actually used the term "racist" earlier in the thread presumably because the poster in question assumes dungeons and dragons is often about knights and dragons.

Would someone making a game in Asia based more heavily on Asian myth/archetype be insensitive? Would someone (from and initially more interested in) Egyptian and African Myth be racist for making a game that features those archetypes and myths more prominently than pseudo European ones ? What if their depiction of Western/European myth and culture was based primarily on Hollywood?

No one would care a bit. It seems to be fairly unidirectional. And its weird. And I think that is what is bewildering to some of the previous posters.

But I may be misreading the concerns some have voiced...that is my take.
 
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Celebrim

Legend
There is literally not enough time in the day. I'm not saying "literally" as a means of emphasis. I mean that factually. I do not have the time to rehash and debate everything you've said that contributed to the downward spiral of both of these threads.

Oh, OK. Well, I guess you have a right to complain and not offer up any remedy, and you also have a right to an opinion without explaining why you hold it.

But since you literally don't have enough time to do either, it's hardly fair to expect me to treat your opinion as reasonable or deeply reasoned or your complaints as fair or justified.

If you ever do want to have a discussion though, I'm completely open to that discussion.

By my suspicion is that you literally do not want a discussion or a debate, and that is why there is not enough time in the day for it. You do not want a dialogue. You don't want to hear me out. You don't want to have to address arguments. You don't want to hear multiple viewpoints. I suspect you are willing to check out of this discussion content with your stereotype of who I am, or what I know, or what I've experienced, or where I'm coming from, or what I believe - and what I've actually said or more importantly who I actually am isn't important and can't be allowed to harm that cherished viewpoint. I suspect that that, not the amount of time you have in your day, is actually the reason you literally don't want to engage with what I've said.

And perhaps I'm being unfair about that, but the reason for that suspicion is the take away you had from this thread was: "but that didn't happen because the same dominant perspectives and voices are unsatisfied with being dominant in real life. They have to be dominant in imagination too." I think that's one of those observations that tells me a lot more about where you are coming from than where I am coming from. I don't care what color the skin is of someone who writes something. I've got a signed copy of Samuel R. Delany's "Babel-17" that I went out of my way to acquire. The color of his skin or any other identity of the man did not enter into my decision. Is my voice somehow more dominant than his? I've got a signed copy of Peter Mansoor's "Baghdad at Sunrise". The color of the author's skin had no role in why I purchased the book and got it signed. Is my voice somehow more dominant than his? And so on and so forth concerning author's I've sought out. For the most part, I'm a consumer of voices, and not a voice myself. I can't scream and be heard. I don't have any dominance over anyone.

Now, honestly, does the color of the author's skin matter to you? Do you judge a work by the color of the skin of the person that wrote it? I'm not going to judge you for that. I have some understanding why you might, and some sympathy for that feeling, even as I long for the day when we can all grow beyond it. But I do ask you to not judge me for not caring a whit about what the color of an author's skin is.
 

Yaarel

🇮🇱He-Mage
My ethical concern is simple to understand.

• Welcome other cultures? Yes.
• Demonize European cultures? No.



If we can treat European cultures with the same respect, sensitivity, and compassion that we want for other cultures, then the D&D game will be better for it.
 

S

Sunseeker

Guest
My ethical concern is simple to understand.

• Welcome other cultures? Yes.
• Demonize European cultures? No.

If we can treat European cultures with the same respect, sensitivity, and compassion that we want for other cultures, then the D&D game will be better for it.

Literally noone is advocating that second thing here.
 

S

Sunseeker

Guest
The problem with mounting a moral 'high horse' the height of a California Redwood is, you are so far away from the people you look down on that you can't really see anything about them.

The stereotypes and insults you casually threw at me ... defy description.

The problem with concern trolling is that most people see it for what it is. Trolling.
 

Yaarel

🇮🇱He-Mage
The 5e samurai. This seems ok to me. The fighter is a cross cultural class. The samurai is a specific archetype within this class. The designers made a sincere effort to focus on tropes about the samurai that modern Japanese film makers often emphasize. The product is integrated within other fighter archetypes, and is not an ‘other’.
 

Yaarel

🇮🇱He-Mage
Literally noone is advocating that second thing here.

Implying that only European cultures can be guilty of ‘colonialism’ raises red flags because this demonization of Europeans is a form of hostile, generalized, racism against Europeans.
 

Yaarel

🇮🇱He-Mage
European ethnic groups are today surging in nationalism. Even to the point of the Scottish ethnicity asserting its distinctiveness from the English ethnicity.

The appreciation of ethnic identity is good and healthy. It transmits vibrant cultures for future generations to inherit.

To treat other European ethnicities with respect, is part of treating all ethnicities with respect.

We can love other ethnic groups as much as we love our own ethnic groups. We need to make an effort to appreciate and love our own ethnic group − some times are less easy than other times. Stand up and courageously be our selves.

There is enough love for everyone.
 

Shasarak

Banned
Banned
Many people, especially many Indigenous Australians, would say that "mistreatment" continues (eg incarceration rates, child removal rates, mortality and morbidity, just to pick up on some fairly straightforward indicators).

I wonder how the current mortality rates compare to traditional mortality rates?
 

Shasarak

Banned
Banned
For various marketing reasons Kentucky Fried Chicken has embraced 'KFC.' But I suppose it is a moral imperative that they drop 'Kentucky' from the name lest someone from another place feel 'othered.'

I never considered that Kentucky Fried Chicken rebranded to KFC because of the "Kentucky" part of the name. I always imagined that it was because of the unhealthy "Fried" part.
 

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