D&D 5E Do you think we will get an Oriental Adventures setting for 5th edition?

[michaeljpatrick]

Probably best to name it anything other than "Oriental Adventures". Not sure why some folks are hung up on that. It's just a name. The word "oriental" is offensive to some people. It's that simple. Sure you can argue all day about why it shouldn't be offensive to some people ("It's just another word for 'East'", "Asia would include India and Russia as well", "My friend is Chinese and he doesn't care"). In the long run you or I don't get to decide what other people are offended by. And since WotC is a company that likes to make money they will be wise to try not to offend potential customers. Like I said, it's just a name, not even a really good one.

Can an American company full of mostly white guys make an Asian-themed setting without it being embarrassing? Probably. I'm pretty sure that most of the people who made "Avatar: the Last Airbender" were white and it was a great example of Asian influence without being offensive. Just don't mention the movie...

I suppose it couldn't hurt to hire actual Asian writers and artists for such a project. But diversity in publishing in general is a good idea. For the record I'm not calling out WotC for a lack of diversity in their staff. I really don't know how diverse their staff is or isn't and am too lazy to check. But if they decide to make an Asian themed supplement it would probably be wise to not have everyone on the team be white.

As for the supplement itself, I think it would be light on crunch and heavy on fluff. Maybe some new backgrounds, magic items, monsters and a subclass or two would be all that is needed. Wizards has already made their stance on Asian style weapons for this edition (basically that they are the same as Western equivalents).

Probably the best thing to do would be to create a setting and/or an adventure. Probably not a whole continent, but a good solid region that can be developed and built upon.

 

[Li Shenron]

True, but as I said, it doesn't seem to bother most gamers to have druids, minotaurs, paladins, frost giants, mummies, and leprechauns all in the same setting. I don't think too many Grecian players cry appropriation to losing medusas, nymphs and satyrs. Kara-Tur has previously dumped all of Asian myth into a giant pot and let it mix much like how the SC dumps most of western myth into a pot. As long as they can just be sensitive enough to avoid loaded language (impossible, but still a worthy goal to strive for) then they can probably get away with mixing myths a bit.

Yep!

I want to play RPGs set in worlds of fantasy, but I find that fantasy connected to real-life folklore works better for me. It makes the game more compelling to me for some reason. If I could choose, I would always want the RPG designers to publish books with well-researched creatures of folklore rather that creatures totally made up from scratch. That's actually one possible reason why I prefer fantasy RPG over sci-fi RPG which are typically full of monsters that are either totally detached from literature or otherwise copy-cats from famous movies.

That's about the creatures, but what about the cultures of people living in fantasy settings? Well with regard to that, I actually don't mind very much about 'realism'. I would certainly enjoy a 'realistic' depiction of western middle-ages as a basis for a D&D setting, but it takes a lot more effort to pull it off correctly than most people think. In fact, IMHO pretty much all RPG settings are vastly unrealistic... society, economy, living standards, institutions and organizations, war, knowledge & education, transports etc. they are normally based on modern times and historically inaccurate in the best case, and totally made-up otherwise. And that's when we play a game set in a classic western pseudo-medieval fantasy world, which means that any attempt at setting it in another continent is going to be even more off. But I accept that this is impossible to most gaming groups, so I don't even bother checking how much 'realistic' a RPG fantasy setting is, whether it is easter/western/southern/etc-inspired. It's enough for me if it has plenty of visual and flavor elements which makes me feel like the PCs are living in a tale that could have been generated from the folklore of the chosen reference culture.

 

[Parmandur]

The APs won't leave the Sword Coast region because they have to be tied with WotC's new flagship video game Sword Coast Legends. This is why the first AP was an adventures that should have been on Krynn, but happened on the Sword Coast. Why PotA should have been set on Oerth, but happened on the Sword Coast. Why OotA was a Planescape adventure, but it was tucked away in the Sword Coast's Underdark where Demon Lords couldn't affect much of the status quo of the surface.

Kara-Tur? Al-Qadim? We won't even get Cormyr, Thay, Chult or the Dales. Except maybe in cameos thanks to a portal that lets PCs briefly do something there. The Sword Coast is where D&D will be happening for a while.

To the last paragraph, recent previews have made it clear that the Dalelands and Cormyr are included in the"Sword Coast" being covered by the upcoming book (Amn to Icewind Dale, Moonshaes to the Dales).

 

[Nellisir]

My wife is Chinese Indonesian and does not know what the term Orient or Oriental means.

Might have to do with background? M. grew up in Bangkok, and her father was Thai, but her mother is American & she attended a foreign school in Bangkok based on the American system, so English was the language at home and at school. She speaks conversational Thai but can't read it. (Her brother, a few years younger, is fully fluent in both & aside from college in the US, has lived in Thailand pretty much his whole life.)

At any rate, it came up pretty early in our relationship. She said Asia/Asian is preferred to Orient/Oriental, and that's where the conversation ended.

 

[Parmandur]

As to the main topic: hopefully something along those lines, probably related to an AP.

 

[Shasarak]

Probably best to name it anything other than "Oriental Adventures". Not sure why some folks are hung up on that. It's just a name. The word "oriental" is offensive to some people. It's that simple. Sure you can argue all day about why it shouldn't be offensive to some people ("It's just another word for 'East'", "Asia would include India and Russia as well", "My friend is Chinese and he doesn't care"). In the long run you or I don't get to decide what other people are offended by. And since WotC is a company that likes to make money they will be wise to try not to offend potential customers. Like I said, it's just a name, not even a really good one.

My guess is that either there are not enough non-english speaking people who want to make an accurate Fantasy setting based on their own countries histories and beliefs to actually produce a viable supplement or there are already such supplements available but produced in a non-english format.

Besides if you look at anything produced in China, after being run past the official government censor department, it is going to be just as fantastical as anything produced by an english person.

 

[michaeljpatrick]

Besides if you look at anything produced in China, after being run past the official government censor department, it is going to be just as fantastical as anything produced by an english person.

I didn't say that non-asians could not or should not make an RPG supplement in an Asian inspired setting. So I'm not really sure where you're coming from here.

 

[Shasarak]

I didn't say that non-asians could not or should not make an RPG supplement in an Asian inspired setting. So I'm not really sure where you're coming from here.

My point is that the market for a "traditionally accurate" Ninja is almost non-existent.

 

[michaeljpatrick]

My point is that the market for a "traditionally accurate" Ninja is almost non-existent.

That's cool, I guess. But I never said anything about an Asian themed supplement being "traditionally accurate" nor did I mention Ninjas. Maybe you meant to quote and respond to some other post?

The portion of my post that you quoted was about the term "Oriental" and how it's probably not a good marketing plan for WotC to use it. Just like if they were to do a supplement that took place in a fantasy version of Pre-Columbian America they probably shouldn't call it "Indian Adventures"

Anyway. I've said all I want to on that aspect of the discussion and don't want to talk about it anymore.

I'd much rather discuss what may or may not be good content for such a product and let WotC come up with a title for it on their own.

 

[Shasarak]

That's cool, I guess. But I never said anything about an Asian themed supplement being "traditionally accurate" nor did I mention Ninjas. Maybe you meant to quote and respond to some other post?

The portion of my post that you quoted was about the term "Oriental" and how it's probably not a good marketing plan for WotC to use it. Just like if they were to do a supplement that took place in a fantasy version of Pre-Columbian America they probably shouldn't call it "Indian Adventures"

Anyway. I've said all I want to on that aspect of the discussion and don't want to talk about it anymore.

I'd much rather discuss what may or may not be good content for such a product and let WotC come up with a title for it on their own.

If WotC was really concerned about people getting "offended" by their products then they would not have released an Adventure based around Demon Lords.