WotC Dungeons & Dragons Fans Seek Removal of Oriental Adventures From Online Marketplace

[LuisCarlos17f]

Maybe this is worse than we thought. WotC has got a partnership with Tencent, a Chinese company, and Perfect World Enternaiment is producing the online videogames of Newerwinter and (comingsoon) Magic: the Gathering. Hasbro has got contacts with Japanese companies. Let's remember Godzilla in the last expansion of M:tG. To offend the Asian community is the last thing they would dare to do.

Maybe this is something like a subtle warning using Daniel Kwan as a chess pawn or pupetter, about WotC has to allow to be "censure". Please, we are talking about China, where Pepa Pig has been censored because it became a cultural icon and Winnie the Pooth the nickname of Xi Pijing. "You have to cook these recipes how I say, not how the other customer asked".

Of course Asian markets could publish their own retroclones, but if the players discover the copy, after they will want to know better the original source.

A disclaimer and an apology is enough. To ask, order, to removel it only it is causing to be sold more than before, like the people who bought the movie "Gone with the Wind".

 

[Myrdin Potter]

Maybe this is worse than we thought. WotC has got a partnership with Tencent, a Chinese company, and Perfect World Enternaiment is producing the online videogames of Newerwinter and (comingsoon) Magic: the Gathering. Hasbro has got contacts with Japanese companies. Let's remember Godzilla in the last expansion of M:tG. To offend the Asian community is the last thing they would dare to do.

Maybe this is something like a subtle warning using Daniel Kwan as a chess pawn or pupetter, about WotC has to allow to be "censure". Please, we are talking about China, where Pepa Pig has been censored because it became a cultural icon and Winnie the Pooth the nickname of Xi Pijing. "You have to cook these recipes how I say, not how the other customer asked".

Of course Asian markets could publish their own retroclones, but if the players discover the copy, after they will want to know better the original source.

A disclaimer and an apology is enough. To ask, order, to removel it only it is causing to be sold more than before, like the people who bought the movie "Gone with the Wind".

Hasbro owns GI Joe. If you think Asians are not well depicted in OA, you need to pay more attention to how they were depicted in other older Hasbro products.

As this thread has discussed, people in Asian home / majority countries are highly likely to have different sensitivity levels.

I think you are reading too much into a Canadian Asian person doing a reaction YouTube video series on a book that he has an issue with. At least I think he is Canadian, based on Dundas Gaming and other assertions. I am willing to just go with this is his own opinion he is sharing with no other intent behind it. Tencent owns Riot Games and has been doing business outside of China for a long time.

 

[Chaosmancer]

No, in the world today, google exists. This article comes up immediately.

How Dungeons & Dragons Appropriated the Orient | Analog Game Studies

Look at the comments from 2016.

Explain that? Kwan made the claim that something was used for the first time for a bad reason. He did not do even the most basic of checking?

How many other options came up? How would I even know what terms to search for? Is "DnD Oriental Controversy" going to give us the same results as "Racism in DnD" or "DnD controversy"

Google is wonderful, but just because you can use google to look for something doesn't mean you know what to look for.

Then I suppose I'm an uncool stereotyper...

Bob and Doug McKenzie (if you ain't seen these guys, a quick youtube search will find them) took Canadian "culture" and poked wonderful fun at it by taking the stereotypes and dialling them up beyond eleven.

Herclues-Xena take ancient Greek culture and mythos (and in passing they also hit a bunch of other historical cultures) and completely send them up.

Those are the sort of takes I'd rather have in the game every single time, if the choice is between that and bland historical accuracy.

I will try to find time to look them up, but I note something. You keep talking about dialing them "up" which is taking the parts of them that exist and emphasizing them. Generally the parts (in the aspect of the Canadaians) that they themselves make fun of themselves with. That seems rather different.

But again, haven't looked them up

Simple, and really quite clear.

A boycott or even a simple choice not to purchase is a decision I make on my own, and doesn't impact anyone else in making that same decision. Not censorship.

Asking to remove the book, if successful in the request, means I don't get to make that choice any more, and nor does anybody else*. Censorship.

* - for these purposes I'm ignoring secondhand and pirate options.

I'm sorry, if I end up organzing a boycott, and myself and others gather enough force that the product is removed due to lack of sales, then I am impacting other people's decisions. Once it is removed, they don't get to decide. It is gone.

I guess because you see the difference in one person asking, and dozens or hundreds of people asking? Is that the difference?

 

[Myrdin Potter]

despite it's international audience, is an American game aimed at an American audience.

but I'm pretty sure NONE of them posted that the book was just fine, no problem here . . .

From the early Basic days, there was extensive translation into Japanese. The current edition has a wide range of translations and it is certainly widely popular beyond the USA. I don’t think that the game has been aimed solely at an American audience for decades and it has an outsized and direct impact on computer RPG games.

And I have not seen any posters at all, not just Asian posters, say that the title and marketing copy on the back cover has no problems.

What I have seen is a wide range of opinions of what should be done about it. It makes zero sense for WoTC to go back and rewrite the book as the system is not current or supported. So the choices are do nothing, put a disclaimer on it and still sell it, or some variety of ceasing to make it available for sale (not profiting on it).

It looks like they decided on the disclaimer route. And the question of how many people find that acceptable and to what degree is germaine to the discussion. So, yes, how many people remain offended is important to Hasbro.

 

[Myrdin Potter]

How many other options came up? How would I even know what terms to search for? Is "DnD Oriental Controversy" going to give us the same results as "Racism in DnD" or "DnD controversy"

Google is wonderful, but just because you can use google to look for something doesn't mean you know what to look for.

For me, it was in the top 3 of any search I did on the topic once I added offense. To be honest, Kwan’s series seems to use some of the exact same points and this article is so easy to find that it makes me wonder if it was used as an outline for his reaction.

So, yes, his failure to do a basic google search is a significant failure and significantly undermines his point in the narrow discussion of comeliness. He uses the fact that he is a scholar on the subject and that is unscholarly.

 

[Lanefan]

I will try to find time to look them up, but I note something. You keep talking about dialing them "up" which is taking the parts of them that exist and emphasizing them.

More, taking the parts that really only exist in a relatively small area of the country (parts of Ontario), dialling them up, and applying them to Canadians as a whole. It's great!

Generally the parts (in the aspect of the Canadaians) that they themselves make fun of themselves with. That seems rather different.

Thing is, if we make fun of ourselves with it I see it as being more than fair game for everyone else to make fun of us the same way.

I'm sorry, if I end up organzing a boycott, and myself and others gather enough force that the product is removed due to lack of sales, then I am impacting other people's decisions. Once it is removed, they don't get to decide. It is gone.

I guess because you see the difference in one person asking, and dozens or hundreds of people asking? Is that the difference?

No, I see the difference coming at the point where your motivation in organizing the boycott goes from encouraging people to make a certain decision (while leaving said decision in their hands) to a specific attempt to take that decision away by having the product pulled from the shelves.

 

[Chaosmancer]

For me, it was in the top 3 of any search I did on the topic once I added offense. To be honest, Kwan’s series seems to use some of the exact same points and this article is so easy to find that it makes me wonder if it was used as an outline for his reaction.

So, yes, his failure to do a basic google search is a significant failure and significantly undermines his point in the narrow discussion of comeliness. He uses the fact that he is a scholar on the subject and that is unscholarly.

So, you can't be offended by something unless you do the research to make sure you are right to be offended first.

Also, the idea of "independent creation" is a real thing. It is very possible, in fact likely, that the Article and Kwan came to the conclusions because they were working with the same material.

Thing is, if we make fun of ourselves with it I see it as being more than fair game for everyone else to make fun of us the same way.

Yes exactly. That is the point.

I had a friend I met in college who insisted we all called him "Black Josh", he thought it was hilarious because we all knew a lot of Josh's.

So, I could call him that (I didn't, but I knew I could) but I would never assume I could just refer to a stranger that way. Even though it is the same thing. Because I don't have their permission and they might not find it funny.

No, I see the difference coming at the point where your motivation in organizing the boycott goes from encouraging people to make a certain decision (while leaving said decision in their hands) to a specific attempt to take that decision away by having the product pulled from the shelves.

But our organization is trying to have the product pulled by boycotting it. If we are successful, we are taking that decision away from other people. They can't decide to buy it if we successfully get it pulled from the shelves.

 

[Myrdin Potter]

More, taking the parts that really only exist in a relatively small area of the country (parts of Ontario), dialling them up, and applying them to Canadians as a whole. It's great!

Thing is, if we make fun of ourselves with it I see it as being more than fair game for everyone else to make fun of us the same way.

I would like to point out for the record that I was born in Montreal and grew up there. The idea that someone from Toronto or Western Canada can determine what is funny about Canadians or even what is funny at all, is highly offensive.

 

[Myrdin Potter]

So, you can't be offended by something unless you do the research to make sure you are right to be offended first.

Also, the idea of "independent creation" is a real thing. It is very possible, in fact likely, that the Article and Kwan came to the conclusions because they were working with the same material.

Nice strawperson, but what I said was that if you are going to base your public offense in a game mechanic being used for the first time in OA specifically to femanize Asian men and that is highly offensive, then it is pretty embarrassing for someone appealing to authority in their studies of Asian culture to fail to do such a simple search.

How did he determine that it was used in OA for the first time? I have been told in this thread that expecting him to have a deep knowledge of all of the AD&D and 0D&D rules and progression is gatekeeping. He came home with the fact that it was used for the first time how? No simple google search to check?

I guess I could concede that it was the same point made poorly 2 times independently. A shame that he did not check before making a public stink of it.

And, again, him missing badly on that point does not invalidate his other points. It does make him look like he did not do basic research in my eyes, though.

 

[GreyLord]

Kwan is "controlling" the dialogue? That's a serious mischaracterization. He's certainly getting a degree of attention due to his podcast series and twitter comments . . . but "controlling"? Sigh.

I'd also argue that Kwan's critique is "pointed and vehement" and that he "ignores facts" as mischaractizing as well. But there's been a lot of that in these threads.

Not all Asians/Asian Americans are equally as offended by the problems found in Oriental Adventures? Again, covered in this thread already, multiple times. Sure, you are not wrong. Not all African Americans are as equally offended by the use of the n-word and other elements of African American stereotyping and racism. So what? How many people taking offense do we need before it becomes wrong to continue with the behavior, or to do nothing about it?

This is a "no-win" scenario? BS. Certainly, you can't satisfy everyone . . . but that's not quite the same thing as a "no-win" situation. WotC has already done an okay job of dealing with the issue with the disclaimer added to the product descriptions of older titles. Is everyone happy with that action? No, but is has calmed the storm and allowed WotC to move on . . . hopefully to greater efforts towards true diversity and inclusion.

The opinions of Asian gamers is not unimportant, but is secondary to the opinions of Asian American gamers over this issue . . . as D&D, despite it's international audience, is an American game aimed at an American audience. And I bet you would be hard-pressed to find very many Asian American gamers who would not find the content (and title) of Oriental Adventures problematic and racist. Our few Asian American friends in this thread have minor disagreements on how best to handle the problem, but I'm pretty sure NONE of them posted that the book was just fine, no problem here . . .

Did you read any of the rest of my post...because it seems that the parts that address what you talk about are conveniently ignored.

They have NOT won this scenario. Kwan and those who feel like him are not happy. I would not call that a win. Do you call that a win?