Not in great depth, but yes. I was not terribly impressed with it, and it has mostly faded into obscurity with the onset of more interesting settings in D&D.
Not true. In italy, at least, where BECMI was the first translated and successful, rule set (but from what I remember it's not the only country where the breakthtough of D&D passed through BECMI), it's still regarded by a very large number of player as "the" setting.
So you start from a false assumption.
EDIT because i forgot: and even if it " faded into obscurity with the onset of more interesting settings" (which is your opinion anyway), what does it matter? If it were the most famous and prominent setting then would it be exempted from screening? Ravenloft is one of the most famous settings, yet, curse of Strahd will have changes regarding Vistani/Gipsy depictions...
But is the story about the settings good in OA? And there are a number of East Asian voices from those living in Euro-America who are telling you that it's not a good story because they find that it propagates harmful stereotypes about East Asian cultures and its peoples.
But where are those "harmful stereotypes"? From what i've read so far the problems seem to be:
1) the title. OK. I don't find it an issue, but nevermind.
2) cherry picking of folklore from different cultures to create a setting. Little historical faithfulness. Is it really an issue? That's the origin of most fantasy worlds in games and literature.
3) reference to Comeliness and other D&D mechanics of old not specific to OA. These are to be discussed elsewhere.
Where are the offensive and harmful parts? Can anyone provide a snippet to a part where, don't know, Japanese are depicted with thick glasses or speaking funny?
Earlier
@Umbran pointed out that there is not a proper symmetry in the power balance between the various actors in this exchange, between East Asian cultures depicting the Euro-America and Euro-America depicted East Asia, as well as noting complexities such as people of East Asian descent living in predominately white Euro-American cultures. In another thread,
@Campbell also talked about the difference between "punching up" and "punching down" when it comes to how things are framed, which is also important to keep in mind.
Western Europe is actually fairly small when compared to East Asia. And Western Europe also had some fairly large cultural unifiers, namely the Roman Catholic Church, while also the Frankish Empire of Charlemagne & Co. kinda had a large cultural impact on how nations like France, the Holy Roman Empire, Italy, Belelux, Bohemia, and Hungary would develop due to their monarchical connections. Part of why the reason why we can often talk about Medieval Europe with some broad strokes is because of how pervasive the Roman Catholic Church was as an institution throughout Western Europe in the Middle Ages. So even when people spoke different languages and had different cultures, a lot of communication was done via Ecclesiastical Latin.
Do you happen to be American? Frankly, what you're saying about Europe is as generic and inaccurate as what I could say about Asia. Do you really think all of Europe is so similar? Do you know that we have multiple langiage, we frewuently warred on each other and we eat different things? Hehk, even now we have countries that drive on opposite sides of the street and use different metrical systems!
I do sometimes roll my eyes about how Judeo-Christianity is depicted in Japanese media, but I also do the same with a Western media that has essentially become religiously illiterate. But I don't really have a voice in how Japan depicts Euro-America. I do have a voice in how Euro-America depicts Japan or Euro-America depicts Euro-America. So we are seeing a number of people of East Asian descent living in Euro-America who are giving rise to their own voices about how their fellow Euro-Americans are depicting them in a fantasy elf game.
If you are American, following your reasoning, I should ask you to speak in my behalf and put me in your mish mash Euro-American fantasy category, don't you think?
