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

[Voadam]

When they use DRM to erase the thing from your hard drive, then it is like book burning. When they send jackbooted thugs into your home to take and burn your physical copy, it is like book burning.

If WotC publicly burned all hypothetical unsold stock of OA from an old warehouse that would not be book burning because they did not go into peoples homes and take home copies to burn as well?

I picture American book burning as people publicly burning books (Harry Potter, Huckleberry Finn, lewd stuff, Communist stuff, D&D, whatever) to show how much they stand against the bad/dangerous/harmful stuff inside the books.

 

[Giltonio_Santos]

No, it really isn't.

Various print materials have been going out of print and being unavailable since the creation of the printing press. Companies have always had a right to control when and where their materials are available, and choosing to not make them available is not equivalent to destruction. The public is not entitled to constant availability.

Indeed, and I never complained when WotC decided to make their old catalog unavailable, a few years ago, though I'm glad they changed their position on the matter and it's now available again.

People that pressure for books to be removed from the market because they don't like them, though? Those are more harmful than the books they hate so much. I have a big list of books I find despicable. An even bigger one of books that I think are not worth a reader's time or attention. I even have some I believe people shouldn't read because they're outright harmful, but I would never demand publishers to stop selling them.

This makes me think that maybe I should just leave this discussion. After all, the idea of people pressing a publisher in order to make books that offend them unavailable for purchase is deeply offensive to me and my culture, really (and I'm in no way talking about hate speech here). Even though it seems to be a favorite of people nowadays.

 

[Khelon Testudo]

Perhaps I misjudged this, based on the previous thread with all the "whaa, they're takin' my evil orcs!"

and then Giltonio says how "people shouldn't pressure for books to be removed because they don't like them". So my point stands.

 

[Sadras]

Paladins don't use the Honor system though, do they? They have oaths.

And I agree, and oath would be a great way to show a lot of this. So, why is it that every time Far Eastern rules come up, people break out the Honor System instead of adapting paladin oaths?

The paladin had alignment concerns, wealth and magical item restrictions, tithes...etc
The Honour system was a far better mechanic.
Or do you think Gygax was saying that Samurai are greedy bastards by not giving them the wealth limitations?

 

[Giltonio_Santos]

and then Giltonio says how "people shouldn't pressure for books to be removed because they don't like them". So my point stands.

Just to make it clear: I believe that people can use their basic liberties to organize and pressure for books they don't like to be removed from sale. But I also believe that doing so hurts some very basic tenets of morality for any liberal democratic culture. Unfortunately, it seems that liberal democracy is also falling from favor a lot these days.

 

[Chaosmancer]

The paladin had alignment concerns, wealth and magical item restrictions, tithes...etc
The Honour system was a far better mechanic.
Or do you think Gygax was saying that Samurai are greedy bastards by not giving them the wealth limitations?

How could you possibly go from what I am saying to that?

Let us try this a second time.


Every single time in DnD, the Honor System of rules, for measuring how much honor you have with regard to society and the world, is presented as being intrinsically tied to the Far East.

This is a Stereotype. Taking the conception of the Samurai Mythos, and them being honorable warriors, and blowing it up into this massive trope for an entire region of the world.

And just like the stereotype that all Irish men are loud drunkards, or that all Spaniard men are hot-blooded wooers of women, the stereotypes that Japanese or Chinese or Vietnamese or Korean Men are all martial arts masters with an unbreakable code of honor is just that. A stereotype. And there is no reason for it.

And again, even in 5e, if you look for the honor system in the DMG, you find a picture of a Far Eastern looking man, visually indicating that these rules somehow are needed for that conception, but were not needed for the honor of European Fantasy.

 

[Libramarian]

Do East Asians count as people of color? I'm never quite sure about that.

 

[Voadam]

I can see the honor system as a pain point. It tries to do stereotypical samurai film/Shogun honor as an alternative alignment system. Its basically projecting that everywhere in OA even to the non-samurai parts.

I never liked mechanical alignment systems or trying to track that kind of stuff and I was not interested in roleplaying or gaming the honor system presented. I disliked it from the beginning and mostly ignored it.

 

[Fenris-77]

I love the honor system after some hacking, but I don't use it for anything even remotely 'Eastern'. I mostly use it to help represent cultures like Victorian England where public adherence to a strict behavioral code was of primary importance to a certain segment of society. Sometimes it's useful to have a stat to represent the "do you know who I am" kind of thing. It's not useful in a lot of D&D campaigns and settings, for sure, but when its useful its really useful. The way I use it it's probably better described as reputation than honor though.

@Libramarian - 20 seconds on Google isn't a big ask is it?

 

[Voadam]

I love the honor system after some hacking, but I don't use it for anything even remotely 'Eastern'. I mostly use it to help represent cultures like Victorian England where public adherence to a strict behavioral code was of primary importance to a certain segment of society. Sometimes it's useful to have a stat to represent the "do you know who I am" kind of thing. It's not useful in a lot of D&D campaigns and settings, for sure, but when its useful its really useful. The way I use it it's probably better described as reputation than honor though.

And some people like alignment tracking mechanics. Different tastes in what you want to track.