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

[JEB]

Seems to me that including a disclaimer (or better yet, a breakdown of where OA went wrong) and donating any profits to an Asian-American charity, as has been suggested, would do much more to offset any harms the book did than simply removing it and pretending it never existed.

Seems like it'd also be a good idea for any other legacy D&D product seen as problematic and harmful.

 

[Horwath]

Seems to me that including a disclaimer (or better yet, a breakdown of where OA went wrong) and donating any profits to an Asian-American charity, as has been suggested, would do much more to offset any harms the book did than simply removing it and pretending it never existed.

Seems like it'd also be a good idea for any other legacy D&D product seen as problematic and harmful.

May I be offended by "insert random thing" and get money for nothing out of it?


It seems that every D&D book should come with a disclaimer:

This is a work of fiction, and while some elements may mirror some aspects of real world for inspirational value, this book is nothing like real world and should not be treated as such in any way.

 

[Chaosmancer]

How on earth is british colonialism still considered relevant to anything!? The sun set on their empire ages ago!

Random trivia fact: The sun has actually still not set on the British Empire. Their holdings still include enough places around the globe that it hasn't happened. If they lost the Pitcairn Islands they would have a sunset for the first time in over two-centuries. For an hour. There isn't even a solar eclipse that will happen at the right time to have a "sun set" for millennia.


As for "how is this still relevant" a century of trying to own the world doesn't get erased very easily.

This year, make it go away please.

OA 1E was my introduction to Far East culture beyond some subtitled Godzilla and Hong Kong(?) martial art films (mostly Bruce Lee). It was the stepping stone that led to me attempting to learn more about the Far East, and eventually trying to learn Japanese to watch many of my favorite movies in their native languages.

WoTC may stop acknowledging the existance of this book if they choose, but they can't make me give up my copy - physical or electronic.

Nobody is asking the to stop acknowledging its existence, no one is trying to take your copy. Literally, they want them to acknowledge that they are still making money off of a product built with stereotypes and racial profiling, as well as melting a variety of cultures together.

Yes, there is one guy who is asking the product not be sold. But he isn't on these forums, and no one here agrees with him. Literally. Not a single poster has said "they should stop selling it immediately", everyone has simply agreed that it is problematic, and we should probably put a disclaimer on it to acknowledge it wasn't the greatest depiction of the Far East ever penned.

And, I'm glad it was you introduction to a new culture. But, isn't it okay to acknowledge that it wasn't exactly racially or ethnically or culturally sensitive? I mean, does it really hurt us to acknowledge that things we did decades ago weren't the best things we could have possibly done?

 

[Mercurius]

Seems to me that including a disclaimer (or better yet, a breakdown of where OA went wrong) and donating any profits to an Asian-American charity, as has been suggested, would do much more to offset any harms the book did than simply removing it and pretending it never existed.

Seems like it'd also be a good idea for any other legacy D&D product seen as problematic and harmful.

Therein lies the problem. Who sees a given product as "problematic and harmful," and why? I'm fairly certain that we could comb through the thousand-something books published by TSR and WotC, and find something "problematic and harmful" to someone. Do we just go down the line, one by one?

Someone upthread made the simplest and best suggestion, which is to include the Disney disclaimer, and I'd only do that on the product description on D&D Beyond - maybe even only a link for "Older Editions." Here's the Disney one:

“The cartoons you are about to see are products of their time.They may depict some of the ethnic and racial prejudices that were commonplace in American society. These depictions were wrong then and are wrong today. While the following does not represent the Warner Bros. view of today’s society, these cartoons are being presented as they were originally created, because to do otherwise would be the same as claiming these prejudices never existed.”

I'd even tone it down further and, there, done. Now people can continue to buy books from older eras and cultural contexts - like Mark Twain and HP Lovecraft and JRR Tolkien and TH White. Let the historical record stand.

 

[LordEntrails]

So which Oriental Adventures should I buy? 1E or 3E? They are both on sale and with this ... going on it seems like it might be a good time to buy.

What about the OA1, 2 & 3 adventures. Were those any good or did they have interesting material?

 

[Mercurius]

So which Oriental Adventures should I buy? 1E or 3E? They are both on sale and with this ... going on it seems like it might be a good time to buy.

What about the OA1, 2 & 3 adventures. Were those any good or did they have interesting material?

Both? The 1E one is the classic, but the 3E is pretty good--much better production value, and just a more complete book iirc--and easier to convert to 5E. Also a split between Kara-tur and Rokugan.

 

[R_J_K75]

Strawberry fields nogthing. Get hung about

 

[Bohandas]

as well as melting a variety of cultures together.

That is the opposite of the problem. The problem is that they created Kara-Tur (and its equivalents outside of the forgotten realms) as a ghetto to segregate all the asian-derived concepts into.

 

[LordEntrails]

Literally, they want them to acknowledge that they are still making money off of a product built with stereotypes and racial profiling, as well as melting a variety of cultures together.

I'm no expert, but that sounds like every book I ever read. Is there any book that doesn't use stereotypes, racial profiling and melting a variety of anything as means to tell a story that will be understood by it's audience?

 

[Libramarian]

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

You found a definitive answer on whether East Asians should be considered people of color in 20 seconds?