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

[Xenonnonex]

But is anyone a spokesperson for any group?
They can voice their opinions and they did in a series of long-winded videos, no one stopped them.
I do not have to agree with all or part of their justifications for their offense..

So. Cultural consultants. Involve them. So that discussions can progress. If more than one cultural group involve them. Theros had a Greek cultural consultant. Roma consultant will be with CoS moving forward.
This is not hard.

You said this not something real to be offended about. You are going beyond disagreement. You are saying their opinions do not matter. That their voice does not matter. Literal intolerance is what that is.

 

[MoonSong]

Why not? i still see no evil in a work of fiction where there's a nation that seems Mexico but has lama riding people throwing bolas and practicing capoeira.

It's fantasy.

Ughh, please don't. I am from the country in question and find this very very offensive and distressing. You have to understand we have been America's punching bag since the 1840s, with many of our worst problems being directly caused by being next to you, and we started taking a lot of insult and mockery with the h1n1 flu, and that got way worse four years ago with certain vitriolic guy who went on to inflict us a terrible economic damage that is still ongoing...

No, just no, please.

Edit: My apologies if you are not American, sorry for assuming. This pushed so many buttons at once and I went visceral at it.

 

[Xenonnonex]

Ughh, please don't. I am from the country in question and find this very very offensive and distressing. You have to understand we have been America's punching bag since the 1840s, with many of our worst problems being directly caused by being next to you, and we started taking a lot of insult and mockery with the h1n1 flu, and that got way worse four years ago with certain vitriolic guy who went on to inflict us a terrible economic damage that is still ongoing...

No, just no, please.

How could you not love someone deciding what is good for you
/rolleyes

 

[Aldarc]

One thing to keep in mind is American Italian Restaurants are different than italian american home-made.

I'm quite aware of that.

Are you implying that you know more about my culture than me? Consider me your "Italian cultural consultant".

No. I'm saying that it's disingenuous to claim that fettucine alfredo is not Italian just because its cooking method in the United States diverged from the original Italian recipe because food adapts and changes to its surrounding cultural climes. That's natural.

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. I suspect that most gamers would probably regard Forgotten Realms as "the" setting, while others would regard Greyhawk as "the" setting.

So you start from a false assumption.

I'm unclear about my false assumption here. Mystara has mostly faded to a fringe setting in regards to D&D. The fact that you say that Mystara is big in your cultural context of Italy doesn't really change that. It's big in Italy doesn't really say much about the wider hobby. It only speaks to Italy.

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...

As I believe @Elfcrusher and others have said, if you would like to screen the more obscure settings and advocate for more culturally appropriate changes, then you are welcome to do so.

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?

@Dire Bare posted a link in the OP. If you follow that link, there are further links to examples that Kwan and others have posted. It's not my place for me to invalidate the harm that others confess and chastise them for professing them, but, rather, to listen sympathetically.

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 am an American expat who has been living across the border from you in Austria/Österreich for five years. It may surprise you to learn this, but I'm no stranger to the diversity of European cultures, languages, or history.

I understand that English is not your first language, so some of what I wrote may have been lost on you. I'm not sure how what I wrote stands at odds with you are saying, and I'm not even sure how you construed "Europe has some cultural unifiers" to a strawman position that "all of Europe is alike." I don't think that it's controversial to say that Europe is geographically smaller than East Asia. I don't think that it's controversial to say that the population of China alone in the Middle Ages was likely larger than the totality of Europe. I don't think that saying that the Europe in the Middle Ages had some cultural unifiers such as the Roman Catholic Church in any way seeks to diminish its sheer amount of cultural diversity. But it was precisely because of that diversity of languages and cultures that the Roman Catholic Church was such an important institution for understanding the Middle Ages. I have been told by historians countless times that you can't understand Western European history, particularly in the Middle Ages, without understanding the role that the Roman Catholic Church played across the board. I don't think that it's a controversy to say that the Carolingian Empire had an enormous impact on how the whole of Europe developed for the next 1000 years. So you are welcome to tell me how this is inaccurate, but if you do so, try not to put words in my mouth as you are doing here, because it does not reflects well on neither you nor me.

 

[Guest 6801328]

I'm back! But only with a lighthearted (but relevant) anecdote about cultural assumptions.

My Italian-American grandparents owned a bar (which they called a "tavern") and then expanded into a pizza restaurant. They did ok, and eventually moved out of their poor, traditionally Italian neighborhood, and bought a somewhat nicer house in a nicer neighborhood. Definitely no more than middle class, though.

One Christmas eve some lights went out, and nobody could figure out what went wrong. (Wasn't just a fuse or breaker.). An electrician came out to fix it. Afterwards my uncle thanked him for coming out on Christmas Eve, and the guy said (this works best if you imagine an accent from the Godfather), "Hey, when your father-in-law asks for help, you do it. Know what I mean?" My uncle didn't, in fact, know what he meant, and looked puzzled. The guy scoffed. "You don't think he got this house flipping pizzas, do you?"

We still laugh about that story. (But a part of me always wonders if the electrician knew something we didn't.)

Now I'm wandering way off-topic, but on the subject of what we didn't know, a couple years before he died (at 96) my aunt went with him to a doctor's appointment. The doc chatted him up, and asked if he served in the war, and when he said yes asked him what unit. Turns out the guy was a WWII history buff, and he stopped and said, "Oh. So you were on Iwo Jima." My aunt laughed, "No! He was on Guam the whole time." But my grandfather nodded and said, "Yeah, I was." And started crying.

That was the first time anybody in the family ever heard about it.

So, anyway, yeah. Those Italians. A bunch of mafia thugs. Amirite?

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

I'm unclear about my false assumption here. Mystara has mostly faded to a fringe setting in regards to D&D. The fact that you say that Mystara is big in your cultural context of Italy doesn't really change that. It's big in Italy doesn't really say much about the wider hobby. It only speaks to Italy.

Um .....

@Dire Bare posted a link in the OP. If you follow that link, there are further links to examples that Kwan and others have posted. It's not my place for me to invalidate the harm that others confess and chastise them for professing them, but, rather, to listen sympathetically.

Okay ....

I am an American expat who has been living across the border from you in Austria/Österreich for five years. It may surprise you to learn this, but I'm no stranger to the diversity of European cultures, languages, or history.

Ouch. You may want to look at how this appears.

"Sure, I will listen to an Asian-American without criticism explaining things about Asia, but I will now totally explain to an actual Italian what Europe really means since I'm an American who has lived in Europe for a little while!"

I understand that English is not your first language, so some of what I wrote may have been lost on you.

...this just didn't get better.

I understand that you feel passionate about this, but that was not a good look.

 

[Sadras]

So. Cultural consultants. Involve them. So that discussions can progress. If more than one cultural group involve them. Theros had a Greek cultural consultant. Roma consultant will be with CoS moving forward. This is not hard.

What gives you the impression I'm against cultural consultants?
You do know OA had Japanese playtesters, not quite the same - and there were Asian persons involved in the 3.x book. But you know, these cultural consultants won't be full proof, how can they possibly be given everyone has a mic these days.

You said this not something real to be offended about.

I'm saying I do not find the heftness in their justification for their offense and suggested they find something with heftness.

You are going beyond disagreement.

Okay.

You are saying their opinions do not matter.

If one does not find the necessary justification for other's offense then surely it would stand to reason that said other's offense would lose all sense of gravitas.

That their voice does not matter.

Same as above. But please note it would be said opinion on this matter with said justification. Should those justifications change then one's opinion could be re-evaluated.

Literal intolerance is what that is.

Either that or your favourite Wizard of Oz character is the Strawman.
IMO it is the latter, but you can say my voice does not matter.

 

[Danzauker]

Ughh, please don't. I am from the country in question and find this very very offensive and distressing. You have to understand we have been America's punching bag since the 1840s, with many of our worst problems being directly caused by being next to you, and we started taking a lot of insult and mockery with the h1n1 flu, and that got way worse four years ago with certain vitriolic guy who went on to inflict us a terrible economic damage that is still ongoing...

No, just no, please.

Edit: My apologies if you are not American, sorry for assuming. This pushed so many buttons at once and I went visceral at it.

OK now I'm genuinoulsy curious and want to understand.

Now, my take was absolutely made on the fly, i didn't want to target Mexico specifically, i just tossed the first meso-south American country that came to my mind, but let's follow the example for a minute if you will.

Let's say I'm fascinated by Aztec architecture, so i base my kingdom on ancient Aztec kingdoms, (based on my poor school knowledge of course). I want to introduce some more areas to my settings, so some high mountain zones, hence the lama.

Then, well the bolas. I like bolas. They are a cool and uncommon weapon. That's all.

Lastly, since I intend to use monks as a class in my made up setting, I need a martial arts style, and capoeira fits as nice as any other.

I really had no intention of insulting. I honestly do not see where I'm insulting someone. Truly, there's nothing even remotely plausible in my setting, but absolutely no intention of offending anyone, except maybe because of my poor world building skills.

Would you please spend some of your time to explain me exactly what or where were the parts that bothered you?

Regarding your edit, I'm not American, but i don't think it matters much where an insult comes from, in case there's one.

 

[Aldarc]

Ouch. You may want to look at how this appears.

"Sure, I will listen to an Asian-American without criticism explaining things about Asia, but I will now totally explain to an actual Italian what Europe really means since I'm an American who has lived in Europe for a little while!"

I'm not explaining what Europe means. I said that the institution of the Roman Catholic Church was an important cultural unifier in the European Middle Ages and that the Carolingian Empire had an enormous impact on the European landscape that followed it, and then was promptly told a strawman position that I was arguing that all Europe was the same, that I was somehow ignoring differences of languages, cultures, and wars. So maybe your own inability to parse what is actually going on here is the actual bad look, Snarf.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

So maybe your own inability to parse what is actually going on here is the actual bad look, Snarf.

I parsed it just fine, thank you. Given your further explanation to me (including "strawman") I can consider your arguments in the appropriate manner in the future (not at all).