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

[Fenris-77]

Some of the criticism has struck me as, well, maybe enthusiastic, especially some of the more academic criticisms. There was a link provided earlier that was a essentially a long Orientalist critique of OA. A part of that was an extended diatribe about how the Comeliness stat reinforces the stereotype of the feminine Asian male. That argument might hold water if Comeliness has been introduced in OA, but it wasn't, it was introduced in Unearthed Arcana earlier that same year, and based on that is pretty obviously just where the studio was at from a design standpoint.

The lengthy critique of Non-Weapon proficiencies I find entirely unconvincing, from an academic standpoint, as while it is explanatory, I don't think it manages to overcome comparatively less outre explanations for why, for example, some of the more 'interesting' NWPs end up in the 'court skills' list (like that many of the skills in question are actually traditional 'Samurai' class skills, roughly). It's telling that the best the author can manage here is that it's classist, which, while possibly true as far as that goes, doesn't make it inaccurate, or orientalist, or racist. Somehow, the label of 'classist', fuzzy at it is in this case, is apparently enough to carry the argument forward to label the application of NWP Orientalist. I wouldn't agree.

In general, while the article does raise some important points about OA, it doesn't hold together all that well. One, because too much relies on the shaky arguments about Comeliness and NWPs and, unfortunately, the argument in the article needs those bits to move it successfully into the finale about reductionist approaches to game design. Second, I have a certain amount of academic distaste for 'readings' like this Orientalist reading, that present themselves as definitive fact. 'Can be read' is very different than 'is', and in cases of can be read, I think there needs to be a pretty minimal amount of contortion involved before it starts to sound forced, and this article seems forced to me.

This isn't to hand-wave some of the legitimate issues with OA, but I think people need to be careful when reading stuff that presents as academic. Some people seem to look at the vocabulary as assume based on that that it's a devastating critique. It isn't in this case.

 

[Chaosmancer]

And yet the offended side has provided barely any justification within this thread. The only defense is "some asians were offended" that made a series of monetized youtube videos.

I'm sure it's a strong defense in....your mind.

Just for giggles, let us take your word that their is zero offensive material in Oriental Adventures First Edition. Nothing in it is racist, stereotyped, or problematic in anyway. It is all 100% fine.


Now, put that behind us. Going forward in writing Kara-Tur for 5e, should WoTC spend anytime whatsoever in hiring cultural consultants for Far East asian cultures? Should they do research into the actual myths and tropes presented in those cultures stories? Should they look at media created by those cultures and try and use that for inspiration?

Or, should they look at movies like "The Sword of Many Lovers", "The Dragon Lives again", and "The Battle Wizard"?

Which one do you think is going to make a more interesting product going forward? I've been reading through Theros on D&DBeyond, and I have to say, a lot of it is beautiful and interesting. They hired Greek Consultants for that one. I think that is a good indicator for where they should go in the future.

 

[Sadras]

Just for giggles, let us take your word that their is zero offensive material in Oriental Adventures First Edition. Nothing in it is racist, stereotyped, or problematic in anyway. It is all 100% fine.


Now, put that behind us. Going forward in writing Kara-Tur for 5e, should WoTC spend anytime whatsoever in hiring cultural consultants for Far East asian cultures? Should they do research into the actual myths and tropes presented in those cultures stories? Should they look at media created by those cultures and try and use that for inspiration?

Or, should they look at movies like "The Sword of Many Lovers", "The Dragon Lives again", and "The Battle Wizard"?

Which one do you think is going to make a more interesting product going forward? I've been reading through Theros on D&DBeyond, and I have to say, a lot of it is beautiful and interesting. They hired Greek Consultants for that one. I think that is a good indicator for where they should go in the future.

@Chaosmancer my position is pretty simple: Do not support these two long-winded individuals with their monetised youtube diatribe and their silly justifications for offense. The only thing entertaining about them was Steve's appetite and thirst. As to the rest of your points, I have answered you previously.

 

[prosfilaes]

I think the color of monster skin is an overblown issue. More variety would help, and certainly can't hurt, but I don't actually think that greens and blues and dark oranges of some of those skin tones actually index real-world racial groups quite as much or as directly as some people would like to argue.

Pulling '89 2nd Ed Player's Handbook, there are zero illustrations of black people in the book. Most of them look northern European, including a flying carpet scene on page 119. Page 70 has a darker protagonist, more Mediterranean, and page 7 has a slightly darker party member in Larry Elmore's dragon killing illustration.

As for skin tones, pulling the 1E MM off the shelf:

Bugbear: "The skin of bugbears is light yellow to yellow brown -- typically dull yellow."
Dwarf: "Dwarves are typically deep tan to light brown of skin"; mountain dwarves have "typically lighter" "coloration".
Elf: "Elves are slim of build and pale complected."
Drow: "The drow are said to be as dark as faeries are bright and as evil as the latter are good"
Wood elf: "Their complexions are fair"
Gnoll: "Gnolls have greenish gray skins"
Gnome: "Most gnomes are wood brown, a few range to gray brown"
Goblin: "Goblins range from yellow through dull orange to brick red in skin color"
Halfling: "Of ruddy complexion"
Tallfellow: "with fairer skin" (called out as very rare, able to rise to higher levels, live longer, than normal halfling)
Hobgoblin: "hobgoblins range from dark reddish-brown to gray black"
Kobold: "very dark rusty brown to a rusty black"
Men: no description
Ogre: "varies from dull blackish-brown to dead yellow"
Orc: "Orcs appear particularly disgusting because their coloration--brown or brownish green with a bluish sheen--highlights their pinkish snouts and ears"

"Wood brown skin" isn't a very helpful description, but I don't recall ever seeing gnomes drawn with cherry or mahogany skin, but I've seen many with pale skins (= birch?). None of the demihuman races have dark brown skin, with the arguable exception of gnomes, and none of the humanoids are white, with brown, rusty brown, blackish-brown, and yellow being used to describe them. And of course, the notorious drow, with the darkness of their skin compared to the evilness of their souls.

Yes, WotC has done better in the years since that. But if you played in those days, it's easy to wonder where the non-white characters are and see the humanoids as representative of them. Even now, WotC hasn't massively changed things; they've tweaked them with the goal of annoying as few of their long-term players as possible. If they really wanted to fix the drow, forget grey or purple skins; make above ground elves share the genetic variety of skin colors as humans, with pale-skinned elves exclusively arctic, and give drow the pale white of underground creatures, with compound eyes or some other spider-marked touch. But in practice, it seems that WotC and Paizo have done the bare minimum of walking away from the racially charged original imagery.

 

[Fenris-77]

Why are you quoting from a 30 odd year old version of the MM? Yes, the art is less racially diverse than the current D&D books, and my reply is so what? Is this you piggy backing on the OA criticisms somehow? I just don't understand why you think it's important when it isn't what the game looks like now. You haven't exactly made any kind of actual argument here that leads to your conclusion that WotC and Paizo have done the 'bare minimum'.

What WOtC and Paizo may or may not have done is perhaps an interesting discussion, but then you'd have be a lot more granular and nuanced and talk about what they have actually done. Like maybe compare representation in the art form then to now. Or address in any way at all what the game looks like now. Then you might have something to say about what those companies have or have not done.

 

[JiffyPopTart]

I don't see how this follows from the need to avoid stereotypical representations. That's not really that high a bar to clear.

In a previous thread people complained that some artwork for hobgoblins looked like a samurai and that it was problematic. I see a bar high enough that I'd probably walk the other way rather than try to clear it.

 

[pemerton]

I have seen suggestions that it could be left on sale with all revenues donated to an anti-racism charity. I don't know whether that would satisfy the complaints or not.

My own view is that that would be absurd. Like selling gollywogs and denoting proceeds of sale to the NAACP.

Either the work is acceptable for distribution and sale, or it's not.

Perspective from the outside looking in.

Please elaborate on what the exoticisation consists in. Which bits of the work do you have in mind? The class descriptions? The race descriptions. The brief gasseteer to Kara-Tur. Something else?

Here's an extract from the class entry for Bushi (mechanical details mostly edited out). Where is the exoticisation?

Bushi are masterless warriors, men without ties to a lord, temple, or monastery. They are commonly mercenaries, bandits, highwaymen, or wanderers, earning their nioney however they can. They can be sewing samurai. protecting the court. or swelling the ranks of armies. A few may be kensai who have fallen by the way. Most, however, are men of low birth who have chosen the way of the warrior to advance in the world. . . .

Bushi are quite often poor and find it difficult to buy and maintain their armor and equipment. . . .

Aiihough bushi are often poor, they are seldom out of work. There is always a need for a stout warrior or at least a strong hand. Just as the nobles have their Samurai to protect them, the peasants and merchant folk often look on the bushi for protection. The pay usually is not good, but it provides for a bushi's basic needs. Thus, a bushi in a friendiy or neutral village or twm, can
always find employment, food, and sheiier. The food may be thin rice gruel and the sheter a leaky stable, but something will always be available.

Poverty has also made bushi masters at the art of finding "loose" equipment. . . . Bushi are also known to cut or lift strings of cash off the unwary. . . .

The hard life of a bushi gives him little time for self-contemplation and intense mental training, both of which greatly aid in the use of ki. However, bushi do have an elementary ki power. . . .

When the bushi reaches 9th level, he can establish himself as a warlord. . . .

Bushi can come from all levels ofsociety, so they receive no modifier on Table 38: Character Birth. A bushi character is not, however, required to belong to family. The choice is optional. Those who do belong to a family have all the bonuses and penalties for gaining and keeping honor. Bushi do have a measure of self-respect and normally attempt to follow bushido (the warrior code, explained under samurai). However, honor restrictions are significantly less on bushi than on other classes.​

The obvous difference here from the entry on fighters in the AD&D PHB is that ths class description locates the character within a social and cultural milieu. We have remarks on (social) class/rank, on family, on relationships to villagers, etc. Is this what is being objected to? (The closest the PHB gets to this is its accounts of paladins, druids and monks. UA gets closest in its account of cavaliers.)

 

[pemerton]

Some of the criticism has struck me as, well, maybe enthusiastic, especially some of the more academic criticisms. There was a link provided earlier that was a essentially a long Orientalist critique of OA. A part of that was an extended diatribe about how the Comeliness stat reinforces the stereotype of the feminine Asian male. That argument might hold water if Comeliness has been introduced in OA, but it wasn't, it was introduced in Unearthed Arcana earlier that same year, and based on that is pretty obviously just where the studio was at from a design standpoint.

The lengthy critique of Non-Weapon proficiencies I find entirely unconvincing, from an academic standpoint, as while it is explanatory, I don't think it manages to overcome comparatively less outre explanations for why, for example, some of the more 'interesting' NWPs end up in the 'court skills' list (like that many of the skills in question are actually traditional 'Samurai' class skills, roughly). It's telling that the best the author can manage here is that it's classist, which, while possibly true as far as that goes, doesn't make it inaccurate, or orientalist, or racist. Somehow, the label of 'classist', fuzzy at it is in this case, is apparently enough to carry the argument forward to label the application of NWP Orientalist. I wouldn't agree.

In general, while the article does raise some important points about OA, it doesn't hold together all that well. One, because too much relies on the shaky arguments about Comeliness and NWPs and, unfortunately, the argument in the article needs those bits to move it successfully into the finale about reductionist approaches to game design. Second, I have a certain amount of academic distaste for 'readings' like this Orientalist reading, that present themselves as definitive fact. 'Can be read' is very different than 'is', and in cases of can be read, I think there needs to be a pretty minimal amount of contortion involved before it starts to sound forced, and this article seems forced to me.

This isn't to hand-wave some of the legitimate issues with OA, but I think people need to be careful when reading stuff that presents as academic. Some people seem to look at the vocabulary as assume based on that that it's a devastating critique. It isn't in this case.

Thanks for pointing me to that essay. It reinforces my own view, asserted upthread, that we are talking here about an intellectual critique that is amenable to analysis, reasoned response and the like.

That essay does not point solely to OA. It also critques the 5e PHB, the 3E weapons chart (though I thinkt it mislabels that as coming from OA) and Gygax's treatment of alignment in pre-OA works.

Here are some of the claims that stood out for me in particular:

This structure, the encyclopedic, although derived through practices of appreciation becomes ultimately an exercise in producing an authoritative source in what does and does fit into the imaginary of the game’s world. . . .​

​

It is by learning the Orientalist texts listed in the Oriental Adventures bibliography that Bunnell felt able to authentically role-play characters in a non-western feudal society. Simply put: by cultivating a sense of cultural appreciation, Bunnell was able to authoritatively produce a feudal Japanese world for himself and his players.​

The whole of the Bibliography of OA is framd as Orientalist. I don't believe that is on the basis of a thorough reading of all those works. Some of those works have authors whose names suggest East Asian identiy and/or descent. So this criticism has to be suspect.

But it is the bolded sentence which is fundamental, because it goes to the heart of the tension between (i) engaging in the activity of RPGIng and (ii) accepting these strong claims about cultural appropriation. The essay quotes Bunnell saying "Now, after a great deal of reading, I am ready to try to role-play in a totally different feudal culture. I don’t know if I’ll ever truly understand the Japanese culture, but I will certainly enjoy myself while learning." That is not a claim to have authoritatively produced a feudal Japanese world. It is a claim to be trying to run a non-European-oriented game based on an attempt to understand Japanese culture. If that is objectionable, then the discussion is over.

The game makes clear the comparison between Oriental honor and the Christian ethic. Western honor, epitomized by the paladin, maps cleanly onto the values that we associate with good or evil in Dungeons & Dragons alignment system. Good players are grounded through the dogma of the Judeo-Christian imagination, which associates good deeds with the good and honorable life. By proposing a system to govern honor that operates independent from the traditional politics of alignment, Oriental Adventures re-forms and contorts the Oriental family to co-exist as secular within a Judeo-Christian alignment table.​

The claim of "reforming" and "contorting" is not made out, because no theory of what the Oriental family would look like without such reforming and contorting is offered.

What might have been picked up on, but is not, is that the default Buddhist religious character - the shukenja class - are (i) necessarily good, and (ii) largely indifferent to honour. What that tells us is that, through the prism of the OA structure, there is a tension between doing good and being loyal/honouable. This is reinforced when we notice that classes who value hnour highly - samurai, kensai, sohei and yakuza - must be lawful. (Ninja are an exception here that arguably is incoherent.) This suggests that lawfulness and honour are tighly connected, which is a departure from the presentation of alignment in the PHB and DMG, not a reinforcement of it (in those works truth is assocated with the good, not the lawful) but is picked up in the OA alignmenth descriptions and reinforced in the 3E alignment descriptions.

So in fact OA drives a rethinking of the alignment framework. And the presentation of tensions between doing good and being honourable is hardly unique to OA. It's a theme of The Seven Sanurai. Hero. Ashes of Time. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Tai Chi Master. It's a theme that can be fond in non-East Asian culture also, but I mention those works in particular because they might be the sorts of works one is hoping to emulated playing a OA game.

Because many role-playing games seek to enfold non-weapon skills within the logics of combat and acquisition (Cooking helps to restore wealth, Etiquette may help to gain economic favor in the court or to prevent combat, Crafting is often a way to develop better weapons and armor) they participate symbolically in colonialism’s modern legacy. They reduce the richness of non-western culture to a set of “non-weapon proficiencies” which can be developed and exploited to further the Western war effort.​

This claim has no bearing on OA, which does not use NWPs primarily to reinforce martial prowess but treats them as an intereseting field of endeavour in their own right. But it also shows that the essay is not a critique of OA in any distnctive way. If one accepted the arguments made in the essay, OA would not be at the top of the D&D books to be condemned.

 

[Alzrius]

Thanks for pointing me to that essay. It reinforces my own view, asserted upthread, that we are talking here about an intellectual critique that is amenable to analysis, reasoned response and the like.

Notice that none other than Jon Peterson, of Playing at the World fame, takes issue with quite a lot of what's raised in that article, as per his posts in the comments section.

 

[Chaosmancer]

@Chaosmancer my position is pretty simple: Do not support these two long-winded individuals with their monetised youtube diatribe and their silly justifications for offense. The only thing entertaining about them was Steve's appetite and thirst. As to the rest of your points, I have answered you previously.

Well, I don't remember those answers. I'll just assume that since your point is only not to watch a youtube series that you are fine with hiring cultural consultants and treating the material with respect going forward.

After all, that has nothing to do with a youtube series.