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.
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.