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

[Myrdin Potter]

Thank you for the link. I had completely forgotten about Fax machines - and I didn't realize the first cheap ones apparently started coming out in 1984. And thank you for the reminder of how well TSR was doing financially around then!

Tabletop role-playing games in Japan - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

I quite often visited Japan for work and went to game stores there (played Magic which is easy if you recognize the pictures) and watched RPG games. I bought a copy of the Sword World 2.0 1st rulebook one recent trip. That dates from 1995 for when it started. Right when the first D&D book was translated.

One of the most popular local games. No Japanese character classes. Pictures of swords in the rulebook have no katanas.

According to the link above, Call of Cthulhu is the best selling foreign RPG.

My experience living in Singapore and Shanghai and playing in Tokyo (and a couple of times in Bangkok) was that the more normal pattern here of someone hosting at their place is not the norm. People usually play at game stores or cafes. In Singapore, except for the biggest events, most Magic tournaments are outdoors in the area near the shop.

 

[Panda-s1]

Thank you for the link. I had completely forgotten about Fax machines - and I didn't realize the first cheap ones apparently started coming out in 1984. And thank you for the reminder of how well TSR was doing financially around then!

yeah I almost forgot about fax machines too, lol, then I remembered my dad using one all the time when I was young, through the early 2000's even until email was good enough to replace physical documents. other kids talk about not being able to use the internet because their parents had to make a phone call, for me it was not using up the fax line 'cause my dad was waiting for a fax from China.

What does the "banning" of something that is primarily in pdf form even look like?

it is possible for larger corporations to throw their legal weight around and remove the pdf from more prominent book archives and download websites, though nowadays the idea of completely removing something like that from the internet is a pipe dream.

 

[Chaosmancer]

That's not accurate- this position has been echoed by others, in multiple other threads. In fact, I've had to correct you, specifically, not just on this point but w/r/t what Mr. Kwan was advocating for.

Correcting me on Mr. Kwan's position has nothing at all to do to the point that I have not seen a single poster on ENWorld say "we should ban this book". Unless Mr. Kwan has been posting on ENWorld and I somehow missed it.

A few posters might have suggested that WoTC stop selling the book, which is different from banning it, even if it has the same overall effect. But that suggestion has been few and far between, and seems to mainly be them taking issue with the fact that WoTC is profiting from the book.

So, again. Has there been a single post on ENWorld stating "We should ban this book."? That is what you are arguing against, that is what you fear, but is it a position that is being taken by anyone in this thread?

Again, the paucity of this statement is clear by contrasting the people who advocate for free speech (those who are fine with the disclaimer) and those, like Mr. Kwan and others on these thread; look at either the continuing debate here, or look at the twitter threads since the announcement.

Are the people who were advocating against it happy? Nope. Because it was never about a disclaimer or an informed decision. It was, and always has been, about the exercise of power; the power to decide what other people can and can't read.

This was never about persuasion, but about power. I've seen this play out too many times to not know the playbook.

I will defend Mr. Kwan's right to advocate for banning books and exercising power, and your right to be confused as to what he wanted, but I don't have to agree with you.

If people are arguing on Twitter, argue with them there. I don't argue against positions taken by my friends in real life here, because I argue with them, not you people who are not them.

But, you are convinced that this is about power plays to control what people can read, and if that is what you are concerned about, be glad, because there is no way to control that without making far more obvious moves than this. You need full totalitarian control of the internet to even get close.

Me? I tend to believe people mean what they say. If I was trying to control what people could and could not read, I'd pick a far different target than a 35 year old rulebook that no one was reading anyways. I mean, even if Mr. Kwan succeeded in his elaborate scheme to control the internet by getting this book banned... 95% of DnD players wouldn't even notice the change from 1e OA being gone.

But, if you truly believe Kwan is a danger to free speech and artistic expression, then watch his videos and his twitter, keep an eye on him, and then you can prevent his next scheme too. As for myself? Never been terribly interested in what he had to say, he was just the spark that brought this to my attention. It isn't like I go looking on DMsGuild for 1e products after all, no one I know even plays that edition of the game.

What does the "banning" of something that is primarily in pdf form even look like?

I have no idea.

I suppose like Panda-s1 says, it would mainly be removing them from the major sites and preventing their digital sale. But frankly, I have no idea how you could even ban a book in the US anymore. I've looked online for the last few minutes and every list of "banned" book include books people want to have banned but aren't. Like Harry Potter and To Kill a Mockingbird. The closest I've actually found to actual banning has been incredibly local, like books banned from the Arizona Department of Corrections.

To me, banning a book is more than not selling it. It is confiscating the book where ever it is found, seeking out copies and tracing them to be locked up or destroyed. It is making it illegal to even own a copy of the work.

And you just cannot do that with something like OA 1e. Not only is a PDF format nearly impossible to ban in general, but you would have to track down people who bought physical copies decades ago. It is such a massive endeavor, that I can't see it even happening.

 

[Mercurius]

There are levels of censorship. It doesn't have to be Fahrenheit 451 to be of concern. The concern has both an element of principle and an element of practicality. They meet in the open exchange of ideas. Any degree of censorship is a statement that "these ideas shouldn't be exchanged."

Suggesting that WotC remove a product from availability is essentially saying, "I find this offensive, so therefore I don't want anyone having access to it, or the company to profit from their IP." The logical response to such a position is, "You have every right to find it offensive, but no right to mandate what others have access to. If you don't want that company to profit, don't give them your money."

The problem WotC faces is if they give into this complaint, what else will they have to give into? How many other products contain material that someone finds offensive, for whatever reason?

I would think that the solution is obvious (even if their motive is solely for the sake of PR): keep legacy products available but with a disclaimer, adjust new printings of the current edition, and try better in the future.

Oh, wait, that's what they're doing.

 

[Aldarc]

Suggesting that WotC remove a product from availability is essentially saying, "I find this offensive, so therefore I don't want anyone having access to it, or the company to profit from their IP." The logical response to such a position is, "You have every right to find it offensive, but no right to mandate what others have access to. If you don't want that company to profit, don't give them your money."

One of the problems that I have with the censorship argument in this case is that WotC didn't offer access to 1e OA before it went on their online store in 2014. So there was a time period where WotC clearly didn't think that it wasn't worth printing or providing digital access to, and there wasn't a murmur or complaint about censorship because it was the company deciding which of their products players should have purchasing access to. If WotC decides to take off any one of their books or even their entire back catalog of digital games, I think that's their prerogative and they can do so without it somehow being censorship. The fact that WotC is offering digital purchasing access to old D&D modules is more of a privilege than a right or an act of free speech.

The problem WotC faces is if they give into this complaint, what else will they have to give into? How many other products contain material that someone finds offensive, for whatever reason?

And if we can't make a slippery slope argument about this then what other things can't we make slippery slope arguments about in the future? Oh, wait, people will find a way to make slippery slope arguments no matter what WotC chooses to do.

 

[Mercurius]

One of the problems that I have with the censorship argument in this case is that WotC didn't offer access to 1e OA before it went on their online store in 2014. So there was a time period where WotC clearly didn't think that it wasn't worth printing or providing digital access to, and there wasn't a murmur or complaint about censorship because it was the company deciding which of their products players should have purchasing access to. If WotC decides to take off any of book or even their entire back catalog of digital games, I think that's prerogative and they can do so without it somehow being censorship. The fact that WotC is offering digital purchasing access to old D&D modules seems more like a privilege than a right or an act of free speech.

IIRC, WotC made a lot of stuff available in 2014 as part of their intention to welcome back players of every edition. To be inclusive. To then make such products unavailable would be reversing that.

And if we can't make a slippery slope argument about this then what other things can't we make slippery slope arguments about in the future? Oh, wait, people will find a way to make slippery slope arguments no matter what WotC chooses to do.

Because slippery slopes are an actual thing, with many instances throughout history. "Here, have Sudetenland!"

Open the door to one thing, and you make everything fair game.

 

[Aldarc]

IIRC, WotC made a lot of stuff available in 2014 as part of their intention to welcome back players of every edition. To be inclusive. To then make such products unavailable would be reversing that.

However, Kwan is arguing that having OA available for sale is at odds with their company statements about respecting diversity, multi-culturalism, and the like. That its digital sales is essentially creating a conflict of interest for WotC. I don't think that his point here is entirely without merit.

Because slippery slopes are an actual thing, with many instances throughout history. "Here, have Sudetenland!"

Open the door to one thing, and you make everything fair game.

I'm not sure where to begin with an argument this ridiculously hyperbolic. Just so we are clear, so far we have had people compare the remote possibility of WotC removing OA from digital circulation to a slippery slope comparable to Daesh destroying Palmyra, the Nazi persecution of political opponents and ethnic minorities in Germany, and now the Nazi German annexation of the Sudetenland and other national territories. It's difficult for me take any of the slippery slope arguments in earnest when they have so often been so offensively hyperbolic to some of the most absurd extremes imaginable. That's one reason why the argument that it's a slippery slope comes across so poorly because there's no appropriate sense of scale or perspective at all. It has been one tastelessly offensive slippery slope argument after another.

 

[Mercurius]

However, Kwan is arguing that having OA available for sale is at odds with their company statements about respecting diversity, multi-culturalism, and the like. That its digital sales is essentially creating a conflict of interest for WotC. I don't think that his point here is entirely without merit.

I am wondering where this should end, though, in Kwan's opinion. Should all publishers and movie studios remove all media that doesn't fit certain contemporary criteria?

I'm not sure where to begin with an argument this ridiculously hyperbolic. Just so we are clear, so far we have had people compare the remote possibility of WotC removing OA from digital circulation to a slippery slope comparable to Daesh destroying Palmyra, the Nazi persecution of political opponents and ethnic minorities in Germany, and now the Nazi German annexation of the Sudetenland and other national territories. It's difficult for me take any of the slippery slope arguments in earnest when they have so often been so offensively hyperbolic to some of the most absurd extremes imaginable. That's one reason why the argument that it's a slippery slope comes across so poorly because there's no appropriate sense of scale or perspective at all. It has been one tastelessly offensive slippery slope argument after another.

The argument is that slippery slopes are a real thing, not that this is comparable to Nazi Germany. Yes, it was hyperbolic - and I probably should have refrained, if only because it detracted from my actual point.

Please address my actual argument and question: The problem WotC faces is if they give into this complaint, what else will they have to give into? How many other products contain material that someone finds offensive, for whatever reason?

Meaning, if OA is taken off the shelf, what next? If OA should be removed, why not any number of other products? I mean, there are probably things that people deem offensive in hundreds of products.

 

[Aldarc]

I am wondering where this should end, though, in Kwan's opinion. Should all publishers and movie studios remove all media that doesn't fit certain contemporary criteria?

I am not Kwan, so I cannot answer your question about where this should end. If this is a question that you can respectfully ask Kwan in good faith, then maybe this is something you should ask him. However, I would leave out the second question and focus on the former, again for reasons of scope and scale.

Please address my actual argument and question: The problem WotC faces is if they give into this complaint, what else will they have to give into? How many other products contain material that someone finds offensive, for whatever reason?

Meaning, if OA is taken off the shelf, what next? If OA should be removed, why not any number of other products? I mean, there are probably things that people deem offensive in hundreds of products.

I don't know, because our hobby has changed, is changing, and will change again. However, I don't think that we should be afraid of examining our relationship as consumers, writers, and publishers to the skeletons and zombies that have been left festering for so long in D&D's closets, especially if we are truly committed to an inclusive hobby.

I think that we should stop worrying about "where do we draw the line in the sand?" There is no line. The line is artificial and mutable. It attempts to stifle the fluid development of the game by creating an artificial line that gamers can safely hide behind or rally around without fear that they will be swept away by the tides and rising ocean. It's also an argumentative tactic that attempts to say that if a clear line can't be drawn, then the idea in question is somehow without merit, which is fairly absurd. And so often it is framed as a parade of imaginary horrors. The "impassable line" has been redrawn in the sand so many times by now by people worried about "what's next?" and it's just pointless to do so again. Let the critical conversations about the hobby transpire without worrying about the magical line of warding that puts the slippery slope to a halt.

I also think that it's more important for us to sympathetically and respectfully listen to critical voices in our hobby, particularly from marginalized identities, who are telling us how this content is harmful, insensitive, and offensive. I think that it's more important for us as gamers to consider how our consumption of these products and our use of certain cultural tropes in our games perpetuates harmful stereotypes and ideologies about people, even if we do not intend harm. I think that our ethical priority and emphasis should be on people rather than products. We should be more worried about whether we are doing a good job with these things than the slippery slope or where we draw the line.

 

[BigZebra]

I am curious, since I have not read the book. What is the problem with OA? I have read most of this thread, and other stuff, but haven't found anything beyond the word oriental.

Looking up "oriental" I can see it means somebody form the far east, and is now "considered offensive when used to describe a person" (Webster)

Ok, so there's that. But sure there must be more to it?