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

[Fenris-77]

And the comeliness argument is still tripe. I don't have an issue at all with some of the criticisms leveled at OA, but there are enough components of the overall narrative that are either just wrong (comeliness) or lack any nuance (chopsticks) that I'm conflicted about the overall discussion. Well, at least the core stuff has been addressed and it seems like most people are in agreement about what it means and the need for it to be identified as problematic.

 

[Voadam]

Frankly, I really don't know. I'd never buy and read a work of Lovecraft directly by this stage, I've seen and heard far too much about what some of his works are like, and I can get my existential horror somewhere else. If they stop selling his works, because no one buys them, because the consensus is that the racism is too much to stomach... isn't that still censorship like has been claimed here?

People choosing not to read something is generally not considered censorship.

Someone choosing to not allow others to read something because of its content is generally considered censorship.

It can be quibbled about the situation of someone who wants to read it but still chooses not to.

Silent and slow, but it is still a product no longer being sold because people find the subject material objectionable. Does doing it that way somehow make it more morally justified than pointing it out to people and removing it quickly?

I don't know. But I can't say that calling for something to no longer be sold is the same as banning books.

You keep making this argument about it not being a ban but it seems an odd quibble. Banning the sale of new digital copies is just a smaller scope ban than banning all sales or possession of the book.

 

[Fenris-77]

I believe I'm being mocked.

I should probably mention that even at the time I thought Comeliness was a stupid bloody idea. I was too young at the time to really see the sexism potential in it, but it seemed goofy. Except for its use as a great dump stat.

 

[Panda-s1]

I believe I'm being mocked.

I should probably mention that even at the time I thought Comeliness was a stupid bloody idea. I was too young at the time to really see the sexism potential in it, but it seemed goofy. Except for its use as a great dump stat.

what nuance do you need for chopsticks? chopsticks are for eating. they shouldn't be on a weapons chart. if they want people to recreate a very specific trope from wuxia films they can make a separate rule specifically for monks.

 

[Voadam]

Okay, so why did OA need to introduce a weapon like that then? Fighting with bar stools was still a trope, but not one worth exploring, but fighting with chopsticks was?

I do not know if it was the genre movie trope or if AD&D at that time was just on a kick to provide stats for the most weaponizable eating utensils. The AD&D Unearthed Arcana hardcover earlier that year provided stats for a common knife as a weapon separate from (and worse than) a dagger. So if attacked at dinner you know your steak knife does a d3 damage and does not use the same weapon proficiency as the designed for combat d4 dagger.

 

[Lanefan]

2) You are not a major publisher of a game system being sold across the country. So, I don't care what your weapon list says.

But let's say that somehow I was a major publisher of an internationally-sold game system.

Am I bad if I include hockey stick on the weapons list?

Or am I bad if I have some rules around improvised weapons and use hockey stick, beer mug, chopsticks and pool cue as examples?

 

[Lanefan]

what nuance do you need for chopsticks? chopsticks are for eating. they shouldn't be on a weapons chart. if they want people to recreate a very specific trope from wuxia films they can make a separate rule specifically for monks.

And ballpoint pens are for writing, but if you're in a bind it's also possible to use one to stab someone pretty good.

Pool cues are for playing pool with...unless you're the guy I went to school with who got turned into a human vegetable for the rest of his life when hit over the head with one.

Chopsticks are for eating - or, in the case of two women I game with, for holding one's tied-up hair in place; or - as with the pen - for use if you're despreate for something to violently stick into someone.

 

[prosfilaes]

Honestly, I'm not sure it's fair to criticize a game thoroughly based on larger than life fantasy/pulp stories for doing so.

I don't disagree with the rest of what you wrote, but I have a problem here. Pulp stories have a huge problem with racism, which any modern adaptation has to worry about not copying. Darkest Africa and Yellow Peril are both big pulp themes that are basically racist, and the first has bad history in modern pulp and even in recent D&D publications. It's behind the changes just made in the 5E Chult book, for example.

 

[Panda-s1]

And ballpoint pens are for writing, but if you're in a bind it's also possible to use one to stab someone pretty good.

Pool cues are for playing pool with...unless you're the guy I went to school with who got turned into a human vegetable for the rest of his life when hit over the head with one.

Chopsticks are for eating - or, in the case of two women I game with, for holding one's tied-up hair in place; or - as with the pen - for use if you're despreate for something to violently stick into someone.

and a bottle is for storing liquid, unless you break it open in a tavern fight, but the PHB seems awfully quiet on the matter.

 

[Fenris-77]

what nuance do you need for chopsticks? chopsticks are for eating. they shouldn't be on a weapons chart. if they want people to recreate a very specific trope from wuxia films they can make a separate rule specifically for monks.

Past tense, they wanted in 1985 to... I'm not being pedantic here. When you say 'they want' and 'they can' your talking about the present. In the present I agree completely. For this though we need to step into our Delorean...

First, and more problematically, it is common trope in Asian martial arts cinema generally. I don't think it had much to do with any real-world comps. Chopsticks got used in fight scenes all the time in the movies and so the authors wanted to make sure that was possible mechanically. Putting them on the weapon list, in the context of 1st edition, was necessary to make them even remotely usable as weapons. That's the problematic reading but accounting for 1E mechanics. It still looks poor.

Second, it's the OA equivalent of the knife. The knife is on the 1st Ed weapon list separate from and inferior to the dagger. Its not there as a legit weapon choice, it's there so if a fight breaks out at the tavern you know how much damage your utensil does. They do identical damage to chopsticks btw. This is a far less problematic reading, IMO anyway.

The second bit above is a entirely legitimate reading of 1st edition rules. I'm not suggesting that it's the whole story mind, but I do think that its an example of how the 'chopsticks issue' suffers from a overly superficial treatment. So when I say nuance, I mean that completely seriously (and not as a dodge, or distractor). The issue about comeliness suffers from a similar lack of understanding of the 1st edition rules.

I wouldn't put chopsticks on a weapons chart now at all. One, they're covered just fine by the 5E improvised weapons rules, and two, navigating the issues with representation and trope use just make it a poor idea all around to single them out.