Eliminating Eastern Flavor From D&D?

[ProfessorPain]

How about we assume good faith? I would love to provide the OP with whatever input is wanted. The problem is that "Eastern flavor" is not so clear-cut. I sense I may have made my point too pointedly at the beginning of the thread. Perhaps I could have picked fewer, and gentler, examples. But the point still stands. I don't know what the OP is asking for, really, and I think a lot of the advice that could be offered based on the OP would be really misaimed until that is clarified..

Fair enough. I really should have reacted more softly.

If the OP is simply looking for, "Yup, that's pretty Asian," and they are concerned only with what they would notice anyway, why would they need other people to point at the samurai are, indeed, Japanese?..

I think he is looking for a list of monsters as well.

The OP states there are no Eastern cultures whatsoever. I can't begin to fathom what that means. Does that imply there are Western cultures? Is there an England but no India? Did a giant cataclysm slice the world in half? That doesn't seem logical. It appears the OP is saying there are no analogs to Eastern cultures in this world. Since in our real world, Western cultures had contact and interchange with Eastern cultures, that really brings into question what exactly IS in the campaign world.

My guess is he means Asian when he says eastern, and by Asian I mean the American use of the term. There are tons of fantasy settings with no asian analogs. Since they don't follow our history it doesn't require any massive reconfiguration of western culture. Of course there was interplay between the east and west historically, and without it our world would look very different today. But in a fantasy setting, you can explain things that were invented or developed in the east as being developed independently in the western analog culture.

 

[Darrin Drader]

The problem I see is that there would be NO western society, at least not that we would recognize, without Eastern influence. Why go out of your way to remove it? If you're going to (inaccurately) depict medieval Europe, you might as well allow for there to be influences that came from someplace off the map.

 

[ProfessorPain]

The problem I see is that there would be NO western society, at least not that we would recognize, without Eastern influence. Why go out of your way to remove it? If you're going to (inaccurately) depict medieval Europe, you might as well allow for there to be influences that came from someplace off the map.

But its a fantasy game, it can be anything the group wants. Plus it is a world completely seperate from our own, where history isn't rooted in the same past. It would be possible to conceive of a Europe that developed gunpowder, for example, on its own. A fantasy campaign setting does not have to be a perfect reflection of real world history.

 

[Aus_Snow]

A fantasy campaign setting does not have to be a perfect reflection of real world history.

Yes, and can't be, for that matter. Adding in fantasy automatically renders historical accuracy half-assed, at best.

But some people will insist. . .

 

[Darrin Drader]

It would be possible to conceive of a Europe that developed gunpowder, for example, on its own.

Mmm, not so much. Civilizations that developed outside of the Afro-Eurasia sphere did develop complex societies, but their technological inventions lagged way behind. Two examples: Japan and the Americas.

Japan, up until (I believe) about 1300, was a stone age society. They literally skipped the bronze age due to contact with East Asia. South America had several complex civilizations, but they had no metal. Also, if memory serves, what is known about them is from the ruins they left behind and their art since they kept no historical records.

A fantasy campaign setting does not have to be a perfect reflection of real world history.

No, it doesn't It just seems to me that there are really two ways to approach this. Either omit the locations and the people, but not worry about minor influences, but otherwise make the setting more or less like medieval Earth, or make a setting like Darksun, which has very little in common with the real world. I can appreciate either approach.

 

[moritheil]

Remove pears and spices (pawsplay got most of the other things, like silks, linens, coins, and paper.) Remove tea.

Of course there was interplay between the east and west historically, and without it our world would look very different today. But in a fantasy setting, you can explain things that were invented or developed in the east as being developed independently in the western analog culture.

I'm assuming this is not an attempt at very subtle sarcasm. If your statement holds, then there is no need to remove anything, since as one of the first page posters pointed out, anything - including fighting monks - can be reexplained as developing independently in an analogous culture. If you're willing to change the origin story, anything can be rewritten as non-Eastern.

Is this the point you were trying to make (that such edits are futile and arbitrary), or were you trying to defend the arbitrary removal of certain aspects of the game based on the idea that they felt "Asian" in the OP's perception of things?

 

[moritheil]

Yes, and can't be, for that matter. Adding in fantasy automatically renders historical accuracy half-assed, at best.

But some people will insist. . .

I agree with this statement, but the OP is the one who asked to remove Eastern influences - thereby setting up discussion of what is historically Eastern and what is not.

And, you know, people like to speculate.

 

[lutecius]

You will have to explain why that is the same logic. English is simply the language being used by the players, whereas divine is a term for an in-game construct.

You’re using the etymology of “divine”, an English word used to define an in-game construct, to prove said construct has Asian origins.
1- Some translations of the game will use different words to define the exact same concept.
2- Most English constructs will contain words that ultimately come from the same language as “divine”, like “armour”,“thief” or “spell” (Proto-Indo-European) or have even more recent Asian origins like “magic” (Old Persian)

What are you claiming is the root, incidentally? I know of the Persian daeva/daiva and the Sanskrit daeva/deva split. Divine comes from deus, which does come from that same root.

Your answer is in your own quote. These words all come from a hypothetical proto-Indo-European root reconstructed as *dewos-. Note that in this case, etymonline says “cf daiva and deva”, not “from daiva and deva”. Languages are grouped into families because of similarities that suppose a common ancestor, not because they are necessarily derived from one another.

You are probably right about that one. Online dictionary says Hebrew -> Greek.

Online Etymology Dictionary says the Greek word is a translation of Hebrew “satan”, not that it derives from it.

Do you? Point to a platinum dragon in Western European myth. And the closest thing to Tiamat would be Echidna, mother of monsters, also of Greek origin.

Point to a platinum dragon in Eastern myth . Echidna and much of Hesiod’s Theogony was most likely inspired from the Hittite and Mesopotamian creation myths anyway. My point was that dnd Tiamat and Bahamut have more in common with European representations of dragons than giant fish and hippos or primordial sea goddesses

Hmm... Primordials, elemental chaos... not that I care about 4e cosmology, but wotc missed a great opportunity to reconcile Tiamat and her namesake here)

I was being funny. The rust monster, bulette, and umber hulk were inspired from some plastic dinosaur/kaiju toys that were made in China.

That’s funny. Also explains why they look stupid. What’s the Grell’s excuse?

 

[ProfessorPain]

Mmm, not so much. Civilizations that developed outside of the Afro-Eurasia sphere did develop complex societies, but their technological inventions lagged way behind. Two examples: Japan and the Americas.
.

My point wasn't about real world history, it was about the ability to imagine a Europe that developed independently from Asia. Just take away any asian style sections of the world, and have everything that would have been invented in those places, be invented by the western analog places.

 

[ProfessorPain]

Remove pears and spices (pawsplay got most of the other things, like silks, linens, coins, and paper.) Remove tea.



I'm assuming this is not an attempt at very subtle sarcasm. If your statement holds, then there is no need to remove anything, since as one of the first page posters pointed out, anything - including fighting monks - can be reexplained as developing independently in an analogous culture. If you're willing to change the origin story, anything can be rewritten as non-Eastern.

Is this the point you were trying to make (that such edits are futile and arbitrary), or were you trying to defend the arbitrary removal of certain aspects of the game based on the idea that they felt "Asian" in the OP's perception of things?

Both actually. If he still wants the monk he could easily explain it as a western style mystic (though there was Middle Eastern influence there). Or you could simply say the katana was invented in the western analog kingdom.

But he is also justified in removing anything he feels is asian. I am guessing he wasn't thinking about the minor details or origins, but things that scream Wuxia. My point was two fold, 1) it is his game, his personal sense of aesthetics, so he can do what he wants, 2) Fantasy worlds do not need to be tied to real life history.