D&D 5E Hasbro CEO Chris Cocks Would Like To Explore Kara-Tur

According to Reddit poster bwrusso, who was in a small group investor meeting with Hasbro CEO Chris Cocks last week, Hasbro's CEO (who was previously President of Wizards of the Coast before being promoted to his current position) currently plays in a Kara-Tur campaign and would personally like to see that setting explored further.

Kara-Tur is part of the Forgotten Realms, and is inspired by real-world East and Southeast Asia cultures, including China, Japan, Mongolia, and other regions. It was originally published in the 1985 book Oriental Adventures, and has since appeared in other formats including a boxed set in 1988. Eight adventure modules for the setting were published in the late 80s. In 2015's Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide, Kara-Tur is briefly described.

Cocks also touched on Spanish-language translations of D&D books in Latin America, and indicated that there were distribution issues with former licensing agreements in that region.

 

[tetrasodium]

You may like it or not, but here Japan will be the blue-eyed girl, the favorite one, because Hasbro wants Kara-Tur to be a bait for the otaku community.

A sourcebook focused into crunch is perfectely possible, and we shouldn't worry about the classical feedback, for example how to do the korobokuru an interesting PC specie with her own traits, or if the spiritfolk will be retconected to be far cousins of elves.

And we have to choose about what tropes of isekai can be wellcome, for example the harem of monster girls or reincarnation from a world with more advanced technology.

Maybe the title "Oriental Adventures" will be replaced with "Xuanhuan & Isekai" for example.

If my memory doesn't fail Kara-Tur hadn't got metaplot, and I don't remember any no-generic faction.

And WotC has to choose if some space will be added to allow the update of the martial adepts or new classes with some special game mechanic. Maybe they could recycle the incarnum for a new class: the cultivator..

I don't think that there is anything in particular about Isekai that clashes with d&d other than the lack of any printed background sidebar or adventure that I've heard of. Because of sword world (a Japanese d&d-like ttrpg) a lot of it could even fit in d&d or like recent well known examples like goblin slayer and overlord were literally inspired by memories of playing/running d&d. In some ways the Terran/earthborn human in a strange fantasy land even makes aspects of d&d easier with a rock solid case for telling a player"your PC doesn't know/isn't known) type stuff where it matters at the non-cost of skipping the "oh a troll , it would be metagaming to use fire" silliness

 

[EthanSental]

I’m curious now how or if they’d bring back martial techniques, like iron palm, tiger claw and such that did more damage than normal unarmed strike. Would it just be for fighters and monks or be a feat. I’d have to get out my old 1e/2e since it’s been a while but in 3e were they feats?

 

[Moonsoon]

Double post sorry

 

[Moonsoon]

Maybe we could get an Asian inspired setting that isn't actually trying to present fantasy China, Korea, Japan, Vietnam, etc... Maybe we could create something new that doesn't have the inherent potential to land badly (to give the generous prediction).

Make. Something. New.

Maybe you'll be interested in MOONSOON, coming soon from Arcane Minis

It's an off-the-beaten-path, Asian-inspired setting influenced by Myanmar, and it even has some fox people (saw your avatar)!

 

[Loot and Roll]

I really miss all the oriental creatures from past editions, that's why I sent Volo to Kara-Tur and created a bestiary with more than 80 creatures inspired by asian folklore and myth

DMs Guild - Volo's Guide to Eastern Legends

Hello everyone, I'm excited to announce the release of our new book, "Volo's Guide to Eastern Legends - A Bestiary of Folklore and Myth for D&D 5e" now available on DMsGuild! https://www.dmsguild.com/product/482091/Volos-Guide-to-Eastern-Legend This 80-page bestiary is packed with over 80...

www.enworld.org

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

Do you remember the manga+anime "Dr Stone"? Or Mark Twain's "a Connecticut yankee in king Arthur’s court". Isekai means somebody from our Earth in other world. Have you thought about the technologic revolution if any from Gamma World or Power Rangers could teach the science? Some minerals would be more valious because there is a new industry of electromagnetic motors, for example. If there are explosion engines, then a dessert could be conquered for the petroleum... or the olive oil would be more expensive because it is used as biofuel.

Even a computer technician from Kamiwaga: Neon Dinasty without much idea of mechanics or hardware could create a new school of magic based on programming code.

We have to accept misunderstandings are possible because we can't know all about them. For example the number 250 is an insult in China, and the number four means death and it's a sign of bad luck.

We want to be so kind and respectful we could forget their darkest side, for example the tsujigiri by samurais, the current discrimination against the descendants of the burakumin or when the first Chinese emperor, Qin Shi Huangdi, wanted to destroy older books to erasure totally the past.

The "postive orientalism" also could be potentially dangerous and harmful for other communities.

Other risk is Asian creators adding hidden digs against others, and we shouldn't realises until it was too late.

* WotC can publish a player's handbook with a lot of crunch, but players will not want to buy some sourcebook for DMs style gazeteer when they can read the fandom wikis.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Yes they often are, but what does going from the things☆ something like the edo period(1603-1868) brings if you are going to leap past stuff like the meji era(1868-1912) straight to something like the taisho era(1912-1926) bring to a d&d setting? Since I don't know what the taisho period would add as an improvement relevant to my d&d experience I asked.

☆see 151 for a few examples

Going to be honest - I think every D&D setting is pretty much improved by adding trains. I genuinely think D&D works a bit better in a semi-industrialized society - it's just D&D doesn't work well with guns.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Going to be honest - I think every D&D setting is pretty much improved by adding trains. I genuinely think D&D works a bit better in a semi-industrialized society - it's just D&D doesn't work well with guns.

Trains goes with Wild West, which was such a big influence early on.

 

[tetrasodium]

Going to be honest - I think every D&D setting is pretty much improved by adding trains. I genuinely think D&D works a bit better in a semi-industrialized society - it's just D&D doesn't work well with guns.

I'm going to go with amaybe depending on the level of trains and say that I don't think that they are antithetical to the campaign useful historically sourced anime tropes intentioned in 151.

Even in Eberron where trains are a big thing there are elements like rebuilding from the last war and being kinda new (150ish years since build out started) that keeps them closer to the hell on wheels or ww2 era with maybe daily weekly or monthly sporadic access to major population hub to hub* than modern day where you might have a train heading from a to b as frequently as every 15 minutes and an express or high speed line hourly. The various anime that I can think of where trains were a thing of note tend to be serving modern day with modern trains or like Fullmetal alchemist attack on Titan trigun (and demon slayer apparently) have early and spotty trains. Some of those even have parts of both

* Distance matters, traveling between neighboring cities and cities several stops apart that need multiple overnight stops is going to influence things a lot . Not every route is going to have enough traffic to justify a dedicated train for ultra regular runs like the US eastern seaboard had then either. Having questions like "can we use it to get from here to there and how long will it take" be firmly under the gm's whim with lots of possible variables they can cite is useful.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

There was a module about a train in Dungeon magazine #44 with the title "train of events". If skyships are possible, then trains also, but the no-magic technology could be sabotaged very easily in a fantasy world.

A simple motor in a crossbow to reload or in a war charriot could mean the end of chivalry. You can't imagine the level of necessary playtest to find the right balance between magic and technology.

Some time in the past I suggest the nations were intentionally a chop-suey, a mixture of different cultures, to avoid projection of xenophobes tropes against neighbour nations. And because players want in the same zone monsters whose roots are folklore from different lands. The players don't want to travel to other region to talk with the lungs and after traveling farer to face against the oni.

* If I learnt something about Chinese History is if Zhao Gao shows a deer but he says it to be horse.. KILL ZHAO GAO!

* I learnt to respect Chinese culture thanks teleserie "Kung-Fu" (but the sequel became a true "jump the shark"). The reboot is in the third season, isn't it?

* Even people from the same roots could show different points of view. For example let's imagine the daughter of Chinese inmigrants living in Spain, and she writes in a self-publishing web a fantasy saga about an empire created by the merger of the ersatz of Spain and China, thanks a marriage alliance, and all those troubles about cultural differences. This plot could be popular in different countries, even in Taiwan, but it could be censored by the Chinese goverment because one of the main characters if a "mixed-blood" princess. The plot could be written with all the respect and love for the Chinese culture, but other people could say it is offensive.