D&D 5E How should be the future Oriental Adventures.

[Kobold Avenger]

Some of the monsters in the Kara-Tur MC were actually Malaysian or Indonesian in origin, despite either of those cultures getting much coverage at all.

Strangely enough, whenever someone says Jungle Ruins the first image that comes to my mind is the iconic Angkor Wat in Cambodia, despite never actually being there.

 

[Mercurius]

You can find a happy medium between the two. Just look at the recent Theros book. Yeah, it's obviously not 100% historically accurate and paints in very broad strokes, but then you get things like a more or less authentic ancient Greek calendar (with intercalary months!) and you can see they did their research. That's probably one of the better routes to take with this, to find a happy medium between fantasy and reality that shows that some thought and research (with appropriate advisors) has been put into it.

Theros, as I understand it, is based upon one cultural group, the ancient Greeks. Oriential/Asian Adventures is based at least China and Japan, but could also include SE Asia, Korea, India, Tibet, Mongolia, etc. So it really depends upon the span of it.

 

[Eyes of Nine]

I don't think we'll get a generic Oriental Adventures for 5e.

Given the current trend, it is more likely we'll get a smaller book from MtG such as Kamigawa. If that's too small, we might be lucky and get a combined hardcover with Rabiah and Tarkir.

1000% agree with this, based on how WotC's handled old settings and books in general.

Having been called Oriental myself, it's not a term I appreciate. @LuisCarlos17f take my word for it - I do not like that word used for people.

I guess it's better than other racist/othering terms I've heard directed at me; but I'd rather the name of any future book be focused on the fantastic world, not on a real world slur.

 

[Tun Kai Poh]

I want to point out, for folks who don't know, that there is already great D&D content by creators of Asian ancestry, like in the Unbreakable anthology...

DriveThruRPG

www.drivethrurpg.com

Like, hire some of these folks and give them the budget to make an original fantasy world. Something vibrant and modern yet drawing on the old traditions and folklores. Something that is to 2020 what Avatar: The Last Airbender was to 2005, except with Asian creative leads all the way down to Asian creative staff.

I have a lot of names I could recommend from #RPGSEA, just to start with.

Check out Asians Represent! They have exciting Asian creators visiting every episode and they even did the work of a 26-hour video series full of guest experts to dissect OA and discuss it. And that's not on their paid time. Imagine if they got funding to do this in a really organised way.

 

[Tun Kai Poh]

Or, to paraphrase from that Jerry Maguire scene, "Show us the money!"

And it'll happen. No need to spend 500 posts debating what would make a good modern Kara-Tur.

Stop talking and get it done. Get the big companies to pay awesome Asian creators with smart ideas for big worldbuilding projects that will make the A:TLA world look tame and suburban in comparison.

 

[Mecheon]

Don't you know the coprodution Nezha (a Chinese god) with transformers? Or Hasbro working with Toei for the new serie of Power Rangers.

oops, you've dropped the Mecheon Bait for crazy Transformers Lore-nerd Mecheon. I fail to see how this is relevant however. Nezha (Who's the god of cars due to the complications of stuff evolving over time) is in a Chinese-orientated series done by people who've made previous Nezha shows, whereas Power Rangers is an American re-invention of a Japanese Sentai show that was so popular they ended up redubbing it back into Japanese and sending it back over.

Who complained about OA for the 3rd Edition?

Quite a few people! Parts of it came off as sketchy to me even back in the day, let alone in this day and age

Is anybody angry with Dreamworks about Kung-fu panda?

No, because Dreamworks handled it respectfully and Kung-Fu Panda was popular in China as a result. Handle stuff well, it goes down well

or Asian authors/mangaka writing romance novels set in the British Victorian Age.

This runs into the above issue and also the issue of the fact we won't see it. Unless you specifically speak Japanese and are hunting down Japanese light novels with a British Victorian Age, are you going to see the problematic stuff? Because I'm 90% sure I could fish up some bloody problematic stuff from that crew. The thing is.... No one knows about it outside of a small sphere. Whereas D&D is stonking massive.

 

[JiffyPopTart]

Fake history, culture, and mythology. Fictional inspired references. Shared terms and ideas portrayed in popular media

Isn't that exactly what the original OA book was?

 

[Minigiant]

Isn't that exactly what the original OA book was?

I meant that thereshould be a full attempt to mimic reality or no attempt at all.

Much how the XGTE samurai is just a tough fighter with a bonus skill and special attack. The only link to Asia or Japan is the name. You could easily play the XGTE samurai as a European or African knight as it is just a noble fighter with fighting spirit. The name is the only Asian or Japanese part of it.

No need to mimic real gurus and yogi and just make a monk sub-class of Dhalsim from Street Fighter with stretchy arms and teleportation.

Make a generic fox people halfling clones instead of making a full race to mimic kitsune and huli jing.
Elephants with fireball cannons. Lu Bu but a demon. A whole monster race of Gokus.

Either go with real history, culture, and mythology or divorce yourself from reality completely. Youhave to check your work either way. However doing it halfway seems more dangerous than what it is worth.

 

[Shiroiken]

The best way to do something like this would be to create a new setting based on a historical culture, just as they did for Theros and the ancient Greeks.

Part of the issue would be deciding whether to do it a single book or not. I'm not that familiar with other historical Asian cultures beyond China and Japan, but I know those two were significantly different from each other. If done as a single book, it should be done with several nations to allow multiple cultures to be represented.

 

[JiffyPopTart]

A real history, culture, and mythology ninja would be pretty boring....basically a thief with disguise, lots of improvised weapons taken from farmers, and no sneak attack.

A totally divorced from history, culture, and mythology ninja would be not called a ninja.

D&D has always been a wazoo mish-mash of every single thing that could be taken from history and made into something completely fictional but fun to play as a character, or kill with a character.