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

[jgsugden]

This was discussed at length in April and May.

D&D 5E - Kara Tur vs Tarkir vs Kamigawa vs Plane of Mountains and Seas vs Ikoria

I said I'd start a Kara Tur thread so I'd stop high jacking a MtG settings thread with posts about Kara Tur, so here it is. Kara Tur simply works better as a D&D setting because it's designed for D&D, although Elves, Dwarves, Halflings, aren't a major presence in Kara Tur, because it's...

www.enworld.org

My opinion: Everything to date is tainted. It is a lose-lose proposition to release something that continues the prior settings and elements created by predominantly (or at least significantly) white creators (including the entire channels of production in the term creators, not just authors and editors). Whether you agree that this is just or not, it is an economic truth - I don't think you can have a commercial product not created with the respect that is currently demanded due to risks that it will be boycotted, or public perception will hurt your brand.

I think the only way to release a product of this type in the next 10 years that honors a non-European culture is to make it from scratch and have the vast majority of the contributions to the creation come from people that originate from the lands that are being honored by the product.

However, there is a problem. In Hollywood, it is no longer acceptable for a white actor to play a non-white role. Will that mentality filter down to role playing? After all, the core of role playing is acting. Will it leave us with guidance that white DMs should not utilize non-white cultural homages in their games? Should non-white players be allowed to role play characters inspired by non-white cultures? If the answer is no, the product may not be financially viable, as it would only be useful to groups of people predominantly from that culture.

That is even more restricting when the discussion so far has stressed an importance of not combining different cultures from Asia into one product.

I believe that WotC is likely going to punt on this topic. Instead of making products themselves, they'll support 3rd parties that will make products that sell on a smaller scale and are allowed to use the WotC IP, likely in exchange for a licensing fee. It seems to be the lowest risk approach.

 

[Kobold Avenger]

Genuine question here -- do we know why the term "Oriental" might be considered offensive?

Would it be no different than referring to a region or peoples such as the words Arab or Polynesian?

Is it just the context?

Let's take a look -
1. Oriental Adventures
2. Arabian Adventures
3. Polynesian Adventures

I'm an Asian Canadian, it's not a term favoured by the vast majority of Asians living in North America (and probably Australia and New Zealand too).

 

[Slit518]

I'm an Asian Canadian, it's not a term favoured by the vast majority of Asians living in North America (and probably Australia and New Zealand too).

Thanks for the answer.

However, I am not sure if the term blankets folks with ancestry from that region as a whole, or if it refers to folks currently living there?
I assume blankets as a whole, would that be correct?

I suppose it would be no different than calling white folks who aren't from Europe European instead of Canadian, American, etc?

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

If you look at the original Oriental Adventures, yeah, not a single person of Asian descent is credited on it. David "Zeb" Cook had never even traveled to an Asian country; he finally did so with the payout from this book, if I recall my TSR history correctly.

As has been said, avoid "oriental" anything.

I'm pretty sure there are plenty of gamers who are also skilled writers/creative developers who happen to have have east Asian ancestry, so utilize them instead of having, say, a white person do the writing even if they did "research"

Magic the Gathering has an China/Mongolia-inspired world called Tarkir. If we'll see anything, I suspect it'd be set there.

I doubt we ever see another official WotC product based on real-world cultures. If there is something with that kind of Eastern influence, it will be so thoroughly changed it will not resemble the inspiration.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

Yes, it is sad to lose the nostalgia of our game, the thrill of discovery of foreign worlds, interaction in cultures that might encourage us to read real history. But in the end, it's about creating an atmosphere of inclusion in the hobby, and I don't think we can do it anymore.
Being fair to everyone and welcoming without stereotypes is more important than our nostalgia.
As a writer of gaming material, I will not trust in a person's opinion of what is "culturally okay." It can easily change at the drop of a hat and what doesn't offend one person might be terrible to someone else. At the very best, you end up just getting bad publicity and having to apologize.
So from now on, nothing resembling a real world culture will ever appear in my writings.

To be clear, this isn't about nostalgia; all of the older material is available to anyone who wants to run it.

Instead, I am more concerned that by removing any and all real-world referents, they are doing little for inclusion and are removing some of the best aspects of the game in terms of it being an impetus to learning more.

Which would be terrible. I agree that WoTC is likely to do this; after all, this is a corporation, and corporations are about making money and not waves; it is easier to create something removed from reality than it is to make sure that the material is both faithful and inclusive.

 

[Guest 6801328]

Given my track record of multicultural awareness, I'll leave it to the sensitivity readers to figure out.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

I am sure WotC will consult experts even maybe it is doing it now. Even they would be just warned some things could be allowed in Taiwan but censored in China.

Maybe they will use a different name, but I doubt among Chinese or Japanese words, maybe xuanhuan, jianghu, shenmo or isekai. Maybe a title with a Chinese and a Japanese word.

To say WotC can't publish a book about xiákè and kabukimono is like saying Disney can't produce movies about Alladin, Mulan or Raya and the last dragon. This is not about to forbbid but to explain how to do in the right way. Can't we watch the movies of Kung-Fu Panda? We shouldn't close those doors. If we complain about stereotypes then we could talk about beat'em videogames by Asian companies. If am Spanish can I complain about Vega (Street Fighters) or another Spanishs characters in videogames?

* We don't need the title "Arabian Nights" when "1001 nights" is more universal.

* When I was a child I saw many episodes of the serie "Kung Fu", whose main character was "the little grasshopper", playeb by David Carradine. If respect Chinese culture was thanks this serie, but the "sequel", set in the current age was an horrible "jumping the shark", too fantastic even for me.

Today there are series with roots on Asian cultures, for example Warrior (an old idea by Bruce Lee), or Wu Assasins.

 

[lkj]

Genuine question here -- do we know why the term "Oriental" might be considered offensive?

Would it be no different than referring to a region or peoples such as the words Arab or Polynesian?

Is it just the context?

Let's take a look -
1. Oriental Adventures
2. Arabian Adventures
3. Polynesian Adventures

I believe the term simply means 'eastern'. However, my understanding is that the reason it has gone out of favor is that the term has historically been associated with a lot of racist tropes. So it carries a lot of baggage. And, since it's not all that descriptive anyway and it tends to lump a lot of very disparate cultures, I don't really think it is much of a loss.

I am happy to be corrected by someone with more knowledge on the matter.

AD

 

[Kobold Avenger]

If am Spanish can I complain about Vega (Street Fighters) or another Spanishs characters in videogames?

Yes you can, honestly I don't know how they ever associated Vega with Spain.

I think Brazilians also have the right to complain about Blanca from Street Fighter.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

I believe the term simply means 'eastern'. However, my understanding is that the reason it has gone out of favor is that the term has historically been associated with a lot of racist tropes. So it carries a lot of baggage. And, since it's not all that descriptive anyway and it tends to lump a lot of very disparate cultures, I don't really think it is much of a loss.

I am happy to be corrected by someone with more knowledge on the matter.

AD

This is getting a little sideways, since it is very difficult for me to understand how someone does not know, today, that this term isn't proper to use (at least, not in America).

If used as a pure descriptor of location (Oriental, Occidental), then it is acceptable. But not for people.

Here's a quick explanation from 2009:

'Oriental': Rugs, Not People

It's an adjective that used to describe rugs, not people. That's the message New York Gov. David Paterson turned into law this week when he signed a bill that bans state documents from using the term "oriental" when referring to people of Asian or Pacific heritage. Jeff Yang, an Asian Pop...

www.npr.org

In 2016, it was removed from use in any and all federal law. You can additionally find numerous examples of people with Asian ancestry taking offense to the term, both because it lumps numerous different people under one umbrella, because it "others" people, because it has a stigma of "exoticism," and because it has been used in unsavory ways in the past; in short, while it has more pleasant connotations than some other words, it still causes offense for multiple reasons.

Again, in order to avoid thread derailment and lockdown, I advise using google.

EDIT- to be clear, this isn't directed at the person I am responding to, but to the person just asking questions.