D&D General Let He Who Is Without Sin Cast the First Magic Missile: Why Gygax Still Matters to Me

[EzekielRaiden]

But the problem is (IMO) that you want someone else to do that work for your benefit. And not just anyone else, but the profit-driven market leader, who has no financial motive to do anything you're asking for.

You say this as though people asking for new products is somehow a horrible, malicious thing.

What the heck, man? Seriously? Yes, of course I want the multimillion-dollar company to consider making products that I think would be extremely good for the health of the community at large and that would also happen to be useful to me. I also want them to support all past editions, not just my favorite one, and I would prefer that they actually make good and useful rules even for things I couldn't give a crap about.

Instead, they will (almost surely) continue putting out the same tired, repetitive crap, and of course it will continue to sell because you can have any color you want, as long as the color you want is black. It's a Hobson's choice: take the offer or GTFO. They won't actually follow through with their stated efforts to bring older editions into easier use territory (e.g. OGL or CC). And they sure as hell won't actually think or care about the stuff that would truly capitalize on the vast potential that TTRPGs offer, helping to build up a new generation of engaged, enthusiastic DMs. The new DMG will almost surely be just the old one reorganized, with the same naughty word-awful """rules""" and """advice""" that, more than half the time, boils down to, "you can do X, or you can not do X! That's up for you to decide."

 

[Micah Sweet]

You say this as though people asking for new products is somehow a horrible, malicious thing.

What the heck, man? Seriously? Yes, of course I want the multimillion-dollar company to consider making products that I think would be extremely good for the health of the community at large and that would also happen to be useful to me. I also want them to support all past editions, not just my favorite one, and I would prefer that they actually make good and useful rules even for things I couldn't give a crap about.

Instead, they will (almost surely) continue putting out the same tired, repetitive crap, and of course it will continue to sell because you can have any color you want, as long as the color you want is black. It's a Hobson's choice: take the offer or GTFO. They won't actually follow through with their stated efforts to bring older editions into easier use territory (e.g. OGL or CC). And they sure as hell won't actually think or care about the stuff that would truly capitalize on the vast potential that TTRPGs offer, helping to build up a new generation of engaged, enthusiastic DMs. The new DMG will almost surely be just the old one reorganized, with the same naughty word-awful """rules""" and """advice""" that, more than half the time, boils down to, "you can do X, or you can not do X! That's up for you to decide."

Yes, all those things will very likely happen. Since I know you know this, I'm wondering why you continue tilting at windmills.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Yes, all those things will very likely happen. Since I know you know this, I'm wondering why you continue tilting at windmills.

Because the extremely slim chance I might contribute to change by speaking about it in a public place is better than the zero chance that things change if I keep to myself.

 

[mamba]

They were not "problematic" because they examined a culture other than the authors' own; they were inconsiderate (or, more commonly, outright disrespectful) because they treated those cultures like "exotic"/silly/strange caricatures to be pantomimed for a little while and then set aside.

I get that criticism, but it’s not like they treated medieval Europe any better, it’s all just lightly inspired by rather than a doctor’s thesis on each individual culture.

Be respectful, sure, but ultimately you are creating a fantasy Asia as much as a fantasy Europe

 

[TiQuinn]

I get that criticism, but it’s not like they treated medieval Europe any better, it’s all just lightly inspired by rather than a doctor’s thesis on each individual culture.

Be respectful, sure, but ultimately you are creating a fantasy Asia as much as a fantasy Europe

Small shout out to Al Qadim which I thought had some fantastic adventures and supplements back in the 2e era - light years ahead of stuff like Maztica.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Because the extremely slim chance I might contribute to change by speaking about it in a public place is better than the zero chance that things change if I keep to myself.

Fair enough. It's not like folks haven't questioned me more than once about what I post.

 

[mamba]

Small shout out to Al Qadim which I thought had some fantastic adventures and supplements back in the 2e era - light years ahead of stuff like Maztica.

i would like a good Mesoamerica setting, not sure one exists

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I get that criticism, but it’s not like they treated medieval Europe any better, it’s all just lightly inspired by rather than a doctor’s thesis on each individual culture.

Be respectful, sure, but ultimately you are creating a fantasy Asia as much as a fantasy Europe

If you think medieval Europe has gotten ANYWHERE near as bad as the treatment of Arabic/Islamic and Eastern (India/China/Japan primarily, but Southeast Asia and Polynesia have gotten it too), then you truly do not understand the depths to which Orientalism would stoop.

There is no comparison. At best, you could argue that Celtic cultures have been flanderized like that--which wouldn't be too far off the mark, seeing as how the D&D Druid has jack-all to do with the actual defunct Iron Age Celtic priestly caste, and the "Barbarian" is literally derived from a racist Greek term for foreigners (who the Greeks heard as saying "bar bar bar" rather than speaking civilized language, that is, Greek.) But medieval European culture? This is practically copied straight out of their own self-propaganda. The Paladin, for example. (Though it's worth noting, that was propaganda targeted at the knights themselves, not at the peasantry. After all, most peasants couldn't read. The tales of courtly romance and knightly honor were propaganda to get knights to behave themselves, because terrorizing the people who make your food and work your land is a bad idea.)

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Small shout out to Al Qadim which I thought had some fantastic adventures and supplements back in the 2e era - light years ahead of stuff like Maztica.

Al-Qadim is definitely the best of the bunch, Maztica and Kara-Tur are both riddled with issues. There's a reason I made use of Al-Qadim pretty heavily with my Jewel of the Desert game. I just made sure to actually talk to people from that part of the world, to get a better idea of what to do and why things matter. It's unequivocally enriched my game and made it more enjoyable for everyone who has graced my table.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Also there

Because you don't actually understand what was wrong with the original products to begin with. Al-Qadim is the closest to being alright, but even it has some serious stumbles. There is nothing wrong--nothing inherently "problematic"--about writing a setting that is inspired by non-European cultures, mythologies, or histories. The guys who made Avatar: the Last Airbender, which is very clearly and intentionally drawing on Eastern cultures and ethnicities (the Fire Nation is fascist Imperial Japan; the Earth Kingdom is like Han Dynasty China; two of the three Water Tribes are almost explicitly Inuit peoples; and the Air Nomads are Tibetan Buddhists, alongside stuff like the Sun Warriors who are clearly Mesoamerican-like), yet both of them are middle-aged white dudes.

The difference is that they did the work to make it respectful and serious. They hired legit actual experts on many different topics, including getting people who could actually write both modern and ancient Chinese so that written documents would, in fact, be written correctly; they had an on-staff martial arts expert, Sifu Kisu, to whom they dedicated an actual in-world character (Master Piandao); and they had folks actually critically analyze their work.

In the 70s and 80s--hell, even in the 90s, albeit not quite as badly--foreign cultures were used exploitatively. It didn't matter what those people actually thought or did, what their histories or beliefs or practices actually were. It just mattered that it had the veneer of exoticism, of foreign-ness. Kara-Tur is, unfortunately, rife with Orientalist tropes and content. They were not "problematic" because they examined a culture other than the authors' own; they were inconsiderate (or, more commonly, outright disrespectful) because they treated those cultures like "exotic"/silly/strange caricatures to be pantomimed for a little while and then set aside.

Depending teh OA issues again is probably not worth any of out time but it isn't teh 70s or 80s anymore. You are complaining about something that probably wouldn't be the case were WOTC to try their hand at a Han Dynasty setting today. In terms of what you are looking for, It isn't official D&D but Tian Xia for pathfinder is an asian setting and my understanding is they bought in people from the cultures and experts. I haven't read the book yet so I can't comment (and I am not a pathfinder person) but that sounds like something one could easily port into D&D if you wanted. And the there is a lot of material like this being put out for other systems by the people who were involved. If you go online and search you are going to find a lot of game settings using different cultures as inspiration, often written by people from those cultures. the best thing you can do if that is what you want to see is support those designers and talk about their work (and even suggest them to WOTC if are really excited about a particular idea)