D&D 5E Oriental Adventures 5e: How would you do it?

[Stormonu]

Did you know that all of Europe is about the same size as 94% of China? Lumping China, India, Japan, Korea, and other cultures in that continent is... just extremely reductionist.

I care not; Slavic culture in nothing like the French, but D&D lumps them into one fantasy world anyway.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

I would stay away from it, as I don't have any connection to it. I would however love to read it if it was done by people familiar with oriental culure.

 

[Vaalingrade]

I wouldn't exoticize Asian or any other elements at all be putting them into a special book. What a lot of people kind of forget is that the D&D world isn't ours. The practices that emerged in Asian or Africa or anywhere else aren't necessarily going to be portioned off far away from the fake European stuff. There would be different fusions and evolutions of culture.

I'd just start adding things into books and UA material and just having it just be part of the default D&D tool box. Next big book? Maybe there's a Ninja Rogue or a Samurai Fighter. New equipment comes out and there's a katana as well as a boomerang and a chakram. The monster books start having lungs and hopping vampires and were-hyenas (actually no. If you know what they're all about... no) in addition to the strictly European concepts of Oni and Ten--I mean Kenku that we already have.

 

[Faolyn]

Follow up question. Why is putting every Asian culture in a blender and taking elements for your setting wrong. Have we not done the same to European cultures with most D&D settings?

It's not wrong per se... if everything else was equal. But the problem is that (white) Westerners have always lumped all people of whatever region together. All Africans are the same, all Asians are the same, etc. Which isn't OK.

So while there shouldn't be a problem blending various Asian countries together the way a thousand years of European countries have been blended together for typical D&D setting... well, there is.

Must be an american thing. Funny how they make a fuss about a term like oriental but are fine with how the vistani are presented in CoS. That would be a no-go from an european POV

A while ago, I had a "conversation" on reddit with someone who was completely fine about how the Vistani were depicted because, in this person's experience (he said he lived in Romania) "half of all Romani are thieves and drunks anyway, so it's accurate." And going by Wikipedia, there's still a lot of bigotry towards Romani in Europe, so I don't think that it's just "an American thing."

 

[Sacrosanct]

I care not; Slavic culture in nothing like the French, but D&D lumps them into one fantasy world anyway.

So instead of saying "They've been lumping in European cultures together so why not Asian", wouldn't a better solution be "Let's not lump all east Asian cultures together, and let's put out material that distinguishes the various European cultures."? There's nothing to my knowledge that is preventing anyone from doing a European sourcebook that highlights the different cultures in Europe.

I'm reminded of a quote: "There are two types of people in the world--those who say "It happened to me, so why not everyone else." and "it happened to me, so I don't want anyone else to go through the same thing."

 

[Faolyn]

ITT: A bunch of white people discussing what is and is not racist.

Or, you know, a bunch of white people trying to avoid the mistakes made by people before them.

 

[Urriak Uruk]

I care not; Slavic culture in nothing like the French, but D&D lumps them into one fantasy world anyway.

I mean, 5E doesn't really. Nothing in the Sword Coast stands out to me as particularly Slavic (or French either). Maybe the closest would be Icewind Dale, but hey that region got its own adventure book!

 

[Filthy Lucre]

"Let's not lump all east Asian cultures together, and let's put out material that distinguishes the various European cultures."

Because that's not necessary, at all.

While Asia is just as, probably even more, diverse from Europe it's wildly foolish to say that there are not common cultural threads that run throughout East Asia. This is especially true where Korea/Japan/China are concerned, since their histories, culture, languages are inextricably tangled together from millennia of interaction.

I do not find bastardized/"reduced" Medieval European inspired fantasy offensive. I do not find bastardized/"reduced" East Asian inspired fantasy offensive.

If the fantasy depiction of our "Asian" analog had buck teeth, squinting eyes, and tottered around clumsily I would find THAT offensive.

 

[Stormonu]

So instead of saying "They've been lumping in European cultures together so why not Asian", wouldn't a better solution be "Let's not lump all east Asian cultures together, and let's put out material that distinguishes the various European cultures."? There's nothing to my knowledge that is preventing anyone from doing a European sourcebook that highlights the different cultures in Europe.

I'm reminded of a quote: "There are two types of people in the world--those who say "It happened to me, so why not everyone else." and "it happened to me, so I don't want anyone else to go through the same thing."

There are already several RPGs that do break out western cultures into more specific subgroups. But frankly, they’re not D&D. D&D is a kitchen sink fantasy world that tries to cover as many tropes and stereotypes as it can with one big brush. For a D&D book, I’d rather broad strokes I can break down further rather than too-specific a book I need dozens of to run the game I want.

Would I object to, for example, a Three Kingdoms D&D RPG? No, but if I can get one that covers China, Japan, Korea, Vietnam, Siam, Burmese, Thailand and half a dozen others in one volume I’d appreciate that more.

 

[Faolyn]

The first thing I would do if I were creating Oriental Adventures 5E is float the idea on an internet forum just to see whether anybody reacts negatively to the word "Oriental."

Or you could look it up. From what I read when I googled "is the word oriental offensive," the consensus seemed to be "the word itself isn't offensive but can be used in an offensive way, mostly when it's used to Other and 'Exoticize' Asians."