Oriental Adventures, was it really that racist?

[Bill Zebub]

Just put a warning next to his name in the reading list and people can use their own judgement rather than being treated like fragile porcelain.

It would be wrong to leave Lovecraft off an inspirational reading list because he's an important part of the history of the game. If we're going to play a fifty year old game then we should be willing to acknowledge that history warts and all.

It's not that we have to. We could all be playing a game written this decade.

And having an open discussion about it might result in people being more alert to similar issues appearing in a more subtle form elsewhere.

Still I'm torn. It's not a an easy or clear cut issue.

 

[Hussar]

I call a list of inspirational reading a bibliography. The word can be used outside of a scholarly context.

It could be I suppose. It's being used incorrectly, but, sure. So long as you realize that a bibliography is a specific thing and does have a pretty specific meaning, as well as a very specific format that isn't used in an inspirational reading list.

So, what are the criteria for striking someone's work off the reading list for imperfect morals? Would you teach Lovecraft in a class on 20th century speculative fiction or fantastic literature?

Of course it would be used in a class. Again, leaving it off of a list of inspirational reading - the thing that you are recommending to people that they read for enjoyment and get INSPIRED by - is held to a very, very different standard than a classroom. I have no idea where you are getting the idea that I would even begin to think differently.

@Irlo hits the nail on the head. If your list of "things you should read to inspire you to play this game" is alienating your audience, then perhaps it shouldn't be on that list.

Or, do you think that I should suggest to my 14 year old half-Japanese daughter that her inspirational reading for D&D should be Shadows Over Innsmouth? "Hey, honey, this is what Daddy uses to inspire his game. Yeah, sure, it clearly states that you are an abomination of nature and should be killed, but, it's just fiction right? No harm no foul"

On the list of things I would recommend to inspire people to play D&D, Lovecraft doesn't even crack the top 100.

 

[MGibster]

On the list of things I would recommend to inspire people to play D&D, Lovecraft doesn't even crack the top 100.

Me either, honestly. While there are some creatures inspired by Lovecraft's work, the vibe of D&D is just so different. Now Call of Cthulhu on the other hand...

 

[aramis erak]

Native Americans being US citizens and being allowed to leave the reservations (if they can afford it) and get an education (if they can afford it) seems a very low bar as an example of racial inequality being so far in the past it isn't relevant to today's society.

Given that, in 1988, when I started college, my university had a book of student funding opportunities, 1 per page.
Being white, male, Catholic, and not a "qualifying-veteran," there were fewer than 5 I'd qualify for, of about 150 some pages, and due to lack of access to parental financial disclosure, couldn't apply for four of those. The 5th was a work study grant, which I got. And only because NO ONE ELSE APPLIED.

Meanwhile, there were over 100 for natives, most of which were neither gender nor tribe restricted. And, according to a friend working in the financial aid office, less than half of those got awarded, simply for lack of applicants.
2/3 of the book was specifically for Natives.

The hard ask seems to be "Ask for the help that's available." Almost no one gets a scholarship without asking.

So, if any North American Indigenous Persons see this and want to go to college... call the financial aid offices first, and see what scholarships are available....

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

So you say the author is racist - 'we can look past his moral failings and focus on his work'
So you say his work is racist - 'we can look past it's racism and focus on the good/interesting from it'

I don't understand the reasoning that's turning people away from the principle that even extremely bad men sometimes have a good idea. That we don't have to approve of their badness to be inspired by something good/interesting they did/said/wrote.

Well, I can talk about the ideas of Dr Richard Feynman, and not talk up the man, given that he was a huge flaming misogynist. I mean, he had some pretty important contributions, in several respects, but I can talk about THOSE and not (as is commonly done) glorify the man himself. Likewise, I could talk about HPL in terms of the place he holds in the Weird/Cosmic Horror genre. To do so meaningfully I probably WOULD have to talk about his beliefs, though. Still, I can do so without glorifying the man in any way. On a list of inspirational writers in the genre however, I could just mention William Hope Hodgson, maybe Lord Dunsany, etc. I mean, sure, HPL made an interesting contribution to the field, and created a specific 'brand' of story, but there are TONS of other material out there that he had nothing to do with at all and which is equally important (and I would argue that Hodgson's The Night Land, and The Boats of the Glenn Carrig are both better than most anything Lovecraft wrote).

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Me either, honestly. While there are some creatures inspired by Lovecraft's work, the vibe of D&D is just so different. Now Call of Cthulhu on the other hand...

I agree totally. While HPL clearly is referenced in terms of a few creatures and whatnot, he's hardly a major influence on D&D, which is a rather rotten game for doing cosmic horror anyway. I never really saw him as relevant to the game, though maybe more so to RPG in general, but still in a minor way.

 

[Mordhau]

I think the influence of Lovecraft on D&D is pretty big. Not so much on the core game at all, but frequently on the kind of monsters that show up and aspects of the way pulp monsters are used in the game. Obviously there's material like the Illithiads, Aboleth, the Far Realm etc. , but there's also all sorts of world design elements that owe a lot to pulp writers like Clark Ashton Smith and Lovecraft. Kobold's Presses Midgard Setting is really just the latest in a long line of settings that show that influence.

Furthermore, reading Lovecraft and Howard and other pulp writers and understanding their influence helps understand certain aspects of why D&D is the way it is, that often strike people used to fantasy from other sources as odd. It helps explain why it has a cosmology that doesn't feel at all mythological, and why so many of it's elements don't sit easily with Tolkienesque high fantasy.

So it depends what you mean by inspirational reading. Reading Lovecraft won't exactly help you run your next game session, but is that really the purpose of the list? Right back to Appendix N it's really been more of a list to say "this is where we were coming from" and for that purpose I think Lovecraft is probably pretty essential.

 

[Haiku Elvis]

Given that, in 1988, when I started college, my university had a book of student funding opportunities, 1 per page.
Being white, male, Catholic, and not a "qualifying-veteran," there were fewer than 5 I'd qualify for, of about 150 some pages, and due to lack of access to parental financial disclosure, couldn't apply for four of those. The 5th was a work study grant, which I got. And only because NO ONE ELSE APPLIED.

Meanwhile, there were over 100 for natives, most of which were neither gender nor tribe restricted. And, according to a friend working in the financial aid office, less than half of those got awarded, simply for lack of applicants.
2/3 of the book was specifically for Natives.

The hard ask seems to be "Ask for the help that's available." Almost no one gets a scholarship without asking.

So, if any North American Indigenous Persons see this and want to go to college... call the financial aid offices first, and see what scholarships are available....

No you're right about that.
I was rushing past to get to other topics and completely ignored things like scholarships which as you say do exist often from multiple sources.
I still stand by the fact its not as simple as just saying Native Americans can get an education as if its a simple done deal, that there are extra indirect financial and social pressures that mean it's not always as easy for students from disadvantaged communities to go to and stay in university but If I wasn't going to discuss the topic properly I should have cut it and not smooshed it into a glib statement and moved on.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Do you know what it's like to watch while someone can share a viewpoint you disagree with and you can say nothing about it?

Hahahaha yes I most certainly do lol. I'm happy to discuss on DMs if that's of interest but I understand if not.

 

[Bedrockgames]

I'm not really sure it's all that useful to pinpoint how racist Lovecraft was either. When I disagree that he was particularly racist for his era it isn't to excuse him, but simply to point out that his era is considered by many historians to be the nadir of race relations following the Civil War. As vile as Lovecraft's opinions were, he opinions would have been shared by millions of his contemporaries.

The Lovecraft thing emerged out of talking about warning labels. It is very much a side-topic