Oriental Adventures, was it really that racist?

[ryu289]

From here:

Wizards of the Coast continue to bend the knee to the people shitting on them! In this case, Daniel Kwan, the guy who threw such a naughty word fit over the AD&D 1E Oriental Adventures book being sold online that it resulted in WotC adding disclaimers to all of their old PDF products and Kwan earning an award, was apparently approached by WotC to talk about Asian representation in D&D. When he said he'd only do it if he was allowed to rehash the "harm" these old, out-of-print books and campaign settings caused, WotC actually said yes!

What the actual naughty word?! Why are they intent on feeding the hand that bites them?! I know they got their ass kicked quite a bit recently for this, Orion Black, several "racist" Magic cards, and who knows what else, but to think that the only lesson they've taken away from this is to say "thank you, sir, may I have another?" is mind-boggling to witness.

Well here is the thing, did Kwan have a point? Sure people might say "let us have fun" but I suspect that to Asian and Muslim characters, seeing their culture reduced to a theme-park version would be turned off for understandable reasons.

Off course:

SO LEAVE THEM ALONE AND DO SOMETHING FOR YOU.

They are no more "stereotypical" than the depictions of the western middle ages in other books.

This was the first thing fans pointed out and the response was basically "lol wypipo's feelings don't matter."

What's even the excuse? They can't claim colonialism or slavery. Historically, their empires, the ones this sourcebook is based on, were more powerful than ours a lot of the time. The Mongols conquered more of Europe than the English did of China, and now China's a world power. Japan only got naughty word with AFTER they declared war on half the world and lost.

There isn't one? Most people here are sane, rational, reasonably intelligent folks, so legitimate questions like this surely come up pointing out the fallacies in their arguments. What I've taken to reminding myself is these are not rational agents we're dealing with. These are people who are operating constantly in insanely high levels of cognitive dissonance and see nothing wrong with it. To paraphrase Kyle Reese: "they can't be reasoned with. They can't be bargained with.."

Well here's the thing, they are playing with the idea that all Asian cultures are interchangeable. Korean, Chinese, and Japanese cultures are all mixed together and considering their history with each other, is something they wouldn't like. Now saying "western middle ages" is disingenuous since much of Fantasy is based on J.R.R Tolkien and his fictional version of BRITAIN in general. It's not based on a stereotype of Europe as a whole, Middle Ages or otherwise, and either way, this is simply going into tu quoque territory. And really, you are losing quite a bit of nuance and storytelling ideas by doing this.

But what are your thoughs...was it that bad back in ye olden times?

 

[Umbran]

Mod Note:

This topic has been discussed several times recently, in various threads. Most of those threads wind up getting closed, and people threadbanned, given official warnings, and all that nonsense.

Thus, there's a major question of whether dragging up a bunch of stuff from reddit, to relitigate the issue here, is particularly valuable. If you are going to post in this thread, please make it valuable, or just walk away. The thread is warned from its very inception to be on best behavior, so there is no excuse for breaking the rules, or otherwise acting like a jerk. Got it, folks?

 

[ryu289]

Mod Note:

This topic has been discussed several times recently, in various threads. Most of those threads wind up getting closed, and people threadbanned, given official warnings, and all that nonsense.

Thus, there's a major question of whether dragging up a bunch of stuff from reddit, to relitigate the issue here, is particularly valuable. If you are going to post in this thread, please make it valuable, or just walk away. The thread is warned from its very inception to be on best behavior, so there is no excuse for breaking the rules, or otherwise acting like a jerk. Got it, folks?

I understand. I wasn't aware of any previous discussions on the topic. I am asking in good faith.

 

[Umbran]

I understand. I wasn't aware of any previous discussions on the topic. I am asking in good faith.

Mod Note:
For crying out loud. I just mentioned there's no reason to break the rules. I even gave a link to those rules.

And the first thing you do? Respond to a moderation post, which is a thing the rules tell you you're not supposed to do!

How about you go read the rules before continuing. If you have questions, please ask them in a private message, not in the thread.

Also, in the future, you can try searching on a topic to see what kind of discussion there's been on it lately.

 

[Sacrosanct]

Now saying "western middle ages" is disingenuous since much of Fantasy is based on J.R.R Tolkien and his fictional version of BRITAIN in general.

This isn't really accurate. Tolkien pulled from pretty much all European cultures. For example, Gandalf is clearly pulled from the Finnish hero Väinämöinen, and the whole premise of his story comes right out of Nordic folklore. And outside of Tolkien, medieval fantasy, at least how it's been depicted in media and games like D&D, is a conglomeration of many European cultures, from French, to German, to Welsh, etc. Just look at Appendix N.

But all that said, doesn't mean it makes it right when doing it to east Asian cultures. As an interesting anecdote, western cultures tend to mix and match many east Asian cultures like we did with OA, but after I lived in Korea for a few years, not only was the individual cultures clearly unique, but I could easily tell difference between Japanese, Korean, Chinese, or other nationalities when I saw them in the street. I'm not trying to be racist by mentioning that, only pointing out how when one is immersed in a region with neighboring cultures, you actually start to see those differences and notice them, when you don't normally do that when you're on the other side of the globe. And thus was the cause of one of the problems with OA, as Daniel Kwan had brought up.

 

[aco175]

@ryu289 welcome to the boards. Everyone is generally helpful and insightful around here, you will learn to stay away from the red ink.

 

[TerraDave]

I am just curious if there will be any actual references to the Oriental Adventures book. Like the actual text. Before this thread is closed.

 

[Dire Bare]

Was Oriental Adventures really that racist?

Yes.

Kwan, and many others, are right. The person you quoted . . . . I can't say much about, their toxicity is hitting all of my anger buttons.

When predominately white gamers say things like, "It's just fantasy" or try to pass things off as "not that bad" . . . . I'm more inclined to listen to folks of Asian descent. I don't listen to folks who are just salty that times have changed and they can't just blindly appropriate other cultures without repercussions anymore.

OA was not deliberately racist, Gary Gygax (the author) had a love and respect for Asian cultures and wanted to celebrate them in D&D. But he was ignorant of the larger issues of systemic racism and "orientalism" and ended up coding all of that pretty heavily in the book. The discussions society has today about race and systemic racism just weren't that prominent back in the 70s, 80s, and even 90s. I'm not mad at Gygax, but I won't be playing in any games that use OA as is, and I expect better of modern designers.

If you listen to Kwan's podcast, Asians Represent, the discussions sometimes get a bit random, but they do a good job discussing the systemic racism against those of Asian descent in a lot of geek culture. It's usually Kwan, and three to four others of Asian descent, all geeks, some gamers, most are academics. They don't represent all Asians, nor do they try to, but they simply have discussions about things that many of us who are not Asian would never think about. It's eye-opening. To dismiss their concerns is . . . . to be blind to your privilege, IMO.

 

[Parmandur]

Was Oriental Adventures really that racist?

Yes.

Kwan, and many others, are right. The person you quoted . . . . I can't say much about, their toxicity is hitting all of my anger buttons.

When predominately white gamers say things like, "It's just fantasy" or try to pass things off as "not that bad" . . . . I'm more inclined to listen to folks of Asian descent. I don't listen to folks who are just salty that times have changed and they can't just blindly appropriate other cultures without repercussions anymore.

OA was not deliberately racist, Gary Gygax (the author) had a love and respect for Asian cultures and wanted to celebrate them in D&D. But he was ignorant of the larger issues of systemic racism and "orientalism" and ended up coding all of that pretty heavily in the book. The discussions society has today about race and systemic racism just weren't that prominent back in the 70s, 80s, and even 90s. I'm not mad at Gygax, but I won't be playing in any games that use OA as is, and I expect better of modern designers.

If you listen to Kwan's podcast, Asians Represent, the discussions sometimes get a bit random, but they do a good job discussing the systemic racism against those of Asian descent in a lot of geek culture. It's usually Kwan, and three to four others of Asian descent, all geeks, some gamers, most are academics. They don't represent all Asians, nor do they try to, but they simply have discussions about things that many of us who are not Asian would never think about. It's eye-opening. To dismiss their concerns is . . . . to be blind to your privilege, IMO.

Actually, OA was written by Zeb Cook, though Gygax was credited as the author and Cook as the editor. Apparently Cook found Gyhaxes draft embarrassingly stereotypical, so set out to rewrite from the ground up in a more culturally sensitive manner: he really hit the books, and used every book on Asia available st the Lake Geneva public library.

Which is kind of gobsmacking: what must the original draft have been like?

 

[Irlo]

I loved AD&D 1e OA when it was released. Within a few years I became more worldly and started to smell the ick-factor. Even so, I bought the 3E update hoping for something better, and, I don't know, maybe it was better? Probably not. Kwan's analysis was too long for me to sit through in its entirety, but he and his group were right about a lot of things. Yes, it's a racist work.