D&D 5E "The Future of D&D is International" (Inverse article)

[Derren]

China has burned some RPG books, but it's not some blanket policy but instead mostly dependent on the whims of individual censors (which is it's own sort of problem). China is totally fine dealing with mysticism, fantasy, and violence, the bigger problem they have is foreign mysticism-fantasy-violence.

No, it has nothing to do with it being foreign. There is no blanket acceptance of fantasy and mysticism in China. Undead and Ghosts are a very problematic. The reason mostly forgeign productions are targeted is simply that chinese companies know better what is acceptable and what is not while many foreign companies just assume that it works like in Europe or America.

For D&D to succeed, or even to be allowed in China it has to change, especially when it comes to adventures. That either means that the chinese D&D won't actually be D&D or that WotC decides the chinese market is more important and all future D&D products will follow the rules China has on content.

 

[MoonSong]

I'm afraid I don't agree. I went to a local game convention last weekend and they were selling rock candy polyhedral dice. The future of D&D is delicious.

Reminds me that my dog used to think dice were candy and he wanted some...

 

[gyor]

No, it has nothing to do with it being foreign. There is no blanket acceptance of fantasy and mysticism in China. Undead and Ghosts are a very problematic. The reason mostly forgeign productions are targeted is simply that chinese companies know better what is acceptable and what is not while many foreign companies just assume that it works like in Europe or America.

For D&D to succeed, or even to be allowed in China it has to change, especially when it comes to adventures. That either means that the chinese D&D won't actually be D&D or that WotC decides the chinese market is more important and all future D&D products will follow the rules China has on content.

Actually from what I hear printed books aren't as censored as hard as digital stuff by Chinese authorities. You can even find some subversive titles in Chinese book stores. So D&D MIGHT get away with not being censored.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

There are some differences between the glossary of Spain and Hispanoamerican, but not too much. Here in Spain we can see Hispanoamerican telenovels, "los culebrones" (the big snakes, the nickname for the soap operas, because they are very long, with many episodes).

A Taiwanese company could publish its own third party setting for D&D, and Japan and Korea, but continental China is different. There you couldn't publish World of Darkness. We could search a list of anime and manga banned by Chinese censorship.

 

[Derren]

Actually from what I hear printed books aren't as censored as hard as digital stuff by Chinese authorities. You can even find some subversive titles in Chinese book stores. So D&D MIGHT get away with not being censored.

That didn't save the Cuthulu books and they were not even intended to be sold in China.

 

[Sword of Spirit]

What's the problem with ghosts and the undead in China?

 

[Parmandur]

What's the problem with ghosts and the undead in China?

The officially atheistic materialist Party takes a dim view of deviation from Maoist doctrine, though it's not exactly 1979 over there.

 

[MoonSong]

There are some differences between the glossary of Spain and Hispanoamerican, but not too much. Here in Spain we can see Hispanoamerican telenovels, "los culebrones" (the big snakes, the nickname for the soap operas, because they are very long, with many episodes).

But the reverse is not true, beyond some exceptions like -El gran juego de la Oca- Spaniard content doesn't fare too well in Hispanic America -because the lexicon and register is just too different-. On the other hand dubs and productions made in the Bogota-Buenos Aires-Caracas-Mexico-Miami-Santiago circle freely move between both continents and gain widespread recognition. Spain's Spanish is just too insular, and lacks the prestige that -for example- the RP accent has to make up for it.

A Taiwanese company could publish its own third party setting for D&D, and Japan and Korea, but continental China is different. There you couldn't publish World of Darkness. We could search a list of anime and manga banned by Chinese censorship.

Yet it's a huge potential demographic that cannot be ignored, Chinese, Spanish and Hindi/Urdu are the three languages with the most native speakers -other than English-. But yeah continental restrictions in content are hard to work with. We could be talking about getting rid of Celestials, Deities and the Cleric class...

 

[Zardnaar]

What's the problem with ghosts and the undead in China?

Communist party sees it as stupid superstition for old peasants that leave fruit in the fields for luck and food out for Hungary Ghosts. Throw in a side helping of reverence for ancestors.

They want to be seen as a modern industrial nation. They're a bit touchy. No religious freedom either see Falun Gong or the Catholic Church or Xinjiang.

My old lecturer was over there in the 80s and he said there's all sorts of things you can trip up on. For example he used red ink and that was a no no. Only Chairman Mao used red ink.

 

[Mistwell]

Hasn't china recently burned a lot of RPG books that were printed over there?

Just one. The Sassoon Files. A Cthulu sourcebook set in...1920s China.

Chinas censorship is certainly a big obstacle for D&D and many other fantasy RPGs over there, especially their stance on undead. But even apart from that, the chinese mentality is very different from the one in the west.

There is no real risk of censorship unless your book features China. As far as I know, they've never censored any other RPG books, and lots of undead books have been printed there.

That didn't save the Cuthulu books and they were not even intended to be sold in China.

Because it was ABOUT 1920s CHINA.