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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Marandahir" data-source="post: 8296095" data-attributes="member: 6803643">Absolutely. I do think there's a role for Wuxia in D&D, and I find the Monk's core mechanics problematic at best. I do think the diversity of subclass flavour show that it's not beholden to orientalist caricatures but can explore all sorts of martial artists and monastic traditions across the world, but obviously the core class mechanics are beholden to a very specifically Shaolin interpretation. And even through Xanathar's Guide they were still creating subclasses that were orientalist caricatures (Kensei for Monk, Samurai for Fighter) that really have no place in D&D. Characters who look Asian or wear Asian-inspired armour (like that fighter in the Player's Handbook) absolutely have a place in D&D, and genre tropes from Wuxia and Jidai Geki etc absolutely have a place in D&D. But saying that "THIS IS THE ONLY FIGHTER THAT IS A SAMURAI" and "ALL SAMURAI LOOK LIKE THIS" is racist garbage. WotC and and will do better in the future. 5e shed much of the racist garbage, but certainly not all of it, and it's a process of growth and accountability that they're still going through.Of which the term Shamanism is cultural appropriation and a racist caricature of indigenous belief systems by western Europeans and applied to any culture with spiritual beliefs they've lumped into one big category, including people of North and South America, Asia, northestern Europe, Africa, and Oceania. Pretty much everywhere that's not Western Europe, the Mediterranean, the Middle-East, or South Asia, the areas from whence came the so-called Axial-Age of religion and philosophic thought that these so-called "shamanic" cultures are cast in contrast with and considered backwards from. It's especially prominent a term in 19th Century racist anthropology, reinforces the "noble savage" caricature, and is further associated with 1800s+ New Age mysticism which appropriated liberally.</blockquote>

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