What is Expected from an Oriental Game Setting?

[garyh]

"Went" where? Since he didn't specify, I assume he meant "went" into the trash bin in the editing room.

Specify.

I think the issue is there's an expression you may not be familiar with.

"X is fine as far as Y goes," generally means "I'm not impressed with X as a whole, but the Y part of it is okay."

So here, the poster was saying, "I wasn't impressed with Kara-Tur as a whole, but liked Shou Lung, Tu Lung, Kozakura, Wa and maybe the Hordelands."

In fact, they are saying they liked the parts they mentioned, and don't like the parts they didn't mention. Which I think puts them in agreement with you, based on your posts.

 

[Ranger REG]

I think the issue is there's an expression you may not be familiar with.

"X is fine as far as Y goes," generally means "I'm not impressed with X as a whole, but the Y part of it is okay."

So here, the poster was saying, "I wasn't impressed with Kara-Tur as a whole, but liked Shou Lung, Tu Lung, Kozakura, Wa and maybe the Hordelands."

In fact, they are saying they liked the parts they mentioned, and don't like the parts they didn't mention. Which I think puts them in agreement with you, based on your posts.

Almost. I'm okay with Koryo and Tabot, he's not.

 

[GQuail]

"Went" where? Since he didn't specify, I assume he meant "went" into the trash bin in the editing room.

As garyh says, the problem here appears to be that you didn't recognize the phrase in question - in context it all seemed pretty clear to me, but because the expression was an unfamiliar one to you it seems you parsed it as "Kara-Tur was fine as far as Shou Lung, Tu Lung, Kozakura, Wa and maybe the Hordelands went.", which is of course a totally contradictory statement to the one Kobold Avenger seems to have meant.

Ah, well, you live and learn.

Moving away from all that...

I expect an Oriental setting to replicate the reality of Chinese Kung Fu and Japanese Samurai films, and I don't expect or want authenticity. I do expect to see the stock characters and settings of those genres, with a sprinkling of contemporary Asian pop culture for good measure.

Contemporary pop culture is an interesting one to bring up. I have no qualms with this - I've inserted Kaiju into my own oriental setting, for example, and am toying with ressurecting a dead one in a metal-clad form. ;-) But I can absolutely see why some people would find that a deal breaker - like any occasion you have two very different sets of expectations in your group.

Perhaps a related problem here is that "Asian" culture is all so often lumped into one big category. For example, I've met plenty of people who were huge fans of Manga and Anime and had somewhat confused conversations with them about the good and bad - but they're huge genres which get lumped into one big "comics & cartoons from Japan" mould. Similarly, if you come expecting Seven Samurai and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, do you really want Sailor Moon and a Bollywood musical to be lobbed into the same category because, hey, it's all eastern?

 

[Clavis]

Perhaps a related problem here is that "Asian" culture is all so often lumped into one big category. For example, I've met plenty of people who were huge fans of Manga and Anime and had somewhat confused conversations with them about the good and bad - but they're huge genres which get lumped into one big "comics & cartoons from Japan" mould. Similarly, if you come expecting Seven Samurai and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, do you really want Sailor Moon and a Bollywood musical to be lobbed into the same category because, hey, it's all eastern?

YES! I want a glorious mish-mash, not some fragile work of art that's more fun to read than play, and which falls apart if the DM doesn't know every intricacy of the setting. A player should be able to sit at the table and already know a few things about the setting by the DM just telling them "this is a world where stuff from Kung Fu movies, Samurai films, Japanese Monster movies, and anime are real." D&D was supposed to be a mish-mash of easily recognizable elements from literary fantasy, folklore, and myths, and IMHO should be kept that way.

As for a Bollywood setting, maybe that should require all the characters to have singing and dancing scores. Maybe combats could be resolved with dance numbers...

 

[Mallus]

YES! I want a glorious mish-mash, not some fragile work of art that's more fun to read than play, and which falls apart if the DM doesn't know every intricacy of the setting.

My name is Mallus and I approve of this message.

As for a Bollywood setting, maybe that should require all the characters to have singing and dancing scores. Maybe combats could be resolved with dance numbers...

My group keeps promising/threatening to run a Bollywood campaign (probably using M&M2e). Luckily (or "un") we have a resident expert actually from India, so we should set in all our wet-sari glory should we ever play it.

 

[GlaziusF]

I have noticed a wide variety of different attitudes and expectations from prospective players when it comes to games that have an oriental setting and culture. Everyone either seems to expect a great deal of difference from an oriental game or that the game will be have little difference from a normal fantasy game with only the names changing. These expectations can range from the silly to the overly serious. I know how I feel about this topic, but I am curious what the community here feels about oriental fantasy game settings and characters.

Players don't actually expect anything from a setting.

They expect things from a game.

The setting is just one way that you can deliver these things, and it shouldn't distract from your overall goal as a GM: find out what your players expect, and give it to them.

 

[Ranger REG]

Similarly, if you come expecting Seven Samurai and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, do you really want Sailor Moon and a Bollywood musical to be lobbed into the same category because, hey, it's all eastern?

Not me.

But I do get the point. As a non-European ethnic, I lobbed all of the ethnics in Europe as generically Euro. In my eyes, there's nothing different between a Briton and an Italian (though one could argue you should blame the Roman Empire for that).

 

[JDJblatherings]

Not me.

But I do get the point. As a non-European ethnic, I lobbed all of the ethnics in Europe as generically Euro. In my eyes, there's nothing different between a Briton and an Italian (though one could argue you should blame the Roman Empire for that).

In all truth most RPGers don't game European ethnic and cultural differences very well at all either. Most fantasy gaming takes in peoples and ideas scattered across thousands of years in time and thousands of miles and crams it all together in haphazard fashion.

 

[ProfessorCirno]

The problem with "Just make it a big mish mash" is that, say, China and Japan are far more radically different then France and Britain. And that's without bringing India into play.

 

[Mallus]

The problem with "Just make it a big mish mash" is that, say, China and Japan are far more radically different then France and Britain. And that's without bringing India into play.

This is only important if your goal is authenticity. If not, then the relative differences between China, Japan, France are and Britain are all equally unimportant.