What is Expected from an Oriental Game Setting?

[pemerton]

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.

I'll include myself with those who think that this is a controversial claim.

 

[Ranger REG]

This raises the question-at what point do you alter the game to fit the setting, and the setting to fit the game? As I see it, elves and orcs are spread around the world just as are humans-there is just as much possibly of there being an elven samurai as an elven shaman. To me, D&D without elves and orcs isn't D&D at all-I don't know what it is, but it sure isn't Dungeons and Dragons.

That's just me, of course-as a worldbuilder, I need those demihumans and humanoids spread around the world. That's not to say that they won't be changed in some way or another, while maintaining certain traits in common with their Occidental counterparts, just as humans in an Oriental setting will share certain things with European-inspired humans.

Elves might have a beautiful, intricate warrior culture that inspired humans to develop the samurai as a response. Or perhaps they developed the concept of spell books/scrolls/tomes that allowed humans and others to develop spellcasting.

Plenty of room for Oriental elves.

Or African elves.

Or Middle Eastern elves.

But again, at what point do you change the setting to fit the game, and vice versa?

Why it has to be about elves, a fantastic creature that comes from Western folkore and myths? Why not a fantastic creature that comes from Eastern folklore and myths?

I don't mind dressing up elves in kimonos or o-yoroi but it has to go deeper than than that.

 

[pemerton]

If at any point in time the adventurers are fighting dragons in an eastern themed game, something has gone terribly wrong.

Why?

I am coming to the end of a 10-year Rolemaster campaign set (more-or-less) in Kara-Tur. The PCs have fought dragons on multiple occasions, as one aspect of their ongoing struggle with various factions among the Sea Lords and Storm Lords. One of the PCs is also involved in a romance with a dragon whom he met in the course of these adventures.

This ties into something else that bothered me-if one player has a samurai character, for example, can he really go off with the other party members, or is he stuck doing step-and-fetch quests for his master all the time?

<snip>

play around with the traditional tropes and use them to your advantage. Maybe that samurai isn't devoted to a master, but rather a philosophy inspired by real-life Bushido. The samurai seeks to live his life according to those principles, which grant him tremendous power and skill. At the same time, he acts as an adventurer to gain honor and fame for his clan, as well as treasure to increase its social standing.

In our game it didn't turn out to be that hard to get the samurai involved in adventuring.

First, they are the last survivors of their clan, which was on the losing side in a civil conflict. So they do not have lands to manage and do have honour and wealth to restore.

Second, they got sent on a mission by their daimyo (the head of another clan with whom their clan was allied). This mission ended up having them travel to various foreign parts where they successfully defeated enemies, attracted the attention of various players both in heaven and in hell, and gained 10+ levels (adapting various old AD&D modules such as OA 3, OA 5 and OA 7).

Third, their return to their ancestral lands coincided with their defeat of the ruler of Freeport (rebadged as a pirate town of the coast of Kozakura - I adapted the Freeport trilogy modules to be a mid-teens RM adventure). One of the samurai had himself installed as daimyo of that island. The PCs therefore have a base of operations and no immediate master from whom instructions have to be taken.

The game definitely has an Oriental Adventures feel - there are samurai wielding katanas, a warrior monk wielding a tetsubo, an esoteric "mind monk", a fox spirit ranger/ninja, a tree spirit "druid", etc. Fighting styles used by the PCs inlcude Light Sparkling Water (name taken from the Kara-Tur books), Jasuga Slice, Jade Harvest, Heavenly Pagoda, Diving Phoenix, Port in a Storm, and Tolling Bell of the Western Paradise (named by the players - the last is the style used by the tetsubo-wielding monk).

The main plot lines of the campaign have revolved around conflicts between various factions among the gods, the lords of karma, a number of more-or-less powerful nature spirits, a handful of petty demon kings, and various "super-enlightened" (Cthulhu-esque voidal) beings who are located off the wheel of karma and threaten to disrupt it. In some ways this could be like any planar-travel-heavy D&D game, but rebadging things and tinkering with them a bit to link them into the celestial bureaucracy and the lords of karma goes a long way to changing the flavour of the game.

Secondary plot themes have involved various earthly conflicts between families and factions. As someone posted upthread, this also seems to work as an OA-trope.

Rolemaster has fairly robust rules for unarmed, unarmoured martial arts, but these haven't played all that big a role in the game. Since one of our players moved to England a couple of years into the campaign, the warriors have all been weapon users. Issues of social class and status crop up from time to time. The ninja's main solution is to cast a Disguise Self spell (Facade, for those who know the Rolemaster terminology) to appear as a samurai. Most of the PCs have fairly well developed social skills, but I think this is pretty typical for Rolemaster characters (because facilitated fairly well by the system's character build rules) whatever the gameworld.

Overall, I think that what is important is not historical or cultural detail (which, as others have pointed out, tends to be ignored in most European-flavoured D&D-type fantasy) but rather a few key tropes - katanas, nature spirits, warring clans, lords of karma, rice instead of wheat, etc - that resonate with the players and make them identify the gameworld as being asian-themed.

 

[Kobold Avenger]

Why it has to be about elves, a fantastic creature that comes from Western folkore and myths? Why not a fantastic creature that comes from Eastern folklore and myths?

We already have Rakshasas, Nagas, Devas, and Oni in western themed games.

 

[ProfessorCirno]

Why?

I am coming to the end of a 10-year Rolemaster campaign set (more-or-less) in Kara-Tur. The PCs have fought dragons on multiple occasions, as one aspect of their ongoing struggle with various factions among the Sea Lords and Storm Lords. One of the PCs is also involved in a romance with a dragon whom he met in the course of these adventures.

Because, again, then it's not a eastern adventure, it's a western adventure with bamboo! The whole point of having different settings is that they're supposed to be, you know, different.

This is my same problem with the elves being a normal every day race. What's the point of having a different setting if it's the same as all the other generic western settings? If it's the same dragons, the same elves, the same warriors (Oh wait, they have different shaped swords), only now you eat fast food chinese while you play...well, what was the point of making it a new setting?

They have a setting with western style dragons and elves everywhere already. They have lots of settings just like that. I really don't see the point in saying "we're going to make an eastern setting" and then just making it the same damned boring Ye Merry Olde England as everything else is.

If "D&D without orcs and elves isn't D&D" is really what you think, why on earth do you even bother going into threads about alternate settings? No orcs? I guess Dark Sun isn't D&D. Planescape CERTAINLY isn't D&D at all. What's this in Eberron, the elves are freaky necromancers? Huh, I can't see how anyone can call THAT D&D.

 

[Kobold Avenger]

If "D&D without orcs and elves isn't D&D" is really what you think, why on earth do you even bother going into threads about alternate settings? No orcs? I guess Dark Sun isn't D&D. Planescape CERTAINLY isn't D&D at all.

What are you talking about? There most definitely are Elves and Orcs in Planescape. They just downplay them in favour of Tieflings and Aasimars and Fiends.

And there's certainly is Elves in Dark Sun, they're quite different, but they're still elves. The idea of an Elf in an Asian setting, would be much like the Elves in Dark Sun. They don't have to be forest dwelling people close to nature, they can be desert running bandits much like Dark Sun, or even animistic head-hunting jungle-tribes living in the ruins of an old empire. Just because they're Elves, doesn't mean they have to be like all D&D Elves either.

And personally nothing's wrong with having a completely original D&D race like Githzerai in an Asian campaign either.

 

[pemerton]

Because, again, then it's not a eastern adventure, it's a western adventure with bamboo! The whole point of having different settings is that they're supposed to be, you know, different.

I don't fully know where you're coming from with this comment.

There is nothing non-oriental about an adventure focused on heavenly conflict. And dragons are among the heavenly beings in an oriental gameworld. So why is it un-oriental to have the PCs involved in that conflict and thus fighting those dragons?

 

[pemerton]

This is my same problem with the elves being a normal every day race. What's the point of having a different setting if it's the same as all the other generic western settings? If it's the same dragons, the same elves, the same warriors (Oh wait, they have different shaped swords), only now you eat fast food chinese while you play...well, what was the point of making it a new setting?

They have a setting with western style dragons and elves everywhere already. They have lots of settings just like that. I really don't see the point in saying "we're going to make an eastern setting" and then just making it the same damned boring Ye Merry Olde England as everything else is.

Is this intended as a response to my post? I didn't say anything about orcs or elves. All the PCs in the game I described are human, except for the fox spirit and the tree spirit. Nor did I say anything about "the same dragons" - I described the dragons as being Sea Lords and Storm Lords (the actual stats I use are a combination of the default RM stats for Oriental Dragons and adaptations to RM - based on the appendix to C&T - of 1st ed AD&D stats for Oriental Dragons, Mist Dragons and Cloud Dragons). Where did I say that "it's the same as all the other generic western settings"?

All I did was contest your assertion that if the PCs are fighting dragons something has gone wrong. I don't see why this is so.

 

[Mallus]

Because, again, then it's not a eastern adventure, it's a western adventure with bamboo!

There are plenty of ways to do 'eastern adventures', and 'shallowly' is certainly one of them. And 'shallowly' fits with D&D's traditional take on historical and mythological accuracy.

 

[CruelSummerLord]

Because, again, then it's not a eastern adventure, it's a western adventure with bamboo! The whole point of having different settings is that they're supposed to be, you know, different.

This is my same problem with the elves being a normal every day race. What's the point of having a different setting if it's the same as all the other generic western settings? If it's the same dragons, the same elves, the same warriors (Oh wait, they have different shaped swords), only now you eat fast food chinese while you play...well, what was the point of making it a new setting?

They have a setting with western style dragons and elves everywhere already. They have lots of settings just like that. I really don't see the point in saying "we're going to make an eastern setting" and then just making it the same damned boring Ye Merry Olde England as everything else is.

If "D&D without orcs and elves isn't D&D" is really what you think, why on earth do you even bother going into threads about alternate settings? No orcs? I guess Dark Sun isn't D&D. Planescape CERTAINLY isn't D&D at all. What's this in Eberron, the elves are freaky necromancers? Huh, I can't see how anyone can call THAT D&D.

I'm talking specifically about my own version of the D&D world, as a worldbuilder, writer and potential DM. If you don't want elves in your games, that's fine-there's plenty of stuff I don't consider to be D&D as a worldbuilder, but that I'll cheerfully accept if I'm playing in another DM's setting.

That said, I don't consider-in my version of Oerth, at least-the Oriental part of the world to be really any different in many ways as the Occidental one. The same Vancian magic system functions as it always does, magical items can be created, the level of technology is frozen in stasis, etc. Humans are spread around the world, as are many of the other races, although they all have specific traits that are reflected no matter where they go.

Humans are the jack-of-all-trades who are good at everything but excellent at nothing. Their drive and initiative make up for their short lifespans, and in this the Oriental humans are no different from their Occidental counterparts.

Dwarves are the master smiths and craftsmen, halflings have an intimate connection with the land, gnomes the master engineers, elves the most knowledgeable in magic.

None of this means that the Orient won't have its very distinct cultures, albeit modified somewhat to suit the needs of the game-after all, there were no adventuring bands of mixed races and social classes in Europe, either-and certainly it doesn't preclude such things as players replicating the story of the Forty-Seven Samurai, any Akira Kurosawa film you could name, fighting against or alongside the Mongol hordes under Ghengis Khan and his successors, or any other Oriental myth you might care to name.

In real-life historical Europe, for example, you would never, ever see magic-users and priests working together. The priests would do their best to burn the witch/warlock/wizard at the stake for heresy, and it's highly unlikely they would be at all friendly with any sentient, nonhuman beings that happened to come around. And yet these historic traits are overlooked in favor of one that's easier to game in.

I'm not so much interested in creating an "alternate" setting as I am in expanding the traditional D&D model to the rest of the world. We've seen what Europe looks like through the lens of D&D tropes-how would, say, the Iroquois Confederacy or the Aztec Empire get along with elves or halflings? How would the Empire of Mali, or the Kingdom of Burundi, be affected by the presence of dwarves or gnomes who could teach them more advanced forms of metalworking? How would they be changed with the presence of sentient nonhumans and magic with tangible, visible effects?

We could just as easily be having this discussion in relation to the Americas, Africa, or the Middle East. And, again, all this is my personal view on things, and one I'd quite willingly set aside if I was playing in someone else's game. I'm coming at this thread from the angle of a worldbuilder, and what I view as the ideal world. To me, that ideal world includes orcs and elves spread worldwide, even as they're going to modify and be modified by the humans that are their neighbors.