What is Expected from an Oriental Game Setting?

[SKyOdin]

If you really want to capture "Oriental Adventures," then lose the orcs and elves. It's not "Western Adventure With Bamboo!" after all. Look at eastern mythology - that stuff can be pretty out there for those that are very used to western mythology.

I don't agree that there are races/monsters that simply don't fit in an Eastern flavored campaign. Indian, Chinese, and Japanese mythology are full of animal-like demons and beastmen, so orcs (vaguely pig-like beings) can easily be adapted to fit. Ditto for Elves, since the concept of Fey is fundamentally similar to the concept of many Eastern spirits. Simply tweaking the flavor slightly should be sufficient for adaption.

I am also not sure what you mean by eastern mythology being "out there" either. Greek and Norse mythology is plenty weird, and I haven't seen anything particularly weird about any of the Eastern mythology I have read. Do have a particular example in mind?

Same with designing classes - don't do it from a western perspective where the cleric/priest is a holy warrior in full armor. If at any point in time the adventurers are fighting dragons in an eastern themed game, something has gone terribly wrong.

Honestly, the concept of a priest going into battle wearing heavy armor is equally historically incorrect for both the West and the East.

In any case, I don't see any reason for designing new classes for an Oriental-themed campaign or setting. There is no reason the Fighter, Rogue, Wizard, and many other classes cannot be used in such a setting.

 

[Ranger REG]

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

Really? I hardly used them in my D&D games.

It wasn't until later that I realized Ogre Mage and Oni are one and the same in D&D. Didn't felt right.

 

[Ranger REG]

Honestly, the concept of a priest going into battle wearing heavy armor is equally historically incorrect for both the West and the East.

Thank goodness D&D don't use "priest" as a class name.

Weren't some Knight Hospitallers men of the cloth, though not necessarily priests?

In the East, those who have taken Buddhist vows include Takeda Shingen (though you can argue) and I believe one of Yoshitsune's comrades was a warrior monk named Benkei.

 

[ProfessorCirno]

Pemerton - the elf comment wasn't directed at you. As for dragons, dragons aren't just random angels as we'd see in western mythology - they're far closer to gods. Most games don't have you challenging gods ;p

Here's my issue with dwarves and orcs in an eastern setting - you'd have to do work to fit them in, and why bother when that work could just as easily go towards making it more eastern? Dark Sun didn't have orcs in it. At all. There were no orcs in it at any point in time. And yet we're being told that, thus, Dark Sun isn't D&D because of it.

Once again, my point is this - if you have the same generic races and places in it, then why would you even bother making a new setting? The whole purpose of the new setting is that it's supposed to be DIFFERENT. And in an eastern setting, there's simply no point in having elves and dwarves there when, instead, you could have other races that much more closely correspond with what comes from eastern mythology. I don't see the point in taking races VERY clearly from western mythology and trying to force them into eastern mythology. Square peg, meet circular hole. Literally - I don't see the point in trying to do that. It IS shallow, flat out - there's no deep method of watering down a new setting to the point where it's near indistinguishable from any other setting.

 

[Clavis]

Honestly, the concept of a priest going into battle wearing heavy armor is equally historically incorrect for both the West and the East.

Except that it isn't. There is a total disconnect between the way modern Westerners view clergy and the way the actual medieval Catholic Church functioned. The upper levels of the clergy were almost always of noble blood, which mean they often had feudal, military obligations. Part of the reason the Church tried to impose celibacy on the clergy in the Middle Ages, for instance, was to prevent church land from being combined into other feudal territories and passing out of the Church's hands as part of inheritances. In addition, the Popes were the literal Kings of central Italy, and commanded military forces.

And let's not forget the medival legend of the martial prowess of Archbishop Turpin, or Saint Joan of Arc, who went into battle wearing a full suit of specially made armor.

It's actually been Catholic dogma for a very long time that a priest's actions outside of the mass do not affect his ability to perform the transubstantiation of the wine and bread during the mass. The mass is supposed to work by the grace of God, not on account of the spiritual state of the operator. No matter how sinful a priest is, a Eucharist administered by him is valid. Therefore, a priest could conduct war during the week, and still fulfill his duties on Sunday, and medieval people would not have thought there was anything wrong with it.

 

[CruelSummerLord]

Pemerton - the elf comment wasn't directed at you. As for dragons, dragons aren't just random angels as we'd see in western mythology - they're far closer to gods. Most games don't have you challenging gods ;p

Here's my issue with dwarves and orcs in an eastern setting - you'd have to do work to fit them in, and why bother when that work could just as easily go towards making it more eastern? Dark Sun didn't have orcs in it. At all. There were no orcs in it at any point in time. And yet we're being told that, thus, Dark Sun isn't D&D because of it.

Once again, my point is this - if you have the same generic races and places in it, then why would you even bother making a new setting? The whole purpose of the new setting is that it's supposed to be DIFFERENT. And in an eastern setting, there's simply no point in having elves and dwarves there when, instead, you could have other races that much more closely correspond with what comes from eastern mythology. I don't see the point in taking races VERY clearly from western mythology and trying to force them into eastern mythology. Square peg, meet circular hole. Literally - I don't see the point in trying to do that. It IS shallow, flat out - there's no deep method of watering down a new setting to the point where it's near indistinguishable from any other setting.

We're on two different wavelengths here. I'm not making a new setting, I'm expanding the concepts of the Occidental one to showcase the rest of the world as it would be in a global context. It's not so much that I'm making the world of Greyhawk more "Eastern", it's that I'm adapting the East to fit Greyhawk, just the way Gary Gygax adapted Europe.

And why on Earth would one want an Eastern setting that adheres more closely to mythology when we don't even do that with the West? Western history and mythology have been stretched, reshaped, and mixed together to produce a pseudo-medieval version that, while familiar to many, is nothing at all like real, historical Western society. Why should the Eastern setting be any more authentic?

Like Snoweel pointed out, the types of social conventions and restrictions that are not conducive to adventuring are going to be played down, or handwaved altogether. Noble samurai are going to be adventuring alongside peasant thieves, warrior monks, and Brahmins seeking enlightenment, and no one will bat an eye at this.

If I wanted a completely different and separate setting, I'd go for Rokugan or Kara-Tur, and devote my creative energies there. But I don't, because the lack of dwarves, elves and orcs makes those settings a non-starter. The setting I have in mind is not a new and different one, but an expansion of the old.

Besides which, I think this ironically makes the Orient stand out more, because things are immediately changed with the presence of Vancian magic, orcs and dwarves, and the type of social interactions necessary for adventuring bands to flourish. Most Oriental settings take steps to distance themselves from the West, but I think it's a fun creative challenge to see how both the West and the East cope with the presence of sentient nonhumans, the "laws" of magic, so to speak, and all the traditional aspects of the D&D world. By striving for more of the same in some but not all aspects, this version of the Orient actually stands out from the pack.

This is all as I see it, of course. If you want to do it differently, be my guest.

 

[Ranger REG]

We're on two different wavelengths here. I'm not making a new setting, I'm expanding the concepts of the Occidental one to showcase the rest of the world as it would be in a global context. It's not so much that I'm making the world of Greyhawk more "Eastern", it's that I'm adapting the East to fit Greyhawk, just the way Gary Gygax adapted Europe.

Gygax use European elements to make a Eurocentric setting.

So, why not use Asian elements to make Asia-centric setting? I don't care if you abandon mythology, just don't put Euro-Western elves in the pseudo-Asian setting. Introduce never-before-seen creatures to the Western audience.

 

[pemerton]

Pemerton - the elf comment wasn't directed at you. As for dragons, dragons aren't just random angels as we'd see in western mythology - they're far closer to gods. Most games don't have you challenging gods.

I think the relationship between dragonhood and godhood in Asian mythology is best seen in a similar way to the relationship between gianthood and godhood, or dwarf/elfhood and godhood, in Norse mythology or Irish mythology. Given that giants are worthy foes for Thor, and Thor is a god, it seems to follow that all giants are godlike in power and therefore unworthy foes for PCs. (A similar point could be made about many giants in Greek myth.) D&D has never taken that approach. It's hill giants are drawn more from stories like Jack and the Beanstalk.

Likewise in Asian myth and fairytale there are different stories with different sorts of approaches to dragons (one example well known to many Australians of my generation - in the 1980s our national broadcaster used to broadcast the Japanese television show "Monkey", dubbed by the BBC in English, in which a dragon joins Monkey as one of his companions - I don't think the original Japanese audience thought that they were seeing a god being made a companion on the quest for enlightenment).

In my campaign I like to use a hierarchy of dragons - following Kara-Tur the 9 immortals and the Celestial (Jade) Emperor can be regarded as dragons, and then there are the chief Sea Lords and Storm Lords, and then there are the many dragons (river dragons, storm dragons, sea dragons and so on) that are the spirits of various local elemental phenomena.

Conflict with various of these dragons has come up from time to time in the campaign. I don't think it has remotely detracted from its "oriental" character. (And if you are assuming that any conflict with a dragon must resemble the encounter with Smaug in The Hobbit, then I think you're wrong. The only loot that's ever been taken from a dragon in my campaign is the magical pearl in its brain which permits it to fly. And I don't think that the notion of making magical substances using the body parts of dead animals is particularly non-oriental.)

 

[Kobold Avenger]

Really? I hardly used them in my D&D games.

Rkashasa are quite significant in Eberron, and from there it spread through out core D&D towards the later half of 3e. Nagas have been rising to prominence along the greater significance the Yuan-Ti have gained through out 3e, and certainly are more prominent in FR than they were before.

Devas are now a player character race for 4e. Essentially Aasimar renamed, but that now makes them quite significant as a race that has an eastern-theme being in a lot of western-themed games.

 

[Ranger REG]

Rkashasa are quite significant in Eberron,...

Yeah, don't assume that I embrace the new setting because WotC published it.