Worldwide Europe - Are People Doing This?

[genshou]

I've noticed a trend on these forums for certain people to respond with immediate and fervent hate to any possibility of cultural influences outside of Europe appearing in their D&D worlds, especially if those influences are Oriental. I have been exposed to Oriental culture more than most Enworlders living in the United States, but I think even without that bias I would still like a little cultural diversity in my campaign settings.

Now, given the nature of a D&D world, where there is magic to influence events, I can't imagine a world where, if there was an Oriental culture out there, it wouldn't have bled into the rest of the world a little. But some people seem to think the existence of Monks in their setting is a dreadful thing.

What I'm wondering is if this is an indication such people develop a Worldwide Europe setting, with no room for other cultures to actually make the world realistic and interesting. Discuss!

 

[Infernal Teddy]

I think you'll find that it's not even a worldwide europe, it's - in most cases - a worldwide England, with a bit of vikings and romans.

Most european campaigns I've seen / played in are much more varied that the american offerings I've seen - and even then most of them are euro-centric...

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

I've noticed a trend on these forums for certain people to respond with immediate and fervent hate to any possibility of cultural influences outside of Europe appearing in their D&D worlds, especially if those influences are Oriental. I have been exposed to Oriental culture more than most Enworlders living in the United States, but I think even without that bias I would still like a little cultural diversity in my campaign settings.

Now, given the nature of a D&D world, where there is magic to influence events, I can't imagine a world where, if there was an Oriental culture out there, it wouldn't have bled into the rest of the world a little. But some people seem to think the existence of Monks in their setting is a dreadful thing.

What I'm wondering is if this is an indication such people develop a Worldwide Europe setting, with no room for other cultures to actually make the world realistic and interesting. Discuss!

Oriental culture is "cool" and "popular" but also misunderstood by most of us Westerners. "Historical" Oriental culture is even "cooler" but even less understood, including by many people from Japan and other Eastern countries. (Just because someone's Japanese doesn't mean they know more than you do about samurai.) People from these cultures are very frequently stereotyped by Westerners; the stereotypes aren't necessarily negative, but like any stereotypes they are shortcuts in thinking, frequently inaccurate, and when they are accurate they still do not apply all the time.

As a result, Oriental gaming material ends up being stereotyped. I was not at all surprised to see the Samurai base class get voted least popular of all of WotC's non-core base classes on a recent series of polls.

Some differences between "East" and "West" also cause hidden concerns that aren't immediately obvious. For instance, in DnD, it's very common practice for PCs to kill bad guys, then loot their corpses. This isn't exactly honorable behavior among medieval Europeans, but it was done. This was not done in Japan. Repeated interactions with the dead causes spiritual tainting (or something along those lines), so unless a Japanese-equivalent adventurer is an eta, they will not do this. If they're a peasant adventurer rather than a samurai they will still not loot the dead. Oriental Adventures discusses this, but it assumes that everyone in the adventure is Oriental.

The only base class in the core rules that carries specific Oriental flavor is the monk (there's absolutely nothing wrong with a Chinese fighter, rogue, etc), even though it can clearly be used by non-Oriental people. Unfortunately, it's terribly designed, poorly balanced (generally weaker), is heavily stereotyped, has a restricted alignment (alignment is terribly explained, with law and chaos being particular offenders) and even steals a niche ... meaning lots of people playing it don't really want to play the stereotyped class, they're just playing it so they won't totally suck at unarmed combat. The class is amazing inflexible, even if you like its flavor and think it's balanced.

And on that note, why do you assume the PCs will travel the world? Maybe they won't. What is the point of an adventuring party travelling from Europe to China when China has its own equally-levelled adventurers solving problems in China? If things are so bad in China that China needs to import European adventurers, why aren't things so bad in Europe that Europeans aren't trying to import Chinese adventurers? A lot of adventuring worlds are smaller than Earth, anyway. Eberron was supposed to be smaller, but someone goofed, which is why the population figures seem so small.

 

[genshou]

Oriental culture is "cool" and "popular" but also misunderstood by most of us Westerners. "Historical" Oriental culture is even "cooler" but even less understood, including by many people from Japan and other Eastern countries. (Just because someone's Japanese doesn't mean they know more than you do about samurai.) People from these cultures are very frequently stereotyped by Westerners; the stereotypes aren't necessarily negative, but like any stereotypes they are shortcuts in thinking, frequently inaccurate, and when they are accurate they still do not apply all the time.

With a game like D&D, I think the stereotypes can actually make for interesting fodder for the game, but I agree with you that these things are poorly understood by most of the world.

As a result, Oriental gaming material ends up being stereotyped. I was not at all surprised to see the Samurai base class get voted least popular of all of WotC's non-core base classes on a recent series of polls.

That was because the CW Samurai sucks in terms of mechanics.

Some differences between "East" and "West" also cause hidden concerns that aren't immediately obvious. For instance, in DnD, it's very common practice for PCs to kill bad guys, then loot their corpses. This isn't exactly honorable behavior among medieval Europeans, but it was done. This was not done in Japan. Repeated interactions with the dead causes spiritual tainting (or something along those lines), so unless a Japanese-equivalent adventurer is an eta, they will not do this. If they're a peasant adventurer rather than a samurai they will still not loot the dead. Oriental Adventures discusses this, but it assumes that everyone in the adventure is Oriental.

This is indeed something they addressed in Oriental Adventures, and I'm glad you brought it up as I was going to use it in my response before I'd seen that. Certainly some cultural differences will alter the nature of adventuring in those cultures. This is no different from the outlook a barbarian culture might have on war as opposed to the outlook of an Arthurian kingdom. With the mixing of the two cultures, though, I could see dropping some things like the restricting against looting fallen foes.

The only base class in the core rules that carries specific Oriental flavor (there's absolutely nothing wrong with a Chinese fighter, rogue, etc), even though it can clearly be used by non-Oriental people. Unfortunately, it's terribly designed, poorly balanced (generally weaker), is heavily stereotyped, has a restricted alignment (alignment is terribly explained, with law and chaos being particular offenders) and even steals a niche ... meaning lots of people playing it don't really want to play the stereotyped class, they're just playing it so they won't totally suck at unarmed combat. The class is amazing inflexible, even if you like its flavor.

I see your point. Most of the hate I see against the Monk, though, is because of its Oriental flavour. Its niche protection comes as an afterthought for many people.

And on that note, why do you assume the PCs will travel the world? Maybe they won't. What is the point of an adventuring party travelling from Europe to China when China has its own equally-levelled adventurers solving problems in China? If things are so bad in China that China needs to import European adventurers, why aren't things so bad in Europe that Europeans aren't trying to import Chinese adventurers?

The PCs certainly don't need to travel the whole world, but NPCs might have more reason to want to explore and share with other cultures. And who knows? Maybe a European dragon matron snuck into the Oriental lands and they need an expert on that kind of dragon to come and show them how to defeat her and her hatchlings that have since grown to be much larger and more terrible.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

With a game like D&D, I think the stereotypes can actually make for interesting fodder for the game, but I agree with you that these things are poorly understood by most of the world.

Unfortunately, elves aren't real, whereas Oriental people are. Elves aren't humans; while I wouldn't be happy if the game rules said "elves never harm other elves" or something along those lines, I could still accept it. I could not accept "Chinese people are quiet" or some other silly stereotype (even if I had never met any Chinese people and couldn't disprove the stereotype), simply because human behavior varies too widely for such a statement to make the slightest bit of sense.

That was because the CW Samurai sucks in terms of mechanics.

That too. (Then again, the monk sucks in terms of mechanics. Do Oriental classes get shafted? Or am I just missing out on the power of the OA samurai?)

This is no different from the outlook a barbarian culture might have on war as opposed to the outlook of an Arthurian kingdom. With the mixing of the two cultures, though, I could see dropping some things like the restricting against looting fallen foes.

Usually barbaric culture doesn't get stereotyped to that extent (IME), and some Europeans are descended from barbarians a short enough time ago that the Romans and other civilized Europeans were capable of writing stuff about them. And even if the Romans were as arrogant as the stereotypes suggest (doubtful) and got many things wrong about the barbarians (quite possibly), they were quite capable of saying "this barbarian chieftain built a city, this one was a poet, this one became a good general - maybe we should have thought about that before training him in our tactics and then fighting against him", etc, so not everything they wrote about barbarians involved stereotypes.

Furthemore, barbaric culture rarely is specific enough to offend anyone, or isn't specific enough to contain obvious inaccuracies. It's also often variable - there are so many barbaric "tribes" that even if one group is acting in a non-realistic manner, you know there are tribes that don't do so. The European barbarians are basically gone now (maybe there's a few left somewhere, I don't know for sure), but Oriental people of course still exist and so do their old writings.

If you're going to restrict looting, you're going to have to change a big part of the game. Plus, if you do have mixed cultures in your adventuring group, and Mr. Oda warns Mr. Pendragon about looting, Mr. Pendragon isn't going to care and therefore gets whatever cool loot is available, whereas Mr. Oda has to wait until he finds his amazingly wealthy benefactor to get his own powerups. (Mind you, given enough thought, you could probably fix this situation. But I hate DnD magic item requirements and don't want to think about that anymore.)

I see your point. Most of the hate I see against the Monk, though, is because of its Oriental flavour. Its niche protection comes as an afterthought for many people.

I guess I fail to see that hatred. Most of the players I've seen who play monks (in person, not on messageboards) kind of ignore the Oriental ki stuff as part of their character concept, but complain how weak it is. I've seen plenty of obivously non-lawful monks who nonetheless have "LG" or "LN" written on their character sheet.

The PCs certainly don't need to travel the whole world, but NPCs might have more reason to want to explore and share with other cultures. And who knows? Maybe a European dragon matron snuck into the Oriental lands and they need an expert on that kind of dragon to come and show them how to defeat her and her hatchlings that have since grown to be much larger and more terrible.

Okay, I have to admit, that's a great plot hook.

 

[Turjan]

Most of the hate I see against the Monk, though, is because of its Oriental flavour.

I don't think the rejection of the monk comes from a general "European influences only" stance. The problem of the monk is that he is not integrated in the standard D&D setting. He has no purpose, and the whole system of ki and its use hangs somewhere up in the air. The monk does simply not fit most "standard" D&D settings, which draw nearly the whole rest of their influences from northwest European sources. An elf monk looks simply weird.

If you want to use "oriental" elements (whatever you personally subsume under that word) in your setting, try to make it work. In my homebrew, I tried to make a mix of standard European elements with Chinese political structures and east Indian religious influences as the cultural background of the main country. You won't notice at a first glance, because I don't use any Chinese words or Indian imagery, because I wanted to paint the culture as coming from one main source and not the result of rampant multiculturalism. If you mix "ki", a word that has the image of a specific origin attached, with "elf", a word that has also specific origins attached, I automatically assume a cultural merging process. If your campaign world matches this notion, it's fine. If it doesn't, it looks arbitrary and incoherent.

 

[Turanil]

I've noticed a trend on these forums for certain people to respond with immediate and fervent hate to any possibility of cultural influences outside of Europe appearing in their D&D worlds, especially if those influences are Oriental.

I am one of those. I don't want to see Shaolin monks in my European fantasy setting. Now, I love asian fantasy too, and would love to play a Chinese Ghost Stories campaign. However, I don't want to see Arthur knights in full plate armor intruding into it.

 

[Mr. Draco]

Interesting viewpoint. I fall into the group against oriental flavor (monks, etc) because I've simply not seen it done well enough to interest me. Now, if it was a d20 modern campaign with Blood and Fists allowed...

 

[Barak]

The point has been somewhat made before, but here's my take on it.

For better or worse, default D&D has a pseudo-medieval flavor. Heavy on the pseudo, but still. The two style, medieval and oriental of the same period, just don't mesh that well. The occasional, extremely rare dip can be okay, but not a major class in the wrong setting. That's the main issue with the monk. While they're somewhat fantasy tibetan monk in fact, they end up often portrayed as members of medieval monkish orders, yet are no Friar Tuck.

The same would be true in reverse. A knight, or "magican" (a-la Merlin) class in Oriental Adventures would just be silly. Yes, an occasional, rare knight character could be fun, but not a base class for it in the main book.

 

[Psion]

Interesting viewpoint. I fall into the group against oriental flavor (monks, etc) because I've simply not seen it done well enough to interest me. Now, if it was a d20 modern campaign with Blood and Fists allowed...

What do you think of Legends of the Samurai by the same author?