bowbe said:
Hmm... First of all, is the question posed on this thread inquisitive of whether or not gamers hate oriental flavored things?
Or if the posters to the forum simply dislike or are vehement in their disdain for anything in RPGs that is not Euro centric?
Or...Is "oriental flavored D&D hating" the majority? As of this thread seems to be heading?
I think the question was asking why do some or many players and DMs dislike Oriental flavored gaming material (especially the monk, which is in the core rules and therefore difficult to avoid). There's many answers to this, as you've illustrated below.
I guess I am a little confused as to the answer we seem to be looking for.
If I recall correctly Nyambe was quite successful for a 3.0 product. Its basis? Africa.
I haven't played this or Necropolis, etc. Were they "mixed"? Eg were there "Europeans" in Nyambe?
Most campaigns include Mummies, shedu, sphinxes, naga, djinn, jann, efreeti and the like. Most of these are drawn from Middle eastern myth and tradition which was more heavily influenced by the Eastern (oriental) flavor than european myth and legend, so there is some cultural bleed for you right there. Near european? Yes, but definitely not part of any "World Wide Europe as Default D&D" conspiracy.
These have been part of DnD for a long time, long enough for their origins to fade. Just because the mummy is Egyptian-flavored doesn't mean it always gets presented that way. You can find completely un-Eqyptian mummies in adventures. Meanwhile, things like the samurai are so drenched in Oriental flavor that it's nearly impossible to separate the samurai from that flavor (if some people in a gaming group don't like the flavor). This is a bit ironic, as in game terms there doesn't need to be much difference between a samurai or a knight concept.
Ultimately I wouldn't necessarily say American gamers hate things with a flavor outside of european themes whole cloth as some posters have implied. Saying so is a heavy generalization.
Generalizations and stereotypes ... that's what a big part of the thread is about.
2nd. America happens to be well into the 2nd and possibly 3rd decade of heavy influence of Anime culture, movies and games. The overall success of Exaulted as a game and its anime inspired campaign setting more than prove this, but Exalted isn't D20. It is instead its own game and system, heavily inspired by oriental themes, but blending these themes with things that are traditionally pop culture and possibly "american" in feel and flavor.
I've seen but never had the opportunity to play Exalted. What time period does it take place in?
The next generation of gamers grew up watching anime inspired cartoons such as Dragonballz.
Well some of them. Let's stop with the stereotyping, okay? I already got embarassed by stereotyping looting in Japan, right after I told other people not to stereotype, so I can tell you it's not a good idea. Actually, I
think they're in the minority, although not completely rare. Furthermore, anime itself varies so widely - I don't recall any samurai or ninja-like characters in Trigun, for instance. (Certainly none of the main characters!) Anime doesn't have to involve "superhuman" characters who would be considered overpowered in a DnD game, either, although many anime series do feature such characters.
So lets please back off some of the "americans do this, and say that" sorta talk. Oriental influence in pop culture are everywhere! Kill Bill, John Woo movies, Yuen Chow Fat in the next Pirates of the Carribean movie! Expect much more of it to filter into mainstream D&D as the years go by.
I would expect that, but it's still up to the GM what they allow into their campaign.
I think the stuff that annoys message board posters on the specific subject of liking or dislinking "Oriental" influence falls into a few distinct camps.
Camp 1: Ones where the GMs theme world/campaign setting IS of a more eurocentric base, who get annoyed with people wanting to play "ninjas and samurai in Paris." which simply doesn't mesh with their "vision". These GMs may indeed have naturally gravitated to a natural desire to run a eurocentric game. It is what they are most familiar with thanks to products, novels, and campaign settings that have backed this model up for 30 years. In their campaign there is no room for ninjas, wu jen, or samurai trucking around their midieval themed countryside throwing ninja stars and beheading foes with katana and washisaka ruins their vision and ability to "suspend their disbelief".
Category 2: Players who REALLY want to play ninja's and samurai in Paris who think the GM is full of crap and should allow them to be a ninja or samurai or wu jen irreguardless of what the GMs campaign vision is. It's D&D afterall and they just purchased the complete (insert whichever character archtype got murdered by the complete series here) and are damned well going to use the parts that they like! So they fight with the GM, the Gm allows them to make their character, and then treats them like crap, unfairly attempting to kill off their character at every turn (at least from their perspective). It may be true, or perhaps the GM is associating the oriental themed character with a stranger in a strange land scenario where the guy in the laquered wicker armor and demon faced mask seems a threat to the noble knight astride his trusty destrier.
Category 3: Other players who get annoyed as all get out with the one person in the group who HAS to be a ninja, monk, or samurai, because after looking at the class, they find it to be so far broken and over-powerful compared to a standard PC classes as to give the player of said Ninja or Samurai an unfair advantage over the rest of the members of the party. Or they see a monk who gets "something cool" for their character at every level. Their bard or ranger for example, may not.
I think #3 isn't entirely true. The samurai class is hated, despite definitely
not being overpowered. It's just different for no good reason. The monk is also pretty weak (though it might look strong to an inexperienced gamer at first glance, or if you let in lots of non-core material, or if you roll 4 18s).
I personally tend to fall more towards category 3. I don't mind ninja's and samurai in an oriental adventures themed setting or as part of a crossover campaign. I have written a lot of monk related adventures and story hooks too, so I like monks in my campaigns!
I do think that the issue falls more on designers have had serious problems with game balance when it comes to oriental themed characters.
They should not have had these problems, however, especially when it comes to classes that we know something about (eg samurai).
I also suggest that a lot of these Oriental-flavored classes just aren't needed. There is no need for a samurai class, for instance, so every time WotC makes a samurai class, there's a good chance they'll mess it up. At most, the only changes needed are making the fighter class a bit more flexible (so they can compete while wearing lighter armor, might have some leaderhsip feats available other than just Leadership, create a chain of Iajitsu feats, and so forth).
Without specifically creating unneeded Oriental-flavored classes, it'll be a lot easier to introduce Oriental-flavored characters into a game without causing balance problems. (This doesn't mean there might not be flavor problems.)
I think that the percieved imbalance of oriental themed characters detracts from GM's desire to allow them into their campaign world. (It's like hating gnomes and halflings).
I was under the impression that a lot of GMs who dislike small races don't take them seriously, think that gnomes don't have a flavor reason to exist, or think 3e halflings are too similar to kender, in addition to any balance concerns they might have.
Bad balance often leads to bad experiences and feelings of bad blood.
Reminds me of many a psionic discussion.
