Yes, I'm still confused by Oriental Adventures

[d20books]

OK, I'm going through my books again and I'm looking at Oriental Adventures again.

I know that people think it is a great book but I must assert my opinion that this is a Rokugan primer and not a very good "Oriental Adventures" sourcebook.

I'm trying to create an oriental flare to a section of my campaign and I'm finding that if I want to avoid Rokugan material (the clans), and simply have a Human character, I must remove 46 feats from consideration from the book. Only 22 feats remain that do not have a clan requirement.

Oriental Adventures seems to be focused more upon the Japanese culture versus Chinese, Korean, or other Asian cultures. It really pains me to see such poor focus on the armors and weapons provided in the equipment section. Oriental Adventures for AD&D 1st Edition was much better, and I would have expected at least that much.

The only area that is strong is the spells and spell-listings. Fortunately, all of this is fantasy and not based on any reality to compare it to.

The campaign design section brings up all the other cultures but has very little to support those options. This consists of six pages (with many diagrams and illustrations, with one page dedicated completely to a temple map).

Finally, 37 pages are dedicated to Rokugan and the Shadowlands. I find it interesting that all the Rokugan clans were detailed here too.

Now, I plead with other publishers to put together a new "Asia-centric" source book or campaign book on the lines of "Nyambe: African Adventures", which has been 100% integrated into my campaign.

I've also scrapped any attempt at adding Oriental Adventures into my game and am using all the fantastic details from "From Stone to Steel", which is also folded into my campaign, 100%.

I'm not attacking Oriental Adventures and James Wyatt, per se. It is a great book as a Rokugan primer. The idea that it is THE "Oriental Adventures" and the end-all and be-all of Asian D20 that seems to have scared off any other attempts at building a more generic or historical (or even another fantasy setting) source book is upsetting to me.

I seem to be in the minority in my thoughts. Anyone else feel this way? Anyone else want to see another book?

 

[Crothian]

Well, the clan feats work really well as reguliar feats and all that one needs to do is remove the clan prerequite. I'm not sure what reality you want, this is a fantasy game. OA is not a fantasy version of the Earth's orient, it is just an orient themed book that I've found works very well. I'm currently in a orient themed game not set in Rokugan. We've found OA and even the rokugan books to be of termendious value. It is really simple to pull their flavor out and add in our own.

As for other orient style books their is:

Jade Dragons & Hungry Ghosts (Green Ronin monster book)
Jade and Steel (Avalanche ancient China book)

 

[d20books]

Stripping out Rokugan and Clan Pre-Reqs

Unfortunately, if it were that simple, it would have been a small thing for me to do that. ;-)

The issue is that the Clan feats are supposed to be balanced and removing and mixing the clan feats very quickly unbalances things. You can't easily mix a Rokugan character within a regular D20 or Dungeons and Dragons game without some severe limitations. I make it a point to allow my players to bring in ANY BOOK to the table and use it on their characters. I've been able to meld ANY campaign setting into my games and make it all work. I'm having serious issues with "Oriental Adventures".

The only Asian source book that is any good (IMHO) is "From Stone to Steel", and it isn't even an Asian source book.

 

[Corinth]

Rokugan isn't supposed to be mixed with other d20 settings; it's meant to be a self-contained campaign setting meant for use with D&D.

 

[Alzrius]

Rokugan isn't supposed to be mixed with other d20 settings; it's meant to be a self-contained campaign setting meant for use with D&D.

That's sort of what d20books is complaining about. The book was just called Oriental Adventures, and was marketed as being a resource book for any type of Oriental Campaign. But as you said, you can't use Rokugan in any other campaign like that, which makes the rest of the book hard to use in a "generic" OA campaign.

d20books, have you looked at the Oriental Adventures web enhancement? It's an Indian-themed campaign with the OA stuff. It also has some new supplementary material.

 

[Corinth]

That's sort of what d20books is complaining about. The book was just called Oriental Adventures, and was marketed as being a resource book for any type of Oriental Campaign. But as you said, you can't use Rokugan in any other campaign like that, which makes the rest of the book hard to use in a "generic" OA campaign.

Strip away the Rokugan-specific content and there's plenty left to use as a more-or-less generic toolkit for Oriental campaigns; the L5R symbol is in the book for a reason, as explained therein, so make use of it.

 

[Ranger REG]

They should have used Kara-Tur.

 

[Nellisir]

d20books and I have been over this before, and both of us think the other has probably inhaled too much RPG ink over the years. I'll post a more substantive entry later today, after work, and with the book(s). Until then, I'd suggest checking out James Wyatt's website http://aquela.com/roleplaying/index.html. He wrote Oriental Adventures and runs a Indian-style campaign using the OA rules.

2 other quick comments: I'm suprised that you can allow "any book" into your campaign, yet it's all or nothing with the clan feats. I can understand wanting to eliminate Void rules, but I don't think all the clan feats involve void, nor did I think they were all particularly unbalanced.

I also think OA 3e has more to offer non-Chinese/Japanese campaigns than 1e, but without either book at hand, I can't back it up. (I will point out that James Wyatt's experience in asian, as far as what he's told us, is more Southeast Asia (Thailand area) than Japan or China).

Ah well.
Nell.

 

[jaerdaph]

They should have used Kara-Tur.

Ditto.

 

[d20books]

Lets remove the OA debate and focus on my issue

OK, I guess it was a bad idea for me to just point out my issues with OA and turn this into a debate over its validity.

My big push is to convince another publisher to do some other "Oriental Adventures"-like sourcebooks. I have a GREAT deal of experience with Asia as a whole and it is likely to be the basis of my dislike for OA. (I am of Chinese and Japanese descent with a direct line to a Samurai Family. Yes, the last name confuses people, but if you saw me, my face and skin, the confusion disappears.)

Because WotC has produced an "Oriental Adventures" book, I feel that no other publishers are willing to do something on the same scale. JD&HG and J&S are both Asian based books, but they are pamphlets of what I really want, another beefy book on an Asia-centric theme.

Nyambe: African Adventures did a fantastic job of really wrapping up the entire African continent and creating a diverse and cohesive campaign world that folded into my campaign and several others where the DM's purchased the books from me.

Considering the diversity of Africa, I don't see why it would be so different to do the same thing with Asia.

So, basically, TO ALL PUBLISHERS, this seems to be a neglected area and I want to buy this new hypothetical book for my shelves and push it through my business to sell to my customers.