Dungeons and Dragons to eliminate concept of "inherently evil" races

[DShomshak]

7 hours ago, Old Man said:

As for controversy, it's important to remember that D&D has drawn attacks from lawyers and SJWs of all kinds throughout its history.  That's why demons and devils became tanar'ri and baatezu and why Cthulhu was cut out entirely.  It's not entirely realistic to expect a game with such dependence on its subject matter to remain static for almost fifty years.  Allowing orcs and drow to be non-evil is hardly even a change.

 

Incidentally, 5th ed Monster Manual has gone back to calling  demons and devils called demons and devils. I'm not sure the made-up names are even mentioned anymore.

 

Dean Shomshak

[drunkonduty]

On 7/1/2020 at 1:00 PM, DShomshak said:

 

Incidentally, 5th ed Monster Manual has gone back to calling  demons and devils called demons and devils. I'm not sure the made-up names are even mentioned anymore.

 

Dean Shomshak

 

Good. I mean, what's sounds better? Duke of Hell or Baatorian Commander?

 

Actually the second one sounds good for a sci-fi setting.

[Hugh Neilson]

On 6/30/2020 at 5:16 PM, unclevlad said:

 

Cthulhu mythos deities were included in very early DDG...as were the gods of Lankhmar.  Yes, well, that's copyrighted material there;  they were explicitly even using the names.  There's no folklore or mythological link for Azathoth or Cthulhu;  they're pure Lovecraft.  Lankhmar is pure Lieber.  So using them for commercial purposes is a clear copyright violation. 

 

The original DDG included Lankhmar, Cthulhu and Moorcock.  TSR did secure a deal with Leiber, but not Lovecraft or Moorcock (or Tolkein).  Paizo has added Lovecraft creatures since they started coming into the public domain.

[Cygnia]

‘Dungeons & Dragons’ Book ‘Oriental Adventures’ Receives A Sensitivity Disclaimer

[Ragitsu]

As I have no desire to fight a land war in Asia, I will say my piece and then depart.

 

I don't believe that playing in or DMing/GMing old school tabletop campaigns makes one a bigot. Likewise, featuring a race/species that is a monolith of evil does not make one a bigot. Some DMs/GMs are prejudiced and choose - with varying degrees of subtlety - to express this prejudice through their games, but that is their failing and not a failing of any particular tabletop RPG system. If a DM/GM appears to be subconsciously manifesting real-life stereotypes through their NPCs, but is otherwise the salt of the earth, then calmly bringing up these purported manifestations in the interest of having them recognized is fair...hectoring them is not. Also, it is perfectly possible for one to run a squeaky clean adventure and be a jackass in their day-to-day interactions. Finally, if one cannot tell the difference between a game that embraces escapism (with black-and-white/clear-cut morality for all groups) and reality (too many shades of grey to count with bands of black and white on opposite ends), then they should take a step back in order to reassess their beliefs.

 

P.S. "race" is such an antiquated and imprecise/unscientific term that was created (or at least promoted) by imperialists seeking power as a means to foster division that would lead to war. Can't we - citizens of the future - devise something better?

[Pattern Ghost]

15 hours ago, Cygnia said:

‘Dungeons & Dragons’ Book ‘Oriental Adventures’ Receives A Sensitivity Disclaimer

 

Every fantasy fiction publisher pushes for non-Eurocentric settings in their submissions guidelines, and have been for at least the last 20+ years, but now WOTC has to put "sensitivity" disclaimers on OA, which was probably its most popular non-Eurocentric setting supplement?

 

So, how do writers win these days? If you're a person of European descent and write about faux-medieval European settings, you're not inclusive. If you write about other cultures, you're a racist, or culturally appropriating, or whatever the newspeak of the day is.

 

I don't remember anything particularly offensive about OA, though I haven't looked at it since '86. All I remember is the same pulling of a bunch of folklore from Asian cultures into a DnD mishmash, the same way the original DnD did with mostly European and Middle Eastern cultures the first time out.

 

So, Faux-Europe is out and Faux-Asia is out. I guess they'll have to release a setting that's based on nobody and nothing from nowhere in the nowhen time period next.

[Old Man]

38 minutes ago, Pattern Ghost said:

 

I don't remember anything particularly offensive about OA, though I haven't looked at it since '86. All I remember is the same pulling of a bunch of folklore from Asian cultures into a DnD mishmash, the same way the original DnD did with mostly European and Middle Eastern cultures the first time out.

 

OA wasn't terrible, but it did have some tone deaf stereotyping and was particularly clumsy in its treatment of Asian culture.  It would not have been too much to ask them to run the book by a few Asian people prior to publication.  But it isn't really worth getting one's panties in a bunch over either way.

[Pattern Ghost]

1 hour ago, Old Man said:

OA wasn't terrible, but it did have some tone deaf stereotyping and was particularly clumsy in its treatment of Asian culture.  It would not have been too much to ask them to run the book by a few Asian people prior to publication.  But it isn't really worth getting one's panties in a bunch over either way.

 

I just bought a copy of OA from Drive Thru (super cheap -- they're having a Christmas in July sale!), and here's from the "Special thanks to" section:

 

"To the Japanese players—Masataka Ohta, Akira Saito, Hiroyasu Kurose, Takafumi Sakurai, and Yuka
Tate-ishi—for critiquing and improving the manuscript on short notice"

 

As for the treatment of Asian culture, from Cook's introduction:

 

"In preparing Oriental Adventures, there were many goals to meet. Foremost of these was the interesting but conflicting demands of historical accuracy and fantastic imagination. There is very little point in doing a book about Oriental culture if the material is not accurate. But accuracy can often be unplayable or just unacceptable. Accuracy here would mean stricter class structures, less chance for player advancement and less adventure. It would mean more fiddlely rules for little details that would get in the way of play. And rules that might apply to a Japanese culture would certainly be incorrect in a strict Chinese culture! Furthermore, the world presented had to be what people think the Orient is, not necessarily what it actually is. Thus, reference works and sources of ideas went beyond books and included popular Japanese movies about samurai and ninja, the whole family of Hong Kong kung-fu movies, comics, and even those endearing monster epics of giant reptiles and funny dinosaurs."
 

In that last sentence, the "books" he was going on included (from earlier in the intro):

 

"The second pleasure in writing this comes from the reading I had to do to prepare. The Oriental Adventures project spurred me to read materials I would otherwise never have seen. Some of it was thrilling and some not. The variety of topics was huge—legends, folktales, literary epics, genealogical histories, philosophy, religion, poetry, architecture, land management, government, history, martial arts, sociology, anthropology, military affairs, economics, and fiction. The bulk of this material deals with Japan, with China a close second. This is not due to any oversight. Most of the material available deals with Japan, through the choice of various writers. From the standpoint of gaming, Japan's history and culture provides greater opportunities for adventure and advancement. Although often seen as a rigid society, Japan has had several periods of tumultuous upheavel where a person of any rank could make his name—the Sengoku period or the collapse of the Heian government being only two. Of course, anyone who looks carefully at China will find the same occurred there.
However, fewer people cared to write about it."

 

Given the author's (and Cook was the sole author of the text of the book, the other two credited didn't contribute other than some Gygaxian spotlight hogging going on) own stated intent and methodology, I don't think we should take the thing as anything other than it was intended: A big old mashup of Asian stuff, with a heavy Japanese base flavor, the same way that the prior material was a mashup of European and Middle Eastern (or Near East, according to Gygax) stuff with a heavy Northern European base.

 

Now, I don't know if there is any tone deaf stereotyping going on, but I don't think you can call out a white guy for using stereotypes he found in Asian fiction and cinema. Of course, those would be "tropes" and not "stereotypes" if we were talking about a Euro-centric setting . . . .

 

I'm sorry, but the guy who spent 26 hours in a "deep read" on social media overlooking something as basic as the author's introduction to the material to try to call someone out seems more like attention whoring than any sort of legitimate complaint. Then again, maybe that guy calls out old Kurosawa movies too, but I doubt it.

 

EDIT: The guy who started this claims to be an anthropologist, so it'd be interesting to see if he points out any of the inherent racism in Cook's more scholarly sources. To be fair, there's probably plenty more to be found on that side, than the pop culture references that form the framework for OA. The press and comments on it have only mentioned him calling out "three white guys" for being bunglingly racist, though. I'm not sure if I have the stomach to sit through 26 hours of podcasts, but I might check out a bit of it to be fair to the complainer.

[Pattern Ghost]

 

Source of the discourse.

 

Edit:

As expected, they completely skipped past the Cook intro. Also, neither of these RPG "pros" has heard of Cook? WTF?

 

Overall, they're pretty ignorant, and ill-informed.

[Bazza]

2 hours ago, Pattern Ghost said:

So, how do writers win these days? If you're a person of European descent and write about faux-medieval European settings, you're not inclusive. If you write about other cultures, you're a racist, or culturally appropriating, or whatever the newspeak of the day is.

 

 

You “win” by belonging to one of the approved minority groups, otherwise it is no-win. But even then there is inherent issues. You might be led to believe that a Greek character might be played by a Greek, or a Scandinavian role played by a Scandinavian, but in the past this has not been the case. 

 

And to respond to one of your later posts: the author of the OA criticism lists his profession as “archeologist” on his Twitter page. I wonder if he will read Legend of the Five Rings next. 

[Pattern Ghost]

1 minute ago, Bazza said:

I wonder if he will read Legend of the Five Rings next. 

 

Ask and ye shall receive:

 

[Bazza]

4 minutes ago, Pattern Ghost said:

 

Ask and ye shall receive:

 

 

Cheers. However at 2 hrs, that is too long for me. 

[Pattern Ghost]

3 minutes ago, Bazza said:

Cheers. However at 2 hrs, that is too long for me. 

 

That's OK. You're probably saving yourself some brain cells in the process.

[massey]

Real life Asia is not nearly as interesting as mythological Asia.  Real life Asia did not have ninjas fighting dragons.

 

To simulate real life historical Asia, roll percentile dice for your profession.  1-99% you are a rice farmer or fisherman.  That sounds like a sucky game.

[Old Man]

7 hours ago, Pattern Ghost said:

 

I just bought a copy of OA from Drive Thru (super cheap -- they're having a Christmas in July sale!), and here's from the "Special thanks to" section:

 

"To the Japanese players—Masataka Ohta, Akira Saito, Hiroyasu Kurose, Takafumi Sakurai, and Yuka
Tate-ishi—for critiquing and improving the manuscript on short notice"

 

As for the treatment of Asian culture, from Cook's introduction:

 

"In preparing Oriental Adventures, there were many goals to meet. Foremost of these was the interesting but conflicting demands of historical accuracy and fantastic imagination. There is very little point in doing a book about Oriental culture if the material is not accurate. But accuracy can often be unplayable or just unacceptable. Accuracy here would mean stricter class structures, less chance for player advancement and less adventure. It would mean more fiddlely rules for little details that would get in the way of play. And rules that might apply to a Japanese culture would certainly be incorrect in a strict Chinese culture! Furthermore, the world presented had to be what people think the Orient is, not necessarily what it actually is. Thus, reference works and sources of ideas went beyond books and included popular Japanese movies about samurai and ninja, the whole family of Hong Kong kung-fu movies, comics, and even those endearing monster epics of giant reptiles and funny dinosaurs."
 

In that last sentence, the "books" he was going on included (from earlier in the intro):

 

"The second pleasure in writing this comes from the reading I had to do to prepare. The Oriental Adventures project spurred me to read materials I would otherwise never have seen. Some of it was thrilling and some not. The variety of topics was huge—legends, folktales, literary epics, genealogical histories, philosophy, religion, poetry, architecture, land management, government, history, martial arts, sociology, anthropology, military affairs, economics, and fiction. The bulk of this material deals with Japan, with China a close second. This is not due to any oversight. Most of the material available deals with Japan, through the choice of various writers. From the standpoint of gaming, Japan's history and culture provides greater opportunities for adventure and advancement. Although often seen as a rigid society, Japan has had several periods of tumultuous upheavel where a person of any rank could make his name—the Sengoku period or the collapse of the Heian government being only two. Of course, anyone who looks carefully at China will find the same occurred there.
However, fewer people cared to write about it."

 

Given the author's (and Cook was the sole author of the text of the book, the other two credited didn't contribute other than some Gygaxian spotlight hogging going on) own stated intent and methodology, I don't think we should take the thing as anything other than it was intended: A big old mashup of Asian stuff, with a heavy Japanese base flavor, the same way that the prior material was a mashup of European and Middle Eastern (or Near East, according to Gygax) stuff with a heavy Northern European base.

 

Now, I don't know if there is any tone deaf stereotyping going on, but I don't think you can call out a white guy for using stereotypes he found in Asian fiction and cinema. Of course, those would be "tropes" and not "stereotypes" if we were talking about a Euro-centric setting . . . .

 

I'm sorry, but the guy who spent 26 hours in a "deep read" on social media overlooking something as basic as the author's introduction to the material to try to call someone out seems more like attention whoring than any sort of legitimate complaint. Then again, maybe that guy calls out old Kurosawa movies too, but I doubt it.

 

EDIT: The guy who started this claims to be an anthropologist, so it'd be interesting to see if he points out any of the inherent racism in Cook's more scholarly sources. To be fair, there's probably plenty more to be found on that side, than the pop culture references that form the framework for OA. The press and comments on it have only mentioned him calling out "three white guys" for being bunglingly racist, though. I'm not sure if I have the stomach to sit through 26 hours of podcasts, but I might check out a bit of it to be fair to the complainer.

 

This clearly has touched a nerve, I just wonder why.  I thought that Daniel Kwan guy was overreacting, but reading this... maybe he was onto something.

[Old Man]

3 minutes ago, massey said:

To simulate real life historical Asia, roll percentile dice for your profession.  1-99% you are a rice farmer or fisherman.

 

  Seriously?

[massey]

22 minutes ago, Old Man said:

 

  Seriously?

 

Yes.

[Old Man]

45 minutes ago, massey said:

 

Yes.

 

Well, I suppose it does take some balls to be openly racist in a thread about racism in gaming.  Have a nice life.

[Pattern Ghost]

1 hour ago, Old Man said:

This clearly has touched a nerve, I just wonder why.  I thought that Daniel Kwan guy was overreacting, but reading this... maybe he was onto something.

 

Can you be more specific? 

 

You asserted that "It would not have been too much to ask them to run the book by a few Asian people prior to publication.", and I showed you the list of Asian play testers.

 

You asserted that "OA wasn't terrible, but it did have some tone deaf stereotyping and was particularly clumsy in its treatment of Asian culture." and I pointed out that it was largely by design, and the IMO much of what is complained about as stereotyping comes from Asian pop culture media of the era, and that Cook leaned more heavily on those sources than he did the more scholarly ones. I further pointed out that the scholarly sources were most likely more racist than the pop culture stuff.

 

I simply answered your questions you posed.

 

Am I a little cranky? Yeah. I don't like half-assed, ill-informed whining and my back has been out since Tuesday morning. So, I'm definitely cranky.

 

If you're implying I'm racist, well, then we have a problem.

[Pattern Ghost]

 Now, if you read Gygax and Breault's (editor) Introductions, you'll see some of what these guys are talking about as far as old fasihoned, casually racist attitudes toward Asian culture. I'm still in the mechanical portion of the main text, and haven't found anything too offensive. I can't get my panties in a bunch over the Comeliness stat, sorry.

[massey]

1 hour ago, Old Man said:

 

Well, I suppose it does take some balls to be openly racist in a thread about racism in gaming.  Have a nice life.

 

Wow.  So that's two people you accuse of racism in one thread.  You do you, Old Man.  Never let the facts get in the way of a good hissy fit.

[Hermit]

moderator hat

Ok. This went south fast. I'm going to lock the thread and give folks a chance to cool down. It might get opened again, it might not.