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Author Topic: Kobold Press bends the knee  (Read 6106 times)

Brooding Paladin

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Re: Kobold Press bends the knee
« Reply #45 on: September 16, 2022, 04:30:23 PM »
Exactly.  Lesson learned!   ;D

SHARK

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Re: Kobold Press bends the knee
« Reply #46 on: September 19, 2022, 05:14:55 PM »
Who is this "everyone" that felt really bad?  I loved the setting and still use it as my campaign world 40 years later.  There's plenty of diversity in Greyhawk, just not in the way SJW's want it.

You're right; that was poorly worded.  I meant "everyone who is predisposed to feel bad about this kind of thing."

I love the Greyhawk setting and have used it often.  And my campaign happen to be Euro-centric mostly because that's what I know most about and think I can make a fair acquittal with in my gaming.  Which you would think would meet with the SJW mantra of "stay in your lane and don't appropriate other cultures" but since it's predominately white in nature, nah.  That's not allowed either.  Screw them.

But yeah, I meant nothing critical toward Greyhawk and her fans.

Greetings!

Yes, Brooding Paladin, I understand where you are coming from. There is absolutely nothing wrong with a Euro-Centric game campaign. And yeah, Greyhawk is awesome, too!

I have to say, that the whole notion of Greyhawk somehow being "problematic" or racist, or "Euro-Centric" is all kind of BS. If there is or was any kind of "Euro-Centric" focus in the campaign, well, too bad. Tough titty said the kitty when the milk went dry! D&D is a game created by white, European descended Americans. The vast, vast majority of gamers, themselves, are white Americans or Europeans. These are simply absolute facts. It is also an absolute fact that going back to the earliest days of the RPG hobby, gamers have been passionately interested in other cultures, regions, and historical elements. Gamers have also been very open and positive towards accepting and welcoming gamers from other races, ethnicities, and cultures. There have certainly been an increase of participation from non-white gamers, from a variety of cultural backgrounds in the years since the beginning. That too, has been generally quite positive.

I also think it is critical to remember that for the most part, the "critics" and demagogues of all this BS are generally not even minorities, or otherwise non-white or non-European.

The demagogues of the BS and promoters of racism, division, and hatred, are typically other white Americans, or white Europeans.

These people are terrible, and should be opposed and resisted at every opportunity!

From a DM and game design perspective, remembering that most gamers are white--it just isn't an issue for most groups to fully or commonly engage with some foreign, non-Euro-Centric culture. Thanks to the glorious capitalism and "Hu-white supremacistsss" systems of statistics and marketing analysis, we also know, for *decades* now, that for the most part, non-Euro-Centric campaign worlds are a commercial failure. Despite considerable Asian influences in general through the media and mediums, Chinese and Japanese game worlds are not terribly popular. Forget fantasy Africa. Nyambe was, while artistically and creatively beautiful--largely a failure. Oriental Adventures and Al Qadim? Yes, also commercial failures. Oh, and yes, mot all of these culturally diverse campaign worlds and products--supplements, monster books, and soon--were also created, written, and marketed by white people. TALISLANTA--probably my favorite cult classic favourite campaign world--was entirely non-white, non-European, and it too, was a commercial failure. For a refresher, TALISLANTA was full of crayon coloured races, peoples, and creatures--that were not even human at all.

The market of RPG gamers have consistently demonstrated that the main, dominating preference is for Euro-Centric, Tolkienesque game worlds.

Armed with all of those facts, it isn't surprising that much of the early Greyhawk adventure and literature seemed to be catering to more Euro-Centric preferences. However, as any long-time Greyhawk fan or DM knows--Greyhawk has many races, cultures and regions that are not Euro-Centric. Even as a DM developing your own game world, there is likely many regions and cultures that are non-Eurocentric. In running a particular campaign, it is just a process and product of what region or culture you are setting the campaign in, which determines the focus. Greyhawk, or many other campaign worlds, can be Eurocentric or as non Eurocentric as a person could want, depending on where they want to focus a particular campaign.

Ahh, well. These people, the SJW's, the Wokists, are insane. They all love Marxism, nihilism, and chaos. They are Leftist degenerates. It is important that we gatekeep our hobby, and curb stomp these people out of our hobby. Don't invite them to your games, or participate in any meaningful way with Leftist Libtards. They are like human rodents, constantly wanting to eat, devour, and destroy.

I've rambled on enough for now. These Leftist game critics drive me crazy, too! ;D Kobold Press bends the knee indeed! Sad, my friend!

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Couldn't agree more Shark

Greetings!

Thank you, my friend!

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK
"It is the Marine Corps that will strip away the façade so easily confused with self. It is the Corps that will offer the pain needed to buy the truth. And at last, each will own the privilege of looking inside himself  to discover what truly resides there. Comfort is an illusion. A false security b

BoxCrayonTales

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Re: Kobold Press bends the knee
« Reply #47 on: September 19, 2022, 06:42:29 PM »
I’m honestly tired of all this generic Eurofantasy pseudo-Anglo-Saxon schlock. It’s oversaturated. I want fantasy that is, well, ethnic. Celtic, Teutonic, Korean, Japanese, Han Chinese, Semitic, West African, Indian, etc.

Effete

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Re: Kobold Press bends the knee
« Reply #48 on: September 19, 2022, 11:32:29 PM »
I’m honestly tired of all this generic Eurofantasy pseudo-Anglo-Saxon schlock. It’s oversaturated. I want fantasy that is, well, ethnic. Celtic, Teutonic, Korean, Japanese, Han Chinese, Semitic, West African, Indian, etc.

Don't you know how the game is played?
Any eurofantasy must be watered-down to be "inclusive and diverse" while anything else would be immediately pegged as "insensitive and racist."

All joking aside, the "Tolkien-esque" vision of fantasy gaming has been stale for a long time. It's one of the major reasons I swore off D&D and anything with a hint of "elves and dwarves" for over a decade and a half.

Osman Gazi

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Re: Kobold Press bends the knee
« Reply #49 on: September 20, 2022, 09:51:18 AM »
I’m honestly tired of all this generic Eurofantasy pseudo-Anglo-Saxon schlock. It’s oversaturated. I want fantasy that is, well, ethnic. Celtic, Teutonic, Korean, Japanese, Han Chinese, Semitic, West African, Indian, etc.

Don't you know how the game is played?
Any eurofantasy must be watered-down to be "inclusive and diverse" while anything else would be immediately pegged as "insensitive and racist."

All joking aside, the "Tolkien-esque" vision of fantasy gaming has been stale for a long time. It's one of the major reasons I swore off D&D and anything with a hint of "elves and dwarves" for over a decade and a half.

I can relate to the burnout.  I think there are many gamers who love multiple genres for that reason.

tenbones

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Re: Kobold Press bends the knee
« Reply #50 on: September 20, 2022, 11:02:47 AM »
The *real* shame is that I do understand the Euro-centric fatigue in fantasy and the desire for other flavors - whether it's Asian or Middle-eastern established fantasy tropes remain as viable options...

The *problem* is the SJW morons have so demonized any and all forms of playing with cultural analogs outside of the European veneer, and have done so with such rabidness, that any attempts to do so are now suspect by us as consumers.

It's a hurdle to consider as a developer - because people get scared of being called racists by the actual racists, but as this is a cottage industry, it starts to look like you *might* just be burning money in order to get a kick in the balls by the usual suspects. (note - I say it starts to appear - this doesn't mean it's a reality).

Lastly - the only offerings apparently free of this reality that are high-production affairs (I'm sure I'm probably wrong about this somewhere so I'm speaking generally) are the shit being served up by SJW's themselves.

There is the added fact that it's very real that while some/many people feel a little Euro-centric fatigue, that the vast majority of players are *not* tired of Euro-centric fantasy. Much more the fact that "Euro-centric" fantasy typically means DnD fantasy which is not really fair to the entirety of the real European cultures that are largely ignored in the DnD Fantasy milieu.

There are some fantastic Euro-inspired settings out there that *need* more GM's pushing them. Symbaroum, The Witcher, are among two that come to mind. I believe with all my heart there is room for fun non-Euro content in DnD... but likely not outside the OSR, with the SJW's controlling the DnD brand.

But I say regardless of what the SJW zombie-hordes out there want, we should all be playing/designing/publishing/homebrewing whatever the fuck we want for those that want to have fun. I *dislike* the fact I'm so suspect of non-Euro themed settings nowadays because of the political lens everyone uses to inform their designs (whether on purpose or not in order to avoid the slings and arrows). We simply have to continue to find those souls willing to create high-quality games and support the shit out of them.
« Last Edit: September 20, 2022, 11:05:52 AM by tenbones »

Palleon

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Re: Kobold Press bends the knee
« Reply #51 on: September 20, 2022, 11:13:33 AM »
The *problem* is the SJW morons have so demonized any and all forms of playing with cultural analogs outside of the European veneer, and have done so with such rabidness, that any attempts to do so are now suspect by us as consumers.

And this is the root problem I think that has Kobold Press's Shining East part of the Midgard setting indefinitely delayed...

BoxCrayonTales

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Re: Kobold Press bends the knee
« Reply #52 on: September 20, 2022, 05:23:42 PM »
Witcher is actually a D&D campaign setting, not an ethnic setting. E.g. it has Dao genies taken directly from D&D. I don’t like it for that reason and I wish actual Slavic fantasy got even a fraction of that recognition.

tenbones

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Re: Kobold Press bends the knee
« Reply #53 on: September 20, 2022, 05:53:13 PM »
Witcher is actually a D&D campaign setting, not an ethnic setting. E.g. it has Dao genies taken directly from D&D. I don’t like it for that reason and I wish actual Slavic fantasy got even a fraction of that recognition.

It's pretty much from the books/game. Daos are taken from Middle-eastern folktails and myths, which the Poles had lots of "contact" (and by that I mean violent wars) with during the middle-ages. I'm not professing that Daos aren't some outlier - I'm just presuming they are. And hey why not?

That said, today's DnD doesn't really resemble the Witcher because there is no setting specific  to DnD that isn't polluted by assumption of things never intended to be in it or added to it later. The cohesion of the kitchen-sink settings of DnD past would never operate as they appeared under the assumptions of today's 5e.

The Witcher setting is very specific internally, with very specific dribbles of elements taken from Polish(sic) culture and fantasied up. If you play DnD like that - with that level of tone - (great!!! I think everyone should), I'd say you, me and a those that do, are extreme outliers to the average 5e audience.
« Last Edit: September 20, 2022, 05:56:44 PM by tenbones »

BoxCrayonTales

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Re: Kobold Press bends the knee
« Reply #54 on: September 20, 2022, 06:06:34 PM »
Witcher is actually a D&D campaign setting, not an ethnic setting. E.g. it has Dao genies taken directly from D&D. I don’t like it for that reason and I wish actual Slavic fantasy got even a fraction of that recognition.

It's pretty much from the books/game. Daos are taken from Middle-eastern folktails and myths, which the Poles had lots of "contact" (and by that I mean violent wars) with during the middle-ages. I'm not professing that Daos aren't some outlier - I'm just presuming they are. And hey why not?

That said, today's DnD doesn't really resemble the Witcher because there is no setting specific  to DnD that isn't polluted by assumption of things never intended to be in it or added to it later. The cohesion of the kitchen-sink settings of DnD past would never operate as they appeared under the assumptions of today's 5e.

The Witcher setting is very specific internally, with very specific dribbles of elements taken from Polish(sic) culture and fantasied up. If you play DnD like that - with that level of tone - (great!!! I think everyone should), I'd say you, me and a those that do, are extreme outliers to the average 5e audience.
What I mean is that it literally reads like it was taken from the notes for the author’s personal D&D campaign. Many of the monsters and conventions are taken straight from D&D.

 https://witcher.fandom.com/wiki/Genie

The author outright copies D&D genie names: djinn, marid, ifrit, dao. D&D invented that scheme, without basis in folklore. That’s pretty unambiguous evidence it’s based on his notes for his D&D campaign.

Arkansan

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Re: Kobold Press bends the knee
« Reply #55 on: September 20, 2022, 06:33:36 PM »
Took a look at the blog post that supposedly started this round of nonsense.

Quote
Someday, in some glorious future, white people won’t say stupid things that show how oblivious they are to the things that people of color have had to deal with, every day, ever since someone decided to define some people as white to begin with. That day is not today.

First fucking paragraph. Lol, lmao. We don't have to parody these people, they're incapable of not being living caricatures. It just reads like something your creepy dipshit 28 year old assistant professor of art history would say while peacocking his virtue for the 19 year old art hoes in his class.

Osman Gazi

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Re: Kobold Press bends the knee
« Reply #56 on: September 20, 2022, 08:48:37 PM »
Witcher is actually a D&D campaign setting, not an ethnic setting. E.g. it has Dao genies taken directly from D&D. I don’t like it for that reason and I wish actual Slavic fantasy got even a fraction of that recognition.

It's pretty much from the books/game. Daos are taken from Middle-eastern folktails and myths, which the Poles had lots of "contact" (and by that I mean violent wars) with during the middle-ages. I'm not professing that Daos aren't some outlier - I'm just presuming they are. And hey why not?

That said, today's DnD doesn't really resemble the Witcher because there is no setting specific  to DnD that isn't polluted by assumption of things never intended to be in it or added to it later. The cohesion of the kitchen-sink settings of DnD past would never operate as they appeared under the assumptions of today's 5e.

The Witcher setting is very specific internally, with very specific dribbles of elements taken from Polish(sic) culture and fantasied up. If you play DnD like that - with that level of tone - (great!!! I think everyone should), I'd say you, me and a those that do, are extreme outliers to the average 5e audience.
What I mean is that it literally reads like it was taken from the notes for the author’s personal D&D campaign. Many of the monsters and conventions are taken straight from D&D.

 https://witcher.fandom.com/wiki/Genie

The author outright copies D&D genie names: djinn, marid, ifrit, dao. D&D invented that scheme, without basis in folklore. That’s pretty unambiguous evidence it’s based on his notes for his D&D campaign.

Wait, what?  Marid, Djinn, and Efreet are in the Quran (and in Arabic lore before that).  And Dao might be based on Dushara, a Nabatean god.  But yeah, D&D mixed up a lot of stuff into a hodgepodge, so maybe the Witcher was more influenced by D&D than the original sources.

BoxCrayonTales

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Re: Kobold Press bends the knee
« Reply #57 on: September 21, 2022, 09:32:38 AM »
Witcher is actually a D&D campaign setting, not an ethnic setting. E.g. it has Dao genies taken directly from D&D. I don’t like it for that reason and I wish actual Slavic fantasy got even a fraction of that recognition.

It's pretty much from the books/game. Daos are taken from Middle-eastern folktails and myths, which the Poles had lots of "contact" (and by that I mean violent wars) with during the middle-ages. I'm not professing that Daos aren't some outlier - I'm just presuming they are. And hey why not?

That said, today's DnD doesn't really resemble the Witcher because there is no setting specific  to DnD that isn't polluted by assumption of things never intended to be in it or added to it later. The cohesion of the kitchen-sink settings of DnD past would never operate as they appeared under the assumptions of today's 5e.

The Witcher setting is very specific internally, with very specific dribbles of elements taken from Polish(sic) culture and fantasied up. If you play DnD like that - with that level of tone - (great!!! I think everyone should), I'd say you, me and a those that do, are extreme outliers to the average 5e audience.
What I mean is that it literally reads like it was taken from the notes for the author’s personal D&D campaign. Many of the monsters and conventions are taken straight from D&D.

 https://witcher.fandom.com/wiki/Genie

The author outright copies D&D genie names: djinn, marid, ifrit, dao. D&D invented that scheme, without basis in folklore. That’s pretty unambiguous evidence it’s based on his notes for his D&D campaign.

Wait, what?  Marid, Djinn, and Efreet are in the Quran (and in Arabic lore before that).  And Dao might be based on Dushara, a Nabatean god.  But yeah, D&D mixed up a lot of stuff into a hodgepodge, so maybe the Witcher was more influenced by D&D than the original sources.
To clarify: the words marid, djinn, and ifrit do come from Arabic. But they don't have specific elemental associations, as all djinn are made of smokeless fire. D&D invented those elemental associations without basis in folklore. (There is some Tunisian folklore about leriah of the air, baharia of the sea and siadna of the land, but D&D isn't based on that or they would have used those words instead.) D&D also invents a nonsensical and insanely anal-retentive distinction between genie, djinn, and jann... which are just different spellings of the same word (I know genie is technically a French translation of Arabic djinn, but it's still the same word and I'm not splitting hairs). Show the bestiary to a native Arab speaker and they would be confused why the same word is used for three completely different contexts that are easily confused.

Anyway, my point is that Witcher's worldbuilding is a D&D campaign with some twists (like the setting being the aftermath of a planar conjunction flooding the planet with monsters and multiple different intelligent races to explain why the world even uses D&D conventions) and some Polish folklore tacked on. While some of the concepts have a basis in Polish folklore or were invented mostly wholesale by the author, most of them seem to be drawn from D&D tropes. Many of the monsters, like chromatic dragons, are copied more or less verbatim from D&D. The Wizard's Guild is pretty obviously based on how D&D presents wizards as organized schools who manipulate global politics from behind the scenes. I don't consider it an authentic representation of Slavic fantasy and I'm annoyed that it has displaced authentic Slavic fantasy in popular culture.

Osman Gazi

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Re: Kobold Press bends the knee
« Reply #58 on: September 21, 2022, 10:09:00 AM »
Witcher is actually a D&D campaign setting, not an ethnic setting. E.g. it has Dao genies taken directly from D&D. I don’t like it for that reason and I wish actual Slavic fantasy got even a fraction of that recognition.

It's pretty much from the books/game. Daos are taken from Middle-eastern folktails and myths, which the Poles had lots of "contact" (and by that I mean violent wars) with during the middle-ages. I'm not professing that Daos aren't some outlier - I'm just presuming they are. And hey why not?

That said, today's DnD doesn't really resemble the Witcher because there is no setting specific  to DnD that isn't polluted by assumption of things never intended to be in it or added to it later. The cohesion of the kitchen-sink settings of DnD past would never operate as they appeared under the assumptions of today's 5e.

The Witcher setting is very specific internally, with very specific dribbles of elements taken from Polish(sic) culture and fantasied up. If you play DnD like that - with that level of tone - (great!!! I think everyone should), I'd say you, me and a those that do, are extreme outliers to the average 5e audience.
What I mean is that it literally reads like it was taken from the notes for the author’s personal D&D campaign. Many of the monsters and conventions are taken straight from D&D.

 https://witcher.fandom.com/wiki/Genie

The author outright copies D&D genie names: djinn, marid, ifrit, dao. D&D invented that scheme, without basis in folklore. That’s pretty unambiguous evidence it’s based on his notes for his D&D campaign.

Wait, what?  Marid, Djinn, and Efreet are in the Quran (and in Arabic lore before that).  And Dao might be based on Dushara, a Nabatean god.  But yeah, D&D mixed up a lot of stuff into a hodgepodge, so maybe the Witcher was more influenced by D&D than the original sources.
To clarify: the words marid, djinn, and ifrit do come from Arabic. But they don't have specific elemental associations, as all djinn are made of smokeless fire. D&D invented those elemental associations without basis in folklore. (There is some Tunisian folklore about leriah of the air, baharia of the sea and siadna of the land, but D&D isn't based on that or they would have used those words instead.) D&D also invents a nonsensical and insanely anal-retentive distinction between genie, djinn, and jann... which are just different spellings of the same word (I know genie is technically a French translation of Arabic djinn, but it's still the same word and I'm not splitting hairs). Show the bestiary to a native Arab speaker and they would be confused why the same word is used for three completely different contexts that are easily confused.

Anyway, my point is that Witcher's worldbuilding is a D&D campaign with some twists (like the setting being the aftermath of a planar conjunction flooding the planet with monsters and multiple different intelligent races to explain why the world even uses D&D conventions) and some Polish folklore tacked on. While some of the concepts have a basis in Polish folklore or were invented mostly wholesale by the author, most of them seem to be drawn from D&D tropes. Many of the monsters, like chromatic dragons, are copied more or less verbatim from D&D. The Wizard's Guild is pretty obviously based on how D&D presents wizards as organized schools who manipulate global politics from behind the scenes. I don't consider it an authentic representation of Slavic fantasy and I'm annoyed that it has displaced authentic Slavic fantasy in popular culture.

Ok, that clarifies it.  Yup, the Djinn are all made from smokeless fire (and Angels made from light)...no D&D-esque distinction of various "elements" (and the Djinn are not wholly good or evil--and it was ironic reading in the 1st ed AD&D MM that they were considered "Chaotic Good", though many of them are evil--especially the most famous one, Iblis/Shaytan).  D&D (or Disney, for that matter) is many people's first contact with folklore and mythology, and with it's incredibly mixed-up amalgamation of various cultures and religions, it leads to a heck of a lot of confusion.  (Just like someone trying to learn history from Hollywood or Bollywood movies).

And yeah, more authentic Slavic folklore would have been cool.

tenbones

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Re: Kobold Press bends the knee
« Reply #59 on: September 21, 2022, 11:05:40 AM »
ALL of those things - Marid, Dao etc. predate Islam. They're regional folklore. Which is an aside - since DnD has co-opted myths and monsters from everywhere. I mean people laugh when I tell them the Penanggalan is a Filipino vampire my uncles used to tell ghost stories to us about when I was growing up - and DnD pretty much did a great job with it in Fiend Folio (the original!). But I get your meaning. I'm just saying by that standard - everyone is ripping off DnD. I think that's a bit light of a standard, but okay.

The point stands that the Witcher game has DnD influences... well my question is where today is DnD being played as published, in terms of setting rigor where the assumptions of the Witcher work, in DnD? And how much content is being produced as such? Unless you do a lot of curtailing of a whole lot of 5e mechanics, you're not likely not playing DnD as it's *normally* engaged today.

The Witcher setting of course is influenced by DnD *in general*. You could draw that line to literally any fantasy RPG if you want to squint. But the games don't play the same. They don't feel the same for thematic and mechanical reasons.

Yeah it bums me out RTS crew pantomimes woke bullshit in their private lives... but these days it's almost the norm for such virtue signaling. I don't find that their games themselves have much woke bullshit in them that isn't contextual (Cyberpunk for example). Thankfully.
« Last Edit: September 21, 2022, 11:09:33 AM by tenbones »