This is a site for discussing roleplaying games. Have fun doing so, but there is one major rule: do not discuss political issues that aren't directly and uniquely related to the subject of the thread and about gaming. While this site is dedicated to free speech, the following will not be tolerated: devolving a thread into unrelated political discussion, sockpuppeting (using multiple and/or bogus accounts), disrupting topics without contributing to them, and posting images that could get someone fired in the workplace (an external link is OK, but clearly mark it as Not Safe For Work, or NSFW). If you receive a warning, please take it seriously and either move on to another topic or steer the discussion back to its original RPG-related theme.

Author Topic: Now they are coming for your old rulebooks  (Read 62296 times)

Melan

  • Creeped out by the \'Net
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 3757
Now they are coming for your old rulebooks
« on: June 29, 2020, 05:01:25 PM »
The existence of your ninja kung fu books are threatening to someone, so they are going to go away, soon.

Quote
Dungeons & Dragons Fans Seek Removal of Oriental Adventures From Online Marketplace



By CHRISTIAN HOFFER - June 29, 2020 09:56 am EDT

Asians Represents tabletop podcast, called on Wizards of the Coast to pull the 1st edition Advanced Dungeons & Dragons campaign setting book Oriental Adventures from the DMs Guild marketplace, noting that the book pushed a number of outdated Asian stereotypes. "When you buy [Oriental Adventures], you show [Wizards of the Coast] that you are okay with Asian people being represented by blatant stereotypes," Kwan wrote on Twitter. He also noted that by having Oriental Adventures available for sale, it shows consumers that these legacy products are to be consumed despite their use of dated and racist stereotypes. Kwan pointed out that having Oriental Adventures available for sale runs contrary to a recent statement recently released by the Dungeons & Dragons design team, which stressed that one of the explicit design goals of the current version of D&D was to depict humanity in "all its beautiful diversity."

Oriental Adventures was originally published by TSR (the original publisher of Dungeons & Dragons) back in 1985. It was the first D&D supplement to focus on a non-European inspired setting, and introduced the concept of "non-weapon" proficiencies, which are now a critical part of the game. While the book was a best-seller at the time, none of its writers were Asian and the book has been heavily criticized by Asian fans and designers for its liberal use of stereotypes of various Asian cultures and by mixing those cultures together to form one homogenized fictional culture meant to represent an entire continent's worth of cultures. Dungeons & Dragons released an entire line of adventures based on Oriental Adventures, along with a campaign setting detailing the world of Kara-Tur, which features regions based on many different Asian cultures. Dungeons & Dragons also released an Oriental Adventures book for its 3rd Edition ruleset focused on Rokugan, which traditionally is used as the setting of Legend of the Five Rings.

Dungeons & Dragons' current Fifth Edition ruleset makes only passing references to a handful of the concepts found in Oriental Adventures, and it's been nearly 20 years since D&D last tried to navigate the outdated stereotypes baked into the world of Kara-Tur. Despite this, Oriental Adventures is a "Mithral Bestseller" on the DMs Guild, meaning that over 2,500 people have purchased the old supplement, and that Wizards of the Coast has received 50% of the profits from those sales. Even the use of the word "Oriental" is problematic, with many considering its use when describing people or cultures to be offensive.

Kwan goes into more detail about the problematic elements of Oriental Adventures as part of the "Asians Read" series on his Asians Represent Twitch channel. The episodes discussing Oriental Adventures can be found here.

You can keep your print copies for now, BIGOT. Also, this will not be used as a pretext to remove other books from the back catalogue at a later date.
Now with a Zine!
ⓘ This post is disputed by official sources

Ratman_tf

  • Alt-Reich Shitlord
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 8331
Now they are coming for your old rulebooks
« Reply #1 on: June 29, 2020, 05:18:05 PM »
Who could ever have predicted this?

Grab your copies while you can. The book burners are on the march.
The notion of an exclusionary and hostile RPG community is a fever dream of zealots who view all social dynamics through a narrow keyhole of structural oppression.
-Haffrung

DocJones

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 1082
  • theofascist
Now they are coming for your old rulebooks
« Reply #2 on: June 29, 2020, 05:18:39 PM »
The title of the article says "Dungeons & Dragons Fans", when clearly they are not.

hedgehobbit

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 1287
Now they are coming for your old rulebooks
« Reply #3 on: June 29, 2020, 05:35:39 PM »
Quote from: DocJones;1137002
The title of the article says "Dungeons & Dragons Fans", when clearly they are not.
It's a podcast of two people that are, to the surprise of no one, making a BDSM RPG called Honey and Hot Wax. Oh, and they, of course, were nominated for a 2019 Ennie award.

Armchair Gamer

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • A
  • Posts: 3009
Now they are coming for your old rulebooks
« Reply #4 on: June 29, 2020, 05:48:03 PM »
I must admit I'm surprised.

I really thought they'd go after Van Richten's Guide to the Vistani first.

tenbones

  • Poobah of the D.O.N.G.
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 6165
Now they are coming for your old rulebooks
« Reply #5 on: June 29, 2020, 05:52:53 PM »
Yay these retards have been gaming since 2015 and have come to tell us all how we've had it all wrong for the last forty-years. Gee got any pro-tips for us up-and-comers?

Wait til they find out the Kara-Tur boxset was written by a black man... Oh the mental contortions we'll never see because I doubt they'll every publicly discuss it...

Melan

  • Creeped out by the \'Net
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 3757
Now they are coming for your old rulebooks
« Reply #6 on: June 29, 2020, 06:23:55 PM »
Quote from: hedgehobbit;1137006
It's a podcast of two people that are, to the surprise of no one, making a BDSM RPG called Honey and Hot Wax. Oh, and they, of course, were nominated for a 2019 Ennie award.
Why am I not even surprised.
Now with a Zine!
ⓘ This post is disputed by official sources

yabaziou

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 529
  • I am currently creating my own rpg settings
Now they are coming for your old rulebooks
« Reply #7 on: June 29, 2020, 06:37:28 PM »
Those podcast members are US citizens larping being Asians, since despite their genetic heritage coming from East Asia, they are first and foremost entitled western (like many western regardless of their skin color). I am pretty sure that actual chineses, koreans, vietnames have far more presting concerns that the collections of cliches in Oriental Adventures (orient is the Latin to say east and Asia is the Greek's way). Lest not forget that AD&D setting is full of cliches about medieval Europe which also to be wrong like those in OA. They are making a power move to gain (undue) influence over D&D and WotC. And of course, they are not D&D fans, ignoring that exceptional strength was already in the PHB 1e, Comeliness was from UA and Kim Mohan is not an Asian (I shit you not, go on YouTube to check their take on OA, where they are super boring and make those stupid mistakes that are called out in the comments. It is so bad that an US citizen with Japanese calls them out in a comment calling them racists, whom they probably are). And of course the elephant in the china store is the fact their forebears flew their countries to find peace and prosperity in the USA ...
My Tumblr blog : http://yabaziou.tumblr.com/

Currently reading : 13th Age, Cypher System, Polaris

Currently planning : Project Scourge : the battle for the Soul of Mankind using 13th Age

Currently playing : The Chronicles of the Devouring Lands using D&D 5.

Arkansan

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 1282
Now they are coming for your old rulebooks
« Reply #8 on: June 29, 2020, 06:48:13 PM »
Quote from: hedgehobbit;1137006
It's a podcast of two people that are, to the surprise of no one, making a BDSM RPG called Honey and Hot Wax. Oh, and they, of course, were nominated for a 2019 Ennie award.

Imagine my shock. What is it with SJW's and weird sex stuff?

Tom Kalbfus
BANNED

  • BANNED
  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • ?
  • Posts: 315
Now they are coming for your old rulebooks
« Reply #9 on: June 29, 2020, 06:52:37 PM »
Portraying Asians as Asians is terrible! Asia has a bunch of unique cultures, they are different from the west, do the woke crowd prefer to have asians show up in the legend of King Arthur in a suit of plate mail on a horse with a lance as a European style knight. Alongside the black knight, that is he's black underneath the armor, not in armor that is painted black. The woke crowd would rather have asians and blacks represented in standard D&D rather than in their own environment as Samurai and Ninjas. In the same light, blacks belong in a European village, not in the jungles of Africa with spears. I think this attitude is derogatory towards their native culture if they think they need to be portrayed in a European environment in a fully integrated medeaval village complete with subways and basketball courts.

jeff37923

  • Knight of Common Sense
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 18318
Now they are coming for your old rulebooks
« Reply #10 on: June 29, 2020, 06:54:29 PM »
Quote from: hedgehobbit;1137006
It's a podcast of two people that are, to the surprise of no one, making a BDSM RPG called Honey and Hot Wax. Oh, and they, of course, were nominated for a 2019 Ennie award.

Weirdos like these two give other kinky people a bad name.....
"Meh."

LiferGamer

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Posts: 272
  • babbling idiot
    • Delcars Dungeon
Now they are coming for your old rulebooks
« Reply #11 on: June 29, 2020, 07:00:16 PM »
I went ahead and bought a copy from drive-thru RPG, even though I think I have the PDF already and might still have the hardback.

I keep vainly hoping that sooner or later the bean counters are going to get through to the people that do things for gestures, and that voting with our wallets will actually do some good.
Your Forgotten Realms was my first The Last Jedi.

If the party is gonna die, they want to be riding and blasting/hacking away at a separate one of Tiamat's heads as she plummets towards earth with broken wings while Solars and Planars sing.

Innocent Smith

  • Jr. Member
  • **
  • I
  • Posts: 54
Now they are coming for your old rulebooks
« Reply #12 on: June 29, 2020, 07:00:29 PM »
How can stereotypes be "outdated"?

Lynn

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 1982
Now they are coming for your old rulebooks
« Reply #13 on: June 29, 2020, 07:30:54 PM »
I can't say I was ever impressed with Oriental Adventures or many other RPG products that just jumbled together a mix of badly researched tropes from different parts of Asia. The Pathfinder "Asia" stuff is worse. I think a lot of them just copied off of each other and then just duplicated their references.

But if this is how these guys feel, then I guess it would be okay to now allow them to import or watch any anime (or read manga) that relies on equally badly researched tropes and stereotypes of Western historical characters or periods. But this should only apply to Asian Americans that are offended by it, as so many Asians (in Asia) aren't princess Millennial snowflakes and really don't give a crap.
Lynn Fredricks
Entrepreneurial Hat Collector

SHARK

  • The Great Shark Hope
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 5048
Now they are coming for your old rulebooks
« Reply #14 on: June 29, 2020, 07:31:37 PM »
Greetings!

Oh, Geesus. This is such bullshit. What the fuck is "racist" about Oriental Adventures? The book is a fantasy fucking mish-mash of Asian cultures, people, history and myth--in the same ways that the basic AD&D milieu is a fantasy mish-mash of European cultures, people, history and myth.

That's called fucking equality.

There's no nefarious or malicious intentions behind *any* of it. It is stuff made up for a fucking game. Oh, and besides the basic mish-mash, it's also highly seasoned with ideas and inspiration from Hollywood, cinema, and film, in addition to fantasy books and literature.

God these people are fucking stupid as fuck. How about some of these executives and high-placed game designers just tell these whining bitches to "Shut the fuck up, sobbing bitches! The books stay the way they are. End of story. Whine some more, and you're done. You can collect your final check on Friday."

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