Quote from: CRKrueger;1137257If you think this is crap, the same people are doing a critical review of...
Al Qadim
Currently on the Radar to follow Al Qadim
Kindred of the East
L5R
Rifts:China/Mythic China
Feng Shui

451 has begun

Literal fucking LOL. Needs to be 2572 though because that's the temp silicon melts.

I'm flagging this post so Pundit can look at this thread...I know he doesn't want politics on the site, but I don't think that's going to be remotely possible given the utter fucking retardation that is going on in the world.

Quote from: Ratman_tf;1137194In the end, WOTC can burn all of their TSR products and delete all the digital copies and post a picture on their website of a dog pissing on Gary Gyxax's grave.

Step one would be to get WotC to publicly admit that their older game books are problematic. A goal accomplished just a few weeks ago. At this point, WotC would be hypocritical if they didn't pull all of AD&D from DriveThru. We'll see if and how WotC can navigate the situation where they are openly selling product that they, themselves, have labeled as problematic.

Oh! Pray tell, whatever happened to "It is okay to enjoy problematic things"?

Whoops!

Turned out that was a LIE... like every other LIE these LYING LIARS have LIED.

"Never negotiate with terrorists. You'll only encourage more acts of terror.

On the one hand, I don't like the precedent. On the other, I have no problem with WOTC not profiting from this. Anyone that really wants it can find it easly for free somewhere on the internet. We need an alternative marketplace pronto, though.

Quote from: Melan;1137263Oh! Pray tell, whatever happened to "It is okay to enjoy problematic things"?

Whoops!

Turned out that was a LIE... like every other LIE these LYING LIARS have LIED.

"Never negotiate with terrorists. You'll only encourage more acts of terror.

Remember when they said they weren't coming for our video games?

https://www.polygon.com/2014/7/29/5947661/the-nightmare-is-over-theyre-not-coming-for-your-games

Yeah. Video games are next door to table top RPGs, and the sentiment is the same, often from the same people.

Has there been any official response to the article from the OP? As far as I can see, the Oriental Adventures PDF is still available to buy here:

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/17334/Oriental-Adventures-1e

I'm fine with my hard copy, personally.

Quote from: Melan;1137263Oh! Pray tell, whatever happened to "It is okay to enjoy problematic things"?

Whoops!

Turned out that was a LIE... like every other LIE these LYING LIARS have LIED.

I've said that before, and I still mean it. I disagree with the article calling for OA to be taken off sales. There are a lot of other liberals who disagree too.

Given the way articles pop up like this, or DNC tweets how white supremacist the 4th of July is, and the general move to remove things from history like OA, that overton window has slid so far that the term Liberal now means just right of center.  Enjoy the decline.

The SJW's goal is far more than taking away old "problematic" games.

(1) They want to scare publishers and game designers into obedience.

(2) And they want all the old "problematic" gamers out of the hobby.

That's their goals.

Once they get WotC to take down "problematic" books from DriveThruRPG, the next step will be getting DriveThruRPG to ban anything adjacent to the "problematic" material so future publishers will know they have no marketplace. Of course, they'll get "problematic" games on banned lists for conventions - as we have already seen happen with ACKS and others. Wanna play OA at a future GenCon? Nope. Not gonna happen. And if we try to have our own convention, you can bet the hotel chain will get brigaded for "catering to Nazis".

And while they can't dictate what you play in your own home (yet), they can certainly make this forum the very last place you can speak about anything unapproved. It's the identical playbook as what's happening to conservatives on social media - ban their popular members then push their voices out of the public sphere into some minor online corner.

Well the Satanic Panic, while nutty had a lot of clout and of course the religious right which one must never discount its influence in America.  I can see why from a purely marketing standpoint TSR was a little worried.

This is two f*ckwits with nothing better to do than stir up some imagined issue with a book that they came across on Drive Thru while browsing.  If Drive Thru drops it for this weak a reason, then we have reached the endgame of social stupidity.

Of course it could be a way to get publicity to shovel their crap product and let everyone know they exist.
No such thing as bad publicity and all that.

Quote from: Brad;1137260I'm flagging this post so Pundit can look at this thread...I know he doesn't want politics on the site, but I don't think that's going to be remotely possible given the utter fucking retardation that is going on in the world.

Up to the point of this post, the thread has nothing I'd consider a violation.

Oriental Adventures is based on silly stereotypes from movies and comics and pop culture rather than real history and culture.

So is the Forgotten Realms, Dragonlance, and Greyhawk.

Why aren't European-descended people complaining about the stereotyping of Medieval Europe in those settings, which is JUST AS RIDICULOUS AND FULL OF INACCURACIES as OE is to Asia.

As others pointed out, the real answer here is that if you want historically and culturally accurate Asian settings for D&D, which I agree would be utterly awesome, you should do as I did for Europe (and, for that matter, India) and WRITE a historically and culturally accurate setting.

On the other hand if what you want is to show off your totalitarianism through book banning, then what you ought to do is go fucking find someone to beat you to death to the great benefit of humanity.

What puzzles me about this is that I lived in China for 5 years and their TV runs a ton of historical dramas. I asked my friends there about the tropes in the shows that seemed to be stepping way over into stereotype land. They thought I was crazy for asking as those are the standards from that time, that is why they are used, as a shorthand for this is set in olden times.

Same thing for the Japanese TV and movies I watched.

Sometimes I wonder if this is just minority angst. Like, those stereotypes are fine inside China where the Han Chinese are the vast majority, but when you are a minority living in another land you are more sensitive?

Is there an actual list of specific examples of what the latest outrage is complaining about?

Oh, and one of my friends in Shanghai is a white guy who works as an actor and has made a good career playing the stereotypical white guy for whatever story on TV needs one.

When I saw this news drop, I scuttled over to snag a used print version. There were only a handful of listings at that point. Now there's only one, and it's $200 https://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/0880380993/

Also, would anyone put money down that WotC *isn't* going to pull the product? I feel like it's foolish to even hope at this point, but I'd love to be argued into having some.

Quote from: Myrdin Potter;1137290Is there an actual list of specific examples of what the latest outrage is complaining about?

The original article links to a series of video logs. But they're over twenty hours of video (!?!?!). I haven't watched them.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLbQUmmaVBxqob5bR9O4nggup8mhxEsJd5

That said, I did post two examples of what I personally thought of as stereotypes in Post #23. The first was from the section on honor:

QuoteHONOR

Power, wealth, and position--all these mean nothing to a character of the oriental world if he is without honor. Honor is a reflection of his character and the character of his family.
(...)
Oriental honor is different from the honor of a paladin or cavalier. It is not a judgement of good and evil. Characters with high honor are not necessarily good and those with low honor are not necessarily evil. A cruel villain can possess high honor and a heroic samurai, through unfortunate circumstances, might possess low honor. Honor is more a measure of the deeds accomplished by both the character and his family clan. It reflects obedience, loyalty, talent, and success, qualities that can be held by any character regardless of alignment.

So, a European knight's honor is about being good -- but Oriental honor is not. None of the native Japanese RPGs that I've seen have a point system for honor like this. Honor was important in medieval Japan -- but it was important in medieval Europe too! It's a broadly important concept across cultures.

My other example was this one from the section on law:

QuotePersons of high rank, because their responsibilities are greater, often receive special considerations. Actions which are crimes for the commoner are often not if committed by one of a warrior class. Thus, in lands such as Kozakura, a samurai has the right to cut down a commoner he deems to be insulting or truculent without being charged with murder.

Again, this did happen in historical medieval Japan -- but again, it also happened medieval Europe -- and yet you don't find this characterization in standard D&D. In standard AD&D, paladins and cavaliers are generally embodiments of good. They don't cut down commoners for insulting them. But in Oriental Adventures, an honorable samurai isn't idealized in that way.