EN World Does Postcolonialism

A couple of weeks ago, EN World featured an article on East Asian-flavored supplements for D&D. The discussion centered on the Oriental Adventures sourcebooks that were published for the game's 1st and 3rd editions, in 1985, and 2001, respectively. The author, Mike Tresca, opines that, starting with the name, and ending with the content, these supplements constitute examples of exoticizing the Other, and cultural appropriation. Tresca approvingly quotes one reviewer to the effect that these published settings "reinforced western culture's already racist understanding of the 'Orient'". Conversely, the modern game, must reflect the diversity of its fan base. There is little reason to design culture-specific classes and other character options - after all, fighters, healers, and spellcasters can come from any culture. As such, the game is "unlikely [to] get another Oriental Adventures title", and, by implication, setting, which D&D, in his view, has outgrown.

A samurai from the 3e cover of Oriental Adventures

There are several issues to disentangle in this piece, which, in fairness, constitutes the beginning of a discussion, and not a well thought-out piece of social theory. If the focus is purely terminological, it is hard to disagree with Tresca's argument. Though there was little reason to expect that Gary Gygax and his collaborators, who had come of age in a wargaming milieu of the 1950s and 60s, should be familiar with the academic critique of Orientalism launched by Edward Said in 1978, the recycling of the title in 2001 really was inexcusable. The people responsible for the 3e version had not only been educated in academic environments that had been quite thoroughly transformed by Said's critique, but they had been exposed to historical-fantasy games based on fairly meticulous research, rather than a conflating Orientalism, from a fairly young age. Moreover, it is hard to disagree that the chanting of "Banzai" by white tournament winners of the Legend of the Five Rings card game that was associated with the 3e Oriental Adventures setting is in poor taste - a fact recognized by the LotFR designers, who removed the chant from their site.

With respect to broader thematic questions, the issue becomes significantly more muddled. Is any treatment of Japanese, Chinese, Philippine, Korean, and Mongolian culture an unjustified "lumping together" for the benefit of the totalizing and reductionist perspectives of the colonizer? Certainly, serious treatment of the East Asian region as a coherent whole exists in contemporary academic literature, and it exists in a variety of RPG systems as well. D&D, being a mass-marketed and well-established game, appeals to a broader audience that may not, in its entirely, always appreciate painstaking research of source material, but the notion that detailed historical research cannot inform D&D settings while it informs that of other game systems seems difficult to justify. For all its faults, the 3e version of Oriental Adventures was much better grounded in East Asian cultures than the AD&D version. There is little reason why further improvements cannot be made by designers who possess the requisite background in the region's history and mythology. There is no reason why the setting design cannot be sufficiently nuanced to make the players understand that it includes multiple cultures, instead of a single "Oriental" monoculture. To an extent, even the existing older versions have made this plain - the region of Kara-Tur is composed of multiple countries, some of which more closely resemble parts of China, others Japan, Korea, and so on. There is a legitimate point to be made about the rather Japan-centric perspective behind the class and race design of Oriental Adventures, which is certainly reductionist, but reflective of the legacy of that impact which Japanese culture had on western imaginations in the 70s and 80s, when gaming culture was young. It would certainly make sense to make a new edition more Sinocentric, reflective of the more outsize influence China historically had (and is now starting to have again) on regional development and integration. If that means more youxia and fewer samurai, then so be it. Calling a supplement Kara-Tur - a name familiar enough to the fan-base to facilitate sales - gets away from the Japan-centrism as well - the name is more evocative of Central Asian languages, anyway.

The larger issue in the review, to my mind, is a certain skepticism about historical or folklore-based settings in general. To my mind, this skepticism is unwarranted. Tresca is aware of the popularity of the Kara-Tur-based settings, and of the fact that part of its popularity is derived from a certain multicultural appeal. The fantasy feels different than standard-issue D&D, which draws much more heavily on a European cultural matrix. On top of that, the multi-cultural appeal is not simply one of othering - counterpoising an undifferentiated East to the West. There was (and is) a similar appeal to the Al-Qadim (vaguely Middle-Eastern or West Asian-themed) setting. Though there are Orientalist elements in this setting also, the existence of two distinct "non-Western" settings (three, if one counts the Mesoamerican-themed Maztica), which reinforces regional coherence, breaks down Orientalism. As Said pointed out, the Orient is undifferentiated because it is simply a negation of those properties associated with the West. If there one recognizes a number of distinct regions that are defined by virtue of their own coherence, then these regions are not simply exotic negations, but entities in their own right.

Cover art from the Al-Qadim supplement

I don't have much attachment to the Forgotten Realms as a whole, or to the specific geographic regions like Kara-Tur and Zakhara in which that serve as backdrops for such "alternative" settings. But historically-based settings speak to me in ways that most entirely fictional ones like Eberron, Dark Sun, or Dragonlance do not. I find the former more interesting because they draw on institutions, power relations, economic set ups, and narratives that are grounded in actual societies, and for this reason, are at least arguably capable of generating richer immersion and role-playing experiences than most purely fictional settings. Judging by the many of the comments on Tresca's article, many other gamers have their imaginations stimulated by such settings, too. Is this stimulation necessarily a sign of an atavistic colonialist mentality that seeks to enjoy the exotic by appropriating the cultural values of people whose historical roots lie in locales outside the West?

Policing the imagination in a hobby like role-playing games, which is escapist by definition, is a difficult proposition. One can certainly ask that those who draw on historical and real-world cultural material to design settings raise their standards, treat the material with respect, and draw heavily on material composed by people with a solid grounding in regional cultures. The biggest influences on early East Asian-themed RPGs were Kurosawa films and kung-fu movies, composed partly with a Western consumer in mind, but hard to accuse of being Orientalist impositions. Since then, the genre of East Asian historical fantasy has been greatly enriched by anime, wuxia films (most notably by Ang Lee), Jin Yong's Legend of the Condor Heroes series, and game-relevant scholarly production too numerous to mention (the work of the California School historians first and foremost). Working such material into setting design, and weeding out remaining Orientalist tropes seem like worthwhile projects. Dumping historical fantasy because it has been put to Orientalist uses before does not.

Chult: Orientalism or diverse and innocent pulp?

An additional issue revolves around diversity. The diversity championed by Tresca is graphically depicted in the art of the core rulebooks, which depict people of different races, genders, and cultural backgrounds. For an established system with vast reach like D&D, having these sorts of representations in the main ruleset, applicable as it is to a variety of settings, is right and proper. But the multicultural ethos that champions supermarket-style equipment lists, universally-applicable character class lists, and 'adventuring parties that look like America' may also be cited as a cultural imposition. Today, the hobby is fast expanding into parts of the world that may be multicultural, but that have an entirely distinct historical background and demographic mix. Historically-based settings should be open to a degree, but spelling out what the main ethnic and religious groups are, where foreigners are likely to come from, and distinct classes that are representative of the setting do not strike me as necessarily Orientalist.

If cultural appropriation and imposition is a problem, games like D&D still have a significant amount of decolonizing to do. The issue is not broached by Tresca, but it should come as a surprise to no one that many character options, abilities, and properties have decidedly Eurocentric origins. Classes such as paladins, clerics, bards, and arguably several others are based on obvious European exemplars, and most of the core races are taken from European mythology. The bulk of cleric spells evoke Biblical miracles. Blowguns and elephants notwithstanding, most items on equipment lists are representative of commodities available in late-medieval European markets. Arguably, the imposition of such models on non-European historical-fantasy settings constitutes cultural imperialism, no matter how such characters or items are graphically depicted. Similar (and legitimate) critiques were made of theorists like Andre Gunder Frank, who insisted that Chinese and Indian civilizations were based on market principles no less than industrial Europe. But what appeared as a critique of Eurocentrism was in reality a universalization of modern European structures.

Lastly, the notion that Wizards of the Coast is unlikely to do updates of Kara-Tur and Al-Qadim-type settings on account of their Orientalism stumbles on the reality that Wizards has arguably already published Orientalist supplements as part of the recent (5th) edition. Some commenters on Tresca's article point out Tomb of Annihilation, an adventure path published last year, and set in a jungle inhabited by dark-skinned natives speaking a click-based language, blowgun-wielding cultists, and mask-wearing goblins organizing themselves in battle stacks is clearly Orientalist. As I have pointed out elsewhere, the Curse of Strahd adventure path is a classically Orientalist depiction of Eastern Europe. Eastern Europe is one region that it is still Ok to orientalize in RPGs, and champions of Strahdiana typically point out that the gothic adventure is made just for fun. I suppose: Is no fun, Is no Blinsky!

On the whole, despite possible pitfalls, I would like to see more historical-fantasy offerings from Wizards (including a more "European" setting, though I realize that it will never happen with Faerun), and I see no reason why these cannot be cleansed of Orientalist elements. It looks like it won't happen this year, which seems like it will bring happiness to fans of the Planescape, Dark Sun, and Eberron settings; but I take hope from Mike Mearls' excitement at the prospect of an update of the Al-Qadim setting in the future.