Year: 1985
Author: Gary Gygax
Publisher: TSR
Background:
Oriental Adventures is one of the first of its kind: an attempt to bring an eastern influence into the western fantasy dominated area of fantasy RPG's. Many of the tropes found in later attempts stem back to this book. The book is more than a supplement to AD&D, including new rules such as honor system.
Thoughts:
As one of the first attempts to bring Asian culture into fantasy RPG's, a lot of forgiveness and leeway can be given to the structure of the book. First, like many similar work, Japan is the primary focus of the book rather than China: ninja, samurai, and the naming schemes are largely Japanese.
David Cook acknowledges this in the preface:
"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. Japan's history and culture provides greater opportunities for adventure and advancement...Of course, anyone who looks carefully at China will find the same occurred there. However, fewer people cared to write about it."
A bias in favor of Japan back then was born of academics: Japan at the time was more readily accessible to scholars, so the bulk of books in the 1980's dealt with Japanese culture. There are some notable exceptions to this - Needham's Science and Civilization of China and others - but the reason for their favoring of Japan is understandable, if disappointing.
As with Mystic China, the focus on the book is fantasy, so science is all but absent from the series. Instead, the focus is on Asian magic and mysticism, with material drawn from several folktales, such as animal spirits and monsters. Interestingly, though, the magic spells are presented in the western style of discrete spells and incantations, while Asian magic tended to favor less compartmentalized approaches.
The honor system they implement is fun and an interesting addition to the rules. Many of the creatures do accurately reflect Asian folklore and tales, providing some nice encounters to the campaign possibilities. And while today ninjas and samurai have been reduced to cliches for Asian gaming, the version of ninjas implemented here is a genuine attempt to capture their hidden assassin role.
Religion is largely missing from the book. The wu jen are similar to many Taoist hermits in Chinese history and the monks are nominally Buddhists, but there is very little religion given to the characters. This is a surprising oversight given its usefulness in world building.
One minor point is that anime shape shifters are not allowed to be samurai in the book. For those who read Bleach, the example of Komamura - a humanoid fox whose powers follow a samurai theme - this exclusion is puzzling.
Takeaways:
As one of the first attempts to bring Asia to the western gaming scene, Oriental Adventures definitely set the tone for developments decades down the line. The classes it offered, the focus on fantasy and magic over science, and the overall tone have all been carried down the line by works such as Rokugan and Wu Xing: The Ninja Crusade.
In our modern day case, the preference for Japan over China is not due to dearth of materials (Sinologists have produced numerous authoritative work documenting every period of Chinese history), but familiarity. Anime has generally skewed things in Japan's favor in such a manner. Even Tephra takes more cues from Japanese pop culture than Chinese culture. In this manner, Oriental Adventures remains very mainstream.
Daizhong's heavy Chinese focus and its emphasis on technology and science over mysticism, though science done in a manner consistent with Chinese philosophy, should help expand some of the well tread ground Oriental Adventures first broke.
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