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The original was posted on /r/osr by /u/Lixuni98 on 2023-09-18 21:09:38.
Greetings everybody!
For those who don’t know me, I have already worked on free Dark Sun and Spelljammer conversions for Old School Essentials, two projects for which I am deeply proud of and thank everyone for the support and feedback.
I am currently doing the works of assembling the drafts for my next conversion project, a source document for East Asian Fantasy for Old School Essentials, based on the known ad&d supplement, Oriental Adventures.
After getting familiarized with the original books (both 1e and 3e), things have gotten a little bit more complicated, as I can safely say these books are a mess that would absolutely not fly today. For those who may not have read them, Gygax got inspired by pop culture regarding east asia, like Martial Arts movies, filled with kung-fu, ninjas, samurai and many other stuff that make for very good and fun entertainment, but in a setting book that claims to cast light into East Asian fantasy… Yeah, it’s not good at best, stereotypical at worst, even the name is controversial (Oriental seems to have a negative connotation nowadays, for some reason). Glaring problems come from the classes it introduced, the races, the honor system and more or less the lack of depth from its supposed source material (Kung Fu Movies rather than true mythology).
I do think, however, that the concept is perfectly viable, should one just improve on its concept. Me myself have been gotten familiarized with lots of eastern asian mythology (the original works), but turns out that a small big problem has came up (no pun intended), and it is that Eastern Asia (As defined a the lands of China, Tibet, Mongolia, Korea and Japan) is HUGE, but like extremely huge, enough for these four countries mentioned to be so different, both in society structure, myths, heroic achetypes, etc; that it would be very hard to put into a single rpg book, and I would like to ask you all about what type of approach should I take to make an effective rendition of Oriental Adventures, as well as any input, feedback or guide I should consult to make it, if you are willing to give it.
Nonetheless, I hope and would like to receive all feedback I could get, as this could be my most challenging work so far. Thanks for all the support
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