Dungeon Fantasy: Oriental Adventures

[b-dog]

Do you think there will ever be an oriental version of DF?

[Phantasm]

Part of me hopes so. Another part of me wonders if such a deal would be, like the D&D3e Oriental Adventures book, be almost exclusively based on Japanese culture and ignore Indian, Chinese, Korean, and Indochinese cultures. Some people do tend to forget that Japan is not the whole of the Orient (I blame anime for this line of thought, really).

Perhaps individual DF supplements for India, China, Japan, Korea, and the Indochinese Peninsula would be the way to go?



On an related note, yet slightly off-topic, there is one player who constantly tries to work katanas, nunchaku, and other Japanese/Okinawan weapons into my homebrew setting's Far East, despite the setting document explaining in black and white that such weapons do not exist in the setting.

[Gudiomen]

Originally Posted by tbrock1031

Perhaps individual DF supplements for India, China, Japan, Korea, and the Indochinese Peninsula would be the way to go?

Don't see it happening, that's not the point to DF. DF adresses classigal dungeon delving needs... while D&D has shamelessly added exotic (but frivolous) stuff to get you buying, DF probably won't go there. I mean, you can do "oriental" with some of the stuff presented in 3e sourcebooks, 4e Martial Arts, etc... The main thing oriental cultures brought to dungeon delving was unnarmed combat, cinematic techniques with an exotic touch, etc... all those are already attainable with default DF and GURPS.

Publishing an actual culture-book in DF light would be a waste.

edit: and in Dungeon Fantasy "orient" probably is one culture and it's simply the source of new monsters, loot and exotic abilities.

[Turhan's Bey Company]

Originally Posted by tbrock1031

Perhaps individual DF supplements for India, China, Japan, Korea, and the Indochinese Peninsula would be the way to go?

DF Indochina makes about as much sense as DF Portugal. DF is a mishmash of fantasy tropes relative to bashing things over the head and taking treasure. Addressing specific real-world cultures in that context just doesn't work.

However, I can see an opening for DF: Ethnic Badassery. One could probably get a book out of "ultimate" martial arts styles, unstoppable fencing thrusts and impenetrable parries, Lakota warriors, and katanas which can cut tanks in half.

[PK]

I don't really see why we'd need a book on such things -- we already have Samurai (Knight), Kensai (Swashbuckler), and Monk (Martial Artist) templates. There's absolutely no reason not to (and little effort involved to) use some of the weapons from GURPS Martial Arts in a DF game. Add in DF3's power-ups for characters and I think everything's pretty much covered for "oriental-ethnically badass" PCs.

[sir_pudding]

Note that DF1 page 26 says that you can buy TL0-4 weapons from MA regardless of culture.

[Xenophile]

I imagine that if DF created any official "distant lands" for characters to go to or come from, then they'd all be in one book. A book, I should add, that I would buy in an instant.

[KlausPrinceOfTheUndeads]

OTOH, such a supplement would be good to emulate those "Oriental adventures" official modules and those HR and classes you can still find on the net, all of which date back to the days of OD&D.
That's why I'm making a Samurai template for Pyramid right now. :-)

[Greg 1]

Heh. It probably makes no sense from a business point of view, but it would be fun. Some flavorful character templates, new powers, a few notes on "oriental" wizardry, a stack of "oriental" monsters, some "oriental" treasures, and some genre notes on making your dungeon crawl an "oriental" dungeon crawl.

I'd buy it, but I'll bet not many would. A bit too weird for anyone who didn't grow up drooling over Oriental Adventures for AD&D.

[kmunoz]

Originally Posted by Greg 1

A bit too weird for anyone who didn't grow up drooling over Oriental Adventures for AD&D.

And anyone who really hates the word "oriental."