DUNGEONS & DRAGONS: ORIENTAL ADVENTURES
Full of Oriental Flavor
When I was a kid, I never played Dungeons and Dragons, which is my generation's Magic the Gathering / Yu-Gi-Oh / Harry Potter / Lord of the Rings. Only nerds played D&D.
But my avoidance of D&D should not make you think I was one of the cool kids. After all, the reason I never played was out of fear. Why? True story: An older kid in my hometown committed suicide because his characters started losing strength. My invisible friends and I were truly horrified at the possibility that our characters might start to die, and thus, we just stuck to Rubik's Cube contests.
I reminisced about all this a few days ago with my imaginary buddies when I found the book "Official Advanced Dungeons & Dragons: Oriental Adventures" on sale at the Dana Point Library for only fifty cents. Who's jealous?
If you thought Pan-Asian restaurants lumped together all things Asian, this book will blow your mind. From the back cover:
The mysterious and exotic Orient, land of spices and warlords, has at last opened her gates to the West. For beginners or experts, players or DMs, this book holds all the information on oriental character classes, races, spells, magical items, weapons, fighting styles, and monsters. The world of samurai and ninja awaits!Characters from "Oriental Barbarian" to "Korobokuru (Oriental dwarves)" can gain ponts for honor (e.g., "avenging murder of family member") and lose points for dishonor (e.g., "requesting a favor").
To establish authenticity, the author even includes a bibliography of 50 sources that provide background on all things Japanese, Chinese, and Korean.
I was going to give the book to O-Dub for Christmas until I learned from a 2004 Amazon customer review of the book that "This is how Oriental D&D books should be ... The only fault in this book is that it is written in archaic 1st Edition D&D rules, which is not that easily adapted to 3.5."
Who wants to play?
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