So I've seen some pissing and moaning from severalth-generation Americans who just happen to at some point in the distant past had some Asian blood in them. Or maybe not. Maybe they're of German descent. I'm mostly German. Fuck Hitler. Fuck modern day Germany for that matter. They can eat a dick. And I'll take whatever I want from their folklore and murder it with a goddamn axe in D&D. Because here's the thing: Who gives a shit? Nationalism is a preposterous standard of judgment or metric of offense. Built by small minds to seek to keep themselves above others. Racial identity is also something only racist people actually care about.
I believe in equality. So I consider everybody's folklore worth taking the axe to. This isn't cultural appropriation. Nobody pretends that Ogre Magi (which are actually Japanese Oni renamed) are an actual Japanese thing that you're killing when you kill them. There's no racial bias. there's no racist intent. They aren't a specific race's property. They're some make believe shit. It's all make believe bullshit.
Let's do an experiment. A Japanese person, who's never set foot on any country outside Japan and can't speak English, is playing D&D but only using creatures from English, French, Irish, Italian, German, Scandinavian, Spanish, and what the hell Swedish folklore. Does anybody give a shit? The answer is no. What if they modify everything to make it much more gameable? Does anyone care? Not a soul. So why is anyone pissing and moaning about midwesterners playing a game with Korean, Japanese, and Chinese folklore modified and mixed to make it more gameable? It's because there's an agenda at work. A midwestern table of white people playing samurai in Asian Middle-Earth isn't hurting anyone's fucking culture, any more than a table of Asian people playing knights in standard Middle-Earth.
D&D has always been above the real world garbage that is currently being injected into it by non-gaming identitarian idiots who like to pretend they are gamers. Go pop some popcorn, dye your hair a new color, watch Critical Role, and leave anything D&D related to the real nerds. Yes, you bet your ass I'm gatekeeping. You and only you don't deserve to be invited to the party, because you're going to shit in the punch bowl and cry if people don't want to take a drink.
Because here's the god's fucking truth: nerds are the ones who design games right. Nerds are those who have the real creativity and wherewithal to form interesting quality content. You don't. You don't have a creative bone in your fucking body. And you're so envious of those who do you want to censor everything into bland, uninteresting, unformed, vague trash.
And you're not worth the bullshit you bring with you.
