


TSR needed a place where they could write a bunch of adventures where you could be a samurai, or a ninja, and this is what they made. This is pretty obvious y China/Mongolia/Japan, throw some Asian-sounding words in and change the coasts a bit. I'm going to say it frankly this completely lacks imagination. The real world has a huge variety of cultures crammed into it, there's no reason a fantasy world can't have as many. If you just wanted a more traditional, stereotypical fantasy game rooted in Western European themes, Cormyr and the Dalelands were right there. If a DM wanted to run an adventure or a plotline where the PC's visit an Arabian-themed area, without starting a new campaign, Calimshan or Zakhara was available. It has meant that if someone wanted to play a ninja or a samurai in a traditional D&D game, a handy excuse that they were from Kozakura or Wa was available. One big reason that Forgotten Realms has been one of, if not THE most popular D&D setting over the last 30 years or so has been that you can run a LOT of different styles of games and themes depending on where you play. Part of the awesomeness of the Forgotten Realms is that diversity, that it has several continents, filling a broad spectrum of styles and themes, both pastiches of a vast spectrum of real-world cultures and examples of all the common fantasy tropes. You don't need an entire separate pseudo-Asian "World" just for there to be a separate D&D setting for it. You don't need to go off and put something in a whole different world for it to be a different setting. Just like the real world has Asia as a whole different continent.
