in b4 weeaboo shit, reported, sage.

Not really.
Most Japanese RPGs are bad (Sword World being one of them).
This is a fact I have learned from a friend from over there, along with a very brief and honest reason as to why.

>>13616478
This is indeed weeaboo shit. But this is 4chan after all, so no sage.

>>13616478
Okay, now that I've got that out of the way, OP that was a friendly reminder about the culture of this board and by extension at least a good percent of tabletop gamers. Many people on this board simply won't buy stuff because it's japanese, not wanting to look "weeaboo" to their friends who collect toy soldiers.
I am very curious about foreign RPGs in general as well. I want to see how our different cultures have made unique games and different takes on game design.

I'm all for having a look at Japanese RPG's. Frankly, I've been wondering about whether such things exist, and in how large scale. Gnome translated Flowers on his own, so I don't think it'd be entirely beyond the board to muster up tentative translations.

But alas, the first stepping stone would be the .pdf. I somehow don't see physical copies, beyond those of Queen's Blade, laying around on the average fa/tg/uy's desk.

Nevertheless, I am enthused by this idea. Being Scandifaginavian, the idea of foreign, unorthodox or downright weird RPG's is pretty much the norm. If Zen penguin survival games work perfectly, why not weeaboo?

I thought tabletop was incredibly unpopular compared to vidya in Nippon.

That said, I don't really like weeabo stuff, but Japanese RPGs seem interesting. As far as anime inspired western tt RPGs, Cthulutech was a neat concept that failed in it's execution.

Isn't Infinity (tt miniatures game) anime inspired?

>Races
Human
Dwarf
Elf
Rune-folk
Tabbit
Nightmare
Lilldraken
GrassRunner

Rune-Folks are pretty cool.

>>13616583
It's Shirow inspired.
"Anime" is a very broad term.

Cred to them for an animal race that isn't completely fur-fag outrageous.

I am actually all for these type of races.
We used to have the Fae in western folklore, and they were scary and mysterious beings.
Then Tolkien showed a more civilized side to some of the major ones, and then it was as if the fae side to them almost dissapeared.

So this is certainly a nice touch.

Bumping this awesome thread. Been looking for Sword World 2.0 pdf's for three years now.

I have the SRS rules, but uncreative to create a whole system myself.

>>13616604
... ffffffffffffFFFFFF-

D'AAAWWWWWW

I don't have experience with them, but I've been told that in a session, the assumption is that the DM is going to tell a story, and that the players will have predetermined roles in that story. Honestly, I don't think that kind of railroading would bother them.

>>13616634
It's the accepted norm in Japan.

Our Elfs are to be expected really.

Grass-Runners.
I actually kind of like them.
They are a bit like our halflings, but less of the gnome and fae stuff tied to them, yet they have things in common with that as well.

Dwarfs.

And yes.
Female dwarfs.
I like them.
No beard.
Rapid hair growth.

>>13616483
And what would that reason be?

I guess every modern edition RPG has lizard folks nowadays.
At least they aren't Dragonborn.

And us.
We can't forget the glorious humans.

>>13616699
They have some sort of cultural thing (passiveness, politeness) that makes them bizarrely BAD at collaborative storytelling. Because of that most of their games are built from a perspective where the player play a passive role with strong dissociation between the mechanics and story. To boot the settings are most often aimed to be inoffensively generic and mild.

But hey. There are exceptions obviously.

>>13616583
>I thought tabletop was incredibly unpopular compared to vidya in Nippon.
TRPGs are actually suprisingly popular in Japan, or at least in certain cities.
And both men and women tend to do it.

>>13616699
That they're having a wrong kind of fun.
Obviously.
Duh.

>>13616736
Oh. That sounds quite dreadful indeed, especially considering western fantasy (ie, what we're used to) is often setting- or world-centric.
Any word about said exceptions?

>>13616736
To be honest this is more of a pre-judice thing, and even then it wouldn't affect only this. It also, wouldn't just affect these types of games.
From what I have heard these kinds of games are even especially popular amongst young people dead tired of being one of the masses in society and the whole cultural thing of hammering down nails that sticks out.
They can get together with similair minded people this way.

I have seen blogs describing it this way at least. But other obviously also play.

>>13616736
Mind you, amateur antropological psychoanalysis of 130 million people might end in somewhat inaccurate results.

Has anyone here actually been to, seen footage of, or read a log of a Japanese RPG session? Before that's handled out of the way, making wild assumptions should be avoided.

... but on a different note, why are all these illustrations so painfully cutesy? Not that I mind, at least they're consistent in quality and not entirely eye-jarring, unlike most of the stuff we get.

>>13616583

About as unpopular as D&D is over here

>>13616766
I know of nothing.
Sticking to this thread to perhaps be informed of one.

>>13616777
Mind you that is the opinion of a person from Japan on the topic of games made and played there.

>Has anyone here actually been to, seen footage of, or read a log of a Japanese RPG session?
You mean a re-play?
Those things are actually mildly popular.
I'm sure there's a lot of people on /tg/ who know at least Lodoss.

>>13616621

There's a SRS game called Monotone Museum that's available for free on their site, it's not bad. Kinda like a Renaissance\Age of Exploration D&D setting with slime girls.

>>13616777

Because japanese aren't all GRIMDARKHURRDURR?


Maybe it's to appeal a general audience. They look colorful and average so the genre won't turn people down by looking grim, or just childish.

Personally, I like the light colours mixed with darker shades.

Captcha: Coills Irish. Yes, that's how I like my dwarves. Bearded and wasted.

>>13616736
I can guarantee you that we have some horrible players here in the west as well.

>>13616844
What's horrible about being polite?

>>13616844
... oh, yeah. That. Never forget the "I rape the gnome"-factor.

I wonder what a Japanese That Guy would be like.

>Creative and interesting opening post about games we rarely see.
>First reply is anti
Same as ever I see.

Honestly, I don't think we should just look to the Japanese or anything.

It has been a dream of mine to start a company like ADV or Funimation that licenses and translates RPGs from all over the world. I feel that once we get the RPG community talking on an international scale, we'll see some interesting and fascinating outcomes. I mean, we're already starting to do it here on /tg/.

>BAWWWW U TALK 2 MUCH D7D

>proceed to post some Record of Lodoss War rip-off

>>13616826

You can't tell anything about the experience though, unless you know what the players and GM are saying out of character.

>>13616891
For RPG's, you're pretty much limited to the western world. Apart from Japan, other "exotic" - that is, non-English - entries would propably come from Taiwan, Hong Kong, Russia, Yurop, and what other few niches on the planet there are that are populated by large numbers of young people wealthy enough to be idle enough to have hobbies.

>>13616901
>proceed to post some Record of Lodoss War rip-off
It's the other way around.

>>13616891
As the OP, I wholefully agree.
Perhaps I should have made such a mention in the OP.

But the only big games I know of that are mostly alien to our community are from there.
Otherwise I know of some old and rather obscure games, but they are and have been dead for long and most of them aren't exactly interesting either.
This on the other hand is an alive, big and expanding franchise.

>>13616928
So you're saying that Sword World is just a Jap imitation of D&D, too?

>>13616922

There are still plenty of european (including east european) material that's never in english, though

>>13616981
>>13616901
>trololol weabo lol cancer faggotry aids lol

ralph pls go

>>13616981
No, that's not it.
But they have admitted to have drawn influences from both games.
Sworld World though is admittedly different.
The games have also grown apart from eachother even more since then. So it's even more noticable now.

>>13616777

well aside from Lodoss War (the original, not the tales or whatever it was) there used ta actually be quite a few AARs that got turned into animes, IIRC Berzerk is one that went from game to creative telling to anime, you have to remember that sometimes Japanese gamers can really be creative, and hey there are probably fucktons of Dojins, Animes and Mangas out there that probably started from AARs, of course it could also be because we get so much of our Japanese media in the form of Anime and Manga that we forget about things like the Genji... which IIRC in the original Japanese is about the equivalent of our Cantubury Tales, long and having parts.

I'm no scholar but remember that the English translation is about as long as the complete LotR.

>>13617023
>and having parts missing.

Seriously have no idea how that got cut out.

>>13616928
>>13616981
Record of Lodoss War is based on slightly Sword World inspired D&D game.
But yes, it iss still mostly D&D so that is why it looks like D&D and not Sword World.

>>13617023
I have the first two translated parts of Genji in my bookshelf, actually. I never got further than those though. Dude goes around porking princesses way too much.

And that's saying a lot.

As long as I can be a Berserker like Orson I don't give a fuck, lets play.

Has anyone ever played or read through the Anima book? I've played the card game but not the actual RPG

I think this is relevant to the topic:
http://j-rpg.com/talk/comments.php?DiscussionID=36

http://www.trpg.net/en/faq/

Anyway, I'd love to have a scan of Sword World as the artwork alone interests me. Nowadays, everything is either cutesy (and moe) or grimdark, SW seems to be a "vanilla" flavor that's hard to see nowadays.

(...that and D&D tends to be overtly hero centric. Yes, it's heroic, yeah we play heroes... now could I just see what these worlds, with normal folk look like?)

Gentlemen, exibit 1:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eaeRbup9fus

>>13617635
I hate you.

http://www.kadokawa.co.jp/bk_search.php?ss=disp_title&s=%A5%BD%A1%BC%A5%C9%A5%EF%A1%BC%A5%EB%A5%
C9%A3%B2%A1%A5%A3%B0%A5%EB%A1%BC%A5%EB%A5%D6%A5%C3%A5%AF&SUBMIT=%B8%A1%BA%F7

Not that I think anyone here would want to buy these things in their physical format, especially not in their native Japanese.
But these are the original books in Japanese.
Not the biggest of books, but $10 is really cheap, and together they make up quite decent, and it's still on the more cheaper side.

Then there are of course re-plays, some of which comes with original content/house rules. But these books above are the core of 2.0.

>>13617635

FROM GRIFFN ONE TO OTHER GRIFFN. I'M ARRIVE AT E NEMY'S AREA. THEN I WILL ATTACK THEM.

STARNYA WILL CHARGE!!!

>>13617648

>>13616705
>>Lilldraken
"Little Dragon" in Swedish. In a Japanese RPG. Huh?

>>13617813
Japanese anime and video game developers have an inexplicable hard-on for the Germanic cultures.

>>13617848
World War 2 caused jewish-german refugees to flee germany. The japanese accepted many Jewish-German refugees in secret. This caused a cultural exchange to take place. Just as the Japanese became more American after WWII because of the United States meddling in their affairs, they became more German DURING WWII from all dem Jews running about. After you take into account that it's been a good 3/4 of a century, and the smaller cultural influences have been marginalized and fetishized.

>>13616831

Basic SRS System
https://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=0Ab8gq7Ell030ZGZuMmJqOXNfMTNmd3Q0a3ZjMw&hl=en&pli=1

Monotone Museum
http://www.fear.co.jp/monotone/down.htm

I don't have my notes anymore, but MM is mildly comprehensible when run through google translate.

In case anyone is actually interested in seeing what a jap TTRPG is like, instead of trolling.

>>13617848
Germany was their ally during WWII (which they still see as a noble adventure they've lost... Japan still has to wake up that the shit they pulled in Asia rightly makes them hated by everyone there)...

...also they don't understand, why people find the nazi repulsive (in Japan the significance of the Holocaust is not emphasized) so to them the German uniforms, aesthetic, etc. look fucking rad.

Which is somewhat true, when your cars are made by Ferdinand Porsche and your uniforms are designed by Hugo Boss.

>>13617891
Could you cite some sources, otherwise I'd have to call that total bullshit.

>>13617924
>why people find the nazi repulsive (in Japan the significance of the Holocaust is not emphasized)
Well, there were much more civilians killed by nazi in USSR, but no one cares. Only jewish are getting important PR.

>>13617973
I was not talking about the crimes of Nazi, I was writing why the Japanese don't find Nazi aesthetics repulsive.

But, what the FUCK does that or the Nazi's crimes in Poland and Russia have anything to do with me requiring you to cite sources about Japanese involvement in sheltering Jews from Nazis?

>>13618033
Im unrelated bystander and got no idea what was you talking about. So i just blurted out some unrelated opinion with bad garammar. You know? Just like anyone on /tg/

>>13617635
wat

>>13617972

I'm not him, nor can I be arsed to look up sources, but it's completely true that the Japanese took in a lot of jews. They had some problems with the nazis about it, but it never amounted to anything.

>>13618307

wikipedia is wikipedia, but there's a passing mention here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_response_to_the_Holocaust#Japanese_response_during_Holoca
ust

>>13618362
Then I stand corrected.

I wonder though how much Jewish immigrants shaped the Japanese view of European aesthetics.

However I was wrong to believe that Japan didn't do anything to save the Jew.

I apologize for my rude outburst.

This article also has some interesting parts:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_in_Japan

The big question of course, is why did the japanese take in jews, when they were allied with germany?

The answer is hilarious. With their culture so separate from the rest of the world, the japanese heard the stories about vast jewish plots and conspiracies, and actually believed them. They thought by helping european jews they would be currying favour with countries controlled by jews such as the USA, at a time when they desperately needed trade to supply their asian war effort.

>>13618428

There's also the fact that japanese racism and nazi racism were fundamentally different. The japanese had no idea of "lesser races" and "higher races", only the japanese and "everyone else"; jews were treated the same as any foreigner.

>>13616868
>>I wonder what a Japanese That Guy would be like.
Have you ever seen Detroit Metal City? The guys who play Camus and Krauser are both "That Guy".

>>Has anyone actually seen a JP RP session
Yeah. 2 Americans who started with BD&D and 3 JPs. We tooled around and basically did a bunch of stupid shit with high explosives in a castle/dungeon. Less ten-foot poles, and more guns: also, a lot less paranoia and more Gundam references.

>>13617667
>>I doubt anyone is interested in hardcopies
Actually, I am, very much. I was planning on ordering from Amazon.jp though - they're less xenophobic about their mailing policies.

I'm coming from a fairly unique perspective - there are islands of gringo RPGs (and dice) around the American military bases, and once you get an "in" in the gamer culture there, you have an extremely dedicated group.

Sessions are usually very, very structured - you have a set amount of time laid by to Get Shit Done (ᵗᵐ) - and so there's usually a lot less OOC fucking around (not to say that there's none - the Slayers anime gives you a pretty good idea of the level of said fucking around). Again, there are a lot of throwaway nerd culture references during the sessions, many of which I didn't pick up on or had to have explained to me.

Although the gunmage saying, "blame it on the misfortune of your birth" after killing a pack of enemies with a land mine, that I got.

Anyway, it's a lot like playing an MMO with the JPs. Watch your mouth, be polite, and be prepared to spend essentially every second of the next 4-5 hours playing as hard as you can, because they >will not< slow down for your white ass - they have FUN to be DOING NOW.

Also, Tunnels and Trolls is still ludicrously popular over there compared to here. I'm sure they'd love Shadowrun, but there's this weird thing they seem to have about Rennisance-level Magitek settings.

>>13618707
>Rennisance-level Magitek settings.
But those are great.
Second only to fantasy steampunk.

>>13618836
Not saying they aren't awesome, but.. well, a diet of steak every day, all day, makes steak tiresome even to the steak-lovin'est man on earth.

Y'know.

If someone is willing to point me to a copy of Sword World 2.0 on an english-based site that one could order from, and for fairly cheap, I'd be willing to buy and scan it.

I don't know a lick of Japanese however, so any translations would have to be done by people who know Moon Runes. But it'd be a step forward and I don't mind doing that level of work; the art at the very least, is charming.

>>13619142
Book 1
http://www.amazon.co.jp/%E3%82%BD%E3%83%BC%E3%83%89%E3%83%BB%E3%83%AF%E3%83%BC%E3%83%AB%E3%83%892-0-
%E3%83%AB%E3%83%BC%E3%83%AB%E3%83%96%E3%83%83%E3%82%AF-I-%E5%AF%8C%E5%A3%AB%E8%A6%8B%E3%83%89%E3%83%
A9%E3%82%B4%E3%83%B3%E3%83%BB%E3%83%96%E3%83%83%E3%82%AF-%E5%8C%97%E6%B2%A2/dp/4829145242/ref=sr_1_1
?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1295730582&sr=8-1

Book 2
http://www.amazon.co.jp/%E3%82%BD%E3%83%BC%E3%83%89%E3%83%BB%E3%83%AF%E3%83%BC%E3%83%AB%E3%83%892-0-
%E3%83%AB%E3%83%BC%E3%83%AB%E3%83%96%E3%83%83%E3%82%AFII-%E5%AF%8C%E5%A3%AB%E8%A6%8B%E3%83%89%E3%83%
A9%E3%82%B4%E3%83%B3%E3%83%BB%E3%83%96%E3%83%83%E3%82%AF-%E3%82%B0%E3%83%AB%E3%83%BC%E3%83%97SNE/dp/
4829145293/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1295730622&sr=8-2

Book 3
http://www.amazon.co.jp/%E3%82%BD%E3%83%BC%E3%83%89%E3%83%BB%E3%83%AF%E3%83%BC%E3%83%AB%E3%83%892-0-
%E3%83%AB%E3%83%BC%E3%83%AB%E3%83%96%E3%83%83%E3%82%AFIII-%E5%AF%8C%E5%A3%AB%E8%A6%8B%E3%83%89%E3%83
%A9%E3%82%B4%E3%83%B3%E3%83%BB%E3%83%96%E3%83%83%E3%82%AF-%E3%82%B0%E3%83%AB%E3%83%BC%E3%83%97SNE/dp
/4829145358/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1295730622&sr=8-3

There is also this supplement book "Alchemist Works", and it's also larger, and more expensive.
Though I don't know anything else about it other than it supposedly being a supplement book.
The others are supposed to be the core though.
http://www.amazon.co.jp/%E3%82%BD%E3%83%BC%E3%83%89%E3%83%BB%E3%83%AF%E3%83%BC%E3%83%AB%E3%83%892-0%
E3%82%B5%E3%83%97%E3%83%AA%E3%83%A1%E3%83%B3%E3%83%88-%E3%82%A2%E3%83%AB%E3%82%B1%E3%83%9F%E3%82%B9%
E3%83%88%E3%83%BB%E3%83%AF%E3%83%BC%E3%82%AF%E3%82%B9-%E7%94%B0%E4%B8%AD-%E5%85%AC%E4%BE%8D/dp/48291
76792/ref=pd_sim_b_3

Some random fan-art.

>>13619672
This really could do well with Earthdawn.

>Rennisance-level Magitek settings
Do we have any of that in a non-grimdark game?

>>13619216
>>13619277

Bookmarked.

I likely won't be able to order them until the beginning of next month, but when I get it in I'll make a thread about it. Does one need all 3 books or...well, whats the status on them anyway? Are they a sort of PHB/DMG/MM kind of deal, or what?

While I'd love to provide a comprehensive set of rules for everyone, I'd rather not drop down cash needlessly.

>>13620915
On further ellaboration you might very well want the barbarian/bestiary/monster book.
The other books I don't quite seem to understand, though there seems to be about 4 major supplement books, including these 2 already mentioned.

This one however, should include the PC class Barbarian, and skills/rules to accompany it, and it should also include a whole 200 extra monsters/demons in terms of bestiary.

I am not quite sure, but I believe this book might be somewhat straightforward, which could be good. And additional classes and monsters are always fun.
Especially if there's art to accompany all the monsters.

And I believe it's of the same size and prize as the other supplement book.
Then again, if chosing among the supplement books would prove too hard, which I guess it very well might, then why not be satisfied with the core ones to see if they would garner enough interest for supplement?

Also, though I may be wrong.
I believe the first book covers the absolute basics.
The second book covers the additional classes/skills as well as the additional rules outside of the very basics.
And I believe the third book is of higher level play as well as most of what might be called misc stuff, but also what I would assume to be most of the basic game world monsters.

>>OP
>We should all learn about and play some foreign otherwise unknown RPGs for once, to enrich our culture!
>How about Sword World? It's a really big game yet we don't know anything about it.

>Bleeh, it's just a D&D clone so it sucks!
>Why would that be?
>It's different, therefore it sucks!
>But is it really a clone then if it's different?
>Blaah, it is different I told you, it sucks!
Typical reaction to unknown foreign games.

bump

I should get around to make these classes into Earthdawn disciplines sometime.
Though some of them are already similair, or even identical in concept.
But most of them are good, and it still doesn't stop you to make use of their take on thing.

>Just as the Japanese became more American after WWII because of the United States meddling in their affairs, they became more German DURING WWII from all dem Jews running about.

Jews in Germany were more German than the unwashed masses anyway.

>The japanese had no idea of "lesser races" and "higher races", only the japanese and "everyone else"

Boy, you're gonna be hard-pressed to explain the Anti-Korean sentiment.

>The answer is hilarious. With their culture so separate from the rest of the world, the japanese heard the stories about vast jewish plots and conspiracies, and actually believed them.

This is true though. The whole idea that the Jews are awesome because they've managed to secretly conquer and rule the world is still very present in Japan.

>>13619672
>Fairy Tamer

>MFW my army of fabulous Gay men decked out in neon-coloured glitter and feather boas strike my enemies.

>>13627881
Think of the Fairy Tamer as more fae-ish version of Earthdawn's Beastmaster.
I also implied "fae" and not "fairies", cause not everything from the fae is all that nice, this includes faires as well though.

>>13628002

Yield to my might or die.

Just... as a note?

Sword World's base setting and world, Forcelia? It's the Lodoss world, Lodoss being an island off the main continent of Arecrast.

Lodoss also being based off of a D&D game that was run, replays published of, and then turned into a manga and anime. Sword World was then developed after that, using the 2d6 system that is more or less the basis for SRS, IIRC. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sword_World_RPG)

The ones that I'd like to see translated, honestly, are some of the more cyberpunk or horror mix RPGs like Tokyo NOVA . Also, for medievalish RPGs, I'd much rather see Alshard ff and Meikyuu Kingdom translated, if only for the rather awesome setting elements (Alshard ff being a weird tech-anachronistic fantasy world using Norse mythos as a basis, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alshard, and Meikyuu Kingdom being a weird kingdom rebuilding game involving finding pieces of your kingdom in a labyrinth, similar to FFCC: My Life As a King and it's kingdom building aspects).

>>13628593
I believe 2.0's world is taking place in Rakusia though, and it seems to have moved a bit further from its previous roots although perhaps not too much.

>like Tokyo NOVA

>Roll random character
>Suave, Drug-addicted Techno Dj

>>13616393

For some reason, I really, really want to play Night Wizard. The sheer baroque insanity of the game reminds me of the recent Madoka anime, which is a GRIMDARK magical girl show. By Urobochi Gen. Oh dear.

>>13628704
I actually thought of Night Wizard myself.
But I didn't include it in the OP post, mainly for 2 reasons.

There is a supposed project up as well.
Though there is really only one guy who is supposedly working on it, and I really don't know if it's going any well or not.
http://tlwiki.tsukuru.info/index.php?title=Night_Wizard!_The_2nd_Edition

1, being, I didn't think it would suit most of /tg/'s taste as much.
2, being, it's not nearly as big of a game.
Though it's not exactly small either for thatmatter.

>>13628704
I'm kinda prejudiced against Night Wizard because the anime was boring as fuck.

On the other hand, HOLY SHIT SOMEONE MADE AN ANIME ABOUT A TABLETOP GAME. Still, I wish it hadn't been a bad anime.

>>13628817
Yes, the anime is truly awful.
Though one could easily make an increadibly boring anime about say D&D or whatever, if all they do is redundant shit with the most boring and non consistent campaign ever.

The setting itself is actually interesting enough.

I'd like to see some more of the FF style artwork. All the grimdarknyess on tg is getting to me. Sometimes I want some light fantasy with classic heroism. Without sarcasm.

The maturity shown in this thread is outstanding.
But I guess it isn't really worse than edition wars.

>We used to have the Fae in western folklore, and they were scary and mysterious beings.
>Then Tolkien showed a more civilized side to some of the major ones, and then it was as if the fae side to them almost dissapeared.
How come this is so?
Tolkien himself included at least a few chapters to show their more monsterous sides.
Did the fanwankery kill all this?

Have we ever had any previous games fan-translated before?