D&D General The rise and fall of D&D in Japan

[GreyLord]

I really miss when JRPGs were obviously western fantasy. Zelda, FF, etc etc. Now they are far more influenced by their home country. Which is fine, I still enjoy them. I just miss when they weren't so "anime".

I'd kill for a Zelda or FF or whatever that looks more like Skyrim instead of 16 year olds running around collecting cute birds or something before returning the quest to kill god.

I sort of feel that Square Enix has done the opposite with FF. They are catering far more to a Western audience these days than a Japanese one. I think the latest FF (FFXVI) was actually spoken first in English and had to be translated back to Japanese (that's just what I have heard).

 

[Clint_L]

I think it's healthy if different cultures are producing their own stuff, rather than just translating and adapting American pop culture. I don't think it would be a good thing if D&D became part of the monoculture, like Starbucks and McDonalds. I'm a D&D fan, but I would also love to learn more about Japanese TTRPGs, and those of other cultures.

Sadly, it's too late for Canada, eh?

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I'd lean toward the latter interpretation personally. While the US input pretty clearly dominates, the UK community had quite a lot of influence early on thanks in large part to Games Workshop and White Dwarf before they started exclusively focusing on their own product lines. Anecdotally, both Australia and Canada supposedly influenced the West Coast communities more than they did where I was gaming in upstate New York, but that's third-hand info from a distant past at best for me.

Regardless, not surprising that it doesn't take off like wildfire with other cultures.

TSR UK created the Fiend Folio, origin of githyanki, hook horrors, and other staples.

 

[MuhVerisimilitude]

An opinionated take on the matter.

I feel many Japanese are more traditional than not. This indicates, in gaming at least, that they prefer rules to stay close to what they feel the rules should be.

Thus, as the D&D that they first knew was TSR's D&D and AD&D, when rules differentiate from that very much...they will not see it as the same game. They will more likely see it as someone trying to cheat them or trying to sell them something else. Trying to sell 3.5 (and even more so 4e ane 5e) as D&D when they understand D&D as the way TSR made it is like trying to tell them a wooden chair is a Toyota Supra. They aren't going to buy your chair no matter how well it is made.

That's one heck of an assumption. They've got game series whose defining trait is that every version of the game is different from the previous one (Final Fantasy).

You also assume that the difference between, for example, original D&D and 4E is greater than the difference from, say, original D&D and Call of Cthulhu. Yet we know that Call of Cthulhu is very popular.

Sword World came out as what it was. It's stayed as it is. Even with minor changes it's stayed true to what it actually has been in the past.

For those who are more traditional, this is rather important. The D&D market is lost at this point because those who originally played it are no longer playing and wouldn't play the new stuff that is called D&D, and the younger audiences already have their game.

Alas I don't know anything about Sword World.

Another area which it fails in Japan is how well they can relate to D&D tropes. They have been introduced to the ideas of Sword World, they understand tentacles (It's japan, people), they understand alot of things that are popular...but what exactly would they think of a Tiefling...or playing Orcs (what are seen as things such as Oni and demon like creatures to them in many places??). I don't think it's going to be as appealing to their culture as other areas.

Orcs are just Oni. Oni are popular. Tieflings are also just Oni. Look at Fate Grand Order. Several horned characters who could technically be Tieflings.

Heck I'd say horned characters are MORE popular in Japan than they are in the US. Admittedly I dislike American comics (with a few exceptions) so I can't speculate on their popularity in that medium, but in Japan it is a THING. From the top of my head:

• Power from Chainsaw Man (quite popular),
• Shuten and Ibaraki from FGO
• Many different characters Touhou characters
• Mina from My Hero Academia (very popular show),
• Several characters from Sousou no Frieren
• The oni-girl from Naruto (extremely mainstream),
• multiple characters from Bleach (extremely mainstream),
• One Piece (absurdly popular) has a whole lot of them,
• Lum from Urusei Yatsura

If anything, tieflings are closer to japanese manga aesthetics than, for example, dwarves are.

It's not crafted to their experiences or culture. What is the benefit of a buy in from them? I think as D&D has deviated further and further from what they were originally introduced to as D&D, and as it's deviated further from culture they can relate to, it's fallen in popularity. 3e was closer to D&D than 5e has been, and in some ways 4e was even closer to what they may see as D&D or RPGs (I know, that may seem odd, but this is not US culture we are talking about).

As Western morals and ideals have deviated more from Japan and East Asia over the past decade (remember all the Americans complaining that they hate the term Oriental...that's not exactly a sentiment shared by those who are not Americans and are actually IN Asia...as Asia is a large place and Chinese and Japanese don't really relate to being West Russian or Persian so calling them all Asian is actually more offensive to some of the peoples of Asia) the way things are seen has also deviated. AS things are made more to placate a Western audience, in some ways it also alienates the Eastern audience (and it makes sense to cater more towards a Western audience as more sales come from the West than the East). What may appeal to Americans is not necessarily what appeals to others.

It is possible to make games with universal worldwide appeal, but that doesn't seem to be WotC's target recently from what I can tell. They are catering to the markets which currently have the greater sales, and if that means focusing more on American audiences, well, follow the money...right?

Since you started speculating wildly, I will too!

In my opinion it is much more likely that the issue with D&D is the way D&D approaches a power system. It is very common that an action show has some kind of power system that characters can tap into.

• Hunter x Hunter has Nen
• Bleach has Reiatsu and Bankai
• Fairy Tail has Magic
• Chainsaw Man has Devil Contracts and other devil related stuff
• My Hero Academia has Quirks
• Dragon Ball has Ki or whatever they call it
• Naruto has Chakra
• Full Metal Alchemist has Alchemy
• One Piece has Devil Fruits and Haki

Common to all these systems is that if they were made into an RPG then the system itself would be pretty simplistic, with some exceptions. Characters in these shows tend to be focused on doing a few things rather than having an enormous library of things they can do.

But here is the problem, imo: The most flashy characters in D&D are spellcasters. With a few exceptions like Echo Knight, D&D Wizards are more like shounen characters than Fighters are.

So your character choice is either between complicated and power or weak and simplistic. You have superpowered wizards and grounded martials.

Why isn't this an issue with Call of Cthulhu? Because in CoC everyone is at the same power level: weak. And besides it is not a heroic system.

Edit: Iosue's comment has said what I wanted to say but better. Still, I don't like deleting my comments so this stays.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

Some time I thought how would be a D&D otome videogame but then I remember Stryxhaven would be a righter place.

In another time I imagine anpanman franchise as a "domain of delight" within the future family-friendly "Witchlight" setting.

We have to understand the publisher only sells "the pieces" and the consumer is who will choose what will be created.

All companies have to understand the market and the customers. We can't, or we shouldn't force them to change their habits.

Usually the audience wants a hard and strange balance between new and traditional, enoughly exotic and different to attract the atention, but not too strange.

Let's remember the Kara-Tur, al-Qadim and Maztica are unlocked in DMGuild because they are FR spin-off.

 

[Sorcerers Apprentice]

TSR UK created the Fiend Folio, origin of githyanki, hook horrors, and other staples.

Notably, the Fiend Folio collected monsters that had previously been published in White Dwarf, created by third party writers.

 

[Nikosandros]

I think a point that is missing from this discussion is not to focus on Japanese culture, particularly those of us who lack any particular qualifications to do so, but instead on American culture. As I posted on another thread, D&D presents a quintessentially American take on fantasy (or perhaps a quintessentially English-language take on fantasy). Like English itself, D&D offers a polyglot version of quasi-European medieval-renaissance high fantasy, as received through pulp magazines and other pop culture. It is to fantasy as Las Vegas is to culture: there's something for everyone, even if makes no sense and is completely divorced from its original context. It's shiny and fun and fundamentally incoherent.

So I don't think it's at all surprising when other cultures look at the ideas of D&D and then want to make their own RPGs. D&D has never done well outside the English-speaking world, and that's because it is a game built on a very English-speaking perspective.

It would be very interesting, at least to me, to investigate those cultural differences in different countries. In Italy, D&D is by far the most successful RPG. There have been several Italian games, some of them successful, but none has ever approached D&D.

 

[Jahydin]

I'll need to check Sword World out. Do you know if it was localized in English? Hmmmm I guess I can be a good internet person and search around...

EDIT: I see a World guide/core book on Amazon.

US Amazon? Couldn't find it...

 

[Jahydin]

I think Goblin Slayer is just a flavored Sword World, i think. could be wrong.

By the by, i liked it. Loved how characters are generated

Haven't compared them myself, but read even though Sword World serves as the foundation, Goblin Slayer is overall a pretty different game.

 

[Hussar]

Board gaming has certainly been on the rise here from what I've seen. And, obviously, TCG's are pretty common. But TTRPG's? It's just something I've never come across. None of my students play, nor have any of them ever heard of it. I leave my D&D books out in the open lots of times in my classroom, and not once has a student ever recognized them.

Even my uni students aren't RPG gamers. AFAIK, it's just a really, really niche thing. I'd love to see what's going on, but, I've never had any opportunity.