D&D 5E WotC will not allow translation of D&D NEXT.

[Mirtek]

IIRC WotC / Hasbro has a fairly large translation team of their own in-house; it seems as if they intend to do it all in-house.

Very unlikely. WotC's D&D department is reduced to a bare skeleton crew, they have to outsource as much as they do in-house, because they don't have enough people to do it in-house anymore. Wotc/Hasbro wouldn't do that and then suddenly assign them several times as many people as translation teams

 

[dd.stevenson]

They have little to lose by claiming there won't be a Nihonjin D&D translation

Every company selling to the Japanese market has a lot to lose by lying (or merely being wrong) about something that they might have to walk back from later.

 

[Aloïsius]

Still no new information anywhere ?

 

[Morrus]

Still no new information anywhere ?

Yes, there have been three pieces of information.

One was Mike Mearls' Reddit AMA where he indicated that translation plans were happening, but that he couldn't share further info. Then Chris Perkins said at GameHoleCon that they fully intended to release translated versions. Finally, there was an job vacancy on WotC's site a while back for someone who spoke fluent Japanese.

 

[Scorpio616]

The Announcement comes across more as a passive-aggressive attempt to kill the market, and/or shame wotC into letting them translate and thus cut themselves in for a share.

Agree. The full translation screams this.

 

[Gilbou]

I support this choice. I'm French but I also love English and I always bought all my games in English, from D&D to Cyberpunk. The reason is : translation errors and mistakes. It goes from errors of typo to whole missing parts like tables that disappear in the translated version. We had this problem with Cyberpunk 2020 which is the first game I mastery. Same thing when I started mastering Vampire. So when I wanted to master D&D I kept going after the English versions.

What is also very good is it gave me a better understanding of English, vocabulary and I am much more fluent in English (this including Slang use) than most of the French I have met. I won't go agaisnt players bringing translated versions of books, but as a referee, I only refer and use the original version of.

 

[MasterTrancer]

I support this choice. I'm French but I also love English and I always bought all my games in English, from D&D to Cyberpunk. The reason is : translation errors and mistakes. It goes from errors of typo to whole missing parts like tables that disappear in the translated version. We had this problem with Cyberpunk 2020 which is the first game I mastery. Same thing when I started mastering Vampire. So when I wanted to master D&D I kept going after the English versions.

What is also very good is it gave me a better understanding of English, vocabulary and I am much more fluent in English (this including Slang use) than most of the French I have met. I won't go agaisnt players bringing translated versions of books, but as a referee, I only refer and use the original version of.

As an italian, I am in a situation similar to yours. And I agree: reading the original material has done me a great good in respect to the fluency.

I am nonetheless worried about the accessibility here in Italy, for the very same reasons: many youngs don't speak nor read English that well, and this can easily put barriers toward starting playing. I was in a similar situation back in the days: a little older than 10, I certainly wasn't fluent at all. If I am to teach my son to play, in the future, I would like him to be able to browse through the manuals by himself.

I am quote confident that we'll see translations of at least the core books; maybe not by tomorrow, but as soon it becomes economically sustainable.

I am not in favour of fan translations though: they tend to be prone to errors often, given that they get realized not by the most capable, but by the ones with the most free time (IME)

 

[Gilbou]

Yes I totally agree with you. Choosing the English version is indeed my choice, and yours. But some players do need translated versions because they're not fluent in English. If translations are available, I will suggest my players to get them if they prefer. If something doesn't seem clear, we'll look in the English version of rules, and if it's still unclear, as DM I'll make a balanced choice (I don't play against my players, but as a representative of monsters and NPCs, I try to make choices that are fair to them too).

If WotC does not do translations, we can start a community driven effort, and translate the free PDFs to various langages and keep the English core rulebooks at hand.

 

[DammitVictor]

I'm American, I game exclusively in English, and I don't speak a lick of Japanese-- but I am happy to hear that WotC has translation plans in the works. I remember being amazed by pictures of the Japanese translation of the Rules Cyclopedia with its localized art, and I think it would be a terrible shame for Japan to be left out of the loop in new editions.

 

[MasterTrancer]

Yes I totally agree with you. Choosing the English version is indeed my choice, and yours. But some players do need translated versions because they're not fluent in English. If translations are available, I will suggest my players to get them if they prefer. If something doesn't seem clear, we'll look in the English version of rules, and if it's still unclear, as DM I'll make a balanced choice (I don't play against my players, but as a representative of monsters and NPCs, I try to make choices that are fair to them too).

If WotC does not do translations, we can start a community driven effort, and translate the free PDFs to various langages and keep the English core rulebooks at hand.

Sadly, with Tapatalk I can't XP you!

Anyway, nice scenario: a community-based translation group, starting with the very basics. I guess we need to wait for the licensing announcements, and then...who knows?