Yeah? You might have miss the Journeys through the Radiant Citadel, which is a adventure compilation featuring 13+2 non-Europe setting. The +2 mean two of them only have an overview and don't have adventure. Umizu is one of the two unfortunately.
D&D General Asian D&D
If the market is small and saturated by other companies with a long history in the community you have to come in with something really strong to get noticed. 5e, on it's own, is not strong enough. That's why there's a Commercial for it, but very low interest in the localizations, comparatively.
Gotta know your market, y'know?
If WotC -did- want to bring 5e to Japan in a big way, they do it with a Storefront rather than Books on a shelf. Something that is a whole experience wrapped up in one shot that you don't have to take home to try.
Maybe hire some DMs to run games in rolling shifts of a giant West Marches game that "Everyone is playing in" in a restaurant environment with D&D themed foods and drinks for the customers. Each West Marches game session could be recorded for replay and given to the customers as an audio file or something for a nominal additional fee to pay for the Thumb Drive or whatever. You'd get the One-Shot, the "Night Out" vibe to kill the living space issue, and provide food and drink to keep your customers playing and paying.
Hell. Run it as a "Fancy Restaurant" you have to get a reservation for to give the DMs time to prep specific scenarios for specific parties. Then have "Scenario Menus" where the restaurant keeps a series of one-shots and scenarios on hand for when a group comes in wanting to run their own adventure in the game, like Adventurer's League content.
Add in some fancy looking boffer weapons and encourage the patrons to lightly swat each other when someone makes a bad joke, or otherwise build up some themed traditions for the players to latch onto to create a sense of community...
That might do numbers.
Uni-the-Unicorn!
Hero
To be clear I am talking about Japan, china, and Korean. Don’t disagree with your thoughts about Japanese market though.
I have some other ideas too, but that is not my job!
Uni-the-Unicorn!
Hero
Ok, yes I can see combining those into a Kara-Tur replacment, perhaps a how to use this in other settings sidebar
Scribe
Legend
Replays--people chronicle their games, first in text and now on video, and it gained a fan following:
The many-tentacled reach of Call of Cthulhu, among Korea and Japan’s most popular RPGs
Chaosium’s take on H.P. Lovecraft has gone globalwww.polygon.com
Horror RPG Call of Cthulhu is bigger than D&D in Japan
The classic RPG has seen its popularity explode in the last decade thanks to web series and anime.www.dicebreaker.com
I doubt Kara-Tur would be that important; since it's already a Western game (it's coming out of the USA after all) they might as well lean into the pseudo-European tropes. If Japanese people, say, want to watch ninjas and samurai they've got no shortage of domestically produced jidai-geki shows with better accuracy and more realistic locations. I think cultural appropriation would be less a concern over there than running afoul of lousy Sino-Japanese, Sino-Vietnamese, or Korea-Japanese relations, somehow using a location name that takes the wrong stance on Taiwan, or something like that.
That is very interesting.
Blue Orange
Gone to Texas
You have a real knack for marketing. SHK is looking for you.
Kalmi
Explorer
To be clear, I live in Japan, and I've been to Japanese gaming stores. It would be incorrect to say 5e isn't present in Japan, it does actually have a fairly prominent placement in the stores I've been in. At the same time, it's just one of the big boys, rather than THE TTRPG.
As you mentioned, the way Japanese people play TTRPGs tends to be different from in the west. Long campaigns aren't popular, likely because of the time constraints of Japanese jobs. I would guess this is another reason for CoC's popularity, as it simply lends itself better to stories that begin and end in one night. The "replay" scene as mentioned is a vital part of the TTRPG community here, and in recent years that has expanded to youtube. And now of course there are also livestreams of TTRPGs, often played by youtube vtubers.
I would mention another potential obstacle for D&D is the price investment, it costs quite a bit just to get a D&D game running. The aforementioned Sword World is sold in 3 books representing different tiers of play, basically similar to the old B/E/C/M D&D format. It's sold in a very small A6 format (basically the same size as a small manga) with minimal manga-style artwork in B&W. The first book costs about $8. That's a super-small investment to start playing a TTRPG.
BTW, I highly recommend checking out Sword World if you're interested in TTRPG history, it's fascinating as an example of parallel evolution. There are no official translations unfortunately, but there are fan translations of the latest editions. The game started as essentially a D&D clone (the original Lodoss campaign was OD&D I believe), with small changes to make it more palatable to a Japanese audience. For example, the game ONLY uses d6 dice, you essentially roll 2d6 for everything, and use "power tables" to convert the results to different numbers. d20 and other polyhedral dice weren't really available in Japan in the 80s, although you can easily buy them now. Despite starting as a D&D clone, it's extremely different from modern D&D, the class system is essentially a skill system now, each level in a class essentially just gives you a skill point in particular skills. It also has some really neat rules for simplified/TOTM combat which are fully supported by the writeups for actions and spells.
MGibster
Legend
As I understand it, punching down means one of two things: It's either a reference to deflating dough once it's risen or it's referring to the practice of someone of higher social status abusing or criticizing someone of lower social status. It may be cultural appropriation to take from other cultures, but you're the first I've heard to refer to it as punching down. China, Japan, and Korea are big boys when it comes to creating their own media and even exporting it to other countries. In fact, one of the places they export their culture to is the United States. It's not like we just went in there and took it.
Though I'm in agreement that we probably don't need another Kara-Tur. For one thing, WOTC doesn't seem to be in the business of making settings these days. And for another, why Kara-Tur? Why not just go with something completely new? It's not like the 40% of players aged 25 or younger have a lot of nostalgia for Kara-Tur.
I think @Steampunkette probably gave us the most comprehensive reason why a new Asian setting would be unlikely to sell well in some place like Japan.
gamerprinter
Mapper/Publisher
I published the Kaidan setting of Japanese Horror (PFRPG), but of course that was PF1. Not truly to fix OA, but that thought was in the back of mind, in trying to publish a more authentic feudal Japanese setting (circa Tokugawa Era). Well received by the reviewers, but the last publication was 2017 Gamemaster's Guide to Kaidan and a separate Player's Guide to Kaidan, 17 books and supplements in total. Only 3 full modules, and 4 one-shots were ever created, however. I rebuilt every monster, class, Asian concept previously published from scratch in an effort to tie things closer to the Japanese perspective...
Whizbang Dustyboots
Gnometown Hero
Not Sword World?
And the same question goes there: Why isn't there an English-language translation of that available in the West?
Similar Threads
- Locked
