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I got the Japanese PHB!
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<blockquote data-quote="shadow" data-source="post: 1019497" data-attributes="member: 2182"><p>I took a trip this weekend and went to Chigasaki to visit some friends. I was browsing the train station bookstore and to my surprise I found a copy of the PHB and DMG in Japanese. There was also a GURPS book called GURPS Power Ups in Japanese (It looked like anime). Naturally I had to buy the PHB. I would have brought the DMG too, but I didn't have the money. It was pretty expensive. THe PHB cost me 6,000 (about $50), but it was worth it. Keep in mind that this is D&D 3.0e, not the "New and Improved 3.5e". (Japan is a little behind in RPG translations.)</p><p></p><p>Anyway I skimmed through it in the station. I few things struck me as odd.</p><p></p><p>All the class names were the English class names transcribed in katakana (a Japanese syllabic "alphabet"). For example, barbarian was baabaarian, instead of the native Japanese word "banjin". I supose this was to make the game more western, since many of concepts are very culturally specific. (For example, banjin often was used to describe the native Emishi and Ainu people of Japan, who were viewed as barbarians. The word doesn't really conjure up the the image of a Conan style barbarian.) </p><p></p><p>Also all the DaVinci style artwork at the beginning of each chapter was obviously taken from the Brazilian edition since all anotations were in Portuguese.</p><p></p><p>The feats were written all written in Kanji (Chinese characters) Which I can't really read all that well.</p><p></p><p>However, all the spell names were written in Katakana. I guess that makes them sound foriegn and "cool" as well as making it easy to alphabetize them. However, there was a Japanese translation of the spell name in the subtitle.</p><p></p><p>Overall it's pretty cool, especially since I'm studying Japanese. Maybe I can get a gaming group together here.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="shadow, post: 1019497, member: 2182"] I took a trip this weekend and went to Chigasaki to visit some friends. I was browsing the train station bookstore and to my surprise I found a copy of the PHB and DMG in Japanese. There was also a GURPS book called GURPS Power Ups in Japanese (It looked like anime). Naturally I had to buy the PHB. I would have brought the DMG too, but I didn't have the money. It was pretty expensive. THe PHB cost me 6,000 (about $50), but it was worth it. Keep in mind that this is D&D 3.0e, not the "New and Improved 3.5e". (Japan is a little behind in RPG translations.) Anyway I skimmed through it in the station. I few things struck me as odd. All the class names were the English class names transcribed in katakana (a Japanese syllabic "alphabet"). For example, barbarian was baabaarian, instead of the native Japanese word "banjin". I supose this was to make the game more western, since many of concepts are very culturally specific. (For example, banjin often was used to describe the native Emishi and Ainu people of Japan, who were viewed as barbarians. The word doesn't really conjure up the the image of a Conan style barbarian.) Also all the DaVinci style artwork at the beginning of each chapter was obviously taken from the Brazilian edition since all anotations were in Portuguese. The feats were written all written in Kanji (Chinese characters) Which I can't really read all that well. However, all the spell names were written in Katakana. I guess that makes them sound foriegn and "cool" as well as making it easy to alphabetize them. However, there was a Japanese translation of the spell name in the subtitle. Overall it's pretty cool, especially since I'm studying Japanese. Maybe I can get a gaming group together here. [/QUOTE]
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I got the Japanese PHB!
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