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<blockquote data-quote="Iosue" data-source="post: 8758799" data-attributes="member: 6680772"><p>I would like to start by emphasizing that this Let’s Read is not meant to be a translation. Unlike my Let’s Read of Moldvay’s Basic Rules, I’m going to try to avoid getting too deep in the weeds with the actual text, or the minutiae of each paragraph. And I probably won’t be spending too much time pointing out where SW is just a bog standard RPG, focusing more on the differences and the departures from D&D or western RPGs in general. (I’m aware that the phrase, ”western RPGs in general” is doing more heavy lifting than Amazing Spider-Man #33!)</p><p></p><p>There has been an ongoing <a href="https://swordworld.fandom.com/wiki/Book_1_Translation" target="_blank">fan project</a> to translate 2.0, and if you can stand a Fandom wiki, much of the text is the same, so it may help to follow along. I’ll generally use my own translations for terms, but the translations there will probably be of reference.</p><p></p><p>So first, here’s the cover, art by Kususaga Rin and Anji Majima. Suitably atmospheric manga style!</p><p><img src="https://fujimi-trpg-online.jp/archives/001/201902/a40a01cd2559c80bd2cb0f56734b0620.jpg" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" /></p><p></p><p>The book is 10.6 x 2.2 x 14.9cm, or 4.2 inches wide, 5.9 inches tall, and just under an inch thick. That’s roughly half the size of a 5e hardcover, and roughly just as thick. Under the title is the author’s name, Kei Kitazawa/Group SNE, and the same in English in small print below that.</p><p></p><p>This is Rulebook I, covering the basic races and classes, and levels up to 5. Rulebook II introduces some new races and classes, and goes up to level 10. Rulebook III introduces some more options and goes up to level 15. (We'll only cover Rulebook I in this Let's Read.) A fun fact: in Japanese RPGs, a rulebook is called just that: <em>ruurubukku</em>. And because people love abbreviating transliterated words, the TRPG community came up with: <em>rurubu</em>. Or, as we might back-transliterate it: ruluboo. I suggest, folks, that we can make “ruluboo” happen.</p><p></p><p>The ruluboo is divided into parts as follows: Introduction, Part 1 Player Characters, Part 2 Rules, Part 3 Data (i.e., spells, combat maneuvers, and items), Part 4 The World, and Part 5 Gamemaster.</p><p></p><p>So let’s look at the Introduction. It begins with your typical evocative text about becoming an adventurer, vanquishing evil, and so on. Then we get the usual explanations about tabletop RPGs, limited only by your imagination, etc. etc. Where it gets interesting is the section, “What is a Table Talk Role-Playing Game?” That’s right, whereas we use TRPG for “tabletop role-playing game,” in Japan they say “table talk role-playing game.” And the ruluboo reinforces it by the subheading, “a game played through conversation.” I like that expression. It’s not a conceit you see very often in English books. There it’s usually something like, “you tell a story together!” But the idea that the game is played through conversation is a useful mindset to have, I think! The next section is “a game played through rules,” and here you can see the D&D influence on design in that the rules are explained as “setting how strong a character is,” while whether they are successful or not is up to the judgment of the GM. This part reminds me much of the DM advice section of Moldvay, in that there’s a lot of emphasis on final judgments being in the hands of the GM, but the GM is <em>continuously</em> urged that their job is to make the game fun for the players.</p><p></p><p>The next section is “What is SW2.5?” And what I find interesting here is that is not at all about explaining or justifying the need to go to 2.5, or differences between 2.0 and 2.5. No, this section is about <em>setting</em>. In contrast to D&D, where even a default setting may only be alluded to in the core rules in favor of letting DMs homebrew their own worlds, right from the beginning Sword World sets up the world to explain why the rules are as they are. Part of this is surely from its origins as an RPG for Lodoss, I also suspect that it’s also partly because the “generic fantasy setting” that English players would be familiar with from Tolkien, Conan, Shannara, etc, was not, until relatively recently, part of the Japanese cultural background. The implied setting of the rules must justify itself.</p><p></p><p>SW 2.5 takes place on the world of Raxia, created by the three swords. Raxia was a world of great civilization until 300 years ago, when it was broken by the Diabolical Triumph.</p><p></p><p>Okay, linguistic digression. Japanese orthography uses an (unholy) combination of Chinese characters and two distinct Japanese syllabaries. This can be seen in the above cover, where the author's name is written using Chinese characters, but the words at the very top, <em>Soodo Warudo</em> ("Sword World"), are written in syllabary characters. Syllabary characters can be written alongside or above Chinese characters to indicate pronunciation. This is most commonly seen in literature aimed at children, where the pronunciation will be indicated on characters they are not likely to have learned a yet, but can also be seen in adult-oriented media as well, where a rarely used character might have its pronunciation indicated. It’s a Japanese <em>literary device</em>, then, to use these syllabary characters to indicate nuances of meaning, or to explain the meaning of a term or phrase of foreign origin.</p><p></p><p>In this case, the Chinese characters for “Great Breaking” are used, but “Diabolical Triumph” is given as the pronunciation for this term. Deformed evil creatures called “Barbaros” (Chinese characters: <em>banzoku</em>, meaning barbarians) invaded on a worldwide scale. Civilization broke down, nations were split up, and it looked like the whole world would fall under the dominion of the Barbaros. A group of heroes defeated the Barbaros king, bringing the invasion to an end; without their absolute leader, the Barbaros lost cohesion, and could not win a decisive victory. But the world had been greatly harmed, and Barbaros and other monsters continue to walk the earth.</p><p></p><p>SW thus sets up a post-apocalyptic fantasy world for its players. They can look for lost knowledge in the ruins of the old civilization, or protect people from attacking monsters. So far, pretty standard D&D fare. But I thought this next line showed some anime/manga influence: “At times they may save people in need. And while they may fall in love with somebody, they might also experience death or parting.” Throughout the book, you can see the lore revolve less around killing monsters for fame and fortune, or even “plucky heroes defeat the BBEG”, and more towards what I would call the “romantic pathos” of Japanese genre media.</p><p></p><p>Following a page for “How to Use This Book” and “What You Need to Play” (ruluboo, character sheets, 2d6, writing utensils, and friends), the game provides a helpful glossary. The first section has terms used to describe the world: peoples (humans, elves, etc), the Barbaros (humanoids, like goblins, opposing the good peoples), monsters (Barbaros, fantastic beasts, undead), Raxia, adventurers, the Swords of Genesis (pronunciation given for <em>hajimari no ken</em>, meaning “swords of the beginning”), and mana (magical energy). Then a section on game terms (all the usual ones we know, in English transliterated with syllabary characters), and finally a section on units and rules-related terms. The “gamel (G)” is introduced as the unit of currency, 1 day is defined as 6 AM to 6 AM the next day (many character abilities are paced per day), and “declarations.” A declaration is a player or GM saying what a character will do.</p><p></p><p>Finally, the introduction ends with “The Most Important Rules to Remember.”</p><p></p><p>What Everyone Should Observe: TRPG players may compete with each other, but it is not a game where players battle the GM. A feeling of, “Let’s all have fun together!” should be proactively maintained.</p><p></p><p>What Players Should Observe: Players, should follow the GM’s directions. The GM may make mistakes, and it’s fine to point that out, but ultimately the GM’s decision should be followed.</p><p></p><p>What GMs should Observe: GM must always have a spirit of fairness. They hold the role of making final judgements and decisions on the rules, and should make appropriate use of the rules, and make just rulings so that all the participants can enjoy the game.</p><p></p><p>The GM’s Authority: Deciding the rules - The GM decides what rules will be used to make a decision. If a situation comes up not covered by the rules, the GM should use their judgment to make a ruling. GMs make decisions while thinking about what will be most exciting for everyone. Dismissal of results - If a player makes a roll without the GMs permission, the GM may set aside the result or ask for a new roll Advancing the session – The GM has the authority to always keep the session advancing. If the session gets derailed, or if the players become deadlocked and the session stalls, the GM can decide at their own discretion to advance the session, change the circumstances, or advance in-game time.</p><p></p><p>Finally, what to do if there was a mistake in the rules. It should be remembered for next time, but there is no need to go back and try and fix it. Rewinding time may be confusing, and might cause the game to come to a halt. The final decision is the GM’s, but they should make just rulings so that the players are not disadvantaged. Everyone should be familiar with the rules so that play can smoothly and enjoyably proceed.</p><p></p><p>Very old school D&D when it comes to GM authority and the role of rules, but tempered with the Japanese virtue of maintaining harmony within the group.</p><p></p><p>Having set the ground rules, next time we will start looking at Player Characters!</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Iosue, post: 8758799, member: 6680772"] I would like to start by emphasizing that this Let’s Read is not meant to be a translation. Unlike my Let’s Read of Moldvay’s Basic Rules, I’m going to try to avoid getting too deep in the weeds with the actual text, or the minutiae of each paragraph. And I probably won’t be spending too much time pointing out where SW is just a bog standard RPG, focusing more on the differences and the departures from D&D or western RPGs in general. (I’m aware that the phrase, ”western RPGs in general” is doing more heavy lifting than Amazing Spider-Man #33!) There has been an ongoing [URL='https://swordworld.fandom.com/wiki/Book_1_Translation']fan project[/URL] to translate 2.0, and if you can stand a Fandom wiki, much of the text is the same, so it may help to follow along. I’ll generally use my own translations for terms, but the translations there will probably be of reference. So first, here’s the cover, art by Kususaga Rin and Anji Majima. Suitably atmospheric manga style! [IMG]https://fujimi-trpg-online.jp/archives/001/201902/a40a01cd2559c80bd2cb0f56734b0620.jpg[/IMG] The book is 10.6 x 2.2 x 14.9cm, or 4.2 inches wide, 5.9 inches tall, and just under an inch thick. That’s roughly half the size of a 5e hardcover, and roughly just as thick. Under the title is the author’s name, Kei Kitazawa/Group SNE, and the same in English in small print below that. This is Rulebook I, covering the basic races and classes, and levels up to 5. Rulebook II introduces some new races and classes, and goes up to level 10. Rulebook III introduces some more options and goes up to level 15. (We'll only cover Rulebook I in this Let's Read.) A fun fact: in Japanese RPGs, a rulebook is called just that: [I]ruurubukku[/I]. And because people love abbreviating transliterated words, the TRPG community came up with: [I]rurubu[/I]. Or, as we might back-transliterate it: ruluboo. I suggest, folks, that we can make “ruluboo” happen. The ruluboo is divided into parts as follows: Introduction, Part 1 Player Characters, Part 2 Rules, Part 3 Data (i.e., spells, combat maneuvers, and items), Part 4 The World, and Part 5 Gamemaster. So let’s look at the Introduction. It begins with your typical evocative text about becoming an adventurer, vanquishing evil, and so on. Then we get the usual explanations about tabletop RPGs, limited only by your imagination, etc. etc. Where it gets interesting is the section, “What is a Table Talk Role-Playing Game?” That’s right, whereas we use TRPG for “tabletop role-playing game,” in Japan they say “table talk role-playing game.” And the ruluboo reinforces it by the subheading, “a game played through conversation.” I like that expression. It’s not a conceit you see very often in English books. There it’s usually something like, “you tell a story together!” But the idea that the game is played through conversation is a useful mindset to have, I think! The next section is “a game played through rules,” and here you can see the D&D influence on design in that the rules are explained as “setting how strong a character is,” while whether they are successful or not is up to the judgment of the GM. This part reminds me much of the DM advice section of Moldvay, in that there’s a lot of emphasis on final judgments being in the hands of the GM, but the GM is [I]continuously[/I] urged that their job is to make the game fun for the players. The next section is “What is SW2.5?” And what I find interesting here is that is not at all about explaining or justifying the need to go to 2.5, or differences between 2.0 and 2.5. No, this section is about [I]setting[/I]. In contrast to D&D, where even a default setting may only be alluded to in the core rules in favor of letting DMs homebrew their own worlds, right from the beginning Sword World sets up the world to explain why the rules are as they are. Part of this is surely from its origins as an RPG for Lodoss, I also suspect that it’s also partly because the “generic fantasy setting” that English players would be familiar with from Tolkien, Conan, Shannara, etc, was not, until relatively recently, part of the Japanese cultural background. The implied setting of the rules must justify itself. SW 2.5 takes place on the world of Raxia, created by the three swords. Raxia was a world of great civilization until 300 years ago, when it was broken by the Diabolical Triumph. Okay, linguistic digression. Japanese orthography uses an (unholy) combination of Chinese characters and two distinct Japanese syllabaries. This can be seen in the above cover, where the author's name is written using Chinese characters, but the words at the very top, [I]Soodo Warudo[/I] ("Sword World"), are written in syllabary characters. Syllabary characters can be written alongside or above Chinese characters to indicate pronunciation. This is most commonly seen in literature aimed at children, where the pronunciation will be indicated on characters they are not likely to have learned a yet, but can also be seen in adult-oriented media as well, where a rarely used character might have its pronunciation indicated. It’s a Japanese [I]literary device[/I], then, to use these syllabary characters to indicate nuances of meaning, or to explain the meaning of a term or phrase of foreign origin. In this case, the Chinese characters for “Great Breaking” are used, but “Diabolical Triumph” is given as the pronunciation for this term. Deformed evil creatures called “Barbaros” (Chinese characters: [I]banzoku[/I], meaning barbarians) invaded on a worldwide scale. Civilization broke down, nations were split up, and it looked like the whole world would fall under the dominion of the Barbaros. A group of heroes defeated the Barbaros king, bringing the invasion to an end; without their absolute leader, the Barbaros lost cohesion, and could not win a decisive victory. But the world had been greatly harmed, and Barbaros and other monsters continue to walk the earth. SW thus sets up a post-apocalyptic fantasy world for its players. They can look for lost knowledge in the ruins of the old civilization, or protect people from attacking monsters. So far, pretty standard D&D fare. But I thought this next line showed some anime/manga influence: “At times they may save people in need. And while they may fall in love with somebody, they might also experience death or parting.” Throughout the book, you can see the lore revolve less around killing monsters for fame and fortune, or even “plucky heroes defeat the BBEG”, and more towards what I would call the “romantic pathos” of Japanese genre media. Following a page for “How to Use This Book” and “What You Need to Play” (ruluboo, character sheets, 2d6, writing utensils, and friends), the game provides a helpful glossary. The first section has terms used to describe the world: peoples (humans, elves, etc), the Barbaros (humanoids, like goblins, opposing the good peoples), monsters (Barbaros, fantastic beasts, undead), Raxia, adventurers, the Swords of Genesis (pronunciation given for [I]hajimari no ken[/I], meaning “swords of the beginning”), and mana (magical energy). Then a section on game terms (all the usual ones we know, in English transliterated with syllabary characters), and finally a section on units and rules-related terms. The “gamel (G)” is introduced as the unit of currency, 1 day is defined as 6 AM to 6 AM the next day (many character abilities are paced per day), and “declarations.” A declaration is a player or GM saying what a character will do. Finally, the introduction ends with “The Most Important Rules to Remember.” What Everyone Should Observe: TRPG players may compete with each other, but it is not a game where players battle the GM. A feeling of, “Let’s all have fun together!” should be proactively maintained. What Players Should Observe: Players, should follow the GM’s directions. The GM may make mistakes, and it’s fine to point that out, but ultimately the GM’s decision should be followed. What GMs should Observe: GM must always have a spirit of fairness. They hold the role of making final judgements and decisions on the rules, and should make appropriate use of the rules, and make just rulings so that all the participants can enjoy the game. The GM’s Authority: Deciding the rules - The GM decides what rules will be used to make a decision. If a situation comes up not covered by the rules, the GM should use their judgment to make a ruling. GMs make decisions while thinking about what will be most exciting for everyone. Dismissal of results - If a player makes a roll without the GMs permission, the GM may set aside the result or ask for a new roll Advancing the session – The GM has the authority to always keep the session advancing. If the session gets derailed, or if the players become deadlocked and the session stalls, the GM can decide at their own discretion to advance the session, change the circumstances, or advance in-game time. Finally, what to do if there was a mistake in the rules. It should be remembered for next time, but there is no need to go back and try and fix it. Rewinding time may be confusing, and might cause the game to come to a halt. The final decision is the GM’s, but they should make just rulings so that the players are not disadvantaged. Everyone should be familiar with the rules so that play can smoothly and enjoyably proceed. Very old school D&D when it comes to GM authority and the role of rules, but tempered with the Japanese virtue of maintaining harmony within the group. Having set the ground rules, next time we will start looking at Player Characters! [/QUOTE]
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