Roleplaying outside the U.S.

[lior_shapira]

Since I started playing (around 1990) d&d has always ruled the market in Israel, back then it was mostly the red box d&d, and ad&d 2nd edition. Nowadays the market is more diverse but still d&d 3.5 is king.

I live near the only serious gaming store in Israel and they carry a fair amount of exalted, WoD, gurps etc. books. I think White Wolf games take 2nd place but I can't say that for sure.

Regarding translation, we've had Hebrew versions of all editions of d&d, and I recently saw that exalted 2nd ed. was translated.

lior

 

[Alnag]

That's why I said "larger countries". The smaller European countries are used to English from TV. It's not economical to dub everything for a few million people, so they get to see film originals with subtitles. In the larger European countries, everything is dubbed. Adaptation to the native language is an expected service. In this regard, D&D came often a bit late.

You would be surprised how wrong you are. We are pretty small country (10 million citizens). But we are dubbing empire. Everything (except for late night independent films) is dubbed. But we are rather exception. I think the true problem of D&D in Europe is the fact, that TSR/Wizards demand too much for the license. They lost the market and the advantage to be the first and would probably never reach top1 position in those countries. The chance was lost.

 

[Alisair Longreach]

Here in Denmark the most popular roleplaying game has always been D&D in its various incarnations during the decades. Like Sweden there has also been a danish version of Drager og Dæmoner which no one plays. As far as I know there has been roleplaying games in Denmark since the early eighties because they have been imported by Fantask, Denmarks biggest comics specialty shop.

The next most popular RPGs in Denmark are World of Darkness/Exalted and Shadowrun used to be popular in the nineties. We also have a thriving community of live roleplayers of the foam rubber weapons variety.

 

[jasin]

In Serbia,

This sounds very much like Croatia too.

 

[EyeontheMountain]

Japan

I am pretty sure D&D has never been the top RPG in Japan, but it is well represented among the multitudes of others. Japan has a strong card game/RPG/anime population, and most of the people who do one seriously dabble in the other two, as they are seen as pretty intermixed here.

Especially anime/RPCG games are published and popular here, and a trip to any games store reveals a huge number of systems. years ago I went to gaming mini-conventions where there were about 30 tables of RPG and 4-5 tables of MTG. Of those 30 tables, there were about 12 or so different systems being run. Almost impossible to keep up with, and I doubt anyone on this list has heard of them anyway.

Recently a lot of the core WOTC 3.5 books have been translated into Japanese including much of the Race and Complete Series, and I even saw Red Hand of Doom today. Pretty surprising.

But at least at the store I go to, they do not seem to move at all. Dungeon Tiles sells well, but not the core books, or they sell slowly.

Eye

 

[DM_Matt]

In Serbia, the role-playing hobby was introduced in the early nineties. If I recall correctly, the most popular RPGs at the time were RIFTS, Mechwarrior, Shadowrun, Warhammer FRP, and, yes, AD&D.

...Right now, the scene is horribly splintered, with no clear-cut winners. D&D is probably more popular than any other RPG system, but D&D (and d20) players are often met with condescension and disdain from players of other systems (WoD, WHFRP, GURPS, Rolemaster, MERP, Chaosium CoC, and so on). There are some D&D players who still play AD&D 2nd edition, but they are few and far between).

This sounds very much like Croatia too.

So would it be fair to say taht the scene in that region is...balkanized?

 

[Alnag]

Japan (...)

I've heard,that Japan tabletop RPGs are pretty specific in nature of the fun. Not just because of its content but also because of its form. As far as my very limited knowledge goeas they are more pointed to recreate the experience of some preexistent piece of literature. But it might be just urban legend.

If you could shed more light on it or on other specifics of Japan RPG, I would really welcome it.

 

[Sammael]

Let's say that people from this region do not really appreciate that particular word ("balkanized")... but the general concept behind the word fits the current situation.

 

[eyebeams]

Canada = the US in all respects as we are treated as the same domestic market for virtually all purposes.

But you all knew that already, right?

Not necessarily. 3e and 3.5e are slightly less popular and there are a fair number of people I've met who simply left tabletop gaming when it was released. Part of this is because Canada's high speed internet backbone was more developed than the US' c. 2000 (and might still be); with more broadband users per capita, earlier, games like NWN and Everquest were consequently bigger and more of a timesink for former RPG players.

On the other hand, people on the other side of the digital divide were more likely to play 2e/1e. I know of several local stores that still keep 2e material on the shelves to sell, and I actually managed to sell most of my 2e stuff at a very good price.

Canada formerly had a huge MET LARP community, but demographic changes and decisions by White Wolf have left it much smaller. One of the longest, continuous, no-reboot Masquerade games in the world actually runs in my home town. There's a pretty good WW fan community and Shadowrun surges in and out of popularity.

So by and large, Canada is similar to the US, but there are some critical minor differences. There's also plenty of opportunity for any company that wants to get a surge in sales, as Canada is under-served for conventions and events. There are several large Canadian genre/fandom cons with a fewer companies and guests than they should have.

 

[eyebeams]

Dungeon & Dragons is the market leader in Brazil by a far margin. However, World of Darkness, despite being definitely second, has a solid share. Everything else, Brazilian created or translated from English, has a tiny slice of the market. GURPS was once strong, as it was the first translated rpg (at least two Brazilian made came earlier but are now OOP) and supported by the main publisher but nowadays is nearly absent from the shelves.

I was quite surprised at how popular Mage is in Brazil. I gave a huge interview for Brazilian fans last year.