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<blockquote data-quote="Tyler Do'Urden" data-source="post: 4841188" data-attributes="member: 4601"><p>So, a few months ago I thought it unlikely I'd ever play or DM again. I'd sold my books years ago; I hadn't played since I graduated from college in 2005. While I lived in the states I continued to pick up Dungeon (RIP <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f641.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":(" title="Frown :(" data-smilie="3"data-shortname=":(" /> ) from time to time, and browse ENworld now and then, but, like many, I thought that roleplaying, as much as I loved it, wasn't going to follow me into the Real (TM) World. Especially given that two years ago, I up and moved to Shanghai.</p><p></p><p>Well, a few weeks ago a co-worker- the sort of guy I'd never suspect of being a roleplayer- slipped it to me that he'd been playing for years, and wanted to start a group. I agreed to DM- if he could find the players. Two weeks later, we've printed some 3.5 manuals, acquired dice, drawn up some characters, and found plenty of would-be players.</p><p></p><p>Just one problem- most of the players are Chinese. They speak and read English, but hardly at the level an RPG manual is written in (we've sold them on the idea that D&D is a great vocabulary builder- I learned more linguistic roots, historical and scientific terms, as well as colorful adjectives, by playing D&D than anywhere else). On top of that, the cultural assumptions are often very different. They've all watched Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter, and played some World of Warcraft, Final Fantasy and other CRPG's, so I have some frame of reference to "hang" things on, and I'm printing out pictures of crucial monsters, characters, etc., but there are still a million things that I forget.</p><p></p><p>So, my questions to those in the know:</p><p>1. Were the D&D 3E/3.5 core books translated into Chinese? I haven't found them so far, but I'm still searching; a year ago I talked to a student at my training center who had played a Chinese edition of D&D.</p><p>2. Any suggestions for making things easier to understand for people of limited English fluency (we're not talking speakers of "Tarzan" English here; these are educated businesspeople with a fairly high level of fluency- they're just innundated by new and strange terminology- a terminlogy famous for confounding intelligent native speakers at that)? Foreign ENWorlders might have more to say here.</p><p>3. My co-worker is looking for simple role-playing systems he can use as a training and teaching tool. We use a lot of role-playing exercises in mock business settings (like fake sales presentations and board meetings); I've often joked that being an overseas business trainer is a lot like being paid to DM (if you're interested, it's an easy field to get into and, adjusted for cost of living, fairly lucrative- if you're willing to move to Asia). He's looking for a simple system- superheroes, fantasy, martial arts, doesn't matter- that might be good for running an ongoing social game in the afternoons at our center.</p><p></p><p>Anything else you'd like to contribute is welcome as well.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Tyler Do'Urden, post: 4841188, member: 4601"] So, a few months ago I thought it unlikely I'd ever play or DM again. I'd sold my books years ago; I hadn't played since I graduated from college in 2005. While I lived in the states I continued to pick up Dungeon (RIP :( ) from time to time, and browse ENworld now and then, but, like many, I thought that roleplaying, as much as I loved it, wasn't going to follow me into the Real (TM) World. Especially given that two years ago, I up and moved to Shanghai. Well, a few weeks ago a co-worker- the sort of guy I'd never suspect of being a roleplayer- slipped it to me that he'd been playing for years, and wanted to start a group. I agreed to DM- if he could find the players. Two weeks later, we've printed some 3.5 manuals, acquired dice, drawn up some characters, and found plenty of would-be players. Just one problem- most of the players are Chinese. They speak and read English, but hardly at the level an RPG manual is written in (we've sold them on the idea that D&D is a great vocabulary builder- I learned more linguistic roots, historical and scientific terms, as well as colorful adjectives, by playing D&D than anywhere else). On top of that, the cultural assumptions are often very different. They've all watched Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter, and played some World of Warcraft, Final Fantasy and other CRPG's, so I have some frame of reference to "hang" things on, and I'm printing out pictures of crucial monsters, characters, etc., but there are still a million things that I forget. So, my questions to those in the know: 1. Were the D&D 3E/3.5 core books translated into Chinese? I haven't found them so far, but I'm still searching; a year ago I talked to a student at my training center who had played a Chinese edition of D&D. 2. Any suggestions for making things easier to understand for people of limited English fluency (we're not talking speakers of "Tarzan" English here; these are educated businesspeople with a fairly high level of fluency- they're just innundated by new and strange terminology- a terminlogy famous for confounding intelligent native speakers at that)? Foreign ENWorlders might have more to say here. 3. My co-worker is looking for simple role-playing systems he can use as a training and teaching tool. We use a lot of role-playing exercises in mock business settings (like fake sales presentations and board meetings); I've often joked that being an overseas business trainer is a lot like being paid to DM (if you're interested, it's an easy field to get into and, adjusted for cost of living, fairly lucrative- if you're willing to move to Asia). He's looking for a simple system- superheroes, fantasy, martial arts, doesn't matter- that might be good for running an ongoing social game in the afternoons at our center. Anything else you'd like to contribute is welcome as well. [/QUOTE]
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