Tabletop role-playing game (typically abbreviated as TRPG or TTRPG), also known as pen-and-paper role-playing game is a role-playing game (RPG) in which the participants describe their characters’ actions through speech. Participants determine the actions of their characters based on their characterization, and the actions succeed or fail according to a set formal system of rules and guidelines.
Tabletop role-playing games have origins in wargaming, which has roots in ancient strategy games such as chess and its predecessor chaturanga. The first (commercially available) tabletop role-playing game was Dungeons & Dragons, developed in 1974 by Dave Arneson and E. Gary Gygax.
Another early game was Traveller, designed by Marc Miller and first published in 1977. Where Dungeon & Dragons was a system for generic fantasy adventures, Traveller was intended to be a system for generic science fiction adventures.
TRPG’s in Japan[]
Tabletop role-playing games began gaining popularity in Japan in the late 1970’s when toy stores began importing them in their original language, meaning only Japanese who read English could play the game. Gradually, players began translating games, or even making their own games.
In 1983 the first Japanese TRPG was released. It was called “Enterprise” (エンタープライズ) and had a science-fiction setting. The next year “Rose to Road” (ローズ・トゥ・ロード), the first full-fledged TRPG by a Japanese author, was released. Later that year a Japanese version of Traveller (トラベラー) was released, which marked the first Japanese translation of a foreign TRPG. In 1985 Dungeons & Dragons was released in Japan.
Before TRPG’s became popular in Japan, the term “RPG” had become synomous with role-playing videogames, rather than table-top games, because of popular titles like Wizardry and Ultima, and local titles such as Hybride (ハイドライド). In the early to mid 1980's various computer game magazines began to introduce Dungeons & Dragons as the game that inspired aforementioned titles.
Lodoss and Sword World[]
During TRPG’s rise in popularity in Japan, Ryo Mizuno was a student (graduated in 1986), the target audience for TRPG’s. Mizuno had always been a fan of tabletop games such as Go, Battleship and card games[1] and was introduced to tabletop role-playing games by his friend Hitoshi Yasuda, and bought the starter set for Dungeons & Dragons.[1]
Many tabletop role-playing games didn't have an official background world, thus Mizuno began making his own background world—Lodoss—and TRPG sessions were being played in that world. Eventually, Mizuno was approached by (someone from) Kadokawa to have logs of TRPG sessions ("replays") played in Mizuno's Lodoss world published in the monthly Comptiq magazine.[1]
In 1986 Comptiq magazine began serialization of tabletop role-playing sessions of Mizuno's Record of Lodoss War, which was followed by novelizations from 1988-1993. It received a great response and played a role in the spread of tabletop role-playing games in Japan.
In 1989 Fujimi Shobo, one of the Kadokawa brands, released Sword World RPG. It was sold as a book, instead of a box, thus making it cheaper, easier to carry, and made available in bookstores, reaching a larger audience. It was linked to the already established Record of Lodoss War franchise and contained slightly different rules that appealed to the Japanese audience.
By the mid nineties the Japanese audience had gradually lost interest in tabletop role-playing games.
Around the 2010's the TRPG Call of Cthulhu (not related to Forcelia and not created by Mizuno) was gaining in popularity in Japan, and by 2020 it was the most popular TRPG,[2] signalling a return of tabletop role-playing game popularity. About this time, two new Lodoss novels had been released, following an absence of 13 years: The Crown of the Covenant and the RPG replay The Wandering Nobleman’s Endless Journey Home.
Notes[]
- Tabletop role-playing games are also called tabletalk role-playing games (テーブルトークRPG, tēburutōku RPG) in Japan.
References[]
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 ゲーム好きの少年が考えた世界観が「ロードス島戦記」へ。日本のファンタジーシーンに大きな影響を与えた水野 良氏にインタビュー. 4Gamer.net. 29 December 2018.
- ↑ 「TRPG」「クトゥルフ神話TRPG」「CoC」ってなに？SNSでよく見かける非電源ゲームの基礎知識. Gamespark. 18 April 2022.