Gaming in Japan Followup: Buy the Book!

I would be remiss as a totally pro blogger if I didn't try to line my pockets with a link to buy the Record of Lodos War (mentioned last time) in it's original novel form.



Only one yen, usually.
There, now the gaming week is pretty much done.
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Oh but I kinda want to share the monster I made for yesterday's Saitama Session of D&D. You can math it for whatever level you need. As you can see, it's not a very standard monster. I love how 4e lets you do this.

Clinging Wraith, the spirit of someone that just couldn't let go. Ever.

Dwarf, light me on fire if you have to! Just get it offa me!

Cling (move, at will) The wraith may teleport 6 squares provided it ends in an opponent's square. When it enters the square, it makes an attack VS fortitude. If it fails, it is ejected to the nearest open square. If it wins, it partially shares the target's defending space (save ends and ejects the wraith as above). The wraith may not be marked while occupying. Any powers that attack and miss the wraith are automatically redirected to the occupied creature, and if it passes their defense it affects them instead. Any ongoing conditions of the wraith are also suffered by the occupied creature, and vise versa, but neither may save for passed on conditions.

Gripping Aura: Any creature that begins it's turn in the wraith's space takes 5 necrotic damage and is weakened.

Dig in (standard) If the wraith is occupying a creatures square, it may make an attack VS FORT to make the target immobilized (save ends).

Pull Strings (standard/special)(this move may be used as an interrupt any time the wraith would be able to make an opportunity attack) The wraith may force the occupied creature to make a melee attack using any weapons it has (including fists etc. as improvised weapons) and/or force the creature to move at its speed.

Like Every Bad Relationship: When the Clinging Wraith is reduced to 0hp, if it was occupying a creature's space, that creature becomes cursed and the wraith sticks to them, undetectably by mundane means, in a dormant state. Enjoy.

Roll-playing in Japan: RoLW

I honestly still don't know why I arbitrarily decided to announce in that video that we are doing roll-playing week, but this should be the last day I torture myself for it; I probably won't get to a computer this weekend.
Anyways, amidst the dark ages of nerdotainment, there was the shining beacon that was a few booklets filled with children's drawings. AKA D&D. It made it's way to Japan first via fan translations. Some innovative geeks recorded their game sessions and actually managed to sell the transcripts, called リプレイ (replay). Things snowballed, and the group became a company, creating novels, anime, and their own RPG systems.

Record ofLodos War is the name of their saga, and you can see it in the video below.

The group is full old school D&D archetypes and cliches. See if you can spot the blatant Tiamat/Dragonlance ripoff shot. And the animation, with bad dubbing, is totally goobery old-school anime.

I first saw this anime as a teen, when TBS broadcast the episodes backwards. Needless to say, it's a lot better in intended order, and you can catch a playlist of many episodes here. But I hold no grudge against TBS; it is, in a rather convoluted way, the reason why I am in Japan. Maybe someday I will tell that story. But then again, I think I have said the proceeding sentence before... Old uncle Clay's brains don't work so well since he got zapped by Mordenkinen's Bad Blogging Curse in 84...

Roll-playing in Japan: Finding People

One of the hardest things about gaming in Japan is finding people to do it with. There is some luck to be had with craigslist and meetup.com, and the forums at Wizards have a section for people searching their local area.
I signed up for a site that is basically the Mixi of TRPGers in Japan (TRPG is the standard acronym used over here) called TRPG SNS. The language barrier along with normal weirdness that comes with navigating a Japanese site is a high wall to cross, but I am trying. It would be great to get some bilingual gaming going on...
Here's a little vid explaining (in Japanese) the service.
But hay, this post is boring as is. Why did I foolishly choose to make this RPG week on the blog? I know what will save me, Chinese gamers! Actually, this video makes me feel like I am at school-- what with the Chinese language, copy write infringement, and hot nerds and all.

I'll let you know if I find any Japanese peeps brave enough to storm the proverbial keep that is gaming with foreigners.

Gaming in Japan: Toys!

I guess I totally locked myself into Gaming in Japan Week with that text; what will I post tomorrow? Good question...

Rollplaying in the inaka

I don't know if I invented it just now, but the non-standard spelling "roll-playing" should be used to avoid confusion when asking friends if they roleplay.
As you can imagine, the country-side affords no opportunities for roll-playing, but I may be getting some foreigners that are interested; I talked with some new people the other night.
D&D and roll-playing have a following here (well not here but elsewhere in Japan). There are transcripts of game sessions published and widely read. Even manga and anime have sprung up from D&D sessions (more here).
I am quite excited about 4th ed. D&D; a bit of a shame Gary Gaigax died recently and couldn't live to complain about it a bit. "In my day, we didn't have Cheetos or mountain dew and we liked it!"
Here's some exhibition game character sheets for the new edition. I kinda miss sorcerers for flavor reasons...

You know your small, obscure religion has become too popular when... (part 2)

Well, I saw it today, Baha'i was mentioned as one of the "sects" that assamite vampires could belong to. What would a Baha'i from the middle east think of being a vampire?

I led a vampire session here in our small town about a week ago. It went pretty well, but things got frustrating when players rolled low despite having lots of dice. Maybe we'll have to abandon dice, or maybe we can switch to Mind's Eye theater rules. I'm not sure how those work though.