At JGC I had the chance to jump into some demos of board/card games in the dealer’s room. There were lots of board games all over the place, but I was able to try out a couple of new and interesting games that I’m going to introduce here.
EndBreakers SGC: Amatsukagura is a SGC (strategy card game?) similar to Thunderstone/Dominion, while Quarriors takes that same gameplay and adds some randomness in the form of dice.
Continue reading ‘EndBreakers SGC: Amatsukagura and Quarriors’
Probably the most memorable game that I came across at JGC was Nechronica. (Warning: graphic imagery awaits any who follow that link to the true Nechronica site, by clicking the top of the two options). It is put out by the same group that brought us Yuuyake Koyake, Tsugihagi Honpo. This game, however, is a completely different world with a completely different feel.
Abject and graphic horror. And, when the body parts are put away, real emotion. Continue reading ‘Nechronica ~The Long Long Sequel~’
Well, the Japan Gaming Convention has come and gone. I met lots of interesting people and played a bunch of incredible games. I bought way too much stuff (or not enough) and came home with lots of interesting stuff. I’ve got enough material to write about stuff all week, which is what I’m going to try to do. We’ll see how far I can get!
A few weeks ago, The Adventure Planning Service released the sixth book in the popular Shinobigami series of role playing games. This time around, the book is set neither in the original universe, nor the sengoku /warring states period that the last book, Shinobigami Ran, was set in. In fact, the book represents a reboot of the series and, in a sense, the rules themselves. Continue reading ‘Shinobigami Kai + JGC 2011’
Kizuna: Fiction for Japan
On March 11, Japan experienced a disaster that shocked the country and the world. Helped poured in almost overnight as charities and volunteers rushed to the scene of destruction. But there are still plenty of victims whose lives will be changed forever as a result of that fateful day.
I had the great honor of doing what I can to help, by translating a couple of stories for a collection of short fiction called “Kizuna: Fiction for Japan.” 100% of the proceeds go towards orphaned children, and 90% of the stories are new to the collection. It is mixed genre, so you’ll find horror, sci-fi, fantasy, among others. The stories that I translated were well written and interesting, so I think that you’ll enjoy them.
As of now, the book is available only in Kindle format, though soon it will be in print. This page has a link to the appropriate amazon.com page for each region.
I just got back home from a 3 day vacation in Akita-ken. I visited Kuro Yuu, a “secret hot spring,” deep in the mountains, where you can take a dip in the sulphur-stinking pools at midnight and see fireflies. It was gorgeous. Anyway!
Though I’ve been posting some ancillary rules and scenarios on this blog for a while now, I haven’t yet posted any of the actual rules for Ryuutama. I worked on the translation earlier this year, with a lot of help from Andy K (translator of the upcoming Tenra Bansho Zero translation and proprietor of story-games.com). The book + translation is now available for purchase at http://j-rpg.com/ryuutama/.
Also, I’m rather excited about Ewen Cluney’s (co-translator of Maid RPG with Andy K) latest version of Magical Burst. It’s an interesting game about magical girls and their battles with youma. But it’s not all sparkles and cake; think Madoka Magica, and you’ll have a better idea of what the game is like. I’ve yet to play it, but hopefully I’ll remedy that soon. You can find Ewen’s blog post about the third draft here: Magical Burst 3rd Draft
It’s Summer. That means here in the port of Nagoya, it’s hot and humid and I can barely keep my eyes open at work. Ugh. But I still keep on keeping on!
The other week, I played Magikalogia with my Japanese group, where I was asked to GM. The session came out pretty well, and I’ll be putting that scenario up on here sometime soon.
Last weekend, I gathered some local gamers with an interest in JRPGs, and had the first Nagoya JTRPG Day at my apartment. I ran Shinobigami, Dave ran Yuuyake Koyake, and with the extra time we had, I ran Lady Blackbird. All were excellent. Next month, I’ll be taking the players through Ryuutama. Speaking of which…
There are so many exciting things going on with JRPGs coming out to a wider audience, and very soon I’ll be happy to make an announcement about a certain project that I’ve been working on this year. Check back soon!
I’ve moved into my new apartment in the port of Nagoya, and finally got the internet running. Phew!
A few weeks back, a reader left a comment asking me to talk about Gear Antique, an early steampunk game from 1991. It looks like I’ve got the first edition, so I won’t be able to talk about the Renaissance edition that came out in ’99. Today I’ll discuss character creation and action checks. Continue reading ‘Gear Antique: Character Creation and Action Resolution’
The official Ryutama blog here has recently made available a player’s guide PDF (in Japanese), with class data and enough information to bring characters up to third level. To celebrate, Table-talk Cafe, the writer of the game, wrote a scenario that was featured in the latest issue of Role and Role magazine. Here is a translation of that scenario. Continue reading ‘Ryuutama Scenario: Midsummer Road of Grandile’
Illness and family issues have kept me basically offline for the past 2 weeks, my apologies. There are lots of things that I want to get around to, including Gear Antique, a new Ryuutama scenario, and End Breakers. But before that, I need to finish up Diamond Dogs. Continue reading ‘Diamond Dogs: The Scenario’
Roll or Choice - d66 thoughts on role playing games 