Coyote & Crow Review # 3.75 _ Thanks for a Thousand Reads!

 

Wow!

Writing this blog has been quite a rollercoaster. Most of the time it just putters along, read by a few stalwarts. Sometimes, however, it seems to strike a nerve.

The first was back in 2013 after I started, when I began writing about Weird Japan, and how to play in an authentic Japanese game, instead of just D&D in funny hats. I was pleasantly surprised when I started getting double then triple digit reads. The post were eventually taken up on Reddit, and even last week I got invited to speak about Japanese ghosts on a horror podcast.

After that, my work on sociological game design and Japanese D&D both got some attention. Most recently, my Stormbringer Redux series generated a ton of interest, and culminated with an invitation to appear on the Breakfast in the Ruins podcast to discourse with the affable Andy about all things Moorcock.

I truly am grateful and still a little stunned by all the attention, and validation that what I find interesting appeals to others. Returning to Canada has allowed me to celebrate my indigenous identity, reconnect as both individual and scholar, and now through NUNA and this blog, find a community

Nekumek! Thank you all for over 1000 reads.

Now, let’s dive back into the world of Makasing.

HUMOR & SPORTS

The next section begins with indigenous humour. All the Inuit I knew in Labrador were full of smiles, sarcasm & jokes, and having seen Wab Kenew’s The 8th Fire, I can say that a humourous worldview is definitely part of many indigenous people’s daily life. As my wise nan used to say, if you don’t laugh you’ll cry, and many times I saw her laughing with tears at the same time.

The authors move on to short poetry, and theatre as an outgrowth of fable telling. I dislike their use of the word ‘modern storytelling’, as it brings us to our world where stories are weaponized everyday. I would rather they say longform plays or tales. Once again, I am reminded of Japan and the seasonal kagura dances, where a mythic hero slays a giant snake, a reference that might have resonated with the authors.

We move on to sports, which is depicted as a more friendly rivalry than our sometimes cutthroat pro sports world. The authors state, “Beyond the elite professionals, sporting play and more friendly levels of competition run deep in all societies across Makasing.” I remember the leg kicking and other competitions of my youth and can attest to this, and as a sociologist I also know of sports as a way for cultures to train their youth in necessary physical and interpersonal skills for survival.

The list of sports, like festivals in the previous sections, gives lots of dimension to the gameworld and Makasing society, especially the lethality of some sports and the ubiquity of betting on them. It gives me Star Trek holodeck vibes, and really sells the indigenous futurism angle. Storytellers should make the effort to bring all this to life in their games.

(Once again, there is a cryptic yet enticing reference to yutsu technology used to reduce gravity for some games. I hope there is a pay off to all this build up in the rules section later.)

The reference to sports taking the place of war is a nice touch, and also reverberates with George Orwell’s dictum that sports are just war without guns. There are lots of adventure seeds in here, from escorting an athlete to a big match, to investigating a manager for fixing a match. This is contrasted with casual fun, such as board game bars, Sky’s Voice karaoke, and storytelling competitions. I love this indigenous exploration of nerdy fun, especially considering the Nerdy Native Creations movement right here in Vancouver

Makasing’s people are obsessive about dancing, and Cahokia boasts lots of clubs. I appreciate the genres of music they introduce here - Love Music; Thunder / Rapid Fire indie punk or metal, replete with drugs and violence; Lung music choir for elderly; and Psychedelic music for drug trips. This is very atmospheric and turns the associations of music and substance abuse on its head. There is also the Bragging Song, a kind of rap or Slam poetry, and the War Song, which I imagine is like the Maori Hakka. All this variety humanizes indigenous music, defusing the associations used in media to depict native drums as code for savagery. This is a very deep choice, and reflects multiple aspects of indigenous culture, such as pride, love, joy of dance, and psychological preparation for war.

Beyond music, Smoke Lodges act as a kind of social club, while sweat lodges cement trust & connection like the Japanese baths I enjoyed for years. Japanese would call bathing together ‘skinship’, and I really like its appearance in Coyote & Crow. Once again the idea of hierarchy is flipped, and we are given the humility of the sweat leader, who is both leader of the event and servant to participants. Sweat in Makasing is a kind of therapy, just as in real world where indigenous people now reclaim traditional healing as an alternative to colonial systems of medicine and law that don’t always lead them to recovery. 

The authors also mention Yawpon drug tea houses to expand the mind, but also mention unsavoury shops that are open for abuse. Once again, they may not have the homeless and addicted sleeping in the streets like our world, but their people are just as flawed as ours.

I really appreciate that the authors leave in references to social problems. This makes the setting more real and avoids the trap of the ‘noble savage’ trope that has plagued indigenous depictions. Instead, we have indigenous people who are flawed individually like us, but who have a high context cultural underpinning that is more supportive and collaborative than our current system.

Sign me up!

MEDICINE IN MAKASING

It makes sense, considering the huge decline in North American medical care in both Canada, where most medical consults have gone virtual, and the US, where medical bills for routine procedures routinely put families in crushing debt, that Coyote & Crow would explore a radically different idea of medicine. Here is how they start their section on medicine,

“In Makasing, the lines between physical, mental, and spiritual wellness blur or simply don’t exist at all. While there are certainly specialists, most practitioners of healing in Cahokia recognize that their area of expertise is not necessarily the only path toward helping a patient.”

I know western doctors who have also travelled to Africa and Asia to add traditional medicine to their repertoire, and this is the norm in Makasing, where care is holistic, with experts in mind, spirit, and body all pitching in. This lacks the competitive nature of our current healthcare, and is more a whole body cure. 

There are four streams of medicine.

First, free care is offered by the state, and focuses on prevention. This reminds me of Cuba, where dental care is advanced because they focus on foods that don’t destroy the teeth and toothpaste with ingredients that promote health.

Next there is paid care, which gives more comfort and status, with no significant change in outcome.

Here is where it gets nuanced. Third we have traditional medicine, herbs and prayers, that eschews technology but permits the use of Adanadi powers. In opposition to this is Cahokian modern medicine, which ignores traditional medicine to focus on science and use the Adanadi. In Japan, these also existed as the kanpo or herbal medicine system, which was equally respected and used for minor ailments and preventative cures. The authors also note that Makasing people also eschew prosthetics, preferring to accept their body in its natural form.

One intriguing section is the mention of a section of society which mistrust the Adanadi and see it as the root of all sickness and evil.

Adventure Seed - A group of exiled have created their own tribe which prizes cybernetics and technological advancements over traditional or Adanani gifts. These cause trouble by taking resources and could be a great set of antagonists, especially if some are unjustly exiled.

Adventure Seed - A cult of anti-Adanadi seek to remove the powers from the world. They may be working on some horrific ‘cure’ to what they see as a disease, and the PCs have to stop it.

SEX, LOVE, & MARRIAGE

There are some very interesting things here. Making sexuality an implicit part of the setting instead of an explicit message to players is a great choice, and doesn’t set off the whole knee jerk reaction some people have towards safe lists and trigger warnings. There is also the option of coming from a village with unique sexual norms, making the setting even more dynamic while giving players background choice.

Once again, the population boom of Makasing makes the setting a dynamic, changing society, and I really appreciate the efforts the authors have made. Child birth is mostly a choice, ensured by reliable by birth control. Introducing Ceremonial sex is also an interesting choice, and reminds me of the practice of rish from Larry Niven’s Ringworld books. It is a natural ‘alien’ sex practice, which contrasts with our world which prudishly hides all things sexual behind closed doors.

(Personally, I avoid sex in my games, but this might be worth exploring, if players are onboard.)

I appreciate the prevailing attitudes of the peoples of Makasing, who think “That's just what they do in that tribe. No one's getting hurt, so who cares?”

Minding one’s own business was a staple of my youth, and sometimes I wish more people today would practice it. I appreciate the reminder that “while the people of this world have the same ancient history we do, they also have different customs and perceptions, even from real world Native Americans.” Actually, just yesterday at work I heard a presentation from indigenous creator Anthony Johnson, a two spirit person who told us of the homophobia and violence in the real world community he grew up in. It is nice to see C&C redressing that situation by offering a glimpse of a kinder, more accepting world.

There is a summary on gender that says it all:

“To the people of Coyote & Crow, gender isn't just a spectrum, it's also less important culturally. Part of that is because gender roles are not as strictly enforced, but also because traditionally, those that do not conform to standard binary labels of man or woman have often been considered blessed or in possession of a greater connection to the spirit world… There's no real stigma around a person changing their gender identity at any point in their lives.”

If you do some Googling, you’ll find this is a very real historical precedent, and that countries like Thailand still accept very fluid notions of gender.

You might ask why bother with this focus on accepting gender. I have known trans people who have been put through the wringer by outdated beliefs and prejudices, and I am happy to see a gameworld that reflects a leap away from this. Just as women were accepted as equals in the original fantasy RPGs, I am happy to see all genders equally welcome in this one. The sections ends with the introduction of Tahood, or the third gender to include non binary and LGBTQ. People would accept this in sci fi fantasy, more than as a message in the real world, so I find its inclusion admirable. 

Moving away from gender, marriage in Makasing is also broad, and diverse terms are communally accepted. It is non hierarchical and non permanent, and reviewed every few years. I have some younger friends who have very fluid conceptions of polyamourous coupling, and their marriages are non contractual, with mutually decided obligations. 

Wish I had had this option!

Between the freedom of pairings and conditions, and lack of unwanted pregnancies, we can see Makasing as a world where family is a much broader concept. Add to that the acceptance of and lack of stigma around casual sex, and there is no home breaking or prudism. There were hints of that in my upbringing in Labrador, some people who practiced a more dynamic view of love and sex that escaped the imposed moral system of missionaries. In this fantasy world the missionaries never came, and love & marriage have naturally developed in their own ways. I appreciate the authors’ statement, “Many variations of love, partnership, sex or lack thereof, and marriage exist and are the norm”

This view of marriage also has ramifications for family life. The authors write, “The broad interpretation of marriage, as well as the intergenerational family living arrangements common in Makasing, allow for a person to work a job where they have to travel far from home, knowing that their spouse and children are being looked after while they are gone.”

I am so onboard with this. As a youth I saw many shared extended families caring for each other, but all this has fallen apart as many families transitioned to becoming Canadians and lose their indigenous identity. I am without support myself, and sometimes feel alone as a single dad. But in Makasing, this system of extended family care permeates all of society. We are told,

“Few people are raised by total strangers and no one would refuse to take in a child who was vaguely related… There are orphanages and elder homes in Cahokia and across the continent, but they are the exception, not the rule; strong social and medical support from the Cahokia government enables families to care for aging and disabled individuals within the home. Because of the governmental structure of Cahokia, no family goes hungry or without a roof over their head. While the land may be controlled by the city-state, there is no shortage of over-all space and most families have room to spread out and plenty of resources.”

Living in a city where I see many homeless, some entire families, and many who have gone through the orphanage to prison pipeline, I am all in with this gameworld.

This extension of family as social service also results in a very strong inter-family work ethic, with multigenerational homes being the norm. Moreover, the importance of lineage, which is stronger in Cahokia than reality due to dynamic family practices, cannot be understated. Even now, a trip to Labrador will involve an interrogation over lineage, and revelation of some distant connection. This extended family and social service of Makasing reminds me of rice planting and harvesting in Japan with my in laws. It was just as much work as reification of our connections.

Adventure Seed - Stop a monster ravaging crops and then help harvest them, with celebration and new connection as reward.

Makasing also has a matrilineal structure for record keeping of individual lineage. This reverses the Indian Act here in Canada, which was bureaucratically enacted genocide via erasing matrilineal indigenous identity, and made generations of lost indigenous, like myself, who had access to neither generational wealth of settlers nor the communal wealth of indigenous peoples, and are the most at risk Canadians according to researcher Heather Dicks. In Cahokia / Makasing, they were never lost, but in the real world they are slowly finding their way back to their lineage, and this game could be a great way to prepare for that.

CONCLUSION

Makasing isn’t our world, whether we are indigenous or not. It is an alien land that lets us see what would happen if our issues, such as homelessness and gender, were nothing burgers, where people don’t rally against others to score political points, and where live and let live is the order of the day.

It is refreshing, and if it were a sourcebook for a totally alien civilization, I think people would eat it up. Reading and parsing this section takes time, and I am looking forward to finishing it so I can see how the mechanical underpinnings support the setting.

SOURCE

Dicks, H. (2023). Beyond binaries: mixed-blood Indigenous inequalities. AlterNative: An International Journal of Indigenous Peoples, 19(2), 261-270. https://doi.org/10.1177/11771801231167654 (Original work published 2023)

Coyote & Crow Review #1

 Coyote & Crow Review # 1

OK, since I am an indigenous game creator it would be a major oversight not to read and play Coyote and Crow, the hit Kickstarter game made by a team of indigenous creators, and which partially inspired my game proposal. The anime inspired cover art kind of threw me at first (22 years in Japan makes me a bit of an art snob), but now that I am reading through it is all making sense.

SETTING

I like the idea of a world without colonialism, but the notion that indigenous people “blossomed technologically” makes me a little sad. Anthropologists who studied the Inuit and Yupik rightly called them the most prolific inventors on the planet. They had a tool for each and every situation. Sun reflecting off the snow and blinding you? They carved badass futuristic looking snow goggles from bone, wood, or ivory.

Badass Inuit Cyclops?

Ditto snow shoes for walking in knee deep snow, many types of ulu knives for different skinning and butchering jobs, komatik for sliding over the snow, intestine parkas to keep you warm and dry, etc etc. In NUNA, this ingenuity of the Inuit is exactly their superpower.

I would say indigenous people were ‘flowering’ in their own right with their adaptation to the land, and even today peoples like the Minto Athabaskan in Alaska have had to advise the government dispatched scientists, whose disconnected scientific domains (biology, chemistry, geology) left them unable to comprehend the ecosystem of the area and the changes the Minto had recorded after centuries living there.

PLAYSTYLE

I like that the authors went into depth with the type of playstyle they expected. They stress that telling a good story is the main objective, something that is huge in indigenous culture and is somewhat lost in the individual western culture reflected in roleplaying. There is an old joke that D&D is a game where Gandalf, Bruce Lee, and Conan band together to save the world, and the implication is that three such heroes cannot possibly be thinking of the group first and themselves second.

I like the C&C advice that just as the players must understand the Who, Why, and How of their character, Story Guides must try to ensure all have a good time. This balance between playing your character truthfully and group enjoyment is the eternal dilemma of our hobby, and grounding it in indigenous culture is just another great part of this game.

DICE

I’ve just read the intro to the dice, which are 12 D12 split into 9 white and 3 black. As a BRP fan I am a little trepidatious about non D100 systems, but the alienness of this set up brings me back to my first RPG days where the whole dice tube was a mystery to me.

Stay tuned for part 2!

A Cure for 5e

Hey all!

I am back and mostly intact from a hellish semester and personal life insanity. I still have three deadlines to meet till November, so don’t expect regular posting just yet. That said, I needs to write, so I will try to trickle out a few interesting things.

Anyway, during my absence from blogging it seems D&D 5e dropped like a bomb on the scene and still continues to burn up the blogosphere. Like most people I cut my teeth on Ye Olde Game and have probably played more D&D than any other system. That said, I am far too busy and disconnected to enter the fray about 5e, and so for the foreseeable future I will be offering an alternative to D&D and fantasy gaming in general. I plan to write mainly about science fiction gaming, so if that sounds good to you, watch this spot and enjoy!

REVIEW – Star Wars Edge of Empire + Age of Rebellion

After the semester a friend kindly invited my family to his cabin on Mount Rokko, the verdant mountain that overlooks the city of Kobe. It was a great chance to unwind, let my little son interact with their baby daughter as well as different adults, and generally rehumanize myself and my partner.

While this main objective was met in spades, the host also got me into a game of the latest Star Wars RPG with a few of his friends. I haven’t gamed in over a year, and the last Star Wars I played was in the 90s, so of course I was overjoyed.

Overall, I had a blast. Although a marathon 6 hour session in an unfamiliar system is admittedly tiring, I was entertained and impressed and so I offer a review.

THE BOOKS

The two rulebooks are GORGEOUS, there is no other way of saying it. Remember the wonky art of the old comic book adaptations of Star Wars, how Yoda looked like Grover, Leia like a generic supermodel, and Luke her sister? The art in these rulebooks are the total antitheses of those old comics. The cover picture of Luke IS a portrait of Mark Hamill circa 1979, while the aliens and tech inside are reverse-engineered from the movies back to the palette of Ralph McQuarrie’s original concept art. Even if you unfortunately never play the game, it makes your gaming shelf shine with its beauty.

CHARGEN

The character sheet is sufficiently old school, with boxes for attributes, skills, special abilities, and equipment. Chargen itself is new school, with point-buy all the way. Although it wasn’t anywhere near as execrable as 4e’s point buy, I kind of miss random chargen and having to roll with the punches. If that doesn’t bother you, chargen is fast and relatively painless. I made a Trandoshan bounty hunter – not terribly original, but fun for a guy dropping into someone else’s game for a session. My fellow players and the GM advised me, and with the point-buy I was encouraged to buy off all the racial weakness of my character. Although normally I would have balked against this filling in of the character’s holes, it was good enough for a one shot appearance.

MECHANICS

The mechanics are streamlined and easy to pick up – to resolve an action, grab a handful of dice equal to the higher of an apprpriate attribute or skill, then get a bonus from the lower of the two. Add in some difficulty dice, roll the whole whack of polyhedrals, then cancel out successes and failures to find your ultimate level of achievement. Dice are special d6s, d8s and d12s with symbols instead of numbers, which affect play in ways that take some getting used to. However, the amalgamation of player dice and difficulty dice is a wonderful innovation that makes rolling go fast and gives a great feeling of satisfaction to the roller.

PLAY

Play was overall not much different from any other rpg I’ve played, with the aforementioned dice rolling making things run very smoothly. If there is one thing that hinders play, it is getting used to the dice. Dice in Star Wars have success, triumph, and advantage symbols versus failure, despair and threat symbols on their sides. What this means is that you can succeed in an action but end up threatened, or fail yet gain some advantage. This system offers much more possibility than the binary succeed-fail mechanic of traditional dice, which encourages improvisational storytelling and really suits Star Wars. The initial effort needed to memorize the dice meanings and get used to the resolution mechanic is well worth it for the storied gameplay you’ll have.

THE STORY & THE MASTER

Regardless of how good a system is, a good GM really brings a game to life. My friend the game master is a former astronomy student and highly technical-minded man, which showed in the intricacy and breadth of his descriptions. We really felt immersed in the Star Wars universe, especially the tech and cultures. I am more of a fast and loose GM myself, and felt that although my friend ran a great game his way, I could do one my way with as much success.

In the session, my character delivered an imperial prisoner to the rebels and met the PCs, a human medic, a hacker-type, and a Twilek con woman. Suddenly the imperials arrive and start bombarding the rebel outpost, so I deliver my prisoner and hitch a ride on a transport with the player characters, which rendez-vous with a waiting cruiser. While in hyperspace, the shipment of droids the cruiser carried comes to life and begin sabotaging the ship, so of course it was up to us to save the day.

The flurry of action included hacking the ship’s system to lock out the evil droids and turn the air back on; missing a shot but taking out the enemy with a falling gantry; crashing a Y-wing into the aft landing bay; and turning the hyperspace engine back on minutes away from getting sucked into a blackhole.

In other words, it was Star Wars through and through.

VERDICT

You like Star Wars? You like rpgs? This game is chocolate and peanut butter, and boy do they go together. It is probably the best realization of an IP in a roleplaying game I have ever seen, so pick it up and enjoy. My friend also has a huge collection of the Star Wars miniature game and uses it to resolve space battle scenes, so this can add a whole new dimension to the game. Yes, in space no one can hear you nerdgasm.

LODOSS RPG REVIEW

It’s been a dog’s age since I last posted, but family & career deadlines hijacked my freetime this month. I’m still in the docket until Friday, but I thought I’d take a few minutes and review a Japanese D&D clone to blow off steam.

Without further ado, I present to you ロードス島RPGベーシックルール, Lodoss Island RPG Basic Book!

BACKGROUND

Most RPG fans know of or have seen Record of Lodoss War, a Japanese manga & anime set in a D&D style world. Lodoss was created in the mid 1980s, and the story goes that the creator, Ryo Mizuno of Japanese RPG powerhouse Group SNE, simply turned the session reports (or ‘replay’ as the Japanese call them) of his D&D game into the story of Lodoss and serialized them in a gaming magazine. I myself have seen Lodoss Replay books in used bookstores out here in Kyoto, some with the main characters statted out for Tunnels & Trolls. Regardless of the particulars, the original manga & anime bring fantasy roleplaying to life with beautiful art, so it is no wonder that Lodoss has inspired gamers for so long, and even a fan-made RPG using the Fuzion system of Cyberpunk & Mekton (available HERE).

Today, however, I will be reviewing the 1995 Lodoss Island RPG’s Basic Rulebook from Sneaker Bunko.

THE BOOK

The Lodoss RPG book is in the typical Japanese RPG pocketbook format, making it much more portable than western RPGs. The layout is clear with a logical chapter progression – About This Book (including setting details), Characters, Skills, Combat, Items, Magic, Character Growth, Monsters, Other Rules, Gamemaster Section, a Sample Scenario, and finally copies of all the charts you’ll need to run the game thankfully reprinted from the main text. It also contains a foldout character sheet stapled into the front cover, a removable cover and highly readable text inside peppered with generous examples of manga-style art. Which brings me to my next point…

THE ART

As you can see, the Lodoss RPG cover picture of elven main character Deedlit is GORGEOUS (excuse my somewhat dark cellphone camera and my computer for turning it sideways for some reason). The fantasy watercolour style fits the feel of Lodoss perfectly, although Deedlit’s features are arguably a bit too Japanese for the genre. Inside, there are three styles of art – hyperrealistic action manga style for the bestiary, a simpler line drawing style for equipment sections, and a cutesy bobble-head style for the examples of play. 

The grotty action style really makes the monsters come alive, while the simple line style presents items efficiently and allows players to imagine them on their own character. The bobble-head art, though irksome at first to me, has grown on me, and I feel it fits the ‘pathetic aesthetic’ (to quote Dr Bargle) of beginning characters in old school games. There’s even a dirty pun on the similarity of the words ‘donkey’ and ‘condom’ in Japanese (‘roba’ or old horse and ‘rubber’), which I think a fine tongue-in-cheek antidote to the melodramatic seriousness of modern fantasy game introductions.

THE TEXT

The font is easy on the eye, while the text is eminently readable and understandable. In fact, Lodoss RPG was one of the texts I forced myself to read before taking the Japanese Language Proficiency Test, which I passed with some thanks to studying eclectic and interesting texts. If you’re a gamer and can read Japanese even a little, break out your dictionaries and use Lodoss RPG as a study text and you’ll be gaming in Japanese in no time.

THE GAME

The mechanics show old school roots but are cleaned up and straightforward, consisting of 7 attributes (Strength, Constitution, Agility, Dexterity, Intelligence, Luck & Charisma), with some derived bonuses. The chassis is a d100% system much like Chaosium’s Basic Roleplaying, which as a diehard fan of Stormbringer and Cthulhu, I adore. The spell system is point-based and contains an eminently useful and wide variety of spells, while monster statblocks are very manageable.

Playable races include human, elf, dwarf and half-elf, and these are expanded with grassrunner (aka hobbit) and dark elf in the Expert Book. Classes include Warrior, Knight, Priest, Thief, Elementalist Shaman, and Mage. Magic is further subdivided into Sorcerer Magic (in Japanese ‘Ancient Tongue Magic’), Common Magic, Priest Magic, Shaman Magic and Demon Scream (‘’Dark Magic’ in Japanese).

It’s been a while since I read the Lodoss RPG, but scanning the book again confirms my good impressions. Chargen is straightforward and involves no intricate calculations like Swordworld RPG, just the addition of a bonus to skills based on attributes which is very reminiscent of the old Stormbringer RPG. Players choose race but randomly roll background like Stormbringer, which gives them different skill points to allocate. The skill list is generous and logical, as is the list of spells for each discipline. Level advancement gives bonuses to hit points, but also ‘Growth Points’ that can be used to improve skills & attributes, while XP advancement for all classes are on one table. XP is gained from defeating monsters and achieving mission objectives.

All in all, Lodoss RPG seems a near perfect blend of D&D and Chaosium system-wise, with some very efficient modern changes made to the chassis of these older systems. It is not without its flaws, however, and the two most glaring problems are the Dodge skill and weapon damage vs monster hit points. The Dodge skill is SUBTRACTED from the attacker’s weapon skill, which would seem to make the ‘whiff’ factor of combat rather high and make melee somewhat tedious. Perhaps this was done to make combat ‘one-roll’ like D&D, but is unnecessary and easily remedied by using Chaosium-style back & forth attacks and defenses.

Another odd rule is that weapon damages are all rolled on a d10 or d6 with arbitrary modifiers, plus Strength bonus if any. Again, this is not a deal-breaker, but makes for some odd choices with a dagger doing d6 + 3 and greatsword or bow doing d10 + 5. Monsters have similarly wonky hit points based on d10 + mods, with an Ogre having 5d10 + 30 and a Kobold having d10 + 5. Meanwhile armor is all static values that are subtracted from damage inflicted, with a robe being AV 2 and a suit of Mail AV 9. Perhaps this works in practice, and I would play RAW before making any changes, but it admittedly feels odd to someone used to dice tube progression in weapon damage and straight rolls for hit points.

SUPPLEMENTS

The rulebooks are split somewhat like B/X D&D, with the Expert book giving details for levels past 5, more spells & skills, monsters, races, rules for figurine & mass battles, and ‘Advanced professions’ that function very much like prestige classes of latterday D&D and thus are very ahead of their time in this respect. I also own two fullsize (i.e. western softcover gamebook size) supplements, with adventures, more gorgeous art, reprints of Basic book content for player reference, replays (i.e. session reports), and designer advice. All in all, Lodoss materials are a beauty to behold and are a great addition to my RPG collection, especially since I got them all 2^nd hand for a few dollars.

I should note that the few scenarios for Lodoss I have read seem somewhat…odd to me. For example, the Basic Book scenario, “An Adventurer’s Nature,” involves the characters joining an ‘Adventurer’s Guild’ right off the bat. They are sent on a ‘test’ by the guild to some caves, where they solve some riddles they find in a trail of letters, ‘fight’ some guild members dressed as goblins, then come upon a real robbery in progress. I would imagine this scenario would not be to the taste of most north American gamers (I could be wrong), both due to its railroadey nature and the concept of joining a guild to go on a fake dungeon crawl. I’d prefer to run B2 with it myself and see how it stands up to The Caves of Chaos.

CONCLUSION

I would certainly love to run or play the Lodoss RPG, and of the 3 Japanese RPGs I have reviewed, it is the most runnable straight out of the box, while also having the smoothest rules. Lodoss RPG shows both its western old school roots, the Japanese aesthetic sense of design, and the strangeness (from the north American standpoint) of Japanese culture.

Sword World RPG for OFRGAD

Sword World RPG for OFRGAD

As I noted in an earlier post about the Dragon Half RPG, the tropes of D&D would be reflected and recontextualized in many ways in different countries. The first major Japanese re-creation of fantasy roleplaying was the Sword World RPG by Group SNE, originally published in 1989. Sword World set the pattern for fantasy RPGs in Japan, offering not only core rulebooks (basic, advanced, & monsters) in the pocketsize format so familiar to Japanese gamers, but also the replay (basically the transcript of a gaming session) and novelizations. It also saw a fullsize book, a revised edition, and currently Sword World 2.0 graces the shelves of any new bookstore in Japan, while second hand bookstores shelves groan under the weight of rulebooks, replays, and adventures for the older edition.

LOOK
 The original edition I am holding is a 440 page pocketsized tome devoid of art except a psychedelic snake-wrapped swordhilt on the cover and a minimalist setting map.

Although later editions such as the monster manual had some art by the incredible Yoshitaka Amano, and the fullsize edition was gorgeously illustrated, the book I have looks like a trigonometry text. There are 19 chapters in the book: Welcome, Characters, Skills, Combat, Armed Combat, Magic, Adventurer Skills Other Than Battle or Magic, Character Growth, Character Making, FAQ, Combat Notes for GMs, Magic Notes, Skill Notes, Monsters, Treasure, Awarding XP, Advanced Combat Options, Magic Options, Monster Skill Options, ending with Designer Notes and a Chart Book. The poor organization and focus on combat really betrays the early fan origins of Sword World, and it is a wonder that Group SNE is still in business and has made some fine rpgs like Lodoss and Paradise Fleet since Sword World.

SYSTEM

Sword World reads like a trigonometry text as well, and that is not a good thing. There are tables of effects for combat rolls and more tables of trivial modifications for attributes. The example of filling in a character sheet looks like a flowchart for taxes. All in all, not fun, which is a shame because the Dragon Half RPG which is derived from Sword World reads, looks, and probably runs ten times better and is a hundred times more enjoyable. The system is 2d6 plus mods, check a spreadsheet for result. Ho hum.

SETTING

The setting is the New Kingdoms of Fosseria in the Age of the Sword. You may notice the island at the bottom of the map is called The Cursed Island, and would later become the setting for The Lodoss War RPG.

CONCLUSION

As a RPG history buff, Sword World is an interesting relic to have on my shelf, but I doubt it would last beyond a session of play with all the more intuitive and fun games out there. It does, however, really showcase the difference in RPGing culture expectations in Japan, and comparison with recent games like Sword World 2.0 and Araianrod show that Japanese FRPGs may have gotten prettier as books, but not any smoother as systems.

Dragon Half RPG Review

OK, it has been a week-and-a-half from hell, but work and studies have calmed down a tad so it is time to post away some stress.

This time I’d like to review the Dragon Half RPG, my contribution to Mesmerized by Sirens’ “Obscure RPG Appreciation” initiative.

INTRODUCTION

When D&D first hit it was a global phenomenon, translated into tons of languages and sold worldwide. Its core concepts were also translated into other tongues and worldviews as local reimaginings of the game, sometimes losing and sometimes gaining elements as it mutated. Britain gave us “Dragon Warriors”, Germany created “Dark Eye”, while France offered “Epees et Sorcellerie,” all versions of D&D as seen through the lens of their creators’ own culture.

Further afield, Japan fostered many indigenous FRPGs, from the early wave of D&D clones like “Sword World” and “Lodoss War”, to more recent creative reimaginings like “Ryutama”. Living in Kyoto, over the years I have made a small collection of these Japanese children of D&D, and today I’d like to present one of my favorites, the 1991 Dragon Half RPG.

BACKGROUND

For those few who don’t know the name, Dragon Half started out as a manga then successful anime telling the story of Mink, a young girl whose mother was a dragon and father a lecherous dragon slaying knight. Mink is a spunky young girl with dragon strength, wings and a tail, who drags her friends along on a quest to see dragonslayer/rock singer Dick Saucer.

As you can tell from the description, Dragon Half has its tongue firmly in its cheek, overturning D&D tropes or simply following them to their absurd end. The art, although evocative and highly polished, is also highly sexualized, alternating gratuitous crotch shots and nudity with cutesy bobble-head style characters, understandable as the author Ryusuke Mita cut his artistic teeth in the lucrative world of pornographic manga, like so many animators in Japan. Still, the story is great, the humour is funny, and the laviscous art plays into both the fantasy and fandom aspects of the genre.

THE BOOK

The RPG is in the pocket size format so popular in Japan, and while lacking the hefty tome feel of western rpgs, this small size belies a large 556 page punch. The writing is clear, the pages uncluttered and legible (if you read Japanese), and the art is top notch, as it is all taken from the manga. Contents include Ch. 0 Starting, Ch. 1 Character Making, Ch. 2 Skill Rolls, Ch. 3 Battle & Character Death, Ch. 4 Magic, Ch. 5 Character Advancement, Ch. 6 Special Rules & Addendum, Ch. 7 Equipment, Ch. 8 GM Section, Ch. 9 Making & Repairing Constructs, Ch. 10 Miscellaneous Damage, Ch. 11 Special Options & Rules, Ch. 12 Magic Items, Ch. 13 Monsters! The book has designer’s notes and useful charts at the end, and a character sheet stapled inside the front cover.

THE RULES

The rules are a simplified form of the Sword World RPG, Japan’s 1989 answer to D&D. Since the pages of damage charts and monster statblocks of Sword World make my head throb like a high school algebra test, I find Dragon Half’s pared down mechanics much more enticing. Basically, you roll 2d6 plus mods against a difficulty determined by the GM. In combat, there is the extra complication of a MSHAG-like table of damage results ranging from ‘Unharmed’ to ‘Destroyed’ and everything in between.

Having run a few simulated combats the system seems well balanced and eminently playable. Magic seems a bit underdone, with a very limited range of spells, which can be remedied by cribbing from Sword World if so desired. Skills are basically occupations like Princess, Thief, or Bard, and the descriptions are Risus-like in their brevity. In fact, a knowledge of Risus mechanics might be a serious asset for anyone interested in playing Dragon Half, as the Risus mechanics of ‘pumping’ skills and resolution could come in handy.

Just as skills are underdeveloped, the most glaring problem with the rules is the weakness of the Gag Level rules. Dragon Half characters become stronger as they advance in Hero Levels, which are basically synonymous with D&D levels. There is a parallel system of Gag Levels, however, which include unexpected great effects for failure and a ‘Gag Skill’ that you can fail spectacularly in, but without any real incentive or explanation of why a player would want to. Once again, the infusion of Risus rules to allow characters to ‘milk’ skills for success and pay this off in gag failures would seem a good patch for this lack of definition.

However, there are a lot of great, humorous touches in the game – all PCs are ‘halfs’, basically with one human parent and one of another species. I rolled a (boring) half-elf preparing for this article, but could just as easily gotten a half-vampire or half-mermaid if the dice had rolled a different way. All monster statblocks include an ‘Edibility’ rating, as a preoccupation with food is a staple both of the source material and Japanese culture (see the movie Tampopo).

SCENARIOS & GAMEPLAY

There were three supplements as far as I know (BGG has the cover of “Labyrinth of Laughter” mislabeled as the gamebook on the BGG website), and all were filled with great art, funny descriptions, and ludicrous adventure. It would take a great GM and players who were fine with gonzo-style D&D parody gaming to get the most out of these, with a familiarity with the source material a must. If you like gonzo-D&D that is a mix of Paranoia and Adventure Time, then the Dragon Half RPG just might be your thing.

Better start practicing kanji…