Japanese Role-playing Game - History

History

In the 1970s, Japanese role-playing games received little attention, as gamers instead played English RPG titles. It was not until the 1980s, when role-playing video games such as Wizardry, Ultima, Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy helped popularize the genre, that home-grown RPGs started gaining popularity. Several computer game magazines also introduced traditional role-playing games.

Some of the earliest Japanese RPGs were science fiction titles, including Donkey Commando in 1982 and Enterprise: Role Play Game in Star Trek in 1983. Classic Traveller was the first translated RPG in 1984, with Dungeons & Dragons following in 1985. One of the earliest Japanese-designed traditional fantasy RPGs was titled Roads to Lord, published in 1984. Group SNE pioneered a new book genre called Replay in the late 1980s; this new genre consists of session logs arranged as publications. The first replay, Record of Lodoss War, was a replay of Dungeons and Dragons that has been published in Comptiq magazine since 1986. Replays and novels of Record of Lodoss War gave birth to the fantasy RPG genre.

A typical format of a replay:

Game master: In this scene, you should think the reason why your PCs team up the party with each other.
Amu: Well, I will visit Eiji's home, because Eiji became an adventurer. At last, he will repay the money he borrowed from me.
Eiji: Hi, Amu. I became an adventurer at long last. Please lend your money to me again.(Haha.) I don't have money, because I bought chainmail.

Sword World RPG was published in 1989 and became popular very quickly. A notable feature found in Sword World' was Forcelia, which included Lodoss island from the Record of the Lodoss War. Analysis of the game’s success suggests that:

• The designers took ideas from many famous American games including D&D, AD&D, Middle-earth Role Playing, and RuneQuest and modified the settings to suit Japanese tastes.
• Compared to (A)D&D and other contemporary games, Sword World RPG had a flexible, less restricted, multi-class system.
• It used only ordinary 6-sided dice. Other polyhedral dice are uncommon, especially in rural Japan.
• It was tied up with light novels and replays.
• The paperback (bunkobon) rulebooks are inexpensive and portable.

Notable role-playing games in late 80's and early 90's include:

Until the 1990s, Group SNE was a leading role-playing game company in Japan; in the late 1990s, the RPG craze ended (see History of role-playing games). Role-playing games were defeated by trading card games, or TCG’s, such as Pokémon Trading Card Game and Magic: The Gathering; and most RPG magazines were discontinued or changed into TCG magazines. This period is called the Winter Age of TRPG by Japanese gamers.

The Spring Age spans from 1999-2002. Notable role-playing games of this age are Blade of Arcana (1999), Double Cross (2001), Night Wizard! (2002) and Alshard (2002). In 2007, Night Wizard! was created into an anime television series. The expansion of generic role-playing game system named Standard RPG System was based upon Alshard's game system since 2006. They were all made by F.E.A.R. and grew to be one of the newer leading RPG companies in Japan.