Japanese Role-playing Game - Japanese Games

Japanese Games

See also: List of Japanese role-playing games by genre

In Japan, domestically-made role-playing games are competitive in the market. Despite the market’s small size, many original products are published. For example, 95 domestically-made RPG rulebooks, excluding supplements, were published from 2000 to 2007. In the same period of time, 25 translated RPG rulebooks were published. D&D receives a considerable amount of popularity; however, due to the existence of big name competitors, it does not dominate the market.

Sword world RPG, an orthodox fantasy RPG produced by Group SNE, has been popular since 1990’s. There is little novelty in the setting, but it is a comprehensible fantasy. In addition, there are several original settings for GURPS made by Group SNE. Most games of SNE were tied up with light novels or anime such as Record of Lodoss War, Legend of Crystania and Rune Soldier. In most cases, SNE's campaign settings provide idyllic and predetermined harmonious adventures. In a certain sense, their non-savagery worlds strongly influenced and dictated the direction of early light novels and Japanese fantasies.

F.E.A.R. games are more heroic and dramatic than usual games. Characters seen in Tokyo NOVA, Blade of Arcana and Alshard are mighty heroes who possess supreme powers. Also, several connection rules represent dramatic human relationships. F.E.A.R. specializes in creating unique fantasy worlds, ranging from firearms to androids.

Console and computer RPG has a profound influence. For example, Alshard is inspired by Final Fantasy and Arianrhod RPG (2004) is inspired by Ragnarok Online. Story-oriented games are also influenced by various foreign role-playing games, such as Cyberpunk 2020, Torg and World of Darkness.

Adventure Planning Service (Bouken Kikaku-kyoku) produced SATASUPE (2003) and Meikyu kingdom (2004), and prefer cynically tongue-in-cheek settings; the utilization of capricious dice often confuse and exhilarate the stories.

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