Thread: Tabletop RPGs
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Old 2008-12-19, 17:36   Link #2
einhorn303
Senior Member
 
 
Join Date: Jul 2008
Location: Massachusetts, USA
Age: 36
Tabletop RPG's

I'm really surprised, and a bit disappointed, then whenever I look at the "Gaming" section on most anime forums, it always seems to be 100% electronic games. I think there are a lot of good things about tabletop gaming...the face-to-face social interaction, the ease of customization and personalization.

I think tabletop RPG's, especially, have a lot of creativity and imagination that you can't get out of just pressing buttons and watching a screen. RPG's have affected anime too...this has been said before, but anime like Record of Lodoss War were actually based on D&D replays. Night Wizard, a Japanese RPG, was also adapted into an anime. And all the indie RPG's out there are basically doujin products...small print, made for a small but rabid fanbase, little paper portals to original created worlds.

Lately there seems to be a real resurgence in anime or otaku oriented RPG's, too. The market is full of stuff like:

Cthulhutech (Various mecha series (Evangelion especially) + Lovecraft Mythos)
http://www.cthulhutech.com/

Maid: the Roleplaying Game (Maids)
http://maidrpg.com/

Exalted (Epic fantasy)
http://www.white-wolf.com/exalted/index.php

Panty Explosion (Psychic schoolgirls/horror)
http://www.atarashigames.com/PEhome.html

Dive into the Sky (Mecha musume homebrew)
http://1d4chan.org/wiki/Dive_into_the_Sky

It might have started with Maid: the Roleplaying Game getting translated, the first Japanese TRPG ever translated to English. Moe RPG's are lots of fun, for all the ronery otaku out there, you actually get to *be* the little girl...although stuff like that is less awkward to play over IRC than in real life, ww.

Do you play tabletop RPG's? Does it make sense for RPG'ers and anime fans to have a big intersection? If you've never played one before, I recommend finding a good group and giving it a try. It can be a really rich and rewarding experience.
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