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The popularly known origin of the Sword World RPG is that “Record of Lodoss War” starts as a serialized “replay” of a D&D game, the gaming group goes to TSR in the hope of expanding the series with the D&D rules, TSR refuses, so the gaming group creates Sword World as its own Lodoss RPG, which goes on to be the top-selling TRPG in Japan. Unfortunately, there’s been something of a Xerox effect as the story’s been passed around. Here I’d like to set down a relatively definitive record of what happened, and when, that will hopefully be of reference.

The bulk of material comes from three sources:

安田均のゲーム行記1950-2020 Hitoshi Yasuda’s Game Travelogue 1950-2020 (ISBN-13: 978-4775318744)

日本現代卓上遊戯史紀聞［1］安田均 History of Japanese Tabletop Gaming [1] Hitoshi Yasuda (ISBN-13: 978-4908124259

日本現代卓上遊戯史紀聞［1b］安田均補遺 History of Japanese Tabletop Gaming [1b] Hitoshi Yasuda Supplement (ISBN-13: 978-4908124280

These three books were written by Hitoshi Yasuda, the father of Japanese TRPG gaming, and founder and still (as of 2026) president of Group SNE, the game company that developed Sword World. (All Japanese names are given name first, family name second.)

In the late 1970s, Yasuda was a freelance translator and critic of science fiction. He would read English-language science fiction magazines to stay abreast of the latest developments overseas. Starting in 1977, he began seeing advertisements in these magazines for strange looking games such as Dungeons & Dragons, Runequest, and Traveller. Intrigued by these, he ordered two of them in late 1979: Dungeons & Dragons (the Holmes Basic Set), and Traveller. Yasuda and his friends, including his juniors at Kyoto University, became early adopters of TRPGs before one was even translated or released in Japan. Yasuda encouraged the nascent Japanese TRPG market by writing about various games using his platform as a critic for various genre magazines.

TRPGs officially came to Japan in 1983 with the release of Enterprise, an original Star Trek RPG published by Tsukuda Hobby. This was essentially a hack of RuneQuest, one of the favorite games of the early adopters. This was soon followed by Yasuda’s own translation of Traveller in 1984, published by Hobby Japan. That same year, Yasuda and a number of his fellow gamers formed a playgroup called Syntax Error (named after an error message from the BASIC programming language). One of the players so enjoyed their TRPG sessions, she began tape recording them and writing them up in transcript form. Yasuda realized that such a transcript, which he called a “replay,” would be a great way to familiarize the public with how TRPGs worked. When the translation of Traveller was released, he promoted it by publishing a replay of a Syntax Error Traveller game in the Nov. 1984 issue of Tactics, Hobby Japan’s wargaming magazine. This would be built on by other creators, who published their own replays in magazines complete with illustrations.

A publishing company called Shinwa obtained the D&D license and released the Mentzer Red Box in June, 1985. Towards the end of that same year, executives from Kadokawa, a major publishing house, had a meeting with Yasuda. They wanted him to do two things: 1) handle the Japanese translation of the Dragonlance Chronicles trilogy, and 2) write an ongoing column in Comptiq, their “media mix” magazine that covered computing, gaming, and cute models. They were trading mostly on Yasuda’s name recognition in genre circles. Yasuda asked if he could publish a TRPG replay, and they agreed.

With Dungeons & Dragons the newest RPG to appear in the Japanese market, and considering it was the first RPG ever, Syntax Error decided to go with that for the Comptiq replay. Ryo Mizuno was chosen by Yasuda to be the DM because he knew Mizuno to be gifted writer, and expected him to be a novelist someday. (In general, replays are written by the GM, so as to provide the GM’s thought process.) Comptiq began serializing the replay, Record of Lodoss War, (literally translated, “War Chronicle of Lodoss Island”) in September of 1986, with the first part lasting until April 1987. Though written by Mizuno, it was credited to Yasuda and “Group SNE” (the Syntax Error gaming group). It was extremely well-received, so a second replay, set in the same world but with different PCs, began in June 1987. Mizuno was tasked with writing a novelization of the first replay.

Group SNE incorporated as a content creation company in October, 1987, releasing its first game, a Japanese translation of Tunnels & Trolls, in December. Meanwhile, Kadokawa’s Fujimi Shobou imprint was launching a new TRPG magazine called “DRAGON”, and asked Group SNE to design a fantasy RPG they could use to promote it. Along their other work, such as the second replay and the Lodoss War novel, Mizuno and fellow Group SNE member Miyuki Kiyomatsu began designing this game.

Mizuno’s novelization, Record of Lodoss War: The Grey Witch, was published in April of 1988, and became an instant bestseller, essentially launching the light novel market in Japan. As the second Comptiq replay was drawing to a close in mid-1988, Kadokawa and Group SNE decided to talk with Shinwa about releasing compilation volumes of the replays, seeking to take advantage of this newfound popularity. This famously did not go well. The Shinwa suits high-handedly told them that TSR would never agree to the planned compilation volumes, and threw shade at Fujimi Shobou’s DRAGON magazine, saying to Yasuda, “Do you know that TSR publishes a magazine called Dragon?” (Yasuda was probably the first subscriber in Japan to the TSR magazine.) The treatment was apparently so bad that afterward Masayuki Onishi, leader of the group hired by Shinwa to translate D&D, followed Yasuda down the hall to apologize. While this is often portrayed as TSR not allowing the compilation volume, per Yasuda’s account they never dealt directly with TSR, and the bad feelings appear to stem entirely from Shinwa. That said, Shinwa was known, like TSR but unlike most Japanese publishers, for going after derivative and fan-created works, and some surmise that their license agreement might have obligated them to police and prevent such works.

The treatment (and lack of possibility of a deal) encouraged Kadokawa vice-president Tsuguhiko Kadokawa (son of the founder) to cut loose of D&D entirely. He told Yasuda to use Group SNE’s own game for the upcoming third replay series, and to replay the first two campaigns with those rules in order to release the compilation volumes. Either because the game Kiyomatsu was designing was not ready, or because they didn’t want the new game to be directly tied to Lodoss, Group SNE decided not to use those rules, but instead whipped up some quick rules with classes and abilities scores that were a hack of D&D, but with a percentile die for task resolution, and used this to play the game for the third Comptiq replay, which ran from September 1988 to September 1989. A Sword World replay began in Fujimi Shobou’s DRAGON magazine in November of 1988, as a preview of the upcoming game.

Group SNE and Kadokawa (through the Fujimi Shobou imprint) finally released Sword World RPG, Group SNE’s first original role-playing game, in April of 1989. The game system was much different from both D&D and the makeshift game designed for the third replay. However, in order to cash in on the still burgeoning popularity of Lodoss, it was set in the same world, but on a different continent. With the completion of the Comptiq replay series, the makeshift rules were given a polish and published as the Record of Lodoss War Companion in October of 1989. The first compilation volume (replaying the first campaign with the Companion rules) was released in December of that same year.

Record of Lodoss War Companion received additional volumes in 1991 and 1994. These rules were further revised into the Lodoss RPG Basic Rules (1995) and Expert Rules (1996). Sword World was never directly tied to Lodoss itself until 1998, when Group SNE released the Sword World RPG Lodoss World Guide.

So, to sum up, neither Group SNE nor Kadokawa ever dealt with TSR, but rather with their licensee in Japan, Shinwa. Sword World was not developed as a result of those dealings, but was developed in parallel at the request of Fujimi Shobou. Sword World was from its conception not intended to be a Lodoss RPG, but rather siloed away from the Lodoss IP, other than ostensibly using the same world. The break has been even more extreme with the release of Sword World 2.0 (released in 2008) and Sword World 2.5 (released in 2018), both of which take place in an entirely different setting.

This is going to sound stupid, but I get irrationally annoyed when I buy a PDF and it doesn't include the back cover of the book and only has the front cover.

So the cruelties of scheduling fate mean that my weekly RPG game will be down to myself (the GM) and only 2 players for about 2 months. We're going to put the 'main' game on hiatus and want to play a brief 'interim' game.

What are some good RPGs for just a GM & 2 players for about 8 sessions (assuming a week or two of discussion/deciding)?

Bonus points for non-Sci Fi (as that is what the main game is and we're also looking for a genre change of pace while we're at it)

Thank you in advance!

Daggerheart is now one of those RPGs wherein a katana (from the new Hope and Fear) is objectively superior to a longsword at all tiers. Already taking into account the core rulebook's errata (which upgrades the longsword), both are Agility, Melee, d10+3/6/9/12, two-handed weapons. However, the katana has Quick, which lets the user mark a Stress to add an extra target within range. There are no weapon proficiency or price differences for such weapons in this game.

It feels really funny to me that Daggerheart has fallen into the stereotypical syndrome of katana romanticization.

I also find it very funny that Hope and Fear bothered to print a scimitar statistics block that is, uh... an exact copy of the cutlass statistics block from the core rulebook. No differences whatsoever.

I'm wondering if there is a game about paranormal investigations where players have something like an atlas of monsters and phenomena with descriptions, and they have to gather clues and use the atlas to figure out the cause of the problem and how to get rid of it.

I imagine it this way:

• PCs are paranormal investigators. They are professionals and have vast knowledge of paranormal phenomena and creatures from the start of the game.
• In real life, players have a booklet containing all the possible phenomena and creatures with descriptions and some key elements related to them highlighted, i.e. it gets cold when the monster is around, it leaves a specific stench, causes headaches etc.
• Every key element fits more than one creature or phenomenon, so PCs have to hunt for different clues to figure out what the problem is.
• The booklet also describes methods of locating the root of the problem and ways to dispose of it (specific ritual, weak points etc.). Players have to follow it to succeed.

I know Vaesen kind of covers the last point, but as far as I know, it doesn't cover the rest of them.

It can be any genre. At first imagined something like Hellblazer, but it doesn't have to be like it.

I was feeling something with dragons for a future campaign, and dragonriders was a cool concept. Here are a few games I heard of, so if people know them I have a few questions:

• In Harm's Way: Dragons: The fact it has a system to generate dragon breed sounds super cool, and is about playing dragonriders. Though is it a supplement for another game or a stand alone? Anyone tried this one?
• Warrenguard: Seems also about dragonriders, though the itch.io doesn't tell me much about its mechanics. Seems PbtA from the looks of it? If someone played it, I'd love a review or recommend to help me figure it out.
• D&D: I found this setting called "Odyssey of the Dragonlords", but seems more a campaign book, and from what I heard dragonriding and dragons mechanics are weak.
  • I also found two D&D supplements (no clue how officials they are) called "Hildebrants Guide to Dragons" and "D&D: Playing Dragons in Campaigns" which might be helpful? TBD (Edit: These are clearly unofficial and fanmade)
  • Honestly, not having actually ever played D&D 5th edition (just never had a need to, as being the DM I usually can find a game that fit my needs for a campaign), so any recommends to help for a dragon riding campaign are welcome
• Drakonym: Again, only heard of it, and have zero idea what the game is like. It does seem to work a lot with a deck though, so if someone tried it out I'm curious if it would work for me, who plays almost always digital.

If someone got other recommends I'd be more than open to it. I might be able to get a better idea if I read all of them, but I wanted to hear other opinions before I started spending my money left and right on games that might not have what I wanted.

I have a table of players that have been doing DND 3.5 every week -sick/holidays and I've recently received the honor of learning to DM.

They humored me with my homebrew setting and were graceful!

But these guys want grim-dark, and it seems like I can't write/ convey anything dark enough.

I'm very much "evil is bad good is good" "good guy wins story" noble-bright type of story teller, because that INSPIRES me.

They want a grim dark inspired story, though- we've decided to start with Sheoloth and an underdark setting.

I've got the drow attitude down but I'm worried I won't run the environment and NPCs the right way for this.

If you have any tips, or video suggestions, or ideas- I'm all ears!

Does anyone here know of any cozy TTRPGs where you play as a fairy? I really wanna run games with a tinker bell-esc setting that's just really cute cozy and fun.

I'm aware you can probably just flavor DnD to be this but I'm so sick of DnD and I wanna try out more systems.

I recently saw this video (it's on spanish tho) about a failed tabletop game project from one of it's creators, and in one part it talked about how the crowfunding campaign was badly done, and how it drove away customers due to several reasons. This alongside the massive success of Neon Odyssey made me think about what makes or break a campaign.

What is the stuff that motivates you to back a campaign, and what stuff drives you away? Is it the extras? Having a hardcover? The future content promises? Having AI stuff? Having miniatures? A demo or preview? Having a "put you OC here" reward?

Welcome one and all to a post where we can freely discuss the games that we have released or the games that we are making. Stop on by and maybe you'll find your new favourite RPG!

A bunch of us make cool shit, but the Indie RPG space is crowded and it can often be difficult to get the word out about why people should try out your game. That's why every week we try to focus on a different mechanic or setting to see how new RPGs can solve decades old problems or put new spins on old greivances!

Don't like the your result? Just reroll it! This week we're focusing on the Dice Manipulation mechanics! Whether you're trying to make players feel powerful and in control or give them at least a little bit of hope against insurmountable odds, come tell us how your game (or just any game you really like) is unique in implementing Dice Manipulation.

Thank you... me, for the suggestion!

As per mod approval, comments here do not count against rule 7 - comment as much as you want, answer as many questions as you need and discuss to your hearts content!

All that I would ask is that anyone who comments about their own system takes the time to look at the minimum at one other game in the comments and ask a question or provide feedback. Lively discussions are what get people interested and what keep people engaged!

Last week was "Tactical Combat" and we found some pretty neat stuff!

If you want to suggest a topic for future weeks, be sure to include "suggestion" in your comment so I can easily find it!