**Come here and talk about anything!**

​

This post will stay stickied for (at least) the week-end. Please enjoy this space where you can talk about anything: your last game, your current project, your patreon, etc. You can even talk about video games, ask for a group, or post a survey or share a new meme you've just found. This is the place for small talk on /r/rpg.

​

The off-topic rules may not apply here, but the other rules still do. This is less the Wild West and more the Mild West. Don't be a jerk.

​

----------

​

This submission is generated automatically each Saturday at 00:00 UTC.

**Come here and talk about anything!**

​

This post will stay stickied for (at least) the week-end. Please enjoy this space where you can talk about anything: your last game, your current project, your patreon, etc. You can even talk about video games, ask for a group, or post a survey or share a new meme you've just found. This is the place for small talk on /r/rpg.

​

The off-topic rules may not apply here, but the other rules still do. This is less the Wild West and more the Mild West. Don't be a jerk.

​

----------

​

This submission is generated automatically each Saturday at 00:00 UTC.

So I've started my own little publishing company, Second Left Publishing, purely as a hobby business. It has a partial RPG focus. Part of what I'm doing is recreating some old 1920s books for the modern audience. Some are interesting, some are practical. I found this one incredibly useful at my CoC table and thought I'd share it out to the rest of the community.

It's a 1920s Little Blue Book on how to write telegrams properly. Good if you're interested in having that extra immersion for when the first thing the players do in your Masks of Nyarlathotep campaign is send a telegram to the bad guys letting then know they're investigating them (true story.)

It's PWYW, so you can just download it for free. Or if you wish you can pay a little to support the company as I create more of these. Also this is an affiliate link so if you're really opposed to that then you can remove that bit of the URL.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/558398/Little-Blue-Book-459-How-To-Write-Telegrams-Properly?affiliate_id=4779258

And if you really want a hardcopy of it, it's available as POD from Amazon (this is a .com link, but its also available on most other country sites.)

https://www.amazon.com/Little-Blue-Book-459-Telegrams/dp/1067379827

Gamemasters, or other players, what do you want from players at your table?

I ask, because I've recently found that my real issue with DnD is that my players generally do not want to engage with the rules. They don't want to take the time to figure out what they are supposed to do in combat, to know what their spells/abilities do, or generally understand the rule aspect of the game, just the, I'm going to make my character do something silly.

I really want players that are as willing to engage and be interested in the rules, as much as they are the story.

So, what are you looking for?

What is the number one? Of course right after CoC (unfortunately can't argue it's the most widespread in the niche). I personally have a feeling it's KULT. Correct me if I'm wrong.

Has anyone here played TTRPGs in different countries or across continents, either in person or online?

Did you notice any differences in play style, table culture, tone or roleplay versus tactics? Or is it basically the same everywhere?

I am curious whether geography actually shapes how people play, or if TTRPG culture is more globally uniform than we think.

Would love to hear your experiences.

My group decided to try out a new game system and all learn as we played it. One of the players decided he wanted his characters motivation to be that he was in debt to the mob and was adventuring to try and pay it off.

We decided on what seemed like a very high amount of money to owe an started , 250,000 credits. However when doing rewards and downtime income I realized that we had both made the mistake of assuming the games currency (credits) was roughly 1 to 1 with USD.

It turned out that it very much wasn’t and after some rough math my player now owes 12,500,000 USD to the mob. We’re debating if we retcon or just keep rolling with this hilariously high debt.

Hello!

Sorry for the scandalous title and for posting it here. r/dnd did not allow me to post this, so I am at a loss as to where to get the needed attention for it.

I will explain everything in order, but the conclusion would be that WotC is making some horrible choices that are killing off D&D in Japan and all the content creators that revolve around it. I do not want to stirr up drama... but this is the only way I can think of to send a message to WotC.

Feel free to make a video out of this, and feel free to contact me, and I can help you with any links or facts you may need.

----

I am a content creator residing in Japan, and I primarily stream TTRPGs, with D&D accounting for the largest share of my streaming. I also release scenarios with my creator group... all in Japanese. This is not self-promotion, and I am not sharing any of my links.

This is obviously biased, but Japan has one of the most ardent D&D communities.

In case you did not know (since they always leave this out of D&D beyond localization announcements), D&D is localized in Japan. They even have their Japanese YouTube channel, where they sometimes release collaborations with Japanese artists and voice actors like these:

- Kara-tur characters going to Essentials Kit's adventure

- Essentials Kit starter characters in anime style

- Dragons of Stormwreck Isle's starter characters in anime style

The anime-style character sheets can all be downloaded and actually used.

https://dnd-jp.com/tools/

-How it all started-

WotC previously granted licensing rights to various companies worldwide through Gale Force 9. GF9 then sub-licensed to Hobby Japan, a well-established company in Japan with a long history of selling and distributing hobby and western-related goods.

HJ did an amazing job at promoting and also releasing content for D&D in Japan. They even had a backlog of past D&D content from 3.5e and 4e that users could view for free.

This all changed when WotC got in trouble with GF9, revoked licensing rights, and took everything under its wing. Around 2021, HJ announced that no new books would be printed and that Icewind Dale's adventure, which had been completed in translation, would not be released.

The company that helped keep D&D viable in Japan for more than a decade was ousted.

Then we were left in the dak for 1.5 years until...

-WotC assumes control of the D&D brand-

Around 2022, WotC announced that it would bring back D&D and distribute it directly under WotC. They did really well on release day, airing promos on TV (which, btw, was the first time a TTRPG did that in Japan!)

They got famous YouTubers to play and this entire fever lasted for... about a year.

The entire lineup of core rule books was there, and even Xanathar and Tasha were localized.

During this time, adventure-wise, we got Starter Set, Essentials Kit, Dragon Lance, Radiant Citadel, and Witchlight; that is pretty much it. Previous books localized by HJ, such as Phandelver, Tombs of Annihilation, Descent into Avernus, and Dragon Heist, were all halted and never re-released.

WotC attended major conventions alongside MTG, with D&D even getting a boost from the 2023 movie.

During this time, WotC was going through the OGL scandal, and I was pretty much the only one, except for Yahoo News (!), to report on the current state. Don't even get me started on their VTT policy that would have banned my entire YouTube stream backlog.

I noticed that users speaking up about the OGL scandal prompted WotC to change, and the 2024 development was also being driven by user input. I also guided Japanese players through the English-only survey so they could express their opinions.

-Then it happened-

After December 2023, WotC of Japan went completely silent. Their Twitter feed turned into a daily grind of "Hey, did you know today is wrestling day? -> Fighters can use unarmed attacks to wrestle! -> buy our books!" with zero relevance to the topic and mostly Tweets written by someone who knows nothing about D&D (sometimes with blatant misinformation about the books) and a clear hit to their current userbase's interest. Some even speculate it's just a marketing company hired to write random tweets with AI.

A company being horrible at marketing is not a big deal. As I said before, Japan has an ardent D&D community, with people creating events and inviting more and more newcomers to the genre! I obviously chipped in my own time with content creation, but the enthusiasm I have seen here has been massive.

Then it happened.

The core books are running out of print. No matter how many new people the fanbase tries to bring in, and no matter how good they are at spreading the joy of playing D&D, new players are not able to get hold of books.

Amazon has dried out, with other book stores needing weeks to procure them. Not to mention scalpers selling them for exorbitant prices. We do not have digital releases, and we are still at the 2014 edition. (which is fine tbh as long as we can get the books)

During this time, WotC was promoting 2024 and even how it would get multiple-language releases... except that Japan was either not mentioned or removed from the list altogether.

People have been asking for an update on the situation for three years. All the time being met with silence. It is as if Japan is something they no longer want to touch and are just letting it rot.

There have been petitions, but they have fallen on deaf ears.

And that is understandable. Nothing here generates enough heat for any corporate executive to notice.

So here I am.

Please share this around so it may reach WotC, and they can finally step up and say what the hell they plan to do with Japan.

Are they backing off? Are they staying?

Perhaps they are trying to reboot again using 2024...I have no idea, but the way they treated Japan, first shafting their best partner and then leaving the entire userbase in the dark, is no way to communicate with a fanbase. It's fine if they don't want to deal with marketing, but at least the books should not be taken away. They have everything in their power to solve this, but we got zero communication.

Thanks for reading thus far!

Ever since WotC took over, stuff has been going downhill, so any buzz about this would be really appreciated. There's a fanbase over here that is silenced by the language barrier. I don't want to let that happen!

-Bonus read-

Why are you playing D&D? There's other TTRPGs out there!

Yes, I do play other TTRPGs! But I also like playing D&D on top of it!
Japan got a fresh start in the TTRPG genre when Call of Cthulhu was kick-started again in the 2010s via videos. The way D&D plays is actually a novelty in the Japanese scene right now, and many new players are discovering this playstyle.

Call of Cthulhu you say?

Yes, Call of Cthulhu (7e exists, but 6e still dominates!) stomps D&D and any other competition here in Japan by a massive margin. Or that's how it is generally portrayed. The truth is a bit different.

Ever since 2012, people have started releasing scenarios for Call of Cthulhu that involve a heavy emphasis on story and inter-character development rather than the usual cosmic horror. In essence, people released some cool concepts and ran them with CoC's engine, and it spun off into its own genre.

So people are playing CoC because it happens to have cool scenarios and not because of the system per se. (btw, sales in Japan make up for most of the sales globally)

Anyway, that is it for now!

Feel free to AMA, I'll lurk here when I have the time!

This week's RPG is Amber Diceless RPG!

Have you played it? Have you run/GM'd it? How did it go?

What's your favourite memory from the game?

What's the best thing about the game?

What's the worst? How would you improve it?

.

Last week was Vampire the Masquerade 20th Anniversary Ed. Join us again next week for Draw Steel!

Hi everyone! First things first, sorry if my english is not perfect, it is not my first language.

Recently, I was talking to my GM about adding some details to the backstory of my character. Nothing major, just some more "flavor" to make a interesting story. Those were little things that can do no harm, such as adding some exes and old, long forgotten hobbies to my character.

Then, out of nowhere, the only answer that my DM gave me was "Well, that is a nice headcanon for you to have".

Immediately, i was kinda stunned. I asked what he meant, since im the creator and player of said character, but he just left me on read and chaged the subject after that.

For some context, this DM is a old friend of mine, and i already had some troubles with this same character. The campaign we are playing is almost 2 years old, but, no matter how much i try to, my DM never seems to have a take on the "definitive and final version" of my backstory.

When we started playing i asked for help with it, since the setting of the campaign is something i was not very familiar with. He helped me make the major twists for my character, but left me to create the details and make the character feel mine.

I tought that this was it, just a little help with the plot.

Instead, every year, out of nowhere, while we played, he would just deny whenever i speaked of something of my backstory. "No, that was not it." "Nope, you are wrong" "No, ive changed that.".

*And, no, it is not possible to be some sorta of amnesia or false hydra type thing. He would "correct" the backstory by creating and playing with one that was not the one agreed prior to starting the game, all that while not telling me nor sending me anything of this "new version" (that he was certain it was always the correct one).

In response to that, i would just sent him his own messages, proving that i was right. He would say that he had forgotten it, and, while i was confused, would just continue play. Othertimes, he would just say that my character "would not do this" or "he is not enough of *some feature*".

Recently, ive been trying to get some development done to my character, but it has been difficult to do so as the GM keeps telling me that i had "something wrong".

*I try, almost weekly, to have my backstory 100% on paper, but every time the GM just ignores my texts and never reads the documents and texts with it written.

As time passed, these constant "corrections" on my backstory or my roleplay started to give me a uneasy feeling, as it seemed like the GM was looking at my character as it were *his* character. Some of my friends agreed to this theory. I tought about asking for opinions here, since im not very sure about it.

Thank you guys for the help, i hope this post is not difficult to understand or read!

*EDIT For clearing somethings out.

1-No, the things i was trying to add on my backstory are not impactful to the PLAY part of RPG in any way. They were just details to talk about, lore-like things.

2-It was the GM who asked for all players to do a backstory-heavy character. He wanted to help each one to also help putting the pieces together to form his world as he liked. I am the only one who did not get the backstory wrote down, all the other players have a long text with their lore made by the GM. Besides, he told us that the backstory of each one would be connected to some of the main plots of the campaign.

3-Ive already tried many times to communicate things. We cannot see each other in person too often, so i try in text - thats why i mentioned he ignored me. Most times he just lefts me on read and waits until i or he change the subject.

Stylish Action Combo SSS Smokin' Sexy Style Batshit Insane Rule of Coolness over dungeon crawling. The closest thing I find is Exalted and Tenra Bansho Zero with the Stunting and the way Tenra BZ did it.

The kinda game where you can start blasting TM Revolution OSTs in the background to hype everyone up. The kinda game where you can make a fighting style built around using 6 swords, 3 on each hand, looking like you are fighting with the dragon's claw.

Most TTRPGs gameplay and combat largely doesn't interest me that much unfortunately, and I am exploring my options. Most RPGs I played before just kinda blend together and play the same.

For your own safety, do not mention Delta Green.

(I own it!)

I loved 1e. You could command massive government assets in the name of being, essentially, the guys who covered up alien invasions and the paranormal etc.

2e came and went. But i'm interested