Are pen-and-paper RPGs a thing in Japan?
Ha, I was just about to ask this same thing. It doesn’t feel like they would be though that’s just a general impression and based on zero knowledge. But with all the technology stuff you always see from Japan, the idea of playing Western Feudal Knights with paper and dice feels rather… quaint.
Edit: I realize that there’s many other RPGs besides castles and pseudo-English sword guys but that’s the typical D&D milieu and largely what OotS is based on even allowing for the Azure City region.
I don’t know how popular they are, but they definitely are a thing - a friend of mine owns a few systems in Japanese.
But what about Dungeons and Dragons specifically? Even if there are Japanese translations, how common are they to actually be played? The stereotypical setting sure seems to be of the European (or even English) high fantasy era. I would expect Japanese games to be set more in the (pre-)feudal high fantasy era.
I’m hardly an expert, but it seems to me that there is more anime set in pseudo-medieval Europe than there is anime set in pseudo-medieval Japan.
A quick check: do Durkon or Minrah know about the world within the Snarl?
I don’t think so. Laurin used Clairvoyance to see into it and Roy didn’t seem aware of it – despite fighting near it – until V mentioned that Blackwing saw another world inside (and vampirized Durkon wasn’t part of that conversation and was presumably busy fighting at the time)
One thing that Japan and the US have in common is our love for assimilating bits and pieces of other cultures.
Hardly unique to those two countries. Everyone does this, just like all languages borrow words from other languages.
The Economist once noted that the Japanese are one of the rare countries whose public cares about what other countries think of them. Maybe the only one, dunno. My general take is that the rest of the world is far more interested in the US, than the US is in the rest of the world.
I think most of the RPG animes riff off of MMORPG (Massively multiplayer online role-playing games) rather than paper and pencil types. But since the former are based on the latter…
I see from here that Japanese nerds were playing imported D&D in during the mid 1980s. One group chronicaled their pen and paper game play in a computer magazine, which would later evolve into a the extensive Record of Lodoss War franchise.
I don’t know how popular DnD is in Japan per se, but they certainly are familiar with it at some level.
Ha-ha!
Dum dum dum!
I did not see that coming.
I wonder why the elven gods didn’t also have their own color.
Also I don’t think I ever heard the term “quiddity” before.
Halfway through I was thinking…There’s purple now. The Gods just have to have the brains to see it.
Thor? Thor is the brains of the outfit? Really?
Yeah, I would have put my money on Loki, not Mr. “I’m gonna go get tanked and paw Sif for a while, let me know if the dwarf lives or dies”.
Guess this answers whether or not the Dark One is part of any pantheon.
Well, it’s now confirmed, the Dark One is not in any of the other pantheons. His purple color is significant, different quiddity. (ETA: ninja’d.)
I have a feeling the word quiddity is going to become like quantum, thrown around rather loosely and, all too often, incorrectly. Not that it has a rigorous definition yet.
My first thought was “So that will be Elan’s happy ending; Banjo’s going to save the world.”
I figured it would prove the “MitD is Zeus” theory right 
I guess it still might – four colors would only be AS powerful as the Snarl. Five colors might permanently contain it!
In the strip or in general? Because in general quiddity just means something’s inherent nature or being. It’s always been a rather squishy word.