Update 12 – On defining RPGs & Japan

[Infinitron]

https://crpgbook.wordpress.com/2016/02/23/update-12-on-defining-rpgs-japan/

Update 12 – On defining RPGs & Japan

One topic I get a lot of e-mails on is the dreaded “but what’s an RPG?” talk – mostly complaining that game X isn’t in the book, or (quite often) that game Y is in the book.

There’s no easy answer to this, but it’s something that’s constantly on my head, so I’ve decided to write an article for Gamasutra on the subject, exposing my views:

http://gamasutra.com/blogs/FelipePe...y_RPGs_are_so_hard_to_classify_and_evolve.php

Also, big news: I’ll be moving from Brazil to Japan in July (extreme culture shock to surely follow), so things are a little confused now as I deal with all the paperwork and stuffies. That’s also why I’m weary of promising a date for the book’s final release – I don’t know how things will unfold once I get there.

I’m also announcing now I’ll be abandoning the CRPG Book in favor of a JRPG Book.

But worry not, work on the book will continue no matter what. In the last weeks we added reviews on games like the Sacred series, Gothic 3, Birthright: The Gorgon’s Alliance, Alter Ego, Mordor / Demise, Pool of Radiance, Amberstar / Ambermoon, Might & Magic IX, D&D: Shadow over Mystaria, World of Aden: Thunderscape, Omikron, The Summoning, The Faery Tale Adventure, Descent to Undermontain, ArcaniA and other obscure RPGs (all posted on my twitter). I really enjoy scavenging these games, seeing what works, what doesn’t and all that.

So yeah, it’s a really fun hobby for me. A weird one… I bought XCOM 2 last week, loved it, yet spent way more time playing 1995’s Mordor… ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

[Jack Dandy]

What will ya do in moonland, felipepepe ?

 

[felipepepe]

What will ya do in moonland, felipepepe ?

HUEHUEland is in a huge crisis, I'm tired of being a freelancer, the ad industry is shit, the school I used to teach at has closed down, my brother is moving from my apartment... so if I'm going to reboot my entire life, might as well do it in another country and see how it goes. Bonus points for finally learning moonrunes properly.

 

[Jack Dandy]

Whoo! Sounds exciting. What're you gonna do there?

 

[MRY]

Brazilians moving to Japan is kind a of a cliche, no, except that it's normally ethnic Japanese? As Peter Hitchens (Christopher Hitchen's ultra-right-wing brother) wrote (with wonderful colonial attitudes toward Brazilians and Japanese alike):

The authorities decided to encourage immigration from Brazil, where many Japanese families had emigrated about a century before and where there are now more than a million ethnic Japanese. The idea was that, being basically Japanese, the Brazilians would fit in.

It was not to be. More than 300,000 came from Brazil and Peru. Many of them ended up in Hamamatsu, a neat if dreary industrial city, making TV sets and cars, two hours south of Tokyo by Shinkansen bullet train. There, all too many of them did not, would not, or perhaps could not, fit in.

Coming from a chaotic, loud land of carnivals and exuberance, they found it difficult to belong in a place where failing to sort your rubbish into burnable and non-burnable items is a major affront to public morals, and modesty is very highly valued.

Having been raised in Brazil's outgoing sunshine culture, with perhaps a few words of old-fashioned Japanese learned from grandparents with vague memories of the homeland long ago, they swiftly encountered problems over their graffiti, loud music, unruly children and generally non-Japanese behaviour.

Shops, claiming that the migrants stole from them, began to sprout signs saying 'No Brazilians', which were eventually taken down after protests. But the sentiment lingers on and the experiment is coming to a sad end.

To me, these rather tragic people look completely Japanese. But my Japanese guide could immediately tell that they were different. Even the set of their faces, formed by speaking Portuguese rather than Japanese, marked them out. So did their very different diet. And - even where they spoke good Japanese - their accents instantly gave them away.

Now many are on the dole, which in Japan means relatively generous unemployment benefit for a few months, followed by severely means-tested and regulated minimal benefits reserved for those who really cannot work - in practice, for many people, nothing at all.

Late in the evening in a bare and harshly-lit cafe, in the corner of a Brazilian supermarket selling specialities from Rio and Sao Paolo, I met Shuichi Shimomoto, who has lost his job in a TV plant and hopes to find new work before his benefits run out.

But what if he doesn't get another job? He wants to stay, but knows it will be difficult. 'A lot of my friends have already gone back to Brazil.' he admits.

The authorities are offering £2,000 to anyone who goes back to South America, provided they stay away for three years (to begin with the money came on condition that you never came back at all, but the conditions have now been softened).

inb4 Felipepepe is 2000 pounds richer.

 

[felipepepe]

Yeah, Brazil & Japan have a weird relationship... like, São Paulo has the largest concentration of Japanese people outside of Japan. But they like, hate us.

As the article said, these people look Japanese, but are HUEHUE at heart. I'm clearly a latino / baka gaijin, so they expect me to be an idiot that doesn't know shit, and get surprised when I speak Japanese. With the HUEHUE/Japanese hybrids, it's the opposite - they look Japanese, but behave in a tottaly different way, and most don't even know moonspeak... IT'S SHAMEFUR DISPRAY!

 

[Niektory]

I came to this thread hoping to learn the definition of Japan. I'm disappointed.

 

[mondblut]

How come no one whines that FPS should become more :incloosive: and don't have to be bound by being first person or involving shooting?

Nice to see Garriott actually undersands the basic tenets of mondblutianism. I wish more "roleplayers" would follow him and stop associating with those nasty stats games RPGs are, instead of being cretins like Warren "dice are stone age of game design" Spector.

 

[felipepepe]

BTW, this:

"Imma wanta comi to japam to many waifus (Rei besto waifu!), read One Piece, Naruto and Bleach wiht muh nakamas and sii Godzilla! Plz gibe monies let me in HEUHEDUJHDUIEHIUDHI k' bai."