In the four main types of role-playing thread:

James Holloway wrote: ...and it wouldn't surprise me if this were true in most of the US -- obviously, UK LARP culture is very very different, and Scandinavia is different again) they make up the majority of LARPs.

Hmmm, interesting thing...

I´m from Austria, so I have a bit of knowledge on gaming in Germany as well.

As far as I understand it, in the german speaking area, both D&D/d20 and WW are major players. The only real competitor is IMO DSA (recently translated into english as "(The) Black Eye", as far as I know), a german game with quite a history.

As of the gaming culture in general:

Gaming is a niche hobby, as pretty much everywhere. Gaming is mostly seen as kinda geeky but it is not as easily branded as "devils-worshiping", although there have been some rather strange anti-gaming initiatives, IMO. There is a small but rather nice community on free games on the net, dedicated to developing own games.

The norm in gaing mechanics and such are rather rules heavy systems like D&D and DSA, with a slight bias against rules light or "artsy" games. In one of the major forums, a lot of arguments had diverging opinions on theoretical questions as a cause and there have been some big "anti-theory" arguments going on. (Something like "We don´t need theory, you people should just play more!".) *shrug*

I think that the subculture (Yeah, I finally found some context to use that word in a post. ;) ) in germany is a lot like the one american and british one, because there is a big exchange on data through web and publishing canals going on.

Austria is slightly different, if only in organisation. While there are periodical conventions in germany, serving IMO as "gaming centrals", in Austria gaming conventions are nearly nonexistent. There are comic and game conventions, but neither of those seem to serve as a representation for the hobby. There will be a gaming convention in april `04, but it will be the first of its sort in austria. We´ll see how it develops.

M

Well, this request for information got me finally to register here. I was quite determined to get my game in order first, but well, here we are. I've lurked in the Forge on and off for some two years, and it was just a matter of time. Time will tell if I'll participate in other discussions now that I have an user account.

Anyway, about the situation in the nordic countries and Finland especially: Finland and the Scandinavian countries have significantly similar cultures overall, from political structures to sociological views. There is a strong tradition of cultural exhange, so everything I say about Finland is to some degree valid in the context of Sweden especially and Denmark and Norway secondarily. Iceland is a little small and a special case, I wouldn't be surprised if there were significant differences.

In Finland the larp scene is the dominant one. There was an influx of new people in the late '90, and the larpers have almost singlehandedly made roleplaying a valid and accepted form. The ministry of culture will evaluate the hobby for cultural significance in the '04 spring, hopefully garnering it the same level of government support that older arts get, opening the grant system for larp writers and conventions. (Finland, as other nordic countries, is a social democracy, if it wasn't clear)

Meanwhile roleplaying is a very fashionable hobby. There was a drama series about larpers in the television a couple of years ago, for example. The main convention, Ropecon, has gained increasing amounts of media attention, including several articles and mentions in newspapers like the national Helsingin Sanomat (comparable to NY Times or Washington Post or something else important and big, if USA was a little country).

The main types of larps are hardcore fantasy adventure and the artistic, historical kind of larp. There is a significant (although diminishing with the influx of newbies) number of people who play exclusively boffer-style or even with steel. The boffer is the method of choise in fantasy adventures. The local fantasy staple is masquerading as a green orc and running around in the forest, plotting raids on the other players in the village, marketplace or whatever the main event is. Another one are elf ears.
Outside of the fantasy larp, which sees much continuity and traditionality, there are the other larps. The basic assumption is that the writer designs his own system when writing the game, not a really onerous task when you consider how rules-light larps are. Thus for example Mind's Eye Theatre and other such larp systems are the exception here, sometimes even in Vampire larps (those are as prevalent here as elsewhere, I'd guess).
Anyway, the more artistically inclined larpers, who aren't stuck in either fantastic or vampire tropes, really make up most of the larpers (or at least they are the most visible). Majority of larpers are women (though writers are men), and thus it is natural that larps are quite versatile and won't really duplicate any generic forms apart from fantasy/vampire.
The general larps (much better than artistic/historical as a term) range from historical ones based on manorial life in the nineteenth century to dystopial near-future ones.
I myself don't larp, but can possibly answer further questions about this aspect. The most important things are above, I think.

On the tabletop front we see a strong tendency towards simulationist for character and immersionism. I myself see this as an overflow from larping, which is on GSN terms forced to this kind of mode. The general view among the active people actually seems to be that the three main forms of game are powergaming, newbie gaming and strong illusionism. I of course disagree myself, but relatively few rpg intellectuals here even properly understand narrativistic priority, understanding the word and related consepts to denote play where the GM drives strong themes which are realised through character-loyal portrayal of the players.
The most popular commercial games are D&D (used mainly for simulationist purposes) and WW games (the staple of immersionist play). Additionally Finnish games are ridiculously popular, and "Praedor" from our very own indie folk hero Ville Vuorela is played throughout the country in delightful numbers. In addition there is a comparatively strong tendency towards artistically independent thinking (as in larps), and I estimate that 80% of long term roleplayers play either heavily customised or original systems. I deem myself a little above average in terms of system independency (although hope my designs are better and more innovative, of course), and have played for some ten years. I designed my own rules system in the third year of play, and have after that written about a dozen games for strictly personal use, including this ridiculous new PHB for d20 which I needed for play in the mythic antiquity. Everyone does it, and I use to talk shop with my D&D players who master their own games and generally tailor the system to the game. There is much less of the idea of dependence on canon, but also the "System doesn't matter" myth is much stronger as a result. If there's something wrong with the system, it's trivial to correct, right?

About the surface structure: the most pressing problem for Finnish roleplayers has for a while been the lack of serious journalism. Some two years ago the long standing magazine "Magus" folded because the editor got tired, and after that there hasn't really been anything on that area. Larpers have their own problems with "Larppaaja", and we have been toying with the idea of drawing both sides under one umbrella in this matter.
The most important roleplaying assosiations are local for towns and cities, generally operating under the local universities. In Helsinki, for example, there is Alter Ego, which has a couple hundred members. There is thanks to AE a strong influx and outflux of players in the area, and I for example get players for a game simply by asking for them on a centralised "campaign list".
The most important national organization is Ropecon RY, which is composed of the abovementioned local clubs and the larpers' national organisation. The primary function is arranging Ropecon, the biggest nordic roleplaying convention. The association is however strong and we are currently discussing supporting f.ex. the national hobby magazine with Ropecon profits.
Selling of games is strongly centralised, mainly because you cannot expect to have too many shops in a country of five million people. The FLGS is for most people "Fantasiapelit", a chain of hobby shops that has some half a dozen shops in the most important cities. There is some selling of games in book stores, but the best times for that were the early nineties. In Helsinki there is then another shop, "Safe Heaven", which deals mainly in CGG and board games, and a couple of comics shops, but neither have to date started with roleplaying games, so it's Fantasiapelit or nothing. This isn't a problem, as Fantasiapelit Helsinki is a big store, they can get what they don't have, and although the harsh manner of the salesmen is legendary, they do serve. And they ship by mail, so they can serve the whole country.
A significant new development that should be mentioned is "Myrskyn Aika", a roleplaying game by Mike Pohjola, published a couple of months ago. Mike is a rpg-intellectual of long standing, having authored for example that Turku manifesto. Myrskyn Aika was published by a normal book publisher, and it is sold in book stores. The format is not unlike Hero Wars, a paperback. The response to the game is mixed: the greatest innovation (or rather goal) is that the book includes rules for both tabletop and larp gaming, so the game can switch between them easily. The world is a basic fantasy, and I among others have condemned the game harshly for being a simple throwback to the eighties. A fantasy heartbreaker par none, I say, but inspired not by D&D but fantasy larping.

Notes about practical gaming: the gold standard is to play once a week, 3-6 hours at a time. Amongst university students and graduates, which are a significant portion of players, a more common standard is once or twice a month. Usually those playing simple D&D play weekly, while the higher level people simply choose dates suitable for all at a per-session basis. Might have something to do with how D&D continues forever, while those others often have a definite reason for the game and it's planned for a limited number of sessions, and thus people often play more than one game at a time. In university circles play groups vary widely (there is many of us and getting players is easy), while most others play with their close circle of friends. I, for example, have no trouble whatsoever with GSN conflict: the basic form is for a GM to announce a game and for players to pick ones that look interesting. If game doesn't work for someone, he quickly drops it without hard feelings. Most players in my experience at the university level can talk quite fluently about "GM control", "railroading", "plot emphasis" and such, so we get by in communicating what we are doing.

Well, that's what I can think of from the top of my head. Those interested for more should ask, or go check the RPGnet columns by Mike and Juhana Pettersson. Mike tells about the publishing process of his book, while Juhana writes a controversial marginal perspective about intellectual larping in the north.

Hiyas -

Well, not sure if I agree with Eero that the Finnish scene is all that similar to the Norwegian scene...

In Norway, there's a lot of LARP going on, with a whole bunch of small groups doing very different things all over the country. What used to be almost exclusively fantasy gaming, based on a large club in the capital (Oslo), has been transformed into an anarchic, very loosely-knit society where everyone seems to happily "do their own thing". The website www.laiv.org has done a lot to help the hobby grow, and serves as a major discussion forum for LARPers in Norway.

The organization "Hyperion" is trying to get all sorts of hobbyists organized in a larger, country-wide structure, and has successfully recruited people from the tabletop RPG hobby, miniature gamers, LAN/computer network gamers, miniature gamers, manga/anime fans etc. However, LARPers aren't very interested in being organized after this fashion, and have shown only moderate enthusiasm in this project. Hyperion has managed to get significant state funding.

In tabletop gaming, the trend is towards traditional games. A

lot

Non-computer-based roleplaying, as far as I know, doesn't really exist in mainland China (though Chris "Pale Fire" Lerno said that D&D had been translated and is available in Taiwan). To everyone I've met, "dang jue se you xi" (literally "becoming-characters games") means Final Fantasy and the like. If you surf the web in Chinese, you get similar results. I keep hoping to someday stumble across an underground community, but I haven't found it yet.

I've only been in Hong Kong for a couple months now, so I'm sure I'll know more after I've spent more time here. I have contacted local gamers, however, and have learned a bit.

There is one store in Hong Kong, in the Mong Kok area, that sells RPGs. They sell primarily D&D3, which is available in English and Chinese. There are RPG clubs at some of the Hong Kong universities--I am at City University of Hong Kong, and the RPG club meets weekly on Thursday evenings. D&D3 is the predominant game. It may be the only RPG, as far as I can tell so far. I assume it was predated by the previous versions of D&D. I've yet to discover a Hong Kong made RPG. Frankly, I'd expected to perhaps find Warhammer because of the U.K. influence on Hong Kong. There are two Games Workshop stores, but they both sell only miniatures and the workers in the stores spoke of roleplayers almost like urban legends--they'd heard about them from friends of friends, but never met them.

It took me two months to find the RPG scene here because players call it "TRPG." The T, of course, is for table-top, to distinguish it from computer RPGs. Jonathon, you might try some web searches using TRPG as a search term. It worked for me. I eventually found this board at this website and contacted other Hong Kong roleplayers through it. The discussions at the board are all focused on D&D3.

There is also at least a small roleplaying scene in Taiwan. I have no personal experience with it, but this site is a great place to start if you're interested in links and information about it.

Rich

Thanks for the informative replies! My appetite is whetted to know more.

I recall having heard that in Japan people write up scripts of campaigns, and other gaming groups use those scripts to re-run interesting games. Anyone heard of this?

I found a link to the old thread that started me off on this topic:
The Forge dialectic - how do I boil this down?
Dotan writes on the history of Israeli gaming close to the end of the thread.


Regards,
Emily Care

I must admit that I don't know much about my local (Danish) scene, but that's only because I don't play LARPs or go to conventions. The tabletop scene is dominated by WotC and WW products, but all but the most obscure indie games are played here, even if only by one or two groups.

GNS terms are not used much in discussions here, but most people recognize that there are different styles of gaming, attracting different types of gamers. I'm sure that there's more to it than that, but I'm lucky enough to be in a thightly knit network of old-friends type gamers, so I don't get out much. :^)

Emily, if you want to know about the Japanese RPG scene, I recommend that you take a look at mr. Andy Kitkowski's fine essays at: http://www.z-builder.com/trpg/

Regards,
Chris

Edit: I'm a complete tool: His are essays are found in PTGPTB, from issue #18 and onwards: http://ptgptb.org/issue-index.html

Minx: The table-top game industry in Germany seems extremely vital given the many well constructed and popular games (Settlers from Catan for example) being created there. Does this translate into a strong gaming community in general and if so has it affected the acceptance of role-playing? We'll have to watch Austria after the convention there, see what develops.

Rich: "trpg", of course. Shows the bias of a culture. Here rpg is generic and mostly refers to table-top. In Japan, folks would think you mean video games.

Welcome to posting on the Forge, Eero. Thanks for your input! Glad this topic inspired you to register.

Eero Tuovinen wrote: In Finland the larp scene is the dominant one. There was an influx of new people in the late '90, and the larpers have almost singlehandedly made roleplaying a valid and accepted form.

Matthjis wrote: The Danish scene seems very interesting from my POV. A lot of diceless games, a strong emphasis on the creation of good and original scenarios, and even some academic debate on games and gaming. Very much seems to have originated from the club Fasta in Aarhus, with its associated festival Fastaval

Grex wrote: Emily, if you want to know about the Japanese RPG scene, I recommend that you take a look at mr. Andy Kitkowski's fine essays at: http://www.z-builder.com/trpg/

Replay - (Japanese: RI-p'rei) These TRPG-related books are more popular in the Japanese market than published adventures are in the American RPG market. They are basically scripts, written in screenplay format, of an RPG experience. Normally, when making a replay, one person in the group tape-records the session, and later types it up. Actions, out-of-character talk, and emotions are often noted in replays.

Although I don't know too much about the British gaming scene, having only ever lived in university towns, I will say that I don't think it's much different from the American except in little details (some games more popular than others, etc.). It's really the LARP area that is different, with the British LARP scene as far as I can tell being very heavily dominated by these huge boffer-combat fantasy groups. While these exist in the USA, it would seem that lower population density and other stuff makes them less ... vast ... than the ones in the UK.

Emily Care wrote:

Replay - (Japanese: RI-p'rei) These TRPG-related books are more popular in the Japanese market than published adventures are in the American RPG market. They are basically scripts, written in screenplay format, of an RPG experience. Normally, when making a replay, one person in the group tape-records the session, and later types it up. Actions, out-of-character talk, and emotions are often noted in replays.

Fascinating. Now, I was part of a play group who for a certain period of time we used an multi-track recorder to tape record session with two microphones and a partial transcription was later made. Now that experience has always been a mark of how far over the edge we were (a point of pride, of course :). Now see how vanilla we really were!

Emily Care wrote: What do you know about club Fasta?

Steve Jackson wrote: April 23, 2000: Good Times in Denmark
We're two days into the 4-day Fastaval convention in Arhus, Denmark. Great con - about 800 people in attendance. The big thing here is the Mafia live roleplaying game . . . therefore, the proportion of gamers in good suits and snappy neckties is mind-boggling.

April 26, 2000: Fastaval, Part 2
The con is over, and it ended with a bang. Saturday we had an excellent panel discussion which started out as "What's the difference in gaming styles between Europe and the U.S.?" and evolved into a freewheeling discussion of the nature of the roleplaying community as a whole, and the ways that a creator could contribute. Verrrrrry interesting!

Sunday night was the banquet, and quite a banquet it was - with two bands, and a third one at the huge bar tent in the courtyard of the school which was hosting the convention. (Bar tent? At a school? You bet.)

There were more than 300 people at the banquet, and the energy level was as high as I have ever seen at a convention. The bands were great (the first one, a cover band with some really great, weird arrangements, could fill any club on 6th Street in Austin). We not only had people dancing, we had people pogoing and airplaning . . .

And, not to lose sight of the original goal, we had standing ovations for the winners of the various GMing and service awards. The energy and enthusiasm of the fans here is fantastic. As a matter of fact, if Danish gamers have a fault, it's that they are too modest. I was flat-out accused once of being "political" for saying this was a great convention . . . the fellow seemed certain that cons just had to be better in America. And several people gave me variations on the "But seriously, what do you think?" line. I think they don't know what they've got here . . .

Emily Care wrote:

Eero Tuovinen wrote: In Finland the larp scene is the dominant one. There was an influx of new people in the late '90, and the larpers have almost singlehandedly made roleplaying a valid and accepted form.

Eero: What caused the influx? And do you think that part of the reason why larping (and thus rpg in general) was able to become more accepted was because the country is fairly small? Or are there other aspects to society that might make people more open to it?

Hi Emily!

Emily Care wrote: Dotan writes on the history of Israeli gaming close to the end of the thread.

The history of the hobby in Italy had quite a lot of ups and downs.

In the 80s and early 90s, RPGs became quite popular, and many games (I think at least 50 lines) where published. Companies translated almost everything they could find, and people played many different games
In the late 90s CCGs and CRPGs became very polular and most people abandoned RPGs for those new games. The entire hobby experienced a huge crisis, with companies failing, shops closing, magazines stopping publication, cons and fairs becoming rare.
Recently (after 3E has been published), things are changing and tabletop roleplaying is rising again as a popular hobby, together with new publishers and shops.

I have no actual figures, but I guess that most people play with their own groups and care very little about the community of players as a whole.
Those people play D&D3 and most of them ignore the existence of other roleplaying games; also, they were too young or simply weren't gamers during the "golden age" of ten years ago.
WW games have their own niche of players, even if I think they are less popular now than a few years ago.

On the other hand, there is a big community of players going to cons, discussing on internet fora and so on. These people play basicly every kind of RPG out there, focusing a bit more on the narrativist side I guess.

This community also "gave birth" to a good number of indie authors and publishers. Strangely enough, the only non-indie Italian games published in the last few years I can think of, are based on anime licences.
Anyway you can find here a comprehensive list of what's been published.

About other kinds of games:
Miniature wargames (Games Workshop) are quite popular, while classical wargames are played only by a few people, mainly older ones.

Most people own and play "mainstream" board- and party games, such as Monopoly, Risk (which is Italian did you know?), Taboo, Pictionary and the like.
Other boardgames are played only by the "con people" I talked about above.

About LARPs: I almost didn't know they existed until a few years ago, so I can only talk about the current situation.
Fantasy LARPs with latex swords and so on gained some popularity, with the biggest events having 300-400 players.
Vampire and other LARPs are organized at every con, I don't know how many people play them outside of cons.

...Anything else?

(minor EDIT in the LARP paragraph)

What an incredible thread!

I'd like to get some input from the French role-players. Fabrice? Philippe?

And there's a big Down Under contingent at the Forge as well, both Australia and New Zealand. Chime in, guys.

Best,
Ron

Greetings Forgers,

Even though I'm no longer active in Turkish RPG circles, (for the last 2 years) I'll try to give you an idea.

Turkish RPG has a relatively short history. About 10 years ago, it was impossible to find RPGs (and related accessories like dice) anywhere in Turkey. Very few people knew that they existed. All rulebooks were photocopies of photocopies of photocopies and we used to make our own polyhedral dice from cardboard or program scientific calculators to roll dice (no kidding). Small isolated groups of people played, mainly in Istanbul (the biggest city with 10 million people). AD&D was the most popular game, but we'd play anything we could find. By 1995, I had photocopies of AD&D, CoC, Cyberpunk 2020, as well as an original Mechwarrior RPG, and that was about it all.

But things changed pretty fast. Soon a store in Istanbul started importing a small but fairly diverse selection of games. It was followed by others in the years to come. Hitherto isolated gamer groups started to meet each other and to organise conventions, mainly in universities, starting from 1996. Later roleplaying cafes were opened, where the gamers met and played (since most young Turks live with their families). Small but frequent conventions were organised in these places with continuing and interacting games (a number of groups playing games that interact).

The number of gamers grew exponentially after 1995 (they are in the low thousands today- my estimate). Soon we (in Istanbul) began to hear of gamers in other towns. Today Ankara (the capital population 4 millions) has the biggest yearly roleplaying event- the METUCON of Middle East Technical University, which hosts at least a hundred tabletop games (with a good selection including independent games like Little Fears, for instance), 4 live action games, workshops, etc, and gamers attend the con from all over Turkey. Well, at least from the bigger towns.

If I'm not mistaken D&D was recently (in 2002?) translated into Turkish. This development is a bit late for various reasons, given the state and spread of the hobby, but I expect the number of players to increase as more material becomes available in Turkish. There is serious internet activity and there used to be a nationwide semi-amateur RPG magazine.

Most popular tabletop games are D&D3e, World of Darkness games (especially Mage, or so is my impression) like anywhere else. Call of Cthulhu and Cyberpunk are also played. In Ankara GURPS is widely played, too. Miniature gaming became popular recently, after 1999 or so.

Recently (2000) RPGs received some positive and a lot of negative media attention. The negative views came after a number of youth suicides, which is a rare event in Turkey. Links were drawn between the suicides, RPGs and satanism, in a sporadic satanism-scare.

Turkish larp started in 1996 in Istanbul, by some first generation gamers, who probably saw something similar in the USA. Two games were made. Then in 1997 a Finnish LARPer (who speaks Turkish) living in Istanbul and a Turkish-american introduced Vampire: the Masquerade LARP in a convention, and the first ever LARP campaign was born. Later a mixed (Finnish-Norwegian-Turkish) group organised a Scandinavian style larp (a Lovecraftian city game), without a meta rules system per Vampire. After the Scandinavians (Nordics?) were gone, the Istanbulites continued to make their own larps, some typical stone-paper-scissors vampire, some more original or Scandinavian style. One important example is a CoC larp campaign. In this period the larp expertise of Istanbul was carried on to the Ankara gamers (they made games for Ankara conventions), who liked the idea and went on to make their own games in conventions.

Since the average Turkish larper (or gamer) has much less money, less free time, and less expertise in larp than the average Scandinavian larper, all Turkish game up to date have been rather amateurish by Scandinavian standarts. They were mostly short (few-hours long), with fewer players per game (average was under 30), with poor equipment/props/costumes and almost all were contemporary or 20th century settings/scenarios. Thus CoC and Vampire are attractive settings. I've heard that recently (after 2000) there were a few outdoors larps with historical costumes. Here's what I did (it was my last roleplaying activity) as a Turkish larp example:
http://peregrjnus.tripod.com/krachfeld/index.htm

There is no separate larper class in Turkey, all larpers are also tabletop gamers. Though a few prefer larp to tabletop. It may be misleading to speak of a Turkish larp scene, since very few games are made per year. Still, there is some expertise which may help future larpers in getting a real scene going.

I'm pleased to answer questions if you have any,

-Gizem Forta

Wow! Thanks so much to all who are writing in. It has all been very clear and extremely informative. I'd love to hear more. Any word on role-playing in South America or Africa? Anyone from Brazil? Senegal? Nigeria?

And I have some responses to what has been written:

Eero Tuovinen wrote: Meanwhile roleplaying is a very fashionable hobby [in Finland]. There was a drama series about larpers in the television a couple of years ago, for example.

Rich Forest wrote: There are two Games Workshop stores [in Hong Kong], but they both sell only miniatures and the workers in the stores spoke of roleplayers almost like urban legends--they'd heard about them from friends of friends, but never met them.

herrmess wrote: LARPs were historically on the fringe in Israel (once called RD&D, where "R" stood for "Real") and are used to gross misrepresentation in the mass media every once in a while, but now they thrive, especially with the coming of Russian immigrants who brought their own highly detailed LARP style. These LARPers exhibit a high investment in the hobby, and meet weekly to practice and socialize. The Vampire LARPs are another kind which enjoys some popularity, with a 24/7 game running for several years now (these were represented in the media even worse than the fantasy variety).

gizem wrote: Turkish larp started in 1996 in Istanbul, by some first generation gamers, who probably saw something similar in the USA. Two games were made. Then in 1997 a Finnish LARPer (who speaks Turkish) living in Istanbul and a Turkish-american introduced Vampire: the Masquerade LARP in a convention, and the first ever LARP campaign was born. Later a mixed (Finnish-Norwegian-Turkish) group organised a Scandinavian style larp (a Lovecraftian city game), without a meta rules system per Vampire.

CCG - computer console gaming (?)

FLGS - what does this stand for?

Valamir wrote:

FLGS - what does this stand for?

Friendly Local Game Store. No idea how that one got coined.

I wrote: In the late 90s CCGs and CRPGs became very popular and most people abandoned RPGs for those new games. The entire hobby experienced a huge crisis, with companies failing, shops closing, magazines stopping publication, cons and fairs becoming rare.

Emily Care wrote: CRPG or CCG - computer role-playing, computer console gaming (?)

Emily Care wrote:
Just as idle curiousity, what is role-playing called in different languages?

Emily Care wrote: Just as idle curiousity, what is role-playing called
in different languages?

Emily,

Thanks for reading and praising the game.

Since there aren't so much rpg related material in Turkish the name issue is not yet very clear. Many people call tabletop rpg 'FRP' (pronounced fe-re-pe), no matter what it is about. Non-gamers like the press use this term also.

Some gamer groups made attempts to translate RPG related terms in the internet and in print magazines/fanzines. Those who have more experience in gaming tend to prefer 'Rol Yapma Oyunu' as a Turkish equivalent which is a direct translation. Literally it means 'Role Making Game(genitiv?)', i.e. 'game of role making', or something like this. Some other suggestions were 'Fantastik Rol Yapma Oyunu', 'Rol Oyunu', 'Masaüstü Rol Yapma Oyunu' (Tabletop...), etc.

For live action roleplaying, 'larp' is used even though it already has a meaning in Turkish (a rather obscure word though), along with 'Canli Rol Yapma Oyunu' (another direct translation) and 'layv' (Turkish spelling of the pronounciation of the English word 'live').

Since most people in the hobby speak English, and almost no sources exist in Turkish (this is why they speak English), English terms are also used widely. The gameplay itself is always in Turkish, though.

I hate the 'Fe-Re-Pe' term passionately and promoted 'Rol Yapma Oyunu', and 'Layv' when I wrote essays, columns, or participated in discussions.

I'm not a French roleplayer but I played in France during the eighties when gaming was just starting up.

There were a few clubs around in 83 and one shop in Bordeaux that sold RPGs as well as other board games. Board games are quite popular in France, more so than in the UK, but not as much as in Germany where they are cheap and plentiful.

We played English games because that was all there was. We played in a weird franglais: "Je prends mon sword+2 et je hit le goblin". It helped that I was able to read the harder bits of the books that my friends didn't get and their English improved a great deal (although there's perhaps not much call for knowing what dweomer and abjuration mean outside D&D).

Then came the translations and the French games (Mega, Legendes Celtiques) and I went back to the UK. Now roleplaying is bigger in France than in the UK with many more gaming shops and a much more vibrant scene. Mind you some of the companies (Multisim) are feeling the pinch at the moment and I'm not sure whether more might go under.

Roleplaying is called le jeu de role or JdR. Roleplayers are called rolistes There should be hats on the o's in role and rolistes but I don't have a French keyboard. LARPs and other such things are called jeux de role grandeur nature, or just GNs. This means life size roleplaying games, and covers LARPs and Freeforms equally, avoiding the problems of definition we sometimes run into.

The most popular game in France is apparently Nephilim, the original French version, although for a long time it was CoC. Many French games seem to have a baroque feel to them, such as Nephilim, Agone, Lyonesse (actually Swiss), Dark Earth, Rétrofutur and are usually presented with more colour and better artwork than their English equivalents.

Card gaming is enormous in France and if you go to L'Oeuf Cube (a tres cool parisian game shop) any day after school, you'll see hundreds of teenagers swapping cards in the little square near the shop.

Cheers,

Emily Care wrote:
And I have some responses to what has been written:

herrmess wrote: ...The Vampire LARPs are another kind which enjoys some popularity, with a 24/7 game running for several years now (these were represented in the media even worse than the fantasy variety).

Two things strike me about this: first off-- a 24/7 larp? Yowza! That sounds pretty intense. Is this something that is more common than I realize? Reminds me of a friend describing the spy intrigue larp he participated in at the technical college he attended in Massachusetts, where folks wore a pin to tell if they were "in" the game or out (that may be standard, I've never larped)--and the game eventually had to be banned when people started breaking into classes to assasinate their schoolmates.

Emily Care wrote:
Just as idle curiousity, what is role-playing called in different languages?

The 24/7 Larp is actually amongst the oldest forms of modern LARP. The game that you're identifying Em, is likely the Harvard game calle variously Assassin, AKA Tag, the Assasination Game (for movie buffs), AKA Killer as marketed by SJG. This is a game in which, classically, all players have a target, and are, themselves targets for other players. Usually the borders of the game are a campus, or city or somesuch. You are allowed to attempt to kill your target anywhere and at any time in that area (subject to myriad potential restrictions including the classic anonymity rule). Last man standing wins. In games with the "pins" that you note, often it's "open season" instead of the classic ring.

I think that Walt can comment on this as I think he may have been one of the inventors, or at least knew them. I ran several games in college only one of which was moderately successful. People tend to forget that they're playing.

The point of the 24/7 LARP isn't that you stop your normal life, usually, but that you incorporate the LARP into your life. With Vampire LARPS, like Mark mentions, often the people who play use the conceit that their real persona is the vampire's "cover". So, if in the middle of play somebody comes up and addresses you by your real name, in-game, that's just someone unaware of the Masquerade. Makes for a convenient way to play out in the open.

Mike

Mike Holmes wrote: I think that Walt can comment on this as I think he may have been one of the inventors, or at least knew them.

I know of a Turkish real-time larp campaign played in Istanbul in 1999(?). It was similar to the Israeli one, with occasional major events, in-game groups arranging meetings among themselves, etc. It was based on Vampire: the Masquerade but included other World of Darkness elements too like werewolves and changelings. It lasted more than 1.5 years. One major difference was that the game started after sunset, and it was played in the night.

According to a gamemaster, in the beginning they were a smaller group and decided which nights to play it in. Later it became a continous real-time game with 40+ players. They played in public places like bars and gamer cafés. I think players basically ignored people who were unaware of the game. If the people were insistent they told them that a game was going on.

I haven't played in this campaign, because costumes and props were not required (this made playing in public places easier), and it used a modified version of the rock-paper-scissors system of vampire larps. The result was a tabletop-larp hybrid which I was not really interested in at the time. I never liked RPS larps anyway.

As long as we're talking LARP, could we get someone from downunder to comment on the phenomenon of the "Freeform" LARP as it exists there. It seems to me to be pretty common, tho that may just be my limited exposure speaking.

Mike

Emily Care wrote:
I recall having heard that in Japan people write up scripts of campaigns, and other gaming groups use those scripts to re-run interesting games. Anyone heard of this?

That's very cool. Ron's always going on about talking about the actual physical and verbal reactions of people at the table as being the key to understanding what Creative Agenda is in operation.

I bet something like these replays would be a great tool to help describe some of that.

Andy Kitkowski wrote: I've been interested in seeing how American/English audiences take to Japanese-style Replays.

Thanks for the moderation, Jonathon. And thanks for the continuing info and the terms, everyone. Honestly, this is information most of us just have no access to, and it's fascinating to hear about. Thank you one and all for taking the time to write.

If anybody is inspired, we've had a couple requests for info on rpg and larping in New Zealand and Australia. Anyone know what's going on there? And does anybody know the state of rpg in mainland China? Someone said there basically isn't any--is that so? I'm still curious about South America and Africa--two contintents we've heard nothing about or from so far...

Thanks for sharing more about replays, Andy. As Ralph said, they sound like an ideal tool for concrete discussion of instances of play--timely with Ron's discussion of it in his whole model thread.

And Mark--gamers were called extra-terrestrials and a cult by the media reporting on a large (15,000 people) convention in Israel? I empathize. We have to deal with being called satanists and psychopaths every so often in the US. Ah, well. Maybe all of us should move to Finland?

Nah, we can just be inspired by Finland's example that it is possible for a populace to see role-playing as an acceptable, stimulating activity, and continue to make bridges across the miles and cultural differences among us to support and learn from one anothers' efforts.

Vive le jeu de role!
Power to roolipeli!
Go Rol Yapma Oyunu!

Warm regards,
Emily Care

Emily Care wrote: If anybody is inspired, we've had a couple requests for info on rpg and larping in New Zealand and Australia. Anyone know what's going on there? And does anybody know the state of rpg in mainland China? Someone said there basically isn't any--is that so? I'm still curious about South America and Africa--two contintents we've heard nothing about or from so far...

There is an RPG "scene" in South Africa, but I'm not sure exactly whats going on down there anymore, given that I've been out for a decade. I should point out that its hampered by severe protestant fundamentalism and accusations of Satanism of the sort with which you are probably all familiar (Dark Dungeons has a very wide distribution).

Happily though, the one organisation with which I am familiar still appears to be running: CLAWs, the Cape Legion of Adventurers and Wargamers. They run out of the University of Cape Town. They seem to be surviving well, still publishing their newsletter (CLAWmarks) and running cons (Dragonfire). There page with links and gallery appears below. They do a lot of LARPing, apparently 1 per month.

Also, the links indicate the cons up in Jo'burg are still running, and also societies at a couple of the other major universities. Wits and Pretoria. I don't know anything about them.

http://claws.uct.ac.za/salinks.shtml

I'll be dropping the CLAWthing a note to ask if they'd like to respond more completely.

Just to add to the mix - my name's Mike Dewar, I'm chairperson of CLAWS (Cape Legion of Adventurers and Wargamers) in Cape Town, South Africa.

CLAWS at least as been running since about 1989, and is largely focused on the University of Cape Town (UCT), though it has non-student members. We've currently got about 75 active-ish members, though at times, CLAWS has had up to 140 or so.

Tournament gaming in SA seems to be based largely on who sponsors. Chaosium and Steve Jackson almost ALWAYS sponsor, so CoC and GURPS are always in tournaments, as is D&D. Usually the other systems supported depend on personal whimsy of the organisers.

We've got four major tournaments/conventions that I'm aware of: Dragonfire (SA's longest running tournament, run by CLAWS), ICON (the official national tournament), IMBOLCON (a relatively new tournament in Durban, whose name I've probably misspelt) and SCHPATcon (a small one, run by a former CLAWmember).

Overall, roleplaying is a minor hobby, and still relatively geeky (at least in the public eye). CLAWS tends to focus on a fairly wide variety of games and systems. The only major fantasy system played is D&D, but a few sci-fi and horror systems are played. WW makes an appearance with Aberrant being fairly regularly played, as well as the occasional Vampire or Mage game.

Unknown Armies is possibly the most popular system - it's not necessarily played the most, but most CLAWmembers like it, and there's usually at least one UA game running at any given time within the society. It's a regular feature at Dragonfire, even though Atlas doesn't really sponsor.

LARPing is extremely popular at tournaments and within CLAWS (we run one a month), but it's largely within the framework of the society (due sie and admin headaches). Outside of CLAWS, I only know of one other pair of individuals who regularly arrange LARPS. Styles and setting vary dramatically.

Anyway, that's the set-up in SA. Not that hugely supported, though the community that does exist is very strongly tied together.

Thanks Dr. M.

Universalis has been pretty darn well represented in South Africa by our Forge members there. Check out the Uni forum for discussions of play. We have Adams & Co. of Durban to thank for this, if I understand it correctly.

Mike

Hello all,

French gaming : Well, actually Multisim has gone, it was in the French equivalent of Chapter 11 since the beginning of the 2003 year and failed its saving roll... However, a good for a bad, there is now more activity around Asmodée (COPS, INS/MV4, D&D-in-French, L5R-in-French, 7Sea), 7th Circle (Kult, Sorcery, Obsidian, and others), Hexagonal (WW, LotR, Aquelarre-in-French (soon), etc) and Oriflam (still Hawkmoon, Pendragon and Stormbringer, with the little new very interesting puzzling thing that is Post Mortem)

Swiss gaming : Lyonesse's publisher is technically dead, as are Les Maîtres-Mondes' and Laborinthus'. 2d Sans Faces is horribly late for a swiss publisher but has still some project on the run (Nobilis-in-French (ok, i know, it's all my fault), Nightprowler 2, Tigres Volants v3.0, La Noire Essence, ARMMME (a silly game around the green-skinned peoples...)) Our problem is a word : money.

Around Switzerland, there is many different type of gaming. Canton of Tessin is more like Italy, Romands' cantons are more like French market, and German Switzerland is more like Austria. There is around the country a vivid LARP scene, but it is an aging one and new players are beginning to replace the old ones. My old club, Jeu est un Autre, is going to dissolve itself in beer the 13rd of this same month, after 10 years of games.

The tabletop scene is very diverse too. I know some german speaking players who are positively jealous about the french publications, and there is, only around Romandie (the French speaking part of Switzerland), many convention where you can play.

in addition to mike's summary of the south african scene, I covered my take on SA larping in the sorcerer LARPing thread on the adept press forum

with the small gaming population popularity of games that aren't D&D or WW is basically dependent on individuals who start playing them and get everyone interested - ie, GMs with a salary; I don't know of many south african created games that have made it to finished product, certainly none in a large scale sense (I linked up some of Dylan Craig's items on the resources page way back, check out http://www.eyeballkid.co.za)

two local chains focus on RPGs: Outer Limits does comics and roleplaying in Cape Town and Joburg, and Wizards Warehouse does esoteria and roleplaying in CT, JHB, Durban and some other cities - these have been going since at least the late eighties in various guises (using CLAWmarks and older players as historical references - I only started playing in 1998)

Adams & Co (small chain with stores variously focussing on general, technical and textbooks) carries a small range now that I work here (including Universalis & Sorcerer) and we're the best damn bookstore for special orders, although I might be biased in my opinion :)

Exclusive Books, a national general book chain, used to carry very strange selections of D&D3E material (like only modules and no core books) but no longer appears to do so

distributor representation is fuzzy at the moment

there is an active Magic the Gathering community, pretty much nation wide afai can tell, and Games Workshop wargames are also popular (40K more than Fantasy as I understand it)

there's a South African soccer CCG called "Goal!" coming out, after some delays, this month - soccer is hugely popular (see "race issue" below) and the cards are well-priced compared to other CCGs, so I'm interested to see what happens

outside of the conventions(*) there's little opportunity for gamers to meet, unless they're part of an organisation like CLAWs - hence my support for a local initiative, KZN Roleplayers, for Durban (and presumably KZN) gamers, and on a national level the South African Science Fiction Alliance (for more than just gamers) - both very much in the start up phases

(*) Imbolcon is the correct spelling, although the CLAWsite link is out of date, there's now only a page at KZNRP - I know that the Pretoria/Joburg community is active, but not to what extent, or the status of WARP, another varsity based group in that area

being the roleplaying "expert" at a bookstore I've encountered a few players from outside the crowd I know (which seems to revolve around CLAWs and Joburg players, and Durbanites of course, mostly at or ex-varsity), so I'm pretty sure there are gamers unaccounted for in the current "scene", maybe not very many, but I'm keen on uncovering them - if I had the time this is where I would devote my energies entirely (and if there was a salary attached :D)

race issue: maybe it's a postcolonial hangup but I think this is worth
mentioning: the vast majority of gamers that I know are white, which
basically means it's a nichier than niche hobby (& not forgetting the old satanic panic angle as contracycle pointed out) - now traditionally local soccer has strong black support (where our population is 80% black), so Goal! might be gigantic, we'll have to wait and see

Emily Care wrote: ...what are the major trends in role-playing (table-top and larp specifically here) in different international markets? What types of games and gaming are most practiced?

H1 Antoine, David and Erick!

Again, thank you for taking the time to contribute. I have some comments and questions:

Antoine wrote: Around Switzerland, there is many different type of gaming. Canton of Tessin is more like Italy, Romands' cantons are more like French market, and German Switzerland is more like Austria.

Antoine wrote: There is around the country a vivid LARP scene, but it is an aging one and new players are beginning to replace the old ones. My old club, Jeu est un Autre, is going to dissolve itself in beer the 13rd of this same month, after 10 years of games.

David wrote: race issue: maybe it's a postcolonial hangup but I think this is worth mentioning: the vast majority of gamers that I know are white, which basically means it's a nichier than niche hobby (& not forgetting the old satanic panic angle as contracycle pointed out) - now traditionally local soccer has strong black support (where our population is 80% black), so Goal! might be gigantic, we'll have to wait and see

Erick Wujcik wrote: The odd thing about France, at least in my experience, mostly back in 1994, is that role-playing (jeu de role) was widely discussed, and that the parents of the young people I met were clearly pleased that their children were involved in such an 'intellectual' exercise. It was reported to me that serious discussions about role-playing were to be found on French television...

Happily, my visit to Sydney coincided with "Necronomicon," a small (>200) role-playing convention that I enjoyed enormously. Players there were clearly happy to try just about anything, and were quick to adapt to my unstructured experiments. They also had a tradition of something called "Short, Sharp, Shocks," which were very nice little set pieces, largely diceless, based on good characterization and strong stories (each a pleasure to play and/or witness). Clearly there was, in that one small convention, as much writing, Game Mastering, and role-playing talent, as I've found in any convention, anywhere else on Earth.