Anyone who follows gaming at midcore or even simply casual level (at least enough to know the names of the most famous franchises like Mario and Resident Evil) knows that since the 80s Japan has been easily alongside America the dominant nation of the Gaming Industry.
Not only did Japan dominate consoles for over two decades (and in turn the RPG genre for home markets outside of PC gaming) but even within Japan some rich tactical RPGs and military and historical wargames have found a place in Japanese PC gaming.
For a long time as a Beijing native I used to think Japan had the most creativeand eccentric entertainment industry…….. You just have to see the Japanese style to comics and especially a lot of their animations which has whacky stuff like Ranma 1/2 and One Piece to see some bizarre and very fun creativity to storytelling……….
Until I started getting into Warhammer. While a lot of it is dereative, the stuff that they put original ideas n really are strangely eccentric and a bast to experience. I mean a green giant warlike races of idiots with IQ less than a Kindergartener inspired by soccer hooligans and who are biologically fungi that develop into Mushrooms and eventually grow into gung ho comedy Gold Humanoids? Who’d think of that????!!!!!!!!!!!!
And while DND tends to be lacking on the more entertainingly eccentric side of things, DND has developed multiple fleshed out settings……….
So it makes me wonder why Japan with a lot of its creative often eccentric approach to storytelling esp in comics and animation and how they to this day still remain one of the dominant gaming spheres……..
Never became a powerhouse in PNP RPGs and Tabletop Minis Strategy games the way USA and UK dominates those kind of games?
I mean on the tabletop end Japan isn’t exactly lacking creativity. Not only are 2 of the Big 3s of Trading Card Games are Japanese franchises (Yu-Gi-Oh and Pokemon) but they also created the very neat Beyblades game (I won’t explain it because its just that bizarre a concept that you’re better of reading from Wikipedia).
So I have to ask how a nation that could come up with the Tamagotchi concept and mix and match parts for spinning tops to duke it out in a Arena that will have different abilities based on the parts you assembled……… Could not come up with some awesome unique idea that could have lead t to become on equal footing to the USA and the UK on the tabletop end of RPGs and miniature strategy games?
I mean just look at stuff like Pikmin and Odin Sphere to see how willy creative Japanese game makers can be in RPGs and strategy games! So I have to wonder why Japan couldn’t come up with its own counterpart to Warhammer to gain popularity worldwide? Or why Japanese cretive energy went all into video games but never onto Pen and Papr RolePlay?
https://www.reddit.com/r/japan/comments/vkv6xx/why_has_japan_never_become_a_dominant_force_in/
8 comments
Limited space
Talking about Japanese tabletalk RPG, You’d better read this series of [tweets](https://twitter.com/Melolibur/status/1531722938436636672?t=HaIwpyp5CTQakBmvXTA98A&s=19)
Japanese TTRPGs exist.
But here’s the thing, TTRPGs are usually played in private spaces, which Japan is lacking.
Shogi, Go and Mahjong can have parlors because you’re mostly silently playing, not acting in front of strangers.
So, yes, spaces that can not only accommodate size, but also give privacy is harder to find.
So while it exists, it’s definitely niche.
Like, Call of Cthulhu is actually pretty popular in Japan, and online spaces make it more accessible nowadays.
Why have you posted this to *16* different subreddits?
Also it sounds like you’ve never actually been to a gaming shop in Japan, where you can get everything from D&D and Cthulhu translations to independent doujin TTRPGs.
And that’s to say nothing of the analog game community which has *exploded* over the last 5-6 years.
Japan has a lot of amazing TTRPGs, very cool and unique ideas but they tend to clash with more western games because many rules are made more in order to make a cool story between everyone in a way that requires some metagaming.
For example a lot of japanese games use scenes were the focus is on one PC and the others have to make appearance checks in order to see if they can show up and interact.
It’s not bad just requires a different playstyle in comparison to 7th sea or DnD.
1. No country has ever really challenged American dominance in the RPG space. Hell, no game, not even another American one (except for maybe Vampire very briefly in the 1990s), has ever really challenged D&D in the RPG space.
2. Japan suffers from a dearth of places with enough free space to play miniature wargames.
There are a lot of TRPGs in Japan so that’s more of a lack of them getting translated. Some have been around since the 80s too. For miniatures games, there are some smaller companies that tried at various points, but the space is basically dominated by plastic models and even the people who are into Warhammer here are largely just into the painting part and not the actual game. I see Warhammer sold in basically every major hobby store, but I have never seen anyone actually playing it.
If we limit ourselves to TRPGs, it is because TRPGs are very language-dependent games. The fluidity is very different from video games, which mechanically output a pre-specified text.
Therefore, in order to create a game that is an international hit, you need to be fluent in English. That is something the Japanese are the least proficient at.
I have never played a warhammer type game myself, so I don’t know what exactly the problem is. If it’s just turn-based strategy, video games have Fire Emblem and Super Robot Wars, but it’s hard to answer why tabletop didn’t catch on.