Hi

Previously I posted here about playing Pathfinder in Japanese, and there was some interest, so I thought I'd let those readers know that I have since decided to jump in at the deep end, and DMd a session of pathfinder in Japanese. I put some preparatory notes and a review on my blog, so for those who are interested, the notes are here, the game report is here and some observations about how it went are here. Somewhere in amongst all of that there are stats for a Gnomish steam rifle, as well.

I think it's less interesting than the last thing I put up here, being the second time, and everything, and there are no photos (though I'll put some up soon). Thanks for your patience and, as ever, sorry to disturb your normal viewing schedule if it's not of interest.

I don't view your posts as an interruption of my "viewing schedule". It is interesting to hear about other cultures getting into RPG'ing and especially Pathfinder. One of our players was an English teacher in Japan for a while. Anyway thanks for letting us know about your game, and good luck on its continued success.

Oh come now, don't start with those apologies; you're starting to pick up the Japanese politeness... ;)

Great to see the continuation! I'm really impressed that you actually DMed something in Japanese, that seems like such a frightening concept to me. And even writing out the stats for the Gnomish weapon in Japanese! Impressive.

It actually gives me an idea: maybe some of the people in my Japanese classes at university would be interested in trying something like this...? We all clamour for more opportunity to try out the language, and why not a situation where we're all just having fun anyway? I wonder if anyone but me is interested in gaming though...

On the topic of the weird personal pronoun usage, you tend to notice this kind of thing in the anime/manga/otaku fandoms as well, I've heard. It's not universal, but... well, even the word otaku is one of those weird almost tongue-in-cheek pronoun over-extensions as well. I think I recall reading that it's probably a little bit of strange struggling against the normal social order. After all, the geek subculture is probably one of the more outsiderish groupings even in the west, let alone in Japan, where social order is hard-wired into the language and... well, everything. I don't know. Real props to Era-san for ditching the baby for gaming though. ^_~

Did the winner of janken play the bard, or get to pass on it? Don't tell me bard hatred surpasses cultural borders?

I'll be waiting excitedly for your next updates! Ganbatte kudasai ne!

Thankyou for the replies, silverhair2008 and Alice. It turns out Era san, who is a nutritionist, is actually a pretty capable English reader, and she read my whole post and sent me a long email in response (in Japanese). Her summary points are:

a) her husband is rare and she thinks the world over, young husbands don't babysit for their gamer wives (too true, methinks)
b) the pronoun thing is an otaku culture thing, and is about pushing back against the social order, and she agrees broadly with my gender analysis.

Alice, if you want some crazy Otaku Japanese practice, I'll be posting one of the player's reports of the game up today. Scary stuff!

This is rad- and when Paizo folks begin work on their Asian-culture analogue Golarion materials- I hope they consult with you! You should write fir them! [YOU HEAR THAT, O GREAT ONES OF PAIZO?]

The scene at the steamy onsen with wily gnomes thieves is pretty much genius!

Reminds me of many trips to Japan with my dad when I was a kid. Onsens, temple, deer wandering everywhere on Miyajima- and the monkey who knocked me to the ground for my box of Pocky sticks on top of the little mountain at Miyajima! Bastard monkey!!!!

Mt. Misen! I just looked up Miyajima on Wikipedia, and had a total REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST audio/visual/olfactory smorgasbord of memories from 3 decades ago...

Btw, I *really* like how your adventure scenario conveyed a very nice 'Japanese-ness,' without any avalanche of chopsticks, geisha, ninjas and um...shoguns.

It reminds me of some piece by Borges where he says something like, "We can know the Koran truly is an Arabic work because never once is a camel mentioned."

Soo desu ne?

soo desu yo ne! arigato gozaimasu!

Thankyou very much for those replies, Marcus Ewert. My players also commented on the slightly oriental/slightly local style of the thing.

That's an excellent Borges quote!

soo desu yo ne! arigato gozaimasu!

Thankyou very much for those replies, Marcus Ewert. My players also commented on the slightly oriental/slightly local style of the thing.

Doo itashimashite!

And seriously, I really really really think you should tap the Paizo folks, to let them know what you're up to...

You should be writing Pathfinder Scenarios (I think that's what they're called) at the VERY least...

Glad you like the Borges quote. Gotta love that guy, honto desu ne? (I know one or both of the o's in 'honto' is long- but my years of Nihongo o benkyo shimasu are looooong behind me...)

Great to see more posts about your adventures in Japanese roleplaying faustusnotes, I had a lot of fun reading the last ones.

I’ve only had a chance to read your preparation entry so far, but I like it. Ah, Gygaxian Naturalism ... and outsiders translated as clients, gold! The Senior Partners indeed!

I look forward to reading the rest soon.

Hi everyone, this is just a brief update on this thread to let you know that I GMd a second Pathfinder session, and finished off the adventure, last week. I have put up some more general observations and a brief game report on my blog.

Main finding: my Japanese players didn't dither in planning!

This will be my last pathfinder/japan-related post for a while because I think we're switching to Warhammer 3rd edition. If you're interested in those things, please keep reading my blog. Otherwise, thanks for paying attention this long, and please be good to me.

Hope you have fun with Warhammer - and get a chance to get back to Pathfinder sometime too!

The one review I've read of 3rd ed it looks good, but I did some 2nd ed (again) on sunday and it has some significant problems. I hope they've been ironed out in 3rd...

The one review I've read of 3rd ed it looks good, but I did some 2nd ed (again) on sunday and it has some significant problems. I hope they've been ironed out in 3rd...

This is the RPG right, not the war game?

Haven't played the war game for years, and never tried the RPG in any edition ...

Yeah, the RPG. I did it in Japanese on Sunday (learnt the word for "racketeer," yay!) and I have to say, the flaws are pretty serious - playing PCs who literally just can't do anything gets a tad boring. But I've read that 3rd ed is a completely different game and it looks interesting.