Dungeons & Dragons*

[lingshu8]

*(the original pencil-and-paper, face-to-face roleplaying game, not the computer or video games)

I found a Chinese translation of the 3rd edition of Dungeons & Dragons here, and the recently released Chinese 4th edition for sale here. So I was wondering, is anyone playing D&D in China? Are there Chinese gamers? Foreign gamers? Mixed groups?

Has anyone ever gamed with Chinese friends as a way of improving their Chinese? It seems to me that if one alternated the settings (fantasy, espionage, sci-fi, cyberpunk, etc) tabletop role-playing could be an excellent language-learning tool. In fact, if one were to game one's way through, say, all the GURPS worlds in Chinese, that in itself would constitute a fairly comprehensive Chinese language education. Does anyone have any experience with this type of gaming in Chinese?

[BrandeX]

If it is at all relevant, out of the thousands of students I have had, it has never once been mentioned by anyone as a hobby.

[sirxavier]

Hi! I used to play D&D and MTG in my home country. I even still have my 3rd ed books. But then I stopped playing when I came to China and instead played the CRPGs like Baldur's Gate... I am playing Dragon Age right now which is pretty good. Anyway there must be gamers somewhere, though I bet most of them play video games.... but once I saw a physical shop in a SOHO selling gaming stuff, like Warhammer... but then I later found out they had closed. I live in Beijing by the way.

[lingshu8]

OK, here's what I've found by searching around the Chinese internet...

There is definitely a community of tabletop role-playing gamers (TRPG, 桌面角色扮演游戏) in China. Games include all versions of D&D, Warhammer, Call of Cthulhu，GURPS, etc. In fact, there's a new bit of Chinese lingo (跑团) which basically means "to get together in a group to play a TRPG" (See here). The company that holds the Dungeons & Dragons license (Wizards of the Coast) just released an official Chinese language version of their new 4th edition core rulebooks. I believe this is the first time that D&D has had an official Chinese version. Obviously the company believes there's a market in China.

There are several Chinese website forums specifically devoted to TRPG. On the forums, one can find posts by Chinese gamers looking to meet up with other gamers in their area for face-to-face 跑团 (I saw posts from 成都，上海，广州, etc). In addition, one can register at the websites and "跑网团" (participate in a group game on-line via forum post, IRC, e-mail, MSN, etc. In English, this is known as play-by-post role-playing). I believe there are Chinese gamers using Skype as well.

If anyone is interested, the following is a list of the largest on-line TRPG forums that I was able to find:

ellesime - 纯美苹果园 (Hong Kong)

Odysseus Guild - 奥德赛公会

DnD 4E Official - Forum -龙与地下城中文论坛

Thaumaturgic Discipline Society (TDS) - 奇幻修士會 (Taiwan)

cndkc.net - 龙骑士城堡

Fantasy & Creative 奇幻创想社

Several of these sites feature fan translations of TRPG rulebooks, adventures, articles, etc. as well as translations of the Western fantasy & sci-fi fiction that is the historical foundation of TRPG (Howard, Lovecraft, ER Burroughs, etc).

I haven't joined any of the on-line games yet, but lurking around the threads of previous game posts it looks like it would be a fun Chinese-learning experience!

Edited December 14, 2009 at 02:25 AM by lingshu8

[BrandeX]

The first link also (since you labeled Taiwan) is Hong Kong according to Flagfox.

[lingshu8]

BrandeX:

The first link also (since you labeled Taiwan) is Hong Kong according to Flagfox.

Thanks, BrandeX. I edited the link to reflect that. The Taiwan site jumped out because it is the only one in traditional characters. Apparently it's also one of the older sites in that list. Maybe TRPG's have been in Taiwan longer? I also found a page in English about "Gaming in Taiwan" with lots of info (mostly outdated, unfortunately) about the Taiwan TRPG scene:

http://www.jiawen.net/gamingintaiwan.html

Also, on a tangent, here's an interesting and well-researched TRPG (in English) set in medieval China (Song Dynasty) and based on 水浒传 (Outlaws of the Water Margin):

http://www.tcp-ip.or.jp/~panurge/

[metal.lunchbox]

I've considered putting together a DND-like game for advanced English learners in my city. It's not hard to imagine doing something similar in Chinese. The game master would simply need to adjust speech to match level of the group and optionally provide some support materials, such as vocab list for words and structures relevant to the current episode. There is some literature about this, most of it related to ESL.

 

I've never heard anyone here in China mention table RPGs. Even in the U.S. it's a little nerdy, most people only know about it because of the anti-satanic panic in the 90s. Just because something isn't popular, doesn't mean you can't get people interested in it.

 

For the language learner, my impression is that a game with more support materials would be best, like something which has cards and a map or something. If you are in the Mainland finding an existing DND group will be unlikely, but finding people to play 三国杀 (legends of the 3 kingdoms, a strategy card game) should be very easy, of course it's not the same, but it might also be a good learning/gaming experience.

 

some links that might be relevant:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_world_language_learning

http://www.interactivedramas.info/papers/phillipsrpgclass.pdf