I would say "interpretation of a Japanese TTRPG" sounds a bit odd, though I'll leave the semantics of translation to my wife (she has a degree in translation)

Episode 4 of my podcast covers the Gulf States 🙂https://open.spotify.com/show/0z4WwX6EQ1uWSA2G0WybqK

Well, sometimes it might be difficult to use all those fantasy terms when they literally don't exist in your native language. I interviewed the person who is translating the D&D SRD into Arabic, and many monster names just don't exist in other cultures. Many people speak a pidgin at the table.

Loved this article!

Excellent article about translations of Japanese #TTRPGs which I just read during my breakfast break 🙂

There's always the issue of network technologies of how to get a critical mass of users, since it's not worth signing up if there aren't enough users and there won't be enough users if people don't think it's worth signing up.

payment schemes for premium on Twitter, looks like a scam

Meanwhile on Twitter 🙄

you mean like soapy? because here in Turkey some stuff is made with mastic and that really tastes soapy too

I just love it when after some asking around, a country episode finally comes together. I have had some issues not making a multilingual country "mono-linguistic", but it seems to be working now 🙂(this is for Episode 29, Episode 28 is also coming along smoothly with 5 talks already recorded)

The sign-up for the online convention Roleplay Ukraine is now online (I am not affiliated with them but participated as a player in 2023 and 2024): warhorn.net/events/rolep...

Wird da auch merch verkauft? Denn dann schicke ich mal meine Eltern vorbei 😀

Excited for this week: 2 interviews for Episode 29 of my podcast today, public holiday on Thursday, bringing kid to a birthday party on Saturday (I like going to new places), game session at @d12macera.com this Sunday. 🙂

Note that if Tuapse does not sound Russian to you, yes that's colonized territory. My wife's ancestors fled from that region 150 years ago because of a genocide by Russia.

Picture of an old Gamescience catalogue.

Picture Monday: In commemoration of Lou Zocchi, here's the one thing by him in my collection. I gave away my Zocchihedron 10 years ago but kept the adverts that came with it.

the main think I "make" at work is academic output, and in RPG space I have a podcast on games in different countries: either way it would be reading classics of the genre. and perhaps learn French for the RPGs (and perhaps even for academia)

Ich frage mal bei meinen Fakultätskollegen aus den Politikwissenschaften nach - die meisten von denen sind Historiker und entweder Türkeistämmige aus Österreich oder Türken die in Österreich studiert haben... die werden das schon wissen.

This was actually an issue in our regular group because one of the players is color blind (so red and green looks the same to him). We would then use non-permanent markers on green to make them different from red.

Interessant, wollte gerade sagen dass bei mir um die Ecke ja auch solche Steine stehen. Dann fiel mir ein, dass ich ja in Istanbul wohne 🫣

Alright, so I guess I gotta do a Romani games episode?

Oh that one is easy to answer: open.spotify.com/show/0z4WwX6... Episode 25. Show notes are here, sadly no game shop in them: letscast.fm/podcasts/the...

Was on Malta for my honeymoon, was awesome. Also probably one of the highest % of role-players worldwide.

I'd love to see some games written as if this happened. I once thought of a meta-game in which you create an RPG without the wargaming baggage but some other pedigree. alas that would be hard to pull off.

2 comments: a) there are some proto-rpgs before D&D, for example the comic DIE sketches these b) there are cases of parallel evolution of TTRPGs with no D&D influence in Europe, especially Netherlands and Germany have different trajectories in the early 80s. (for more on those see my podcast)

Is this specific to the kind of games?
For TTRPGs I mostly follow Rascal (site) and listen to Dice Exploder, Asians Represent, and Ludonarrative Dissidents (podcasts).

The Whitman Method: Episode 1 – The 12 Steps to Masterful Game Directing YouTube video by Whit Whitman

I just googled Whitman Method, it's a FB account with some essay like posts and then this video: www.youtube.com/watch?v=7MOo... (which now has a different thumbnail)

The sad thing is - if this was some dude who painstakingly wrote down 12 rules by himself even if they are crap, I would absolutely read them and engage with him in a friendly way. But I am not going to waste my time on slop.

It's actually the thumbnail of a YouTube video. I only watched 1 minute of it, because it has a flat AI generated voice and boring graphics, but I can report that it does not cover those 12 steps but instead talks about something else entirely. 🤔

An AI slop image showing the '12 steps to masterful game directing", including 'Connectiarg' and 'Porkon Cows'

People over on Facebook/YouTube/elsewhere on bluesky/reality have been mocking this, but these are all totally genuine and highly advanced GMing techniques pioneered in obscure corners of indie rpg design in the early 2000s.

Let's go through them one by one and learn together.

Niccolo Rastrelli - They don't look like me

Amazing photo series about cosplayers and their parents.

France should also be relevant, I am currently doing the interviews for TTRPGs there.