Greetings, folks.  I was wondering how the RPG scene was for Hispanics.  In which Hispanic countries and/or cities are RPGs more popular?  Which RPGs are more popular among the Hispanic population?  Which of these RPGs are not published in Spanish at all?

My main motive for asking these questions is to see which RPGs would be the more viable ones for translating to Spanish.  I'd like to do my part to increase the accessibility of many of these great RPGs to as wide of an audience as possible and, bilingual, I figured translating rule books to Spanish is a no-brainer.  Also, what would be reasonable fees to charge clients for this kind of work?  Would it be similar to freelance writing?

Quote from: ronwisegamgee;976113Greetings, folks.  I was wondering how the RPG scene was for Hispanics.  In which Hispanic countries and/or cities are RPGs more popular?  Which RPGs are more popular among the Hispanic population?  Which of these RPGs are not published in Spanish at all?

My main motive for asking these questions is to see which RPGs would be the more viable ones for translating to Spanish.  I'd like to do my part to increase the accessibility of many of these great RPGs to as wide of an audience as possible and, bilingual, I figured translating rule books to Spanish is a no-brainer.  Also, what would be reasonable fees to charge clients for this kind of work?  Would it be similar to freelance writing?

Ask:
Imperator, he's a Spaniard.
The Butcher, he's Brazilian.
RPGPundit, who's a half-latino Canadian ex-pat living in Uruguay.

As far as types of games, I see them talking about all sorts of games locally, so I highly doubt there's a "Hispanic-preferred RPG".

CoC, Pendragon, Pathfinder, Mythras, FFG Star Wars all have Spanish versions.  Gale Force 9 is doing the agreements for all localized versions of 5e.   I don't know if Catalyst has Shadowrun in Espanol.

Keep in mind, pretty much every company wants a partner, not a translator.  They want you to pay for a license, then you translate, do layout, get your own art in many cases, and handle your own publishing in the country of choice.  Very few large RPG companies are going to handle everything themselves and are just looking for translators.  You'd be better off looking for RPG companies inside Spanish-speaking countries that do distribution for American and English RPGs and ask them if they need English-Spanish translators.

Quote from: ronwisegamgee;976113Greetings, folks.  I was wondering how the RPG scene was for Hispanics.  In which Hispanic countries and/or cities are RPGs more popular?  Which RPGs are more popular among the Hispanic population?  Which of these RPGs are not published in Spanish at all?

My main motive for asking these questions is to see which RPGs would be the more viable ones for translating to Spanish.  I'd like to do my part to increase the accessibility of many of these great RPGs to as wide of an audience as possible and, bilingual, I figured translating rule books to Spanish is a no-brainer.  Also, what would be reasonable fees to charge clients for this kind of work?  Would it be similar to freelance writing?

Just look for where the nerds hangout.

Keep in mind that there are RPGs originally in Spanish that are popular in their own markets. Try to find book sales data. I wonder if you could gleam info from Amazon? Or Kickstarter?

I like to look at what Nosorol Ediciones has on DTRPG:

http://drivethrurpg.com/browse/pub/3424/Nosolorol-Ediciones

I'm not sure how useful they might be as a barometer, but they've got a diverse catalog.

Speaking as an American Latino, I would say it's the same for me as for you. Can't  speak for Latinos outside the  U.S., though.

I've mentioned a few before. But the biggest RPG source for a long time was the RPG magazine Dragão Brasil which did alot of D&D, World of Darkness and Gurps, with quite a few conversions of movies and such to one or another. They also had their own RPG called Defensores de Tóquio.

Then there is the hybrid board game/RPG called RPG Quest

And a western RPG from Spain called Far West. Which recently saw a comeback.

Also translated versions of many english RPGs are well known too. Gurps, AD&D, Cyberpunk 2020, World of Darkness and a few others are ones I know of.

As with everything though its a matter of location and just pure luck. some areas will be very dry for groups. Others will have possibly several. Depends on where you are and what is open, if anything and wether or not its even something you'd want to play.

As for translating. You'd have to go straight to the publisher to find out. Some have their own in-house translators. Some take on freelancers. And some will only work with a translator that can also handle printing, publishing and selling. It varies alot. So you really have to go out and ask. Expect to be politely told "no thanks" in one way or another.

Quote from: CRKrueger;976116Ask:
Imperator, he's a Spaniard.
The Butcher, he's Brazilian.
RPGPundit, who's a half-latino Canadian ex-pat living in Uruguay.

Just  FYI, Brazilians aren't Hispanic.

Quote from: Dumarest;976302Just  FYI, Brazilians aren't Hispanic.

Some of them speak Spanish.

Quote from: CRKrueger;976303Some of them speak Spanish.

Probably better than I do.

I figured Basic Fantasy Roleplaying Game had a Spanish translation. I checked and you can get BFRPG in French, German, Italian et Anglais. I bet if someone approached Chris Gonnerman about it he'd be happy to have someone willing to translate it and offer it up as a free download on his site and perhaps even print on demand. For anyone unfamiliar with BFRPG, it's basically B/X D&D to level 20 with ascending AC.

The RPG scene is very large in Brazil (technically not a Hispanic country, though it is a Latin country). It's quite large in Uruguay and Argentina, and I know it's pretty big in Mexico too. I can't really talk for the rest of the Americas, but obviously Spain has a big RPG scene too. Only Spain and Brazil have a true and serious RPG publishing industry to speak of.

Regarding what they play, the answer is for the most part exactly what they play everywhere else.  Mainly D&D.  Pathfinder, a bit less than in North America. Vampire and World of Darkness is still a bit more played than it is in North America, mainly because the books all got here back in the day (just as it was difficult for Pathfinder to get here for a time, so it's less popular).  The OSR has a small but growing contingent.

Spanish-language games exist here, and some of them are played, but they don't get any special precedence.  They might have more coverage in Spain proper, but in Latin America none of them are as such more popular than what I  named above.

As someone already pointed out, most English-speaking gaming companies don't want to hire translators. They want to make deals with existing gaming companies to publish their works in Spanish.

When I had a Californian Latino couple in my group, my Tennessean wife suggested they help her get the crystal meth business going in the UK. *I* knew she was joking (ylthey were ex NASA rocket engineers, or maybe just the girl was) but Californians not known for their sense of humour...

Quote from: S'mon;977081When I had a Californian Latino couple in my group, my Tennessean wife suggested they help her get the crystal meth business going in the UK. *I* knew she was joking (ylthey were ex NASA rocket engineers, or maybe just the girl was) but Californians not known for their sense of humour...

What an idiotic statement. But Brits aren't know for being smart. Or dental hygiene.

Quote from: Dumarest;977375What an idiotic statement. But Brits aren't know for being smart. Or dental hygiene.

But we might understand that hygiene isn't the same as blind conformity?