Quote from: Zak S;807259Are there semi-local editions or are the physical books all imports? And if they're imports are they British or American editions?

I do not believe they have any local editions of RPGs (they may have done some translations and passed them around). I don't know what distributors and sellers battlefield Bangkok goes through but they have stuff available here and in the UK.

Sorry can't help much with India but in Southeast Asia at least, RPGs for the most part are played by English-speaking members of the population, though like Brandon said, sometimes more enthusiastic gamers (usually the GM) circulate translations of game materials to their players.  I know that much is true at least for games imported from Japan.

RPG culture here pretty much began from students returning from universities in the UK & US who brought home their newfound hobbies.  Pretty much all the games are imported from both the UK and US and in 30+ years of gaming here, we never seen any local (or localized) RPGs published. Homebrews yes, but no commercial releases.

Quote from: RunningLaser;807092You should be studying or working, not pretending to be an elf.

Ugh! That hurt.

D&D is based on European culture. I suppose that could make is less interesting to Indians.

I have spent some time in India, most of the guys that work for me are Indian and of my game group one guy is Singapore Indian.

I have been here in Singapore for just over 2 years so have somethign of a feel for it.

First off you can look at stores selling RPG stuff. There are no dedicated RPG stores. there are no stores in which RPGs are their primary business. There are about 3 or 4 stores that sell fantasy boardgames and minis and so on that may have some other rpg stuff.
Kinokuniya the biggest book store in Singapore has 3 RPG books on its shelves last time I looked all D&D v 3.5. (I don't mean copies of 3 books I mean 3 actual books). Now Kinokuniya is possibly the best book shop I have every been too in terms of its overall coverage of "geek" (its also enormous) Its comic book section would rival Forbidden Planet, and it has more computer game guides and world books than any other store I have ever seen. And this is all int eh English section.

Singapore is a city of 5.5Million people. Its wealthy, modern and western looking. English is one of the country's 4 official languages and all young people are taught it in school. Ethnically it has 1/2M expat Westerners, 1M expat workers from Indian and Philippines, of the c. 4 Million locals 75% are Chinese, 10% are Malay and 15% are Indian.
Accommodation is small and expensive, but there are many cafes where you can book out boardgames to play and all HDBs (local state owned provided apartments where 80% of the people live) have communal areas where locals are actively encouraged to socialize and come together to build up local communities. In addition there are community centres in each district that offer a massive range of training classes, hobby space and so on.

There are lots of places you can go to play computer games on top end kit with various scenarios etc. All very cheap.

So in short you have a wealthy population with a large "geek" demographic and plenty of provision for said geeks to do whatever they like.

When I was looking for an RPG group on MeetUp I found 3. All 4e and all run by westerners.
I started my own group allowing the players to pick whatever they wanted to play. Since then I have had about 10 players come through most with zero RPG experience. One American, the rest locals one Indian origin the rest Chinese. All very keen but there is nowhere to buy the materials. This is made all the worse because Singapore doesn't have Amazon so you have to order from outside the country and stuff, in my experience can get lost and postage is expensive.

So I think Singapore is ripe for RPG expansion but you need to get stores selling it and advocates like me to start and run games. I think a FLGS could actually do well here because of the lack of alternate sources of material.
There are a places selling MtG and a few clubs that do regular tournaments and a The Pro Tour is here as well. So a game store that tapped into that ran RPGs as well and had some play space would I think works really well.

EDIT: just came back from the shops and visited 2 of the 3 game stores. The first (PI) in town is pretty rotten. Mostly Warhammer and a mix of some other board and card games. A very small play table and a total of 4 pathfinder books and a handful of 40,000 stuff make up their RPG shelf. The other a bit further out but much better. Lots of Warhammer and even more Magic. Looks like mostly a magic venue. RPGs some pathfinder and some 40K but that was very limited and many many more boardgames you can just rent bu the hour for a couple of bucks.

Quote from: Zak S;807259Are there semi-local editions or are the physical books all imports? And if they're imports are they British or American editions?

In Singapore all imports. American editions tend to rule cos imports come through Amazon and the default is Amazon.com not Amazon.co.uk.

No translated editions I have seen (In Singapore I would have expected Chinese editions of games but not even sure D&D has been translated into Mandarin). And certainly no local games.

I work for a large UK telecomms company and, in my department, we work very closely with an Indian company and a lot of that companies staff come to the UK for a 1 year posting. Given that my department is all about Software Engineering it shouldn't come as a surprise that a lot of these Indian guys are a little... geeky!

Of the many Indian people I've worked with only a handful have played pen & paper RPGs. Most have heard of Dungeons & Dragons and that is the only one that I've had discussions about playing.

Based on a few conversations this is the impression that I have: From what I can gather it is extremely niche and played using books and dice purchased from Amazon. Mostly they seemed to play it at University and have only managed to play it once in a while since they graduated (due to working long hours). D&D 3.5 and 4 are the only games they've ever mentioned by name (and they don't seem to have had much sense of the wider RPG market) and they seem to prefer straightforward dungeon crawls with a strong emphasis on combat. They seem to be very much focused on gaming being a fun social event, with lots of beer and pizza, rather than being about immersion or creating a story together. Part of the stated appeal is that it's (a) a geeky hobby and (b) something that seems uniquely American to them. I think there may also be an element of rebellion about playing it as I've been told that it isn't viewed as a worthwhile pastime by their parents.

Naturally, as this is based on a very small cross-section of people who are based in Bangalore, this could be way off base as being representative of Indian gaming as a whole.

Quote from: NinjaWeasel;807322I work for a large UK telecomms company and, in my department, we work very closely with an Indian company and a lot of that companies staff come to the UK for a 1 year posting. Given that my department is all about Software Engineering it shouldn't come as a surprise that a lot of these Indian guys are a little... geeky!

Of the many Indian people I've worked with only a handful have played pen & paper RPGs. Most have heard of Dungeons & Dragons and that is the only one that I've had discussions about playing.

Based on a few conversations this is the impression that I have: From what I can gather it is extremely niche and played using books and dice purchased from Amazon. Mostly they seemed to play it at University and have only managed to play it once in a while since they graduated (due to working long hours). D&D 3.5 and 4 are the only games they've ever mentioned by name (and they don't seem to have had much sense of the wider RPG market) and they seem to prefer straightforward dungeon crawls with a strong emphasis on combat. They seem to be very much focused on gaming being a fun social event, with lots of beer and pizza, rather than being about immersion or creating a story together. Part of the stated appeal is that it's (a) a geeky hobby and (b) something that seems uniquely American to them. I think there may also be an element of rebellion about playing it as I've been told that it isn't viewed as a worthwhile pastime by their parents.

Naturally, as this is based on a very small cross-section of people who are based in Bangalore, this could be way off base as being representative of Indian gaming as a whole.

Nah I have been to bangalore, mumbai, hyderabd and the view you have is pretty accurate I would say. I am actually surprised you have seen as much RPG as you have to be honest.

Quote from: jibbajibba;807347Nah I have been to bangalore, mumbai, hyderabd and the view you have is pretty accurate I would say. I am actually surprised you have seen as much RPG as you have to be honest.

I was also pretty surprised to find any of them had played D&D. I've worked with a lot of Indian engineers over the last several years but it's only in the last 18 months that I've encountered any who had played it (rather than just heard of it).

Quote from: jibbajibba;807319In Singapore all imports. American editions tend to rule cos imports come through Amazon and the default is Amazon.com not Amazon.co.uk.

No translated editions I have seen (In Singapore I would have expected Chinese editions of games but not even sure D&D has been translated into Mandarin). And certainly no local games.

There is or was a Mandarin version of basic D&D. I'm not sure if it was actually licensed or just a knock-off. I've also seen an entirely Chinese themed rpg based on Louis Sha novels, and it was a hodge-podge of all kinds of things from Chinese elementalism, Rolemaster-style tables etc. If I remember correctly, one actually rolled onto a flat chart placed in a box to determine combat effects. I think that one was written by a Singaporean who had studied overseas and returned.

Before I moved to Vietnam, I played quite a bit in Taiwan and one friend carried RPG stuff, and it was all entirely imported from the US. IIRC, he had some kind of deal worked out with SJG to purchase a container load of overstocked GURPS and other games, which he had stacked to the ceiling in his apartment. He was planning on opening a proper store next to the National University and wrote a column for the biggest local computer gaming magazine about the history of Western rpgs and boardgames. He lost all of it when his house was flooded during a typhoon and he's since moved on to doing stageshow hypnotism, which is apparently far more profitable.

At the same time, I was purchasing most of my gaming swag from a small shop in Mong Kok in Hong Kong which carried a very weird variety of Chinese hex-counter wargames (!), miniatures, anime models and rpgs. I got my AH Runequest and Dangerous Journeys stuff from them dirt cheap. As I remember, they were selling the rpgs mostly to expats. The owner and his friends sat around playing M:tG all day. Around the same time, Games Workshop opened a store right in the middle of Tsimshatsui on Nathan Rd. I went in, and the staff were trying to run a demo game for a bunch of Cantonese housewives which was all kinds of fail. The prices were sky-high and I left without buying anything.

Quote from: NinjaWeasel;807322They seem to be very much focused on gaming being a fun social event, with lots of beer and pizza, rather than being about immersion or creating a story together. Part of the stated appeal is that it's (a) a geeky hobby and (b) something that seems uniquely American to them. I think there may also be an element of rebellion about playing it as I've been told that it isn't viewed as a worthwhile pastime by their parents.

After I put down my beer and my pizza, and after my parents have stopped telling me off for playing these stupid games, and shoo my friends away, I'm going to send some stern letters to India telling them off for doing it all wrong, by jiminy.

It does sound like....exactly the same as anywhere else then? and exactly the same experience as I had playing the game, and exactly like 90% of the games and players I know.

I'm just another visitor, but I've seen D&D being played in India and the country seems like anywhere else without local RPG publishers - very niche. India isn't a stranger to boardgames, having invented some of the classics, and for example Carrom is huge in India, and Carrom could be regarded as just as worthless as rpg playing (but it isn't).

Not sure english language is too much of an advantage. I can't see too many younger people wanting to play a game in a second language, at least not for too long, and in India use of english can be pretty contentious. Even countries like Sweden and Norway (whose english is generally fantastic) use translations of RPGs, professional or amateur.

Quote from: Bilharzia;807482After I put down my beer and my pizza, and after my parents have stopped telling me off for playing these stupid games, and shoo my friends away, I'm going to send some stern letters to India telling them off for doing it all wrong, by jiminy.

Are you trying to imply that I said they were doing it wrong?! I didn't say that. I don't believe you can play an RPG wrong. You can interpret rules as written incorrectly but the style of play should be whatever the fuck you want it to be. It's your game.

I'm trying to imply something in my first post though. I'm trying to imply that they seem pretty casual about gaming and, maybe I need to point this out, there's nothing wrong with that in my opinion. I get the impression they play modules but aren't that concerned about the story and it didn't sound like they were running long, ongoing campaigns. They seem, as I already mentioned, pretty focused on the combat side of things. I don't play like that, and I don't know anyone who does, but that's okay 'cause everyone is allowed to play their own way!

For the record, not one of the UK gamers I know ever talks about immersion or narrative either (I only encounter that online). They do care about character and story to varying extents but, while they're not as casual as the Indian gamers I've met, they're still hardly hardcore gamers. Also, none of them play dungeon crawls. They tend to be more investigative in nature and there is a tendency towards playing ongoing campaigns. The only time I've encountered dungeon crawls (excluding boardgames like Descent and HeroQuest) in a very long time (a couple of decades in fact) is at cons or as part of in-store games.

Last, but not least, I've never met a person in the real world whose parents ever expressed disapproval of them gaming... except for a couple of Indian guys. While I've seen a few Americans talk about their parents actively disapproving of RPGs (mostly in the 80s, because of the "Satanic Panic") it's a pretty alien notion to most gamers in the UK I think.

In Summary: No, they don't seem much different than gamers anywhere else. Perhaps a bit more casual and combat focused than the people I know though.

Quote from: NinjaWeasel;807504I've never met a person in the real world whose parents ever expressed disapproval of them gaming... except for a couple of Indian guys. While I've seen a few Americans talk about their parents actively disapproving of RPGs (mostly in the 80s, because of the "Satanic Panic") it's a pretty alien notion to most gamers in the UK I think.

In Summary: No, they don't seem much different than gamers anywhere else. Perhaps a bit more casual and combat focused than the people I know though.

I started playing (RQ) in 80s Britain, and whilst there wasn't a moral panic comparable to the USA I would say that schools and 'authorities' cetainly picked up on the hysteria from the US. My parents were not jumping with joy that I had acquired an interest in this stuff, school was certainly very strongly anti-rpgs. It was the kind of thing you would get beaten up for (probably with teacher approval), but then the school I went to you got called 'professor' if you could spell your own name correctly. I think attitudes today are very different partly because we've been through the experience of inflated negative press, and digital games have completely changed perceptions in all sorts of different ways. Maybe today UK parents would encourage anything that gets their kids away from those bloody computer games... reading books? talking to people?...

My point was I recognise the Indian experience as pretty similar to my own, except that the materials were much easier to access, though I also saw what happened when you lose local publishing and support - the collapse of RuneQuest as a system and Games Workshop moving away from boardgames and RPGs into the toy soldier market, this had from my, maybe skewed perspective, a big impact on RPGs in the UK - and I think tells you something about the precariousness of the hobby without a strong local publisher/distributor.

Quote from: Bilharzia;807623though I also saw what happened when you lose local publishing and support - the collapse of RuneQuest as a system and Games Workshop moving away from boardgames and RPGs into the toy soldier market, this had from my, maybe skewed perspective, a big impact on RPGs in the UK - and I think tells you something about the precariousness of the hobby without a strong local publisher/distributor.

This commentary would deserve a thread of its own. Yes, I saw the same thing around here.

From my own experiences with Indians, I would think the 'westerness' of D&D would in no way be a disadvantage but rather a draw.   When AoI came out a lot of people told me that 'hey, it could be huge in India', but I never believed that, they'd probably much rather play something more 'american' (or "english", in some cases).

Quote from: RPGPundit;808085From my own experiences with Indians, I would think the 'westerness' of D&D would in no way be a disadvantage but rather a draw.   When AoI came out a lot of people told me that 'hey, it could be huge in India', but I never believed that, they'd probably much rather play something more 'american' (or "english", in some cases).

I think you're absolutely right.

One thing I've noticed about the Indian colleagues I have here is that they tend to be particularly fascinated by anything Medieval and European and love visiting castles, hearing about British history and seeing the old armour and weaponry in museums. I guess this is also why a lot of them love watching Game of Thrones. It taps into some idea they have about how Europe once was that is fascinating to them in the same kind of way that Americans and Europeans are often fascinated by, say, Japanese or Indian history and mythology.