Been reading the translation of the original Lodoss War novels and got me thinking of the original BX session logs. So on a chance I started looking to see if anyone had translated these.

Turns out someone has and put it up on Archive.

Been reading through this and I have to say this is a surprisingly good little tutorial at the start on how to play.

I like this little opening comment

QuoteEven though "D&D" looks interesting, many people may not be willing to try it because it seems difficult to understand. Learning how to play "D&D" takes time but discovering its attraction is immediate. For this reason, I decided to try to capture the process of playing "D&D" in this series of articles.

"D&D" is an open world game that stimulates the human imagination. Depending on your creativity, it is possible to play thousands or tens of thousands of unique games with just its rules. Hopefully this serialization will be useful as a spark to awaken the great creativity sleeping within you. I think that this will be the case.

Then it gets into the gameplay and breezes along. Interesting to see how the DM saw the Law/Neutral/Chaos alignment and things like that. Seem to equate Law with good and Chaos with evil.

The first installment has the PCs gather and hit the road then Very breezy. (Or the article writer is just giving bullet points. It is hard to say.) But this is a person new to DMing and RPGs. Stat check to recall some information and the installment ends with the party buying a dubious map that turns out to be legit.

Second installment has the party travel to the location on the map. And the DM explains that there are no wilderness encounters because they are too low level The B of BX. We get to see good ol marching order! The elf becomes the party's mapper. Confirmed that some things are being glossed over. Hilariously the DM poses a riddle and one of the players instantly guesses it. The writer/DM then has a side note about how helpful "The Worlds Encyclopedia of Riddles" is. But notes that that if any of the players have read it then they get solved fast.

So overall an interesting read and can see why it got peoples attention.

I am very interested in reading these. Would you mind sharing the link to them?

I'll second that interest.  In my current game, I'm writing that loosely as a Japanese replay and I'd like to see how the styles are different/similar.  :-)

hell yeah. Record of Lodoss War is one of the best anime ever! looking forward to this.

We're talking about the Comptiq ones right?

https://archive.org/details/record-of-lodoss-war-comptiq-magazine-english-translation/page/n51/mode/2up

Nice!  Being able to save that as a PDF is a bonus. 

Quote from: WERDNA on February 25, 2024, 05:32:07 PM
We're talking about the Comptiq ones right?

https://archive.org/details/record-of-lodoss-war-comptiq-magazine-english-translation/page/n51/mode/2up

Looks like the same one.

Quote from: zircher on February 25, 2024, 04:31:11 PM
I'll second that interest.  In my current game, I'm writing that loosely as a Japanese replay and I'd like to see how the styles are different/similar.  :-)

They do not seem too overly different. Keep on mind the articles are showing only a window into moments along the adventure. But overall feels like many a starter DM and a mixed party of veterans and beginners.

Neat!

I wonder if Archive has the original Japanese magazine text, too.  I could use the practice material.

The poster of the translation had them at great effort apparently and on Reddit someone mentioned they had been working on translating them as well.

The intro to the translation notes that the archived magazines were stolen from the Diet by fans and thieves. So they must be pretty hard to come by now?

The third installment has this bit of advice that will be familliar to western players of older D&D.

QuoteThe initial fun of "D & D" is creating a character and then playing a scenario. However, the next level of enjoyment is to grow your character. The experience points required to grow a character come not just from defeating monsters, but also from acquiring treasure. You can also earn them by using your brain. You don't necessarily have to win fights to defeat every monster (whereas in personal computer RPGs, you almost always have to fight the monster).

Quite the contrary, it is often better and more effective to avoid unnecessary battles by using your wits and tricking monsters to get their treasures.

I've been reading these D&D Lodoss replays and also been watching the two animes, played the Deedlit metroidvania video game and started going down a rabbit hole about the setting. Fascinating stuff. I am slowly turning into a fan.

I actually do have a copy of the 1st edition Sword World rules and the gazetteers for Lodoss Island and the overall Forcelia setting. Never got the one for the ten children, a collection of city states. Other than a much older Lodoss box set, that may have been all that was published aside from novels, replays, and adventure modules of which I have a few.

I think there were a few CRPG's based on the rules as well.

Quote from: WERDNA on February 28, 2024, 02:39:51 AM
I actually do have a copy of the 1st edition Sword World rules and the gazetteers for Lodoss Island and the overall Forcelia setting. Never got the one for the ten children, a collection of city states. Other than a much older Lodoss box set, that may have been all that was published aside from novels, replays, and adventure modules of which I have a few.

I think there were a few CRPG's based on the rules as well.

I found a whole trove of translated novels and manga over at the Lodoss War/Forcelia fan-wiki. Including a translation of the Sword World (Forcelia) boxed set. Really cool. There seems to be some really devoted fans for the setting. Not sure about if it's  ok to post any links to it here but they are pretty easy to find.

I got myself a Kindle copy of the first novel over at amazon, as it follows the same general story as the original replays in the OP above.  There is something very charming about it. The complete opposite to the post-modern hellscape D&D fantasy has turned into. It made me actually want to read a fantasy novel for the first time in ages. It's completely honest in tone and presentation (were some would call it simplistic or kitchy) while devoid of any sarcasm or filled with fourth wall-breaking satire. And it's very refreshing getting a reminder of what D&D actually represents for many of us. Like that D&D campaign you really wished to play when we were 12 and actually still want to. Well... at least me

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