Lodoss, The Original Actual Play

Big in Japan

Forcelia may not be the setting most westerners associate with Dungeons & Dragons, but outside of possibly Mystara due to the duo of Capcom arcade games, Forcelia is likely the most recognizable fantasy tabletop world in Japan. You may be curious why you cannot recall a Campaign Boxset or Gazetteer for this setting.

Well, for as famous as the world of Forcelia is in Japan, home to the continents of Alecrast, Crystania, and the tiny dark island of Lodoss, with dozen or so RPG books and novels, we know it in the west almost exclusively through the anime that spawned from it, Record of Lodoss War. The beginning of this world was published as a series of RPG Replays, retelling the events of their RPG Campaign in magazine articles , decades before Actual Play podcasts would become popular in the west.

Centered around the "Accursed Isle" Lodoss, Forcelia was the setting for the players of Group SNE, who took their name from the computer term "SyNtax Error", the campaign was GM'ed by Mizuno Ryo, who would go on to write most of the adaptations and give the franchise its iconic character designs. Ryo and Group SNE were all mangaka, Japanese comic artists. They came together, at the behest of fellow member Yasuda Hitoshi, to do a project for Tech magazine Comptiq (thus the group name being a computer term) for the 1st anniversary of D&D in Japan.

Despite Dungeons & Dragons having been played in the States since 1974, and even the Basic set for the Mentzer edition releasing in 1983, Japan did not see a release until 1985. In 1986, around that 1 year anniversary, Comptiq sought to highlight the game with a series of articles. RPG Replays were popular in Japan, players had been self-publishing logs or scripts from their game sessions and selling them among the community. Replays have even become official content today, and commonly outsell and out-SKU modules or other content for most japanese RPGs. 

Yasuda Hitoshi had been tapped by Comptiq to write their D&D articles, and he thought Replays would be an excellent way to show to the computer gaming crowd what a night of tabletop gaming would be like.While not the first RPG in the Japanese market, it was the most successful for a while, thanks much in part to Group SNE’s Lodoss War content. The rapport Group SNE had, Ryo's art style, and the adventure they told together, Lodoss-tou Senki, or literally "Lodoss Island War Chronicle", (stylized in English as "Record of Lodoss War") became more popular than D&D itself.

Call of Cthulhu, released in ‘86, overtook D&D as the preferred Foreign RPG, but was still not the number 1 rpg in Japan. To compete, Group SNE would release their own RPG onto the market, Sword World, which blended parts of D&D and Basic Roleplaying, the system that Call of Cthulhu runs on. On the publishing front, Sword World had a number of advantages; The physical book was a budget title produced on the same pulp paper and dimensions as manga. Even the current edition, 2.5, is still sold today for only 900 yen (about 6.20 USD). In the domestic market, numerous publishers released content for Sword World, including branded variants for different anime or other settings. As Group SNE became a full company and soared in popularity, they produced novels, manga, anime as well.While the popularity of the franchise soared through the late 80s and peaked in the 90s, It's style, and by the transitive property, Dungeons & Dragons, had a huge influence on Japanese fantasy media.

Glorious Nippon Steel 

Some of my favorite fantasy tropes are front and center in Lodoss, and they continue on proudly into present day Japanese pop culture.

Elven ears stick out at 90 degrees and are at least 6 inches long.

Deedlit - Lodoss OVA (1990)

Frieren - Sousou no Frieren (2023)

Every dragon is a demigod that has more in common with Shin Godzilla than a wyvern.

Bramd - Lodoss OVA (1990)

Bahamut - Final Fantasy XIV (2013)

Everyone just...has giant shoulderpads.

Gilgamesh - Fate/Strange Fake (2023)

Ashram - Lodoss OVA (1990)

Seven Days...

My personal experience with Lodoss began with the 12 episode "OVA" (mini series) on VHS Tape. Back in the 90s, the selection choice for anime was either Dubbed in English or not getting it at all. I actually watched this before I'd ever lay a hand on any D&D books, in a way, making this my introduction to tabletop RPGs.

As for the content of the tape: The first episode is a great no-context, in media res adventure from one end of an abandoned tunnel to the other. Perfectly evoking a D&D dungeon crawl with traps, monsters, and character interactions. To this day, when I think of how a wizard cast spells, I think of Slayn or Deedlit. Ghim is the archetypal Dwarf, throwing himself at Dragons and cracking their skulls. Woodchuck is the ur-Thief, precise with daggers and comical. 

The next episode rewinds to give us a proper introduction to the characters and explain the adventure they decide to set out on. A classic goblin town invasion sets the characters out into the world. Tragedy was, that tape only had 3 episodes on it, leaving me wanting SO MUCH MORE. It took a long time to finally finish the series, but it was worth the wait. I can highly recommend the original OVA along with the original novels and Manga adaption. Some of the sequel content is weaker but your mileage may vary with the spin-offs.

Lodoss is available on Blu-Ray, and as an OVA series, the animation and detail is high quality. If you're looking for a proper "D&D cartoon" this is it, but this bridge between pop culture and RPGs did little to help TSR. While Lodoss as a multimedia property flourished, D&D in Japan did not. 

D&D’s failure in Japan is commonly credited to the low availability of Polyhedral dice, but this appears to only be an excuse at best. Call of Cthulhu uses the polyhedral set as well, relying on d10s for checks but still sits at a comfortable number 2 in the market, selling plenty of material without issue, and Sword World itself used percentile dice as their standard check. Perhaps the D&D Monolith just wasn't what the region was looking for or it was pushed out by redundancy by the local favorite. In 2022, D&D 5e was announced with a delightfully goofy commercial to make a grand return to Japan, so we'll see if they do better this time around.

In conclusion, Japan is a land of contrasts.

I love collecting rpg books, from across the history of the hobby. But for westerners, unless a product has been localized, like The Dark Eye or Dragonbane from Europe, it might as well be lost media. There is a fan translation of Sword World 2.0 that is partially complete, but owning the physical copy makes a difference, and the many supplements are still unknown to us.

How different is their modern design style? What can be learned from their Replay Books and players preferred mode of play? My catalog of desired books has expanded by untold numbers.

There is another important source of influence upon Japanese fantasy to discuss, a franchise that is a bit more niche in it's country of origin, the USA. But; Wizardry is a discussion for another day.

Also, go play Deedlit in Wonder Labyrinth: Record of Lodoss War. Incredible Metroidvania. Amazing spritework, slick Ikaruga-style bullet hell mechanics, fun puzzles. Great boss fights that aren't just grinding or potion spamming.

(Note - This originally was posted on my wordpress blog paired with images meant to compliment the text, those were lost in transition to blogspot. My apologies, I hope the context remains understandable.)

Further Reading

• Lodoss Comptiq Actual Play Collection - The Internet Archive has a full scan of the English collection of the Lodoss actual play, a fascinating read and time capsule. Also some early Mizuno Ryo art! As a note, the anime/novel plot is adapted and not completely accurate to the replay, so both are worth experiencing.
• Sword World 1e - Not in print anymore, but used copies can be found on places like Sugura-ya or other Used Goods sites that ship from japan, a far better option than trying to pick them up from resellers in the west. The same holds true for any supplementary materials.
• Sword World 2.x - The current edition of of Sword World is set in a different world than Forcelia, and uses a 2d6 die system, making it very different from the original Sword World, likely intended to cut as many ties as possible from D&D as possible. Despite the drastic changes, SW2 is still the best selling RPG in the country. The provided link is to a fan translation project.
• Group SNE - The Company still exists today, publishing numerous "Table Talk" RPGs that use the Sword World 2.x system. You can always use something like google translate to get the jist of what each page means if you can't read Japanese.
• Record of Lodoss War OVA + TV Series Blu - The OVA alone is worth the price of admission, the TV show is weaker, both due to the lower animation quality, and the partial change of cast, and a retelling/retcon over the first few episodes. But don't let that detract you from enjoying the original 12 episodes.
• Deedlit in Wonder Labyrinth - Link to the Steam version, but also available on every modern console. A sort of sequel/interquel to Lodoss that could take at a vague point in the series. Regardless, the sprite work does the series justice, and plays incredibly well.