Specifically the way the large amount of them adapt traditional western fantasy. Reason I hate it is because 'adventurer' is usually, more often than not, an actual profession with actual guidelines and guilds and such. It just activates my almonds so fucking hard that the Japs could find a way to make the concept of an adventurer boring.
(And yes, I am aware of the examples that the Japanese got it right in, Dark Souls, Berserk, etc, we're not here to talk about those.)
>dark souls
>berserk
>doing it right
Well they're certainly a damn sight better than shit like Fairy Tail.
>thinks this is a Japanese thing
How can someone honestly be this fucking stupid.
Pray tell, where did it come from, then? Since literally the only place I see it is in Japanese fiction.
You can find it tracing back all the way from either King Arthur's or Charlemange's Courts of Knights, all the way down TO the Inns and Taverns of the Dying Earth or Lankhmar.
But, for a clear and definite "Adventurer's Guild", the hot button topic that sets you off because you don't understand it, you can actually find them all over the place in the early details of various Dungeons and Dragons settings. They're essentially intrinsic to the idea of adventurers, which are already intrinsic to the idea of Dungeons and Dragons.
The model for the Isekai-style guild of a "Tavern at the edge of an endless Dungeon" very likely was Greenwood's Yawning Mouth Inn, right over Undermountain, complete with rules for adventurers and a notice board for announcements, requests, and recruiting, all published in 1975, years before Japan was largely introduced to the idea of dungeon crawling, since it only became popular in Japan after the spread of the computer game Wizardry, which was first published in 1981.
>king Arthur or Charlemagne's knights counting as an "adventurer's guild"
They're less 'adventurers' and more 'soldiers that get regularly sent on adventures'
Also, sounds like that would absolutely trigger my autism. Thanks for giving me an example of what to avoid. I guess it's just a Japanese thing now since they came late to the party.
Depends on setting.
Damn I cannot believe how completely and utterly you btfo of OP. What's his anal circumference now?
It's not. He just pointed out how it's not. Its quite prevalent here too. Also keep in mind isekai is literally wish fulfillment of going to a dragon quest-esque world.
I ain't even mad, he was quite informative. I still hate the concept, even if it wasn't originally or even exclusively japanese.
Westerners dislike Japanese fantasy because:
Western fantasy is cool in an ugly-looking way
Eastern fantasy is cool in a pretty-looking way
Probably because you're racist and would rather blame a vaguely defined other for things you don't like rather than understand and critique your own culture for its shortcomings.
wew, guess I'm a racist now
better get my cloak and report in to my local Grand Wizard to join the KKK
who knew that hating something I've only seen in a specific type of fiction from a specific nation is racist
damn, you showed me the light
I'm fine with Nips when they do Asian fantasy, with Samurais and Ninjas and Great Walls and L o n g Dragons and shit.
And I'm fine with Nips when they get western fantasy, eg Dark Souls and Berserk, right.
I'm not fine with Nips when they do really shitty medieval/western fantasy wrong. Like, fantasy settings where everyone dresses in modern clothing and all armour is pauldrons and it just doesn't make any sense and operates off of shonen logic and all. But at that point, the fact that they're Laotian doesn't matter. Because what they're making is shit fantasy, which shares things in common with shit fantasy made by any European or American or whatever. It's not Japanese Fantasy I hate, just shit fantasy.
>replying to such low quality bait
>hating something and associating it with a specific nation out of pure ignorance
Some might call that racism. Either way, you're kind of an idiot.
I fuxking hate anime. I just hate it with a passion
>why r u here?
I have no idea
Who cares? We hate the way you do asian fantasy
>Random buddhist & taoist imagery
>Everyone knows kung fu
>Cherry blossoms blowing everywhere
>80's action movie tier plot
>Everyone acts obnoxiously
>Treat everything like weird cross between medieval europe and wild west but with fucking chopstick
>activates my almonds
sensiblechuckle.jpg
Fun Fact: DC is full of Cherry Blossom Trees, meaning that it's 100% accurate to have American Politicians walking under the falling blossoms of the cherry tree talking about their hopes and fears.
I mean, it's not really stupid to associate something with someone or somewhere if they're the only examples you've seen of it ever, is it? Otherwise, I'd might as well stop having opinions.
I don't do Asian fantasy because I don't know jack shit about Asian mythology and history
It's not really much more ucronic than usual DND-like fantasy, tough. Just a bit more in your face aesthetically.
Legend of Five Rings is pretty much what OP is talking about in reverse. Shit is fucking awful
What you're noticing is not a broadly japanese interpretation of western fantasy, but rather many instances of japanese pop culture ripping off or at least being strongly influenced by dragon quest in particular. I say this because there are many other western fantasy influenced frachises that do very well domestically in japan which don't ape the aesthetic, including fire emblem, monster hunter, dark souls, berserk, Zelda, and the non-scifi final fantasies. You could even make the argument for the first half of attack on titan. And that's just what I, a normie gaijin, can think of off the top of my head. But there is a looot of shit that's basically set in dragon quest.
Yeah but I don't like usual DND-like fantasy either.
True, but to be fair I don't think japs don't get the idea of adventurers, even in the worst shows.
L5R doesn't quite grok the idea of Japan, on the other hand.
I agree. There has to be a good east-asian game/setting created by east asians somewhere out there, but I can't think of any.
Just for the ucronic aspects?
The fuck's ucronic
Tenra Basho Zero.
It's funny how much traditional (as in: for the japs it reminds them of older tv shows and even perhaps of their own fucking theatre) it is, behind its anime skin, even.
Alternate history, or simply a mishmash of technology and other things that -being IRL very distant- don't make much sense in the setting.
so anachronistic
L E A R N A E S T H E T I C S
But that describes how asians do asian fantasy.
>A mish mash of asian cultures
>Gods would flat out strike a person down if they don't live up to MOST HONORABLE PATH
>Needless rivalries between factions while flat out next door to hell
>Tech level will never advance because DISHONORABLE GAJIN MAGICS ARE EVIL
The world of L5R is so ass backwards I'm sure you could port it over to 40k pretty easily as a long human settlement
dark souls is fuckin cool
Inuyasha?
I've got no problems with Asian fantasy. But there is a catch to that, because there is a huge difference between Asian fantasy like Dark Souls or even Final Fantasy and... the LIGHT NOVEL.
You know the one. The main character is hilariously overpowered from the get-go, rather then growing in strength to deal with threats. He's probably from our world. His harem keeps growing with every chapter, as women fall over his generic good looks and lack of personality.
It's like, "Yikes, if I want to read creepy self insert I'll read my player's backstories for fun."
I guess? It's hard to pin down. There's a certain line I've yet to define between "realistic"/history inspired fantasy and DnD/MMO style fantasy, that when crossed just makes me lose interest. It's a combination of stuff like aesthetic and setting details. I really don't like kitchen-sink type stuff, and really don't like pauldron fantasy, and really don't like overly grim and edgy fantasy, which are all niches a lot of nip stuff tends to fall into.
Light Novels are the trashy romance novels of japan
Amen.
This. They're generic, trashy and altogether a waste of time. Just don't let anybody know you read them.
I don't. Japenese settings tend to care less about being "realistic" and have actual weird, fun, and interesting shit. The very little anime I've seen often have crazy settings- even some retarded japenese schoolgirl fantasy world with psychic lesbians is still 100% more interesting and unique then any gay sword and sorcery "dude it's conan and wizards are dark and everyone is edgy xd" western fantasy schlock.
I'm not even a weeb. I like gonzo/interesting western fantasy more, but it's not that common. Suck me.
Japanese RPG playthroughs are essays in win and hilarity:
Guy1: At long last Guy2 has become an adventurer. Finally he can pay me back for all the money he's borrowed.
Guy2: Ah, Guy1. At long last I have become an adventurer. However, I spent all my money on chainmail. Please continue to loan me money in the future.
Depends tough. For example one the biggest thing that doesn't make sense in yer olde usual DND fantasy is the freedom given to anyone, but it's not exactly anachronistic, it's more "shit, everything I know about pre-industrial society screams it couldn't work".
I feel your pain, user. I honestly don't get the appeal - if people played Generic Animu Fantasy Harem I'd honestly understand it more.
I dunno, it's not even superficially reminding me of Japan, honestly. I guess it's the appeal of MUH COURT INTRIGUE or something.
Fair enough. Personally I tend to like more and more settings that are heavily magical or at least heavily... hrm... pictoresque? As in, maybe the city isn't running on magic even if it has some, but it would be running for ten years on NatGeo.
So.. not necessarily pauldron, but most probably not really "realistic". Shit needs some spice, if not I'd play historical (or low fantasy historical)
Eh. Conan was even more of a self-insert, and no one objected. And no, not really a REH self-insert only, clearly worked for his readers and works now.
I can see that maybe 1 (good) Conan is not 100 (bad) Kazumas, but still.
I mainly hate their weird obsession with making everyone a little girl.
You're free to have shit taste, I guess, just please wear one of those medical masks to reduce the risk of affecting the rest of us.
this is a terminal case of shit taste, you have 2 months left
You got memed my dude, not all eastern fantasy is lolis and monster girls the same way not all western fantasy is female casters in slutty robes and fighting men in loincloths
>being this much of a contrarian faggot
I like the concept of using game mechanics as a structure for a fantasy world, though taking it too far can lead to the abstraction becoming the forefront of the setting rather than the plot and worldbuilding.
You are exactly what i hate
like, I don't think you understand how much i hate that type of fantasy
Gaiafaggotry was the worst thing to happen to this site
Cool your autism, buddy.
I wish there was something like L5R but good.
Well, I'll be damned.
I wish I could, but there's just something inherently infuriating about fantasies where there are "levels and tiers" of adventurers and adventures IN THE GODDAMNED UNIVERSE
I get his point. There's only so many times you play through the same setting of dirt farm, castle town, mage town, desert town, magical woods, etc
But the premises themselves are pretty bad. What exactly would you like?
I could see it happening. In a society where adventuring and monsters have always been a part of their way of life, it's not absurd to imagine there being some sort of structure to help streamline it all.
>adventuring and monsters being their way of life
then your adventurers aren't fucking special, it's just another field or career for them to enter
And? That setting can still be fun if it's in the right hands.
An RPG about being samurai.
Then I guess that I haven't seen a single example of such, because it's all bad from what I've seen. Or at the very least, supremely offending to my personal tastes.
Well, ya, same problem. Westerners have made good Eastern fantasy and Easterners have made good Western fantasy, but when you're dealing with a culture that's very different from you're own you just don't have the intuitive grasp of their mytho-history they do, and you're putting yourself at a series disadvantage
This sounds like every cheesy 70s/80s Chinese action movie I've ever watched.
Out of genuine curiosity what exactly did Berserk do "right" in your opinion? I always see it praised here, but what I've read of it seems kind of overhyped for what it is in my opinion.
Question, what's the different between an "adventurer guild" and thieves guild, mage tower, The Church, "the group that generally has heroic types to throw at problems"?
Oddly enough Tenra might be your best bet.
Isn't that for running shonen-esque stuff? I meant something more grounded.
an adventurer guild is like a union of adventurers as a profession, wherein people go to contract members for their problems.
Whereas your other examples are organizations that seek to hire adventurers as mercenaries only when a particularly fantastic problem arises. So in the latter case "adventurer" isn't a normalized profession and there isn't a union of them.
Nothing, it just triggers 'muh dark and mature setting'-fags
>Thieves Guild don't send rogues to steal
>Mage Towers don't send casters to do field research
>The Church does not have a single paladin, cleric, favored soul, or even monk to spread the word of god
wat
Those that you just described are generally institutions that are professions outside """adventuring"""
an adventurer's guild regulates adventuring and turns it into a fucking personal's office of fantasy
>turns it into a fucking personal's office of fantasy
On the one hand, I understand where you're coming from, but on the other it's always confused me how violently opposed to this concept so many people are for what it is. Like I understand and accept if it's not to your tastes but why do people get so HEATED over it?
I think he was asking why it would be so stupid to have an adventures guild when all those other specialized institutions exist in the setting.
No. Tenra is basically a layer of JESUS FUCKING CHRIST THE SAMURAI IS A BIOMECHANICAL MONSTER* over a core of traditional jidaigeki setting. Well, traditional for the japs, as I said I think the stories are basically kabuki.
Now the problem for what you asked isn't really that well, yes, the monk does what Kenshiro did (he certainly does but it doesn't feel at all like that anime; it feels like a more melodramatic Lone Wolf and Cub), but that as jidaigeki it's not really about samurais/high class per se.
You could do a heavy court thing, certainly (for example selecting the characters, and it wouldn't be hard) but the default is more... adventure, say, than staying innacastle and plotting. Because the characters are terribly powerful and fights are gonna be there, but it's not really the reason either, it's more about the genre.
What I can assure you is that no, it doesn't feel like a battle shonen at all.
*=note: the samurai is probably the most plain class archetype there. I guess this can sell the game or make you vomit. In general terms of badassness Tenra: Exalted=Exalted=WFRP.
It seem like the common "flaw" in adventurer's guilds is more in what players think they are, a fantasy HR or something. How do you fix this?
By thinking bigger
Because people feel the need to distinguish the (few) things they know and love from other more generic things (like the perceived "generic anime fantasy setting"). Basically it's a problem of identity, they label themselves as nerds -especially when crafting a "serious" setting- and not casuals and so they're triggered when they're pointed out that they don't do anything special and tought-of.
I for one have no fucking problems with adventuring guilds (as long as the powers that be, if present, are justifiably more powerful). Hell, I have no real problems with monstergirls brothels, per se, they're certainly not worse than drows being (relatively) SM-fetishes.
Because it's so prevalent and it's begun poisoning my IRL game groups
my players have been talking about making an adventurer's guild with their characters
it infuriates me so much but I can't say anything because they're my friends
So they DON'T act as a fantasy HR about 90% of the time?
nigga I don't have any problems with casual players and settings I just hate this one specific thing
Wasn't saying anything about players. I think it's honestly really just "I NEED MY SETTING TO BE DIFFERENT!".
And then they all use elves.
Let me flesh out what I meant. Unless you're doing the classic pucky group of friends go an epic quest of DESTINY (please note there's nothing wrong with this) then there's always another trouble in the land being handled by someone else or has been handled by someone else. Now lets say a few of these adventurers past and present are doing this not for the fame and money but because it's the right thing to do. They would want to help each, pooling in knowledge and resources. This is your adventurer's guild, they don't force adventurers to pay dues and order them around. It's mostly a lodging and a place for you to talk to people who understand what being an adventurer is.
>So they DON'T act as a fantasy HR about 90% of the time?
I have not seen anything like this in tabletop games, just in vidya
Any good place to read up on translated replays?
I'm with you on that. It's one of the reasons I stuck around reading Order of the Stick for as long as I did.
Can we get a screencap of this?
Here you go.
Thank you user!
Should work like military ranks or company positions rather than levels.
Sadly there is very little fun in western made fantasy.
OP BTFO
It was a trend setter at the time it came out, much of what seems like tropes to a modern viewer were first implemented in the show
Much of its tropes were established in Devilman before it. Even the blonde best friend ruining the MCs life.
>A notice board in a tavern = an adventure's guild
Quite the logical leap.
Since you love his post so much, please rectify this logical leap.
Berserk is way more about vengeance tough. Devilman is about the end of society as we know it.
One if where you learn your trade, the other is where you find people who need you to ply it. And while, yes, you can go to the Thieve's Guild, Mage's Tower and Church to get people to help you break into this one dungeon, it's much more efficient to find the place where the guys from these disparate backgrounds meet. And that kind of efficiency isn't something to sniff at when Kobolds just dragged your little sister off to some Yuan-Ti ruins and you need some folks to get her back ASAP.
I'm just not personally engaged in the setting. I grew up immersed in traditional Western fantasy and history and just was never that drawn to the history of Japan. Unless we count playing Shogun Total War.
Likewise it probably doesn't help that a seminal piece of work like say Lord of the Rings is clearly written for adults whereas anime is created for children and I never got into it as a child so can't even like it for nostalgic value.
My friends currently running a D&D game set in a weeb setting and I'm playing the most traditional fantasy angry, gruff Dwarf character I could get away with. Hanging out with a samurai, a monk and a kensai. It's hilarious.
>anime is created for children
>what are seinen and josei manga/anime?
To be fair, anime was originally created for children, inspired by Walt Disney's animations.
I agree that things such as inns and taverns are intrinsic elements to most adventures and dungeon crawling. The old "You all meet in a tavern" had to come from somewhere, after all. But a tavern with a notice board for job requests isn't a guild built for the sole purpose of catering to adventurers. I'm not too familiar with the Yawning Mouth Inn's setting, but I imagine it wasn't the barkeep handing you over money out of his own pockets from across the counter. And I'm pretty sure the barkeep didn't ask you to "register" with the Inn to have exclusive access to people's requests, or limit the requests you could access because your party is only "Copper rank".
There's nothing wrong with adventurer's rules if they're tied to a specific place in the setting (i.e. an endless dungeon. It makes sense the fortune-seekers of this place establish a code of conduct while exploring said dungeon to prevent unnecessary bloodshed). I frankly quite like the concept of a glorified "Thieves' code", as long as it's kept as a courtesy, not enforced pseudo-law. But this still doesn't justify the presence of an Adventurer's guild.
Inns and taverns still imply a certain freedom to the characters themselves. The Adventurer still decides how they make their fortune and interact more directly with possible clients. It doesn't tie the very loose concept of adventurer to an institutionalized, overseeing body specific to them.
>Minor opinion correcting other user.
>Desperate need for a screencap implying a sick OP BTFO.
Don't get that jizz all over yourselves, Reddit.