I am such a huge nerd…
Well, here we go again. Every 2 years the Mega Manga Convention (MMC) takes place in Berlin and this time d6ideas is also present giving RPG introductions.
While I recognise almost every single cosplay outfit, my fellow gamers from d6ideas mayby watched some anime or looked into some mangas, but I am pretty much the exception here. So there are many new things to discover: Anime fans can play tabletop games and gamers can experience the wonderful world of anime conventions.
You would expect that tabletop gamers and anime fans would overlap more, but it seems that the opposite is true. Of course you have BESM, Anima and many other obscure tabletop games, which present themselves as the connection between anime and tabletop gaming. But to be honest I never felt much of an anime vibe from these games. Then you have very specific games like the Sailor Moon RPG, which have a much easier time because they only have to get the feeling of one anime right, but those things usually fail massively. And finally there are games like Legends of the 5 Rings, where the people who play the game rather enjoy their very anime-free Rokugan.
The question is: Why is it so hard for anime and tabletop games to come together? The answer is pretty simple. Anime and manga are visual media and tabletop gaming is not. The aesthetics of anime and manga are very important to the viewer, but the aesthetics of a tabletop game are usually not so important as the actual game play for example. Tabletop gaming just needs some aesthetic game material to provide the anime feeling and I don't talk about fancy cover artwork like Exalted's. It's more about things like using maid cards to play a game about maid animes.
Never the less, the third season of Shakugan no Shana just started and I play tabletop games at an anime convention.
I am pretty much in nerd heaven.
Next week, we will be totally anime-free however:
On Monday I will continue the alternate d20 modern classes with the Adventurer.
On Thursday Nogger will proceed with our Red October theme by providing his article about the Odnashdoi Utrom.