Where are the Japanese murderhobo CRPGs? Where are the sandbox MMOs?

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Isn't it strange how there are so many Japanese web novels and anime based on tabletop D&D and Western sandbox MMOs, the defining factor of which is that you can do whatever you want and kill townsfolk NPCs or kill other players? And a lot of these anime reflect this and their creators in their interviews express nostalgia for these games. And yet the actual games that the Japanese produce don't let you do that. You don't get multiple choices in resolving a quest, or being allowed to whip out your sword in town and stab the merchant and take his stuff, joining a guild and fighting other players for territory, etc.




For anime based on D&D/tabletop campaigns, we have off of the top of my head:

• Record of Lodoss War (literally a story based on the events of a tabletop campaign)
• Slayers (everyone is a bumbling murderhobo)
• Thunderbolt Fantasy (The evil monk in season 2 was a character Gen Urobuchi played in a tabletop campaign. This may partially explain why most of the party members in season 1 are evil and backstabbing each other and why the protagonist is walking around hoarding an inventory of powerful artifacts he isn't using)
• Overlord (also MMO)
• Goblin Slayer
• Dungeon Meishi
• Is It Wrong to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon?
• Konosuba
• That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime
• Heterogenia Linguistic
• Frierien

But where are the Japanese games that play like the D&D and the CRPGs these anime are emulating? With FF12, yeah sure the combat is presented somewhat like a RTWP CRPG, and you can cast an oil item on an enemy and then throw a firaga at it to deal more damage. But you have no choices in the story and you can't kill NPCs you don't like, can't split the party, etc. Kuro no Kiseki/Trails Through Daybreak 1 allowed you to pick a couple different endings to some quests, and in chapter 5 you could pick one of four different factions (including two villainous factions) to align with and get loaned guest party members from, but that was it. SaGA and The Last Remnant are non linear but you still can't whip out your sword and start killing people in town. The only Asian made CRPG I can think of that actually plays like a Western CRPG are Elin, Ho Tu Lo Shu, Tale of Wuxia the Pre-Sequel, and Amazing Cultivation Simulator, the latter 3 are made by the Chinese. I guess the Souls series lets you kill whoever but those aren't really story heavy and you don't get party members.

It can't be because "oh the Japanese prefer consoles". A RPG can run on consoles and still let you kill who you want (Morrowind on Xbox). And there were still Japanese RPG developers sticking to PC well until the 2000s like Nihon Falcom. And PC gaming in Japan has been on the rise over the past five years. Surely SOMEONE would have watched these animes or played Skyrim or Fallout or BG3 or something and would want to make a game that plays like that.





And then for the MMO anime, they are based on a mix of Ultima Online, Everquest, FF11, Lineage, and Ragnarok Online:

• Welcome to the NHK
• .Hack
• Sword Art Online
• Accel World
• Log Horizon
• Overlord
• BOFURI
• The King's Avatar (Chinese web novel and show)

(These are anime that take place explicitly in an MMO, not even touching anime that take place in fantasy worlds that have MMO mechanics for some reason like Shield Hero or the Spider anime).

What is really peculiar is how sandboxy these MMOs stories are, and how they usually feature open world PvP and wars between player nations. This is stuff you see in Western MMOs like Ultima Online, DAOC, Everquest, SWG, EVE Online, or in Korean MMOs like Lineage. Not stuff you see in Japanese made MMOs like FF11, Phantasy Star Online, DQ10, or FF14 which are almost exclusively PvE games. A lot of the creators of these MMO stories have talked fondly about their time playing Everquest or Ultima. Even FF11 happened because Hironobu Sakaguuchi was working on FF9 in Hawaii and played Everquest, and Naoki Yoshida the current director of FF14 has talked about how he played Ultima Online, DAOC, and WoW at work when he was supposed to be working. And yeah, he said in his book how he got PKed in UO and that made him dislike open world PvP and stuff. But surely at least a feel people would have wanted to have made a game where you can go around killing other people, right?

So, what's going on here? Where are my Japanese murderhobo games?

[ThulsaDoomer]

Bugmen struggle with the European concept of rugged individualism. Sorry, I am not remotely familiar with JRPGs, it's an interesting question and I look forward to other answers, but I genuinely believe that the Japanese, while idolising American media, utterly fail to grasp the underlying concept within those works. That is, Christian Individualism, the core pillar of its values, a concept that cannot be so easily emulated in other peoples.

[Demonic Fate]

The jap chick who drew "Delicious in Dungeon" is a huge Baldur's Gate 1/2 fan. Maybe you can look through her blog and see if she wrote anything on the subject.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

The jap chick who drew "Delicious in Dungeon" is a huge Baldur's Gate 1/2 fan. Maybe you can look through her blog and see if she wrote anything on the subject.

I had heard she drew anime portraits for BG2. I'll check for the blog

[WhiteShark]

These are really two different topics with only some overlap in direct cause.

Regarding cRPGs, I think there are several reasons. The Japanese prefer to iterate on the familiar instead of trying new things. PC gaming may be on the rise of late, but that's a pretty short period in the history of gaming; consoles were king, and now it's phones. D&D, though popular at one time, failed to take root, and the open play that characterizes TTRPGs withered with it; modern JTTRPGs are all about enacting semi-prescripted scenarios in a rigidly formulaic fashion. (To some extent, this is also true in the West; many TTRPGs and groups have lost sight of the freedom of player agency that is foundational to proper tabletop.) Hence, while individual authors may create media based on their fond memories of D&D, there doesn't seem to be that much of a market for actually playing that way.

Regarding open PvP MMOs, modern Japanese are not, as a whole, very PvP oriented. The arcade scene has turned out some of the best fighting game players, but they've had basically zero success in any other genre. They seem to prefer harmony over the sort of cutthroat aggression that makes others successful in open PvP contexts. Indeed, if the Japanese have a significant presence in an MMO, they will share information about players who PK or otherwise behave disruptively, making them pariahs. This is a bigger deal to them than it would be to us, for they value social cohesion very highly and word spreads fast. Hence, again, the lack of sandbox MMOs can probably be chalked up to a lack of interest in that style of play.

(SIde note: I also found EVE incredibly boring. Reading about all the wars and intrigue was much more interesting than the moment to moment gameplay.)

[Valter]

Hence, while individual authors may create media based on their fond memories of D&D, there doesn't seem to be that much of a market for actually playing that way.

Market is key. And the anime market is an established Japanese industrial force. I have the impression that it is much simpler and financially viable for a gamer to write over his love of MMOs or RPGs in a light novel and try to get it turned into an anime, than it is to make a whole video game in the era of rising mobile gaming and declining PC gaming.

[rusty_shackleford]

South Korean rpgs tended to be much more like their American counterparts afaik, which is an interesting datapoint.

[Norfleet]

(SIde note: I also found EVE incredibly boring. Reading about all the wars and intrigue was much more interesting than the moment to moment gameplay.)

That's because participating in Eve War is functionally similar to participating in real war, and real war is boring, until it abruptly becomes chaotic and terrifying.

[Vaako]

My guess would be these type of games usually can only be played by adults anyway there. And they are too risk averse to market to adults, which makes sense with their working hours what adult who isnt a neat actually has much time to play games in japan when you have to stay in the office for 14hours a day or so. But the bugmen argument is also legit. The few individualist they have can at most make mangas or eroge stuff with their finances is my guess.

[Tangerine]

modern JTTRPGs are all about enacting semi-prescripted scenarios in a rigidly formulaic fashion.

Do Japs even have homegrown TTRPGs that aren't just Western TTRPGs with an anime coat of paint?

[Acrux]

The jap chick who drew "Delicious in Dungeon" is a huge Baldur's Gate 1/2 fan. Maybe you can look through her blog and see if she wrote anything on the subject.

I had heard she drew anime portraits for BG2. I'll check for the blog

Those are all available as avatar portrait choices on this very website!

[WhiteShark]

modern JTTRPGs are all about enacting semi-prescripted scenarios in a rigidly formulaic fashion.

Do Japs even have homegrown TTRPGs that aren't just Western TTRPGs with an anime coat of paint?

Quite a few, in fact. Kamigakari, Nechronica, Tokyo NOVA, Tenra Banshou Zero, etc. Even Sword World, which started as a D&D clone, developed into its own thing. As mentioned, they are generally typified by a fairly rigid structure, often divided into various phases of play (e.g., in this scene you fight, in this scene something is revealed, in this scene you talk to NPCs, and so on), making them closer to board games than traditional RPGs. Some Western indie authors borrow JTTRPG concepts for their own games, but I don't think the reverse is often true.

Incidentally, I saw the Japanese version of the D&D 5e Lost Mine of Phandelver Dragon of Icespire Peak adventure, and it literally was D&D 5e with an anime coat of paint, which is both amusing and illustrative of the fact that Japs really do imagine fantasy with an anime art style.

[DemoGraph]

Where are my Japanese murderhobo games?

There was one. It was called Nanjing Massacre.

And this.

[maidenhaver]

I think having sex with everything was their preferred outlet.

[Norfleet]

Why do Jap women have no noses? I cannot help but notice that men have noses while women have no noses and thus clearly struggle to breathe.

[Vaako]

Why do Jap women have no noses? I cannot help but notice that men have noses while women have no noses and thus clearly struggle to breathe.

Because some are drawn like cat faces and they also have small noses.

[Norfleet]

Because some are drawn like cat faces and they also have small noses.

Cats with faces that round and squashed ALSO struggle to breathe.

And the disparity is very noticeable in that image: The male characters look like cartoon versions of actual human(oid) males. The female characters look like noseless balloons with saucers for eyes. When side by side in the same image, they look like alien freaks. The **** is up with that? The style isn't even consistent in the same image!

[Vaako]

Because some are drawn like cat faces and they also have small noses.

Cats with faces that round and squashed ALSO struggle to breathe.

And the disparity is very noticeable in that image: The male characters look like cartoon versions of actual human(oid) males. The female characters look like noseless balloons with saucers for eyes. When side by side in the same image, they look like alien freaks. The **** is up with that? The style isn't even consistent in the same image!

They arent real they dont need to breath. There are also men drawn with barely any noses in other art. Nose/mouth doesnt get much attention, rather the eyes and hair. Its all about looking cute nothing else. Dont like it watch western cartoons...

[Roguey]

Dragon's Dogma was inspired by Oblivion and Fable, best they could do.

[WhiteShark]

Because some are drawn like cat faces and they also have small noses.

Cats with faces that round and squashed ALSO struggle to breathe.

And the disparity is very noticeable in that image: The male characters look like cartoon versions of actual human(oid) males. The female characters look like noseless balloons with saucers for eyes. When side by side in the same image, they look like alien freaks. The **** is up with that? The style isn't even consistent in the same image!

The character portraits were drawn by different artists and somewhat haphazardly pasted together by WotC, I think. As for noses, Japanese art has often made use of negative space to imply instead of directly portray objects. In this case, the reflection implies the nose.