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Role-Playing Games
of Japan
Transcultural Dynamics and Orderings
Björn-Ole Kamm
Role-Playing Games of Japan
Björn-Ole Kamm
Role-Playing Games
of Japan
Transcultural Dynamics and Orderings
Björn-Ole Kamm
Graduate School of Letters
Kyoto University
Kyoto, Japan
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer
Nature Switzerland AG 2020
This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the
Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights
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now known or hereafter developed.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc.
in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such
names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for
general use.
The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and informa-
tion in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither
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This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature
Switzerland AG
The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland
Acknowledgements
v
vi ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
vii
Contents
1 Introduction—Before Play 1
1.1 Prelude 1
1.2 Controversies of Role-Playing 7
Uncertainty and Fluidity 9
Controversy and Knowledge 11
Translation and Transculturality 16
An Assemblage of Practices 20
1.3 “How to Use This Book” 22
References 24
ix
x CONTENTS
4 Mediation—Counterpoints of Dis/Connection,
or the Third Act 197
4.1 A Mediator’s Counterpoint: Non-Human and Human
Actors 197
4.2 The Internet as a Dis/Connector 200
Japan’s Internet Access 201
CONTENTS xi
Index 295
List of Abbreviations
xiii
xiv LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS
OT Out-Time
PC Player Character
PHB Player’s Handbook
PoD Print on Demand
RPG Role-Playing Game
SCA Society for Creative Anachronism
SNS Social Networking Software
SW1/SW2 Sword World 1st Edition/2nd Edition
TRPG Tabletop/Table-Talk Role-Playing Game
VtM Vampire: The Masquerade
VTT Virtual Table-Top
WoD World of Darkness
WotC Wizards of the Coast
XP Experience Points
List of Figures
xv
xvi LIST OF FIGURES
xvii
CHAPTER 1
Introduction—Before Play
Groups are made, agencies are explored, and objects play a role. Such are
the […] sources of uncertainty we rely on if we want to follow the social
fluid through its ever-changing and provisional shapes. (Latour 2005, 87)
1.1 Prelude
This book engages non-digital role-playing games (usually abbreviated
as RPGs) in and from Japan. In doing so, it attempts an experiment
with concepts and controversies, an experiment in “Japanese Studies.”
For these first lines, let us go no further than describing RPGs as games
in which players take on roles and as a practice entangled with many
other media. To say that RPGs are like The Lord of the Rings combined
with chess and improv-theatre would be amiss but might conjure some
interesting images.
This study deals with role-playing games but does not seek to define
them. General explanations meet the fluidity of contents, play-styles, and
creative agendas, which put any certainty into doubt. Thus, Role-Playing
This was one incentive for this study: Born out of curiosity for non-
digital gaming in Japan, I sought to amend this deficit in knowledge
because respective research would open a field of dramatic stories bridging
fiction and reality, open a field for questions of entanglement and multi-
plicity. However, at the same time I did not want to fall into the trap
of feeding into nihonjin-ron, that is, stories about how the Japanese
are special and unique, in this case, about the “Japaneseness” of role-
playing. Thus, right from the start, this study was less about positive
knowledge of a stable and certain object of analysis (“the game,” “the
role-player,” “the Japanese”) but concerned with the production of such
knowledge, about the inherent tension of terms and collectives, of conti-
nuities and discontinuities. It questions the appropriateness of traditional
knowledge containers for new phenomena of trans-local connectedness,
such as the heterogeneous networks that make-up role-playing games.
“Be surprised!” became the methodological core of my research. The
people and things I encountered during my study showed me how every-
thing was even more complex, more uncertain than I had envisioned:
How uncertain the dynamics of concepts and identities were, how non-
human mediators such as the Internet connect as well as disconnect, and
foremost, how difficult it is to ask questions about “a practice,” which is
done slightly differently by each actor entangled in its assemblage.
This book is an intervention in discourses on Japan and its cultural
practices that tend to essentialise difference instead of exploring its
making (cf. Galbraith and Lamarre 2010, 362). The emphasis on
“Japaneseness” of products and practices often does not result from the
object of inquiry itself but rather from the limited focus on Japan alone
without regarding global entanglements or uses elsewhere. Through
tracing complexity instead, the project informing this book became a
study about the way in which the assemblage of practices named role-
playing games circulates across borders and simultaneously becomes the
locus of boundary negotiations in a highly digitised and interconnected
world. These partially connected practices have a history that crosses many
nationally or culturally imagined borders, beginning in nineteenth century
Prussia with antecedents in ancient India, gaining a specific form in the
US in the 1970s and being nowadays most popular in a digitised variant
of multiplayer online games relying on mechanics refined by Japanese
programmers, and as live-action enactments promoted in various forms
and in various parts of Europe.
4 B.-O. KAMM
Ear-cockle, 155
Earthworms, 347, 365;
senses, 354;
food, 359;
effect on the soil, 368;
distribution, 369 f.;
classification, 380 f.;
British, 390—see also Oligochaeta
Ebrard, on Hirudinea, 393
Echeneibothrium, 91
Echinella, 73
Echinobothrium, 74, 75, 85, 91
Echinococcus, 80, 83
Echinocotyle, 91
Echinoderes, 236 f., 236
Echinorhynchidae, 182
Echinorhynchus acus, 175, 179;
E. angustatus, 174, 183;
E. clavula, 183;
E. haeruca, 176;
E. linstowi, 183;
E. lutzii, 183;
E. moniliformis, 183;
E. proteus, 174, 180, 181, 182, 182
Echinosiphon, 424, 429
Echiuroidea, 241 n., 412, 434, 446;
anatomy, 434 f.;
classification, 440;
development, 439;
parasites, 444;
habits, 442
Echiurus, 336, 411, 435, 440, 441;
development, 439
Eckstein, on Rotifers, 198
Eclipidrilus, 380
Economic uses, of Polychaeta, 296, 297
Ectocyst, 469, 470, 523;
of Phylactolaemata, 496 f., 503
Ectoderm, of Mesozoa, 93, 95
Ectoparasitic Trematodes, 4, 52, 53
Ectoprocta, 475, 518;
structure, 469;
lophophore, 476;
reproduction, 506 f.;
larva, 509, 510, 511;
compared with Entoprocta, 488
Effects, of parasites on their hosts, 56, 68, 69, 80, 94, 162
Eggs, of Leptoplana, 10, 16;
of Polyclads, 28;
of Triclads, 33, 40;
of Rhabdocoels, 47, 48;
of Termatodes, 52;
of ectoparasitic Trematodes, 54, 58, 60, 61;
of endoparasitic Trematodes, 63, 69;
of Cestodes, 87;
of Orthonectidae, 95;
of Nemertinea, 116;
of Nematoda, 135, 162;
of Gordius, 171;
of Acanthocephala, 179;
of Chaetognatha, 189;
of Rotifera, 200, 216 f.;
of Gastrotricha, 234;
of Nereis, 256;
of Polychaeta, 274, 275;
of Phyllodocids, 314;
of Scoloplos, 321;
of Myzostoma, 343;
of Polyzoa, 506, 507
Ehrenberg, on Turbellaria, 3, 6;
on Rotifers, 198, 220 n., 228;
on Gastrotricha, 231;
on Polyzoa (Bryozoa), 475
Eichhorn, on Rotifers, 197
Eisen, on Oligochaeta, 380, 390
Eisig, on Capitellidae, 373;
on Bonellia, 443
Electra, 481, 518, 523, 530;
larva, 509, 510;
variation, 516
Elytra, of Polynoids, 265, 292, 294, 298, 299, 309, 310, 311;
phosphorescent, 295, 296;
as brood-pouch, 275;
of Aphroditidae, 266;
arrangement of, 309;
of Sigalionina, 313
Enantia, 16 n., 19
Enantiidae, 19
Enchelidium, 157
Enchytraeidae, 359, 360, 361, 366, 367, 370, 375
Enchytraeus, host of Gordius, 173
Encotylabe, 73;
eggs of E. pagelli, 58
Endocyst, 471
Endoderm, of Mesozoa, 93, 95
Endoparasitic Trematodes, 4, 52, 62
Enopla, 109
Enoplidae, 157
Enoplus, 157, 160
Entalophora, 518, 532
Enteroploea, 224
Enterostoma, 46;
British species, 50
Entoprocta, 475, 479, 487 f., 518;
lophophore, 476;
reproduction, 506;
larva, 509, 510
Eosphora, 216, 218, 224
Ephemera, host of Gordius, 172, 173
Ephesia, 321
Epibdella, 55, 73
Epidermis, of Leptoplana, 11, 12;
of Polyclads, 20, 25, 29;
of Trematodes, 56;
of Cestodes, 85;
of Nemertinea, 102;
of Nematoda, 125;
of Acanthocephala, 175;
of Nereis, 249;
of Oligochaeta, 349;
of Leeches, 396;
of Gephyrea, 414;
of Phoronis, 454—see also Hypodermis
Epigamous, phase, of Nereis, 277 n.;
worms, 281
Epistome, in Phoronis, 453, 455;
in Phylactolaemata, 476, 476, 499;
in larva of Loxosoma, 509
Epistomia, 518, 526
Epithetosoma, 444, 445, 449
Epithetosomatoidea, 412, 444
Epitokous, phase, of Nereis, 277 n.
Eretmia, 225, 226
Eriographidae, 258, 338
Erpocotyle, 73
Errantia, 258, 285
Eschara, 516
Escharina, 518
Escharoides, 527
Euchlanididae, 225
Euchlanis, 225, 226
Eucratea, 518, 525, 527, 528
Eudrilidae, 359, 360, 380, 385, 403 f.
Eudrilus, 354, 385, 403 f.
Euichthydina, 235
Eulalia viridis, 314;
pigment, 292;
colour, 293;
eggs, 314 n.
Eumenia, 334
Eunice, 318, 319;
nephridium, 254;
eye, 255;
head, 262;
parapodium, 264;
gill, 265;
chaetae, 266, 267;
jaws, 270;
substance of tube, 290;
commensal, 298;
E. tibiana, 290
Eunicidae, 258, 318;
palps, 260;
tentacles, 262;
jaws, 270;
tube, 285, 290;
colour, 291, 292;
parasitic, 297;
tubes containing Polynoids, 298;
Palaeozoic, 302
Eunicites, 301, 302
Euphrosyne, 318;
parapodium, 265;
chaetae, 267
Eupolia, 113
Eupolyzoa, 461
Eurycercus, shell of, inhabited by Rotifers, 227 n.
Eurylepta, 19
Euryleptidae, 19
Eurythoe, 318
Eustrongylus gigas, 142;
E. tubifex, 142
Eusyllis, reproduction of, 278
Excretion, as cause of colour, 291
Excretory system, of Leptoplana, 13;
of Polyclads, 25;
of Triclads, 41;
absent in Acoela, 42;
of Temnocephala, 54;
of Digenea, 62;
of Cestodes, 86;
of Nemertinea, 108, 108, 120;
of Nematodes, 133;
of Acanthocephala, 177;
of Rotifers, 199, 213;
of Gastrotricha, 234;
of Kinorhyncha, 237;
of Polychaeta, 253;
of Polyzoa, 472 f.—see also Nephridium
Exogone, 308;
attachment of eggs, 275;
reproduction, 278
Eyes, of Leptoplana, 8, 15;
of Polyclads, 26, 27;
development of, 30;
of larval Polystomatidae, 59, 60;
of Nemertinea, 102, 106;
of Nematodes, 128;
of Gordius, 166;
of Chaetognatha, 188;
of Rotifera, 215;
of Gastrotricha, 234;
of Kinorhyncha, 238;
of Polychaeta, 255, 272, 314, 337, 339;
of Oligochaeta, 354;
of Leeches, 393, 394, 395;
of Gephyrea, 417;
of Polyzoon larva, 509
Fabricia, 339;
eyes, 272;
otocyst, 273
Faecal groove, of Sabellids, 337
Fans, of Chaetopterus, 295, 324
Faraday, on asexual reproduction of Planariae, 6, 40 n.
Farre, on Polyzoa, 500, 508
Farrella, 500, 518, 533
Fasciola, 67
Fecampia, life-history, 45
Felt, of Aphrodite, 268, 312
Fertilisation, of Nemertinea, 117;
of Nematodes, 135;
of Gordiidae, 171;
of Acanthocephala, 179;
of Chaetognatha, 188;
of Rotifers, 217
Filaria, 147, 163;
F. attenuata, 134;
F. cystica, 142;
F. denticulata, 125;
F. immitis, 148;
F. labiata, 163;
F. laticaudata, 125;
F. loa, 149;
F. medinensis, 147, 157, 163;
F. sanguinis hominis, 149, 163;
F. papillosa, 163
Filariidae, 147
Filigrana, 340;
fission in, 281;
tubes, 290
Fimbria tenuis, 157
Fischer, on branchiae in Gephyrea, 416 n.
Fishes, Trematodes of, 4, 53, 55, 62, 64, 71, 72;
Cestodes of, 77, 84, 85;
Nemathelminthes of, 142, 143, 149, 163, 173, 182
Fission, in Bipalium, 34;
in Planariae, 40;
in Trichoplax, 96;
in Salinella, 96;
in Polychaeta, 278 f., 279, 280, 282, 340;
in Oligochaeta, 374, 375, 377;
in Phylactolaemata, 496;
in embryos, 365, 511
Fissurella, as host, 298
Flabelligera, 334
Flame-cells, in Leptoplana, 13;
in Thysanozoon, 25;
in Triclads, 41;
in Temnocephala, 54;
in Polystomatidae and Tristomatidae, 56;
in Distomum luteum, 62;
in Cestodes, 86;
in Nemertinea, 108, 109;
in Rotifers, 213;
in Urnatella, 491
Fletcherodrilus, 382
Floscularia, 200, 203, 205, 220, 221, 226
Flosculariaceae, 202, 211, 213, 220
Flosculariidae, 201, 203, 205, 220 n., 221, 230
Flukes, 51
Flustra, 465, 466, 467, 472, 473, 477, 515, 518, 526;
avicularia, 482
Flustrella, 467, 477, 518, 532;
larva, 513
Flustrina, 518
Food, of Turbellaria, 4;
of Leptoplana, 10;
of Polyclads, 24;
of Triclads, 37;
of Acoela, 43 f.;
of Rhabdocoela, 45;
of Trematodes, 4, 52, 62;
of Temnocephala, 53;
of Cestoda, 5;
of Nemertinea, 115;
of Nematodes, 131;
of Acanthocephala, 177;
of Chaetognatha, 190;
of Rotifera, 207, 212;
of Gastrotricha, 234;
of Polychaeta, 296;
of Earthworms, 359;
of Leeches, 393, 406 f.;
of Gephyrea, 422, 443;
of Polyzoa, 467
Foot, in Rotifers, 200, 201
Foraminifera, as food of Polychaeta, 296
Forceps, of Eunice, 270
Forcipate, 210, 211
Formula, for Nematoda, 138
Fornix, 481, 517, 525
Fossil, Polychaeta, 301;
Polyzoa, 520;
Nemertinea, absence of, 119
Fredericella, 476, 494, 502-505, 518, 519;
lophophore, 495;
statoblast, 502, 503
Frenzel, on Trematoda, 62;
on Salinella, 96
Fresh-water, Turbellaria, compared with marine, 46;
Nemertinea, 101, 118;
Polychaeta, 284;
Polyzoa, 492
Friend, on Oligochaeta, 388 n.
Frogs, Trematodes of, 55, 58, 62, 71 f.;
Nematodes of, 140, 142, 160, 173
Frontal organ, of Nemertinea, 107
Frontal palps, of Eunicidae, 318 f.
Frontal ridge, 260
Frullania, inhabited by Rotifers, 227
Fulcrum, in Rotifers, 210
Funicular tissue, 471
Funiculus, 469, 471, 472, 499, 501
Furcularia, 216, 224, 226
Haberlandt, on Convoluta, 43
Habits, of Platyhelminthes, 3, 7, 21, 35, 43;
of Nemertinea, 114;
of Gordiidae, 170 f.;
of Chaetognatha, 189;
of Rotifers, 206, 226;
of Gastrotricha, 232, 234, 235;
of Polychaeta, 285;
of Oligochaeta, 366;
of Gephyrea, 426, 433, 442;
of Phoronis, 451
Haemadipsa, 408;
eye, 394
Haemal fluid, 252
Haematocleptes, parasitic, 297
Haementeria, 407
Haemerythrin, 416;
in Magelona, 252
Haemoglobin, in Nemertinea, 107, 108;
in Chaetopoda, 252, 253, 291, 356;
in Gephyrea, 437;
in Phoronis, 456
Haemopis, 393, 407
Halicryptus, 432, 433;
anatomy, 430
Hallez, on Turbellaria, 7, 21, 40
Halosydna, 298
Hamann, on Nematoda, 131, 133, 136 n.;
on Acanthocephala, 176, 180
Hamingia, 435 f., 442;
males of, 438
Haplobranchus, 339;
gills, 261
Haplodiscus, 43, 49
Haplodrili, 241
Hares, parasites of, 141, 145
Harker, on Oligochaeta, 369
Harmer, on Polyzoa, 465 f.
Harris, on Rotifera, 197