TRPGs in Japan are still very much a paper affair, and that in particular can be seen in the number of print magazines dedicated to them. A few specific to TRPGs are:
Role and Roll (ロール＆ロール) published by Arclight
Gamer’s Field (ゲーマーズ･フィールド) published by F.E.A.R.
Game Mastery (ゲームマスタリーマガジン)
and Warlock Magazine (ウォーロックマガジン, formerly TtT Magazine), dedicated to Tunnels and Trolls. Thanks to VinydeWonderful for pointing out that the artist is Hitoshi Yoneda. There is a post on his blog showing the evolution of the below cover.
Game Mastery, TtT, and Warlock are published by Group SNE .
Role & Roll covers all games, while the others tend to support just the games published by their publisher. But what types of articles do they have? They range the gamut from interviews, guides, replays, and game scenarios to comics, fiction, and reviews. These are also fairly hefty magazines– the above pictured Role and Roll is 138 pages and Game Mastery is 162.
We’ll take a more detailed look at Game Mastery next time and then Role & Roll after that to see the type of content they have to offer.
Thank you for the post! I follow Hitoshi Yoneda on twitter and was wondering about Warlock Magazine since he has done all cover illustrations for it. I am really curious about the Role Playing scene in Japan, so I’m keeping an eye on entropicdreams for now on! Great site. By the way, if you need a fantasy art illustrator, I’m one. I’d love to network.
Thank you! I’m glad you enjoyed it. And thanks for pointing out the artist. I updated the post with a link to his blog post about the T&T cover. I really like his style. I have some more posts about Japanese role playing games coming up, so I hope you find them interesting!
I love that Hitoshi Yoneda still uses watercolours to make his illustrations to this very day. He has done the Japanese covers of Phantasy Star II and IV, I think, and a lot of works in the 90s. His artwork continues to be good and to have a traditional feel.
Thanks very much for mentioning me in the post!
I subscribed to your site and Instagram, and i’m getting notifications of the new posts. Although notifications of the replies of my comments are not arriving.
Yeah, I really like his use of watercolors.
Thanks for the follows. I’ve been enjoying your Instagram as well. Also, thanks for the heads up about notifications. I changed how emails are sent, so hopefully that’ll fix the problem.