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Japanese-made tabletop role-playing games first emerged during the 1980s. Instead of "tabletop," they are referred to in Japanese as tabletalk RPGs (テーブルトークRPG, tēburutōku āru pī jī) (often shortened as TRPG), a wasei-eigo term meant to distinguish them from role-playing video games, which are popular in Japan. Today, there are hundreds of Japanese-designed tabletop role-playing games as well as games translated into Japanese.

In the 1970s, role-playing games received little to no attention in Japan because they only had English titles. However, several gaming magazines and computer magazines started introducing role-playing games in the early 1980s.^[1][2]

Some of the earliest Japanese RPGs were science fiction titles, including Donkey Commando in 1982 and Enterprise: Role Play Game in Star Trek in 1983.^[3][4] Traveller was the first translated RPG in 1984, with Dungeons & Dragons (Mentzer basic red box edition) following in 1985. One of the earliest Japanese-designed traditional fantasy RPGs was titled Roads to Lord, published in 1984.^[5]

In the late 1980s, role-playing video games such as Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy helped popularize tabletop role-playing games in Japan.^[6][7]

Around the same time, the Japanese game publisher Group SNE pioneered a new book genre called replays. Replays are logs of TRPG play sessions, arranged for publication in a similar style to light novels. The first replay, Record of Lodoss War, was a replay of Dungeons & Dragons that was published in Comptiq magazine beginning in 1986. It became a popular series, which led to increased interest in the fantasy genre.^[8]

Sword World RPG was published in 1989 and became popular very quickly. The Forcelia setting includes Lodoss island from the replay Record of Lodoss War. Sword World RPG had a flexible multi-class system. It only uses 6-sided dice, since other polyhedral dice were uncommon in 1989, especially in rural Japan. The paperback (bunkobon) rulebooks were inexpensive and portable.^[9]

Notable role-playing games in the mid-late 1980s and early 1990s included:

In the mid to late 1990s, trading card games (TCGs) surpassed tabletop role-playing games in popularity, and most Japanese TRPG magazines were either transformed into TCG magazines or discontinued.

Notable role-playing games of the early 2000s include Blade of Arcana (1999), Night Wizard! (2002) and Alshard (2002). Role&Roll magazine was established in 2003. In 2007, Night Wizard! was adapted into an anime television series. Alshard's game system was expanded into a generic role-playing game system named Standard RPG System in 2006.

Since the late 2000s, RPG fan replay videos have grown in popularity on Niconico, a Japanese video hosting service.^[10]

In addition, the rise of web novels has been a major influence on the Japanese fantasy and RPG scene. Log Horizon TRPG was released in 2014.^[11] "Role-playing fiction" Red Dragon was animated under the moniker Chaos Dragon in 2015.^[12] Goblin Slayer TRPG was published in 2019.^[13]

In Japan, domestically-made role-playing games are competitive in the market. Despite the market's small size, many original products are published. For example, 95 domestically-made RPG rulebooks, excluding supplements, were published from 2000 to 2007. In the same period of time, 25 translated RPG rulebooks were published.^[14]

According to the publisher's press releases in 2019, translated copies of first (2004) to fifth edition core rulebooks of Call of Cthulhu cumulatively sold 200,000 copies domestically.^[15][16]

In 2008, the Maid RPG was completely translated from Japanese into English.^[17]

In 2013, the 3rd Edition of "Double Cross" by F.E.A.R was released in English by Ver. Blue Amusement.^[18]

In 2013, Ryuutama was translated into French by editor Lapin Marteau.^[19][20]

• History of Eastern role-playing video games
• History of role-playing games
• List of best-selling Japanese role-playing game franchises

• TRPG.NET Wiki for English
• Group SNE (in Japanese)
• FarEast Amusement Research (in Japanese)
• Adventure Planning Service (in Japanese)
• Dungeons & Dragons Japanese official site (in Japanese)
• Japanese Rules Cyclopedia
• website of french publisher of Ryuutama (in French)