09-22-2019, 06:00 AM | #1 |
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: Gothenburg, Sweden
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The Swedish RPG Wonder
Why was the Swedish RPG industry so strong in the 1980s?
Panel from ComicCon Stockholm 2019. It's difficult for people nowadays to understand just how prevalent RPGs were in the 1980s. There were a couple of kids in every class who played Drakar och Demoner (DoD, as separate from Dungeons and Dragons, D&D) The term fantasy for a genre didn't exist - they were "DoD-style books" or "LotR-style books."The main company, Äventyrsspel, translated stories about Conan, Elric and other heroes into Swedish, and there was nothing else like it. The panel is, of course, in English. To any other Swedes on the forum - were you active in the 80s? Have you played adventures like Döda Skogen (the Dead Forest), Svavelvinter (Sulfurous Winter) and Marsklandet (the Marshlands)? For non-Swedish people, have you played Swedish RPGs?
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“When you arise in the morning think of what a privilege it is to be alive, to think, to enjoy, to love ...” Marcus Aurelius Last edited by Anders; 09-22-2019 at 06:09 AM. |
09-22-2019, 06:08 AM | #2 |
Join Date: Dec 2016
Location: Southern Sweden, possibly on an Alternate Earth
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Re: The Swedish RPG Wonder
I was active in the 80s, yes - grew up with Drakar & Demoner, then played the swedish translation of MERP (yuck!), the swedish translation of WEG Star Wars (good!), before moving on to Call of Cthulhu.
Yes I remember Svavelvinter, especially Blatifagus (a near sighted dragon, quite vain, with the tail tip cut off by dome dragon hunter). And we played Den Svarta Madonnan, maybe our biggest experience. Also remember how Kult started the decline of the swedish rpg market - the moral panic forced all rpgs off the shelves of toy stores. |
09-22-2019, 06:22 AM | #3 |
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: Gothenburg, Sweden
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Re: The Swedish RPG Wonder
Svavelvinter and the entire adventure path went dark. The shagulites (insane necromancers looking for eternal life) were nasty. They performed horrible experiments on people to find out how much they could take before they cracked...
And when Dungeons&Dragons was translated into Swedish it fizzled out. First of all, the translation wasn't very good. Second - all Swedish kids know how to speak English anyway - why read a subpar copy? And thirdly, all the adventures and supplements were for Drakar och Demoner.
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“When you arise in the morning think of what a privilege it is to be alive, to think, to enjoy, to love ...” Marcus Aurelius |
09-22-2019, 10:42 AM | #4 |
Join Date: Oct 2005
Location: Ronneby, Sweden
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Re: The Swedish RPG Wonder
My first RPG was Mutant from '84 (though I had the '86 printing, but I think they just differ in art and layout). I remember most of Uppdrag in Mos Mosel (the starter adventure), I know I had some of the published adventures as well but I don't remember anything about them.
I played some DoD in the early 90s before moving through various american systems. I'm currently playing in an Eon IV (one of the current crop of Swedish RPGs) campaign, so back home again. :) |
09-22-2019, 01:24 PM | #5 |
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: Gothenburg, Sweden
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Re: The Swedish RPG Wonder
Mos Mosel was the Body Snatchers adventure, wasn't it? Where most of a village had been replaced by pod people?
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“When you arise in the morning think of what a privilege it is to be alive, to think, to enjoy, to love ...” Marcus Aurelius |
09-22-2019, 03:00 PM | #6 |
Join Date: May 2010
Location: Alsea, OR
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Re: The Swedish RPG Wonder
Didn't even know Sweden had a playerbase until the 00's...
The first non-English game I encountered was Trauma, which was an English translation of a french RPG. The first I encountered that I had a clue was Swedish in origin was Mutan Year Zero - but I've not played it, only skimmed it. So far, I have played/run 1: Alien. Fria Ligan's fast play; waiting on the books. |
09-22-2019, 03:30 PM | #7 |
Join Date: Nov 2013
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Re: The Swedish RPG Wonder
Wasn't into DoD until mid 90's but we used both the older D&Dish books and the later and often much disliked Chronopia books as young teens the problems wherent all that apperant. I think Chronopia later colored much of what we played over the next decade or so, as rather cynical and darker then much regular fantasy RPG. It also convinced me that any written adventure wasn't worth running as written after trying a few for that system. Then we discovered GURPS and there was rather less of DoD but there was a short EON period somewhere there where at least half the joy was generating the very very very random characters while the system was really a mess once players got some system mastery.
Never really got into more recent swedish games probably too simulationist for the ones I've check out lately but they tend to have rather gorgeous art which I do enjoy. At the same time I didn't expect to enjoy running a D&D 2ish ed game again and I'm doing that right now so perhaps I should try something new :D. Last edited by exalted; 09-22-2019 at 03:44 PM. |
09-22-2019, 06:48 PM | #8 |
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: Gothenburg, Sweden
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Re: The Swedish RPG Wonder
In the 1980's, Drakar och Demoner was the second-best selling selling RPG in the world. We had a ridiculously large player base for such a small country.
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“When you arise in the morning think of what a privilege it is to be alive, to think, to enjoy, to love ...” Marcus Aurelius |
09-22-2019, 08:47 PM | #9 |
Join Date: Mar 2006
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Re: The Swedish RPG Wonder
I've not played any Swedish RPGs, however, all RPGs were bigger in the 80's - mostly because there were far fewer of them and thus they each had a much larger base. Nowadays, there a thousands of RPGs, and at best, each one of those sees one actual session of play somewhere in the world...
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09-22-2019, 11:53 PM | #10 | |
Join Date: May 2010
Location: Alsea, OR
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Re: The Swedish RPG Wonder
Quote:
What I've seen of modern Swedish designs got me to plunk down the most I've ever dropped at one time for a core set... Fria Ligan's Alien. I've looked at their other games, and Forbidden Lands looks REALLY interesting. Different. Not quite so nice a setting... |
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Tags |
1980s, roleplaying games, sweden |
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