Second largest English-speaking population in the world after the US but--while I've met plenty of gamers from Canada, Australia, and the UK--I don't know of any bloggers, designers or major forum loudmouths from India.

I know some Indian gamers, but nobody actually living in India or describing the tabletop scene there if there is one.

What gives? Anybody know anybody?

I've met a couple, at least if Magic: The Gathering counts as gaming. One was memorable:

I can't recall the exact scenario but I called him "hippie", and he complained "why does everyone call me hippie?"

I told him that the roots of the hippie movement in the US came from Indian mysticism, and he nodded.

Or something like that...it's been over a decade.

When I was growing up in the 70's and 80's one of my best friends was an Asian-Indian. I forget when his family immigrated to America but by the time I knew him he had no accent. I think he was born here.

He was in my first gaming group and we learned Basic D&D and Gamma world together.

I mean this mostly about people who actually know about what RPG stuff is available nd what RPGing is like in the actual country and/or subcontinent of India from first hand experience.

Not just gamers whose roots are Indian who happen to live in the UK, Canada, US or Australia--who are gonna be relatively common.

My friend Aakin was born and raised in India, but they migrated to New York when he was 8 or 10 IIRC. I met him in Las Vegas. He's an avid gamer, was part of the Sharkbone podcast and helped with Quixalted.  Not sure if that counts.

I work in IT with many many contractors from India. Perhaps I should recruit for a game here and see if I can't start a firestorm gaming explosion!!

I know three second-generation Indian gamers, one of which started with AD&D in 1983 (along with his older brother). None of the Indian guys I've met who didn't grow up in the US ever expressed a remote interest in gaming.

Maybe it has something to do with discretionary spending..? Realistically, Indians in India make jack shit, so it'd be difficult for them to justify spending money on a game book. They DO have computers and the Internet, though, so this could be a good time to really push free OSR games over there.

There was a post on another rpg forum a few years back who asked the same question.  IIRC, the general consensus was that gaming was something looked down upon as a time waster or somesuch - "you should be studying or working, not pretending to be an elf".

Anyways, it was a while back.  Personally, I have no clue.

I have never lived in India while I became interested in tabletop RPGs. I grew up with and had several Indian-American friends, from either their ancestry or was born there as a child before emigrating. But then they spent their formative middle, high, and/or college schooling in America, so they are disqualified by this.

I don't know what exact cut-off point is from acculturation you are looking for, but sorry I can't help.

(of the ones I know, they run the gamut of acculturation and interests, btw. quite a few interested in video game RPGs, several into table top RPGs and wargaming.)

One thing that I`d expect keeps gaming rare in India is lack of venues to do it. Their moms' houses don`t have furnished basements, a lot of unmarried adults would still be living at home and married people with kids are busy. Unless you want to go play in a park or something it`d be hard for a bunch of kids to get a good gaming space.

Quote from: Daztur;807200One thing that I`d expect keeps gaming rare in India is lack of venues to do it. Their moms' houses don`t have furnished basements, a lot of unmarried adults would still be living at home and married people with kids are busy. Unless you want to go play in a park or something it`d be hard for a bunch of kids to get a good gaming space.

Same in .jp, which is why play spaces and table hire in FLGSs has sprung up and is more popular than in Europe. Just been doing a quick search. Not a lot pops up. Though there is a Bangalore boardgames group on MeetUp.

Maybe ask the question of Indian players on WoW forums? There must be some overlap between TT and console players. A quick search turned up these two sites.

https://www.facebook.com/worldofwarcraftindia

http://www.wowprogress.com/guild/us/frostmourne/True+Blood

I lived there for over a year and while I did play D&D when I was there, it was with a Japanese couple and an Israeli. The Indian family I was living with looked on in bemusement and at one point we were told to take up cricket or wrestling and quit sitting around rolling dice and smoking weed all day. We did manage to get off the porch and play a session while sitting on the Dancing Platform at Konarak, which if nothing else, was one of the most memorable gaming moments of my life.

We (once upon a time) asked Prof. Barker and his Pakistani wife Ambereen about this, and I also asked quite a few of their friends as well during all of the get-togethers after Phil passed away.

Everyone I talked with, both Hindu and Muslim, were of the opinion that there was a pretty deep cultural difference at work. There isn't  a long tradition of 'fantasy' literature in South Asia, for example, and not a lot of anything to base RPG gaming on. Phil also noted that 'classic' wargaming (as well as role-playing) was pretty much unknown to all of his Asian friends, with the exception of a few Japanese, and he felt that this was because Japan is the most 'westerinzed' of the Asian cultures. Phil was regarded as a trifle 'eccentric' by all of his friends - they deeply respected his creative abilities and scholarship, but never had an interest in playing in any of his games.

Interestingly, I had a wonderful time showing off Prof. Barker's huge model of one of the Tekumel temples at his memorial service to quite a few of his Asian friends; they were fascinated by the model itself, but also had some quite fascinating observations on just how much it reminded them of temple complexes 'back home'.

Don't know about India but I do know there is a small gamer scene in Thailand at Battlefield Bangkok. From what they have said, it is much more niche than in the states.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;807243Don't know about India but I do know there is a small gamer scene in Thailand at Battlefield Bangkok. From what they have said, it is much more niche than in the states.

Are there semi-local editions or are the physical books all imports? And if they're imports are they British or American editions?