So I’ve translated BFRPG to Swedish, but...

[Togo Galthus]

... I’ve taken the liberty of, in part, change and re-write parts of the rule book. Why, you may ask, didn’t I do it properly now that I took the time to translate it? Well, in short, I didn’t plan offer it to anybody but my players.

BACKGROUND
I spent quite some time to find a RPG to play with my kids, and finally found BFRPG, which was perfect. But I immediately realized that this doesn’t work, we need a Swedish terminology – the abilities, terms such as “hit points” and “armor class”, but also names for the monsters, and spells, and so on. While pondering this I found that I really actually wanted a rule book which we all could read, and add stuff to – “our fantasy role-playing game”. So I began translating the whole enchilada. While initially having the idea of a faithful translation, I began to change things as I went by, to suit my game world better, my experience, my players' experience, and how we played the game; it was never meant to be published or distributed in any shape or form anyhow.

Doing this work for me wasn’t a big deal; it was nothing but fun. I’ve been a writer (of sorts) my whole life, and I have actually translated a couple of books, I mean proper, published books, and once upon a time I was an editor at a publishing house and so on. So writing, working with texts and translating comes easy to me, and I enjoy it, and I’m quite good at writing in my own language. So this has been a labor of joy and the Swedish translation, while taken some liberties, is – if I may say so – well done (but not, of course, a professional work).

As I said it began as a faithful translation – and mind you, the whole book is translated, from “It was our third foray into the dungeons...” to “...unless widened by miners”, all the tables and everything – but soon I found myself wanting to add a clarification, use the word hobbit instead of halfling, add little piece here, change a monster description there; because, simply, that’s how I wanted our rule book to be. I also had the first edition Advanced Dungeons & Dragons as an inspiration along the way, because that was my first RPG and I really like Gygax’ inspirational writing style (though there’s certainly nothing wrong with Gonnerman’s).

One thing I didn’t changed, though, was the mechanics. I have not dabbled with the actual core rules (however I added some house rules, like ‘alternative rules’), because the balance of the game is great, and obviously someone has spent a lot of time to get it right...! Well, of course the whole game as such is great, I wouldn’t spend this much free time on a piece I didn't thoroughly enjoy.

QUESTION
So this Swedish version is aimed at my family, perhaps their friends, eventually, and I will add to it; for instance, I’ve included the ranger (the supplement) because there will be a ranger in the next adventure, and so on. But as I worked on this I found out that there are other translations of BFRPG on the site, and I thought that I’d ask you if this is something you’d like to put up there too.

To be honest, it really doesn’t matter that much to me, but if you think it may be a good idea, I’ll spend the time it takes to format the document to your standards, as an appreciation of you making BFRPG available for free. And this is essentially the reason for this post: Would you like that or not?

ALTERATIONS
But what have I changed then? Here are most of the changes I know of and it will give you a good picture of what’s been going on during those hours.

Clarifications
Character Classes: A paragraph where the terms “human”, “demi-human” and “humanoid “ (mänsklig, halvmänsklig and människolik) are explained. A paragraph about the priest (präst) and his/her religion, and the importance of telling the game master what kind of religion it is (good, bad, healing, etc). An explanation about combination classes, with a house rule about experience points, where I also leave it to the game master to decide whether others are allowed, besides the elven magic user-warrior.
Spells: The difference between knowing a spell and being able to cast it (the later demands preparation); a note about the fact that a spell cast is a spell spent that day.
Character Advancement: I have a couple of paragraphs about the career of a character, for instance a summary of what actually happens when you’re upgrading.

Note about translation
The English names for spells and monsters are listed together with the Swedish, a paragraph or two about this

Spells
I have changed some spells. For instance: Massmorph (Dunge) can only transform the characters to trees; Animate Dead (Resa odöda) has a Range of 15’; Mirror Image (Spegelbild) is translated from Advanced Dungeons & Dragons instead.

Monsters
I’ve added a paragraph about monsters and languages; the fact that most more or less intelligent monsters have their own languages and the probability that they know other languages.
Regarding the descriptions of the monsters I have actually done quite a lot of changes, mainly because of my personal tastes, for instance: Dragons live alone, you do not stumble upon dragon families; I’ve added a sentence or two for each dragon (and giant) regarding the environment they are usually encountered in, taken from Advanced Dungeons & Dragons' "Monster Manual". A stats change is that dryads make 1t4 in damage (with wooden dagger). Medusa is getting her “real” name back, gorgon, and you cannot look at it through a mirror without getting petrified; “gorgon” has been changed to katoplebas (I know the gygaxian background for the classical RPG names, but probably because I’ve read quite a lot of Greek mythology, they still hurt my eyes). I didn’t like the flavour for some of the monsters, as gnoll, I’ve rewritten some for that reason alone. Living statue, lycanthrope, troll, and a couple of others are more or less completely rewritten to suit my tastes better, often but not always with inspiration from Dungeons & Dragons’ Monster Manual. I’ve also thrown in the Dungeons & Dragons monster sahaugin, because my players fought them so these guys are part of our game world now.
Some stats have been changed too: Hyena has 125 EP instead of 320 (hyenodon has 145 for reference). I’ve lowered the EP for a pack of rats substantially. I’ve changed the "No. Appearing" for several monsters, in lair, monsters whose description suggests bigger communities (in regards of culture, etc); for instance fire and cloud giants. I’ve added a note about the level the magician needs to be to create a golem.

Treasure
The beginning text about treauses is written in my own words, rather than a translation, but in general with the same content.
I found the tables and mechanics for determining the type of gems and jewelry too cumbersome and replaced it with another one I stole from an internet site.
Some descriptions and mechanics of magical items are taken from or inspired by Advanced Dungeons & Dragons rather, such as Protection Scrolls, or more or less written by my own (though without significant adjustments of effects).

Game Master Information
I’ve thrown in a couple of my own Alternative Rules: EP for gm, the concept of fumbles, and training (and cost) for upgrading. Since this game is aimed at both adults and children I’ve replaced rules which demands knowledge about percentiles, pi and square roots, with simpler mechanics (perhaps not as balanced, but you win some, you lose some). I’ve thrown in intermediate headlines in the section about Strongholds because it reads easier in my opinion and follows the style of the rest of the book better.

If anybody is curious about why I did this or that I would be happy to explain (if I remember the reason).

I'll try to link a PDF to this post, of the translation. The first page is really not meant to be “official”, I’ve just scribbled a few things down because it should say something about the source even if only family and friends ever saw it.

The English word ‘basic’ is by the way actually hard to translate (which is why the word ‘basic’ is often used in Swedish spoken language too); at first I called the Swedish translation Enkelt Fantasyrollspel, literally that would be more like “Simple Fantasy Role-Playing Game”. However, later I changed it to Monster och Magi – Ett enkelt fantasyrollspel (Monsters and Magic – A simple fantasy role-playing game) because I wanted a cool sounding, alliterating name for the kids...

THE FUTURE
If you would be interested in throwing up the Swedish version of this game on the site, as it is (I could make small changes, like lifting out the sahuagin and the ranger), please let me know. I will continuously change ”our” version of it as me and my little players agree upon new rules, add new spells, magic items, new classes, and so forth, so our version will keep deviating from the original, I guess. You see, my temperament demands “a book”, not a “book and then some”. Different stokes, etc.

Finally, as I worked on this translation, or perhaps interpretation, my admiration for the original writer(s) kept growing. Whether you agree with my project or not, I hope Monster & Magi is regarded as an homage to the original creator(s).

[Dimirag]

I think its a neat thing what you have done, It's something in my to do list also (making a spanish version with my take on the rules).

You should consult with Solo as to what he feels about having an alternate version of BFRPG on the forum, I know some members have uploaded their house rules documents (IIRC Smoot, MedievalMan and LibraryLass are among them) but you are the first to do the complete game in an alternative way and in another laguange! So I don't think it will generate any problems unless it has copyright issues or something like that.

[Solomoriah]

Ack.

Some of what you've done, I can't allow on the site. Hobbit, for instance.

Some of what you have done just makes me nervous. For instance, you say you translated a spell from AD&D... is that all you did, translate it? If that's the case, it would be copyright infringement for me to allow that either.

Once upon a time, Ola Berg was working on a faithful Swedish translation, but he didn't pass the materials on to me so I have nothing.

... leading to a question. Is there any possibility we can find someone who can and will make your version "faithful?"

[Hywaywolf]

Yeah, the hobbit thing was what jumped out at me. I remember seeing old D&D booklets that called them hobbits and then they changed it to halfling to avoid having the pants sued off them. I imagine with the Hobbit movie and the LOTR trilogy being big money products now, that the chance for litigation hasn't grown smaller.

[Togo Galthus]

Ack.

Some of what you've done, I can't allow on the site. Hobbit, for instance.

Some of what you have done just makes me nervous. For instance, you say you translated a spell from AD&D... is that all you did, translate it? If that's the case, it would be copyright infringement for me to allow that either.

Once upon a time, Ola Berg was working on a faithful Swedish translation, but he didn't pass the materials on to me so I have nothing.

... leading to a question. Is there any possibility we can find someone who can and will make your version "faithful?"

Of course, find and replace "hobbit" with "halfling", wouldn't take a minute.

As far as I know I haven't translated a spell or monster description directly from D&D; however surely a couple of sentences here and there.

But let's see if I or any other have time and wants to reverse parts of the Swedish rule book in the future.

[Togo Galthus]

Being a bit uncomfortable with the fact that my free translation with numerous changes wasn't approved by the author of the original work, I rewrote the game with inspiration from several retro-clones and of course the first edition of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, making it a original Swedish retro-clone standing on its own feet, instead of based on BFRPG.

I only mention this for your information; if you for some reason stumble upon my game in the future, even though it is not likely, it feels important to me that you know that it isn't the game discussed above. After hundreds of minor and major changes I re-read BFRPG and Monsters side-by-side to ensure that there are not a paragraph left translated, just to be on the safe side.

I would be happy to answer any questions regarding this project. If a future Swedish translator would like to use my original translation for, for instance, the many times cleverly translated terms, monsters and spells, I came up with, I would not hesitate to share them.

[Solomoriah]

Togo, I'm sorry you felt you needed to go so far. You were always welcome to publish a game based on BFRPG, so long as you didn't call it by the same name; that's the nature of Open Game Content.

If you would be willing to pass your original translation on to me, I could then pass it on to any future Swedish translator who wanted to take on the project.

[SonofThor]

Kanon!

[Dimirag]

The problems was not the numerous changes, but rather the copyright issues of using some outside sources.
You could made a faithful translation with no issues or use the one you made and use another name and solo will have no problem with that, he was just saving you and he any legal problem the file may cause.

If you are going to upload it anywhere make sure yo don't have any copyright issues like using a direct translation of another D&D or the use of hobbits and the like.

[Solomoriah]

If it were sent to me, I'd hold it off the site until someone fluent in the language was willing to work on it. Part of that person's job would be to remove material that isn't a direct translation of the original.

It sounds as if a lot of the work got done, even if imperfectly by my standards. I hate to see it go to waste.