Rachel's Pages -- Gaming in Taiwan

Because I'm a gamer and lived in Taiwan for eight years, I was always on the lookout for resources and fellow gamers in the area. Around 2001, there was a fairly large local gaming community that I knew about, centered on the Mókū ("Demon Den") store, but that went kaput. Since then, stores have opened and closed, and the gaming scene never really seemed very stable, but it was always there. It was hard to find resources and players; thus this page.

Oh, and by way, just to be clear -- when I say "gamers," I mean pen-and-paper, tabletop gamers. Dastardly video game players have accosted the term I know and love! No, just kidding, I'm not actually that reactionary. But when I say "gamers," I don't mean computer gamers, I mean people who play the classics like GURPS, Illuminati, Star Fleet Battles, Harnmaster, Clear For Action --- that kind of thing. I'm also not that interested in Magic: The Gathering, just so you know.

So, what's on this page? See the menu to the left.

If by some chance you've stumbled into this page and want to get out, you might want to go back to the main page of my website.

And finally, if you know of any places to buy games or play games, or people who want to game, or you want to get into a game yourself, please let me know!

Back to the top of the page or back to

Places to buy games

There seem to be little nooks and crannies where gaming materials can be bought scattered throughout Taiwan. I only know a few in Taibei. (Alas, since the demise of Mókū, there isn't really a single good place to shop anymore.) Here's what I know of.

Alchemy Games Aīkèmǐ Yóuxì Jùlèbù 艾客米遊戲俱樂部 appears to be the new, great store in Taibei. They're at Zhongxiao East Road, Section 3, #305, 9F, #1 (北市忠孝東路三段305號9F之1). They opened after I left Taiwan, so I never got a chance to check them out, but something tells me I'd be spending a lot of time there if I could.
Mófǎ Dìdài ("Magic Zone"). Probably the best store for gaming in Taibei -- in fact, the only pure Gaming Store in town. (At least, that I know of.) They mostly sell Magic: The Gathering cards, but they have a nice little selection of D&D books, occasionally some Warhammer and Space Hulk stuff, dice and a bit of leftover stock from Mókū.
Explanatory/historical note: Magic Zone opened about a year after Mókū did, I think, and the two were somewhat in competition. Mókū, though, started having financial problems -- don't all gaming stores? -- and eventually the two stores kind of merged. Magic Zone got a lot of Mókū's unsold stock, and Mókū went the way of the dodo. Which is unfortunate, because as I noted, Magic Zone only really does Magic cards, and Mókū had gamers of all sorts. Update: I think I've found where all those gamers went... See below.

They're located at Roosevelt Road, Section 3, #273, 2F (above a hair salon).
Another good source for gaming supplies is Silex Books. The ground floor sells kids' books, so you'd never suspect that they have one of the best selections -- probably the best selection -- of SF and fantasy books in Taiwan on the second floor. Plus, it's all in alphabetical order! Cool-o-matic! They also have a very good selection of D&D 3rd edition/D20 books there. They have also started selling GURPS and a very limited supply of Chaosium (specifically Call of Cthulhu) books. See their online catalog; RPG books are at the bottom of the list.

They're located at 3-249 Jīnhuá Street, across from Jīnhuá Park, roughly halfway between DV8 and Dàān Park on Jīnhuá Street.
Chéngpǐn (aka "Eslite"). In general, I find this bookstore both overpriced and terribly organized, but they still tend to have a better selection of books than most of the other big chains in Taiwan. They often have a few copies of the D&D core books, usually in the comics section or wherever the clerk doing the filing happens to drop them. (Did I mention they're disorganized?)

They have locations all over Taiwan; the flagship store, which probably has the best selection, is just north of the Rénài-Dūnhuà traffic circle.

Láilái Books. Almost as badly organized as Chéngpǐn, Láilái is a pain to look through but they often have some real treasures. Generally speaking, they have one of the best selections of SF/fantasy books in Taibei, and they've (mistakenly?) ordered several gaming things over the years as a result. They've had a pack of D&D character sheets for sale in their Roosevelt Rd. branch for at least three years. The selection is almost non-existent, but they're worth checking anyway.

They have two branches. One is on Roosevelt Rd. Section 4 across from the Taipower Building; the other is on an alley, between Roosevelt and Xīnshēng South Road, near Lane 86 and Witches Pub.
Banana Comics. Probably the best place to buy Western comics in Taibei (yes, they have Marvel and DC, but they also have some Fantagraphics and other alternative press stuff, and even a few European titles -- cool!). Again, they only have a tenuous link to gaming stuff. I once found a copy of Bubblegum Crisis, the RPG, there though, and on a recent trip, they had another copy of it. They may have more things like that in the future.

They're at Xìnyì Road, Section 2, Lane 86, #6, which is on the other side of Jīnshān South Road from the Yǒngkāng Street area. They're right next to... um... nothing, really, but they're on the alley next to the Yìměi ("I-mei") building.
Although it's not otherwise gaming-related, a great place to go for dice is the Flea Market on Roosevelt Road, just north of Heping West Road. They are (as of late December, 2003) selling all sorts of beautiful gaming dice for very cheap -- something like NT$10 for three dice. And the dice are high-quality, too! Get 'em while supplies last!

The flea market is across Roosevelt from the Family Mart and Watson's near the Heping/Hangzhou/Roosevelt intersection. It's between a Japanese-style $100 store and an internet cafe (Xicco).
Unfortunately, according to a reliable web-source, Golden Golem Games in Gāoxióng is no more.
And of course, don't forget that you could always buy your gaming stuff from internet retailers like Amazon.com or Titan Games and have them ship it here.

If you know of other local gaming stores, please let me know!

Back to the top of the page or back to

Internet Resources

Of course, you don't only want to buy games, you probably also want to connect with people who play them. Here are some places I've found that are good for making connections:

The Taiwan Gamers e-mail group. I set this Yahoo group up for people in Taiwan to find each other and hopefully actually get some gaming done! In order to restrict spam on the list, membership isn't automatic, but I'll add you lickety-split once you've confirmed you're not a spambot.
Brian David Phillips' Taipei Roleplayers page. Phillips is a professor at Zhèngzhì University and something of an expert on the use of RPG's in language classes. At one time, the Taipei Roleplayers group was quite active, but alas it is no more. Phillips is also the leader of the Taipei Interactive Theater Society, a LARP-type group, which has a Yahoo e-mail list as well.
Another cool RPGer in Taiwan is Christopher Jones. He writes D20 materials and has published quite a few D&D related books.
Scot Hoover's page. Scot is quite a gamer, but I'his website hasn't been updated in a long time and I'm pretty sure that he isn't actually in Taiwan anymore.
There's a group in Táizhōng who play D&D that might be worth checking out.
If you can read Chinese, you might want to check out the Thaumaturgic Discipline Society, a group of local D&D gamers.
The Grayhawk club seems to be an e-mail list for Taiwanese fans of fantasy, including RPG'ers.
Another Chinese-language site to check is the SwordWorld TRPG Support Site.
One of the best resources for local gaming fandom is the KKCity BBS. This requires a telnet program; if you're using Windows, try a program such as PuTTy. Check out Chang Yu-lin's nifty page on how to hook up to KKCity using PuTTy. If you're using Linux, go into a terminal and type telnet -l bbs.kkcity.com.tw and you'll be there in moments. (Note that telnet isn't always very secure, so you should probably use ssh or something else, but I don't know enough about Linux to say more on the subject.) Once you're into KKCity, go into the City Map section, then Recreation, then BBS, then TABLEGAME. It's a bit of a hassle to get there, and only really worth it if you can read and write Chinese, but if you can get there, this is really one of the best local resources for gaming. Most universities in Taiwan have at least a small gaming group, and most of them are represented here; there are also lots of independent groups and gamers playing Vampire, GURPS, Heroclix, D&D -- just about everything, really.
The people who set up the above-mentioned BBS site have actually run a con! Grr, I found out about the 2003 con a week after it happened. But if I'm in Taiwan next summer, you be assured I'll go to Tai Con.
Speaking of TRPG's... It's not a bad idea to do a search on Google for "TRPG and Taiwan". TRPG -- Tabletop Roleplaying Game -- is the local term used to refer to what most old gamers like me would just call RPG's, to distinguish them from CRPG's (crappy -- no, wait -- computer roleplaying games).
I would've put Swan Books in the places to buy games section, above, but I'm not sure if they have any bricks-and-mortar stores. They seem to be local agents for various German boardgame makers (you know, the wonderful people who brought us Settlers of Cataan).
If you live in Taiwan, they won't help much, but at least for reference: there are many gaming websites located in Hong Kong. For example, there's the Hong Kong Table-top Role Playing Game Club (HKTRPGC, which mostly seems to be D&D-related) and the RPG Resources in Hong Kong page (which tends towards World of Darkness/Vampire: The Mumblemumblemumble). Maybe you could use these pages to introduce RPG's to Taiwanese friends?
forumosa.com. I have seen occasional posts here from people looking for fellow gamers. Try it -- you might have luck.
tealit.com. Another good site to check out.
Taiwan Ho! Yet another possible place to make connections with other local gamers.
If you can't find the kinds of games you want in Taiwan and have the patience, you might want to try play-by-e-mail (PBEM) games. Irony Games' PBEM News is a good place to start.
And of course, you might want to get in touch with me...

Back to the top of the page or back to

My Trove

So maybe you're interested in gaming with me? In the interest of sparking interest, here's a list of the games I have with me in Taiwan that I'd like to play, divided into board and card games and RPG's:

Board and Card Games

Spheres Space Combat. My own game of starship combat, featuring a pretty realistic Newtonian movement system, several innovative game-mechanic features and quickly resolved combat.
Starfire. From the people who made Starfleet Battles, Starfire is a great game of cinematic starship combat with all the bells and whistles: fighters, drones, pressor beams, warp points and lots of other things.
Kings n' Things. Tom Wham's excellent game of semi-serious strategy. You command armies of elves, dwarves, killer penguins and giant mosquitoes to explore the world and compete to build a Citadel.
Search for the Emperor's Treasure. Another Tom Wham game, originally published as a center pull-out in Dragon magazine. SftET is the original template for Games Workshop's Talisman -- it's a simple roleplaying game where everyone is competing to collect as much treasure as possible. Great Tom Wham illustrations.
Illuminati. The Steve Jackson game about the secret groups who really control the world. Didn't you know that the FBI is actually controlled by MTV, which in turn is a mere puppet of the Orbital Mind Control Lasers?
OGRE/GEV. Another Steve Jackson game. A pure SF wargame. Players control futuristic missile tanks, Ground Effect Vehicles and infantry, or one of the fearsome OGRE's, autonomous fighting machines a hundred meters tall.
Battletech. FASA's classic game of mecha combat.
Ace of Aces: Handy Rotary Series. An extremely cool two-player game of World War I aerial combat. Each player gets a book that shows what their pilot sees; after the players compare maneuvers, they turn to a new page and see what has happened.
Medieval Merchant. One of the great German boardgames of the past few years.
Battlemist. A fantasy strategy game. Each player tries to build their kingdom, control valuable resources and build armies to fight off invasions from other players.
Groo. A silly, fast card game where you try to build a city while inflicting catastrophes on the other players, including the wandering mendicant Groo. Based on the comic by Sergio Aragones.
Middle Earth. The collectible card game. I even have a One Ring!
Landlord! A silly, fast card game from Germany. Each player is a landlord, trying to build apartments and get the most in rent from tenants, while installing squatters and other terrible tenants on other players.
Many free downloaded games. There are a lot of good freeware games out there that I've downloaded: The Stars Our Destiny (a realistic starship combat game), LaPlace-Newton-LaGrange (another realistic starship combat game) and others.

RPG's

Spheres. My self-designed rules for SF roleplaying, based in my Spheres universe. Realistic and gritty.
Hârnmaster. An excellent fantasy RPG, possibly the most realistic one around. Magic that feels real, combat where you can almost taste the steel, a great skill system and characters with fully fleshed-out backgrounds. A great game.
Blue Planet. A hard SF game of the far future, where humanity has colonized a water world far from Sol. Poseidon may be colonized, but it's far from tamed.
2300AD. Another hard SF RPG, from the people who designed Traveller. Simple mechanics with a great setting.
Pendragon. Roleplaying the Arthurian mythos with knights who value honor and romance above mere corporeal desires.
GURPS. Steve Jackson's Generic Universal Roleplaying Game. I have the 3rd edition basic rules as well as the following supplements: Ultra-tech (equipment for high-tech games), Space (rules for SF gaming), China (roleplaying in traditional China), Terradyne (a great hard SF setting), Fantasy (the fantasy world of Yrth)and Tredroy (a city in Yrth).
James Bond 007. West End Games' great game of MI6 agents and espionage.
Jovian Chronicles. Using the Silhouette system, by Dream Pod 9. Hard SF roleplaying in a future confined to the Solar System. Great, gritty setting.
Middle Earth Roleplaying. Rolemaster light -- Iron Crown Enterprises' RPG of Middle Earth. Famous for its critical tables.
Skyrealms of Jorune. Something of a takeoff on the Tekumel world; SF/fantasy in a world where humans have been separated from the Earth for millenia on a world where magic is real and the natives are hostile.
Bubblegum Crisis. Mecha/anime roleplaying in the world of the series by the same name. Based on the Fuzion system's mechanics.
High Colonies. A fun little SF RPG by the main artist of the Harn series. Poor mechanics but a great setting.
Downloaded freeware games, such as Risus (a very simple RPG, based on the excellent Ghostbusters mechanics), Foresight (an SF RPG based on the James Bond 007 mechanics) and Outlaws of the Water Margin (an RPG based on traditional China).

Back to the top of the page or back to

Finally, as is probably obvious by now, putting this page up is not a purely selfless endeavor for me. I would love to get into a game! If you're interested in playing any of the above games, or you have others you think I might like, please write to me! I'd love to get together an SF RPG campaign or just play Illuminati on a Sunday afternoon, or whatever else.