Reconceptualization of historical reality: The Dōjin Game San Guo Zhi Jiang Wei Zhuan

Abstract

This chapter discusses San Guo Zhi Jiang Wei zhuan, a Dōjin Game produced by a Taiwanese online public forum member in 2012, as an example of how Role-Playing Games in the Chinese context can provide alternative historical narratives of the Three Kingdoms period. The Dōjin Game San Guo Zhi Jiang Wei zhuan (JWZ) is a war RPG produced in 2012 by a member of the Taiwanese public forum hosted by the PTT of the National Taiwan University who used the pseudonym “ratchet.” The game was modeled on the board game system and format of Sangokushi Sousouden (SSD), first released in 1999 by Koei & Co, the leading computer game producer of various series of Chinese and Japanese historical turn-based strategy games and RPGs such as Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Nobunaga’s Ambition, and Taikō Risshiden. Zheng Li, an expert on historical board games and RPGs, argued that the board game format of SSD “becomes the platform for derivative works of Chinese historical computer games.” Among a dozen modified versions of SSD, including famous Chinese historical figures such as Lü Bu, Yue Fei, and others, JWZ is one of the most successful RPGs, attracting many fans of the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, SSD, and online forum members in Taiwan, mainland China, and Hong Kong (Zheng 2014). The game provides a grey zone for its author, other programmers, and players to express their views on the current political affairs in Taiwan and mainland China through the reconstruction and reinterpretation of historical and fictional conversations between characters.