Japanese HeroQuest: Card Translations

[Daedalus]

A technique I like to apply when trying to tease out the meaning of the Japanese words and phrases of this project is to input a full sentence or two and then gradually reduce blocks of characters. Sometimes this reduction reveals context and possible meaning within smaller phrases.

By dropping the opening phrase "When you use holy water, " ( 聖水を使うと、) you get ". . . defeat undead monsters such as Scrutons, Zimbi, and Mummies that face you." (. . . 自分に面した、スクルトン、 ジンビ、マミーな。) So "glide away" and "slip away" might be interpreted as forcing a retreat or removing the threat without killing. Why? Because you can't kill something that already died. I think defeat connotes this ambiguity well enough.

If you can buy that, then I'd point out that one meaning of "facing" in terms of defeating is confronting, which doesn't necessarily require adjacency. So I think Kurgan may be onto something regarding holy water as a missile. One way to interpret "Holy water can be used instead of combat/fighting" is to opt out of combat (adjacent atttacking) by instead using either adjacent holy magic or attack with missile fire. Missile weapons can be used in the intermediate JA rules, right? That is a bit apart from combat-understood-as-adjacent in the beginner rules (if I recall correctly), but it shouldn't all rules apply with holy water?

I'm no expert on the nuances of JA interpretation of rules, obviously. (For that matter, I don't always hold my own interpreting the NA rules!) That said, I suspect along with Chwat and his wife that there may be some built-in looseness to this Japanese text. As usual, take your best shot.

[HispaZargon]

A technique I like to apply when trying to tease out the meaning of the Japanese words and phrases of this project is to input a full sentence or two and then gradually reduce blocks of characters. Sometimes this reduction reveals context and possible meaning within smaller phrases.

By dropping the opening phrase "When you use holy water, " ( 聖水を使うと、) you get ". . . defeat undead monsters such as Scrutons, Zimbi, and Mummies that face you." (. . . 自分に面した、スクルトン、 ジンビ、マミーな。) So "glide away" and "slip away" might be interpreted as forcing a retreat or removing the threat without killing. Why? Because you can't kill something that already died. I think defeat connotes this ambiguity well enough.

Agree. Term "defeat" was used in the card. Term "eliminate" was also used but I think is also correct in a practical way if we refer to the monster miniature.

I use to apply the same technique of eliminating characters .

If you can buy that, then I'd point out that one meaning of "facing" in terms of defeating is confronting, which doesn't necessarily require adjacency. So I think Kurgan may be onto something regarding holy water as a missile. One way to interpret "Holy water can be used instead of combat/fighting" is to opt out of combat (adjacent atttacking) by instead using either adjacent holy magic or attack with missile fire. Missile weapons can be used in the intermediate JA rules, right? That is a bit apart from combat-understood-as-adjacent in the beginner rules (if I recall correctly), but it shouldn't all rules apply with holy water?

Well, the main reasons for me are two to considering they must be adjacent:

First the character 面 use to be linked with "adjacency" or "contact" in other parts of the Rule Book.

And second, I interprete from what I see in the automatic translators, playing by eliminatung characters etc, that the Monster is the figure which confronts or menace the Hero not the opposite, and the undead monsters from the box can only attack if they are adjacent, they don't have ranged weapons.

[Daedalus]

That is good reasoning. Since you want to try to be as accurate as you can, go with it. The kind of ambiguity I was discussing isn't necessarily correct, but rather only possible after my limited investigation. Finding another interpretation is probably an effect of endlessly debating HQ rules all these years combined with a D&D influence.