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rollingsunblog · 2 years ago

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Who’s Who In Japanese Roleplaying?

Having now looked at some of the distinguishing characteristics of Japanese tabletop RPGs, let’s dive a bit further into the scene’s movers and shakers.

Since the Japanese roleplaying industry has a fairly clear divide between game developers and game publishers, I’ve decided to look at these separately. There is, of course, another important group in the RPG space not covered here: independent developers, who I’ll be exploring in a later post.

PUBLISHERS

Kadokawa

A true media juggernaut, Kadokawa’s businesses include books, magazines, movies, music, games, and even the popular video-sharing portal Niconico - Japan’s answer to YouTube.

The conglomerate initially entered the roleplaying space in the mid-’80s trying to capitalize on the success of Dungeons & Dragons - first by licensing TSR’s D&D novels and gamebooks, later via pushing RPG coverage into its electronic gaming magazine Comptiq. That gamble paid off when Comptiq’s monthly Dungeons & Dragons campaign, Record of Lodoss War - originally pitched as a way to teach newcomers the basics of D&D - became a breakout transmedia hit.

Over the course of the ‘80s and ‘90s, Kadokawa and its subsidiary Fujimi Shobo published a steady stream of original, licensed, and translated games, often based on Kadokawa’s own IP. Its most ambitious project of the era, MAGIUS, was a beginner-oriented universal RPG supported by 30-odd standalone releases covering franchises from Tenchi Muyo! to Neon Genesis Evangelion. However, the line’s sales fell short of expectations; this, coupled with an overall decline in RPG sales, saw Kadokawa effectively withdraw from the market in the late ‘90s.

After the release of D&D’s Third Edition in 2000, Kadokawa became notably more active in the tabletop space again, both directly and indirectly: in 2004, the conglomerate acquired the parent company of fellow publisher Enterbrain, who had been pushing out notable works like FEAR’s popular Night Wizard and the 6th Edition of Call of Cthulhu. Kadokawa would continue to release dozens of RPGs through Enterbrain and Fujimi Shobo until 2013; following an extensive restructuring, the company’s RPG output is now published directly under the Kadokawa name.

Kadokawa’s clout and aggressive media mix strategy created additional mainstream visibility for RPGs and RPG-adjacent properties like Record of Lodoss War during the hobby’s boom years.

Shinkigensha

The other heavyweight in the industry, Shinkigensha was founded in 1940 but only formally incorporated in 1982. At that time, the company was best known as a publisher of computer guides, but soon diversified into fantasy and military reference books as well a small number of RPG products.

Following the gradual revival of the roleplaying market in the early 2000s, Shinkigensha significantly stepped up its activities in the space, investing in translations of high-profile titles like White Wolf’s New World of Darkness line and the 4th Edition of Shadowrun alongside a variety of homegrown releases. In 2003, Shinkigensha also launched Role & Roll - at that time Japan’s first new roleplaying-focused magazine in almost a decade - in collaboration with gaming company Arclight. “Roll and Roll RPG” would subsequently become the publisher’s dedicated imprint for tabletop releases.

Like Kadokawa, Shinkigensha maintains a sizeable portfolio of original and translated games, the undisputed crown jewel of which is Call of Cthulhu - currently Japan’s most popular RPG by a significant margin. The publisher also has cultivated a fruitful relationship with the developer Adventure Planning Service, whose Saikoro Fiction line has become a staple in Shinkigensha’s Role & Roll RPG output over the past decade.

Hobby Japan

Hobby Japan is the epitome of “from humble beginnings.” The company started off as an import shop selling foreign-made die-cast cars, but grew dramatically in the ‘70s and ‘80s by expanding into areas like model kits and wargaming. In 1984, Hobby Japan released Japan’s first translated RPG, Traveller, marking the beginning of a four-decade-long relationship with the roleplaying market.

While the company is probably best known for its localized games, Hobby Japan’s output during the boom era included several notable originals, including Metal Head - Japan’s first cyberpunk RPG - the sci-fantasy mech saga Wares Blade, and the first edition of FEAR’s Tenra Bansho. Hobby Japan’s Tactics magazine - later retooled as RPG Magazine - also served as an important early voice for the industry, creating greater awareness for the hobby among the Japanese public.

Unlike Kadokawa and Shinkigensha, Hobby Japan trades almost exclusively in translated titles these days. For nearly twenty years, they were WotC’s official D&D licensee in Japan, overseeing localization of the game’s Third, Fourth, and Fifth Editions before WotC semi-abruptly revoked their publishing rights in late 2022. The company currently handles the Japanese editions of Cyberpunk RED, Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, and the D&D 5E-compatible Sandy Petersen's Cthulhu Mythos.

Tsukuda Hobby

An off-shoot of one of Japan’s more notable toy manufacturers, Tsukuda Hobby was also a pivotal force in the embryonic tabletop scene, publishing the country’s first homegrown RPG, Enterprise, its first fantasy RPG, Roads to Lord, and its first generic ruleset, WARPS. Despite this, the company never seemed to achieve the kind of success its competitors saw and left the tabletop market in 1993, ultimately going bust just a decade later.

Shinwa

Formerly an importer of American wargames, Shinwa struck it big when it secured the D&D license, but was unable to sustain its momentum once Group SNE’s Sword World entered the market in 1989. After its localization of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Second Edition failed to find an audience, Shinwa abandoned the roleplaying industry, sliding into obscurity and bankruptcy soon after.

Shinwa during its heyday in 1989. [IMAGE: Meyjuka/MESGamer]

DEVELOPERS

Group SNE

Formally incorporated by sci-fi translator turned gaming evangelist Hitoshi Yasuda in 1987, Group SNE could arguably be seen as Japan’s answer to TSR. Thanks to the one-two punch of its phenomenally popular Record of Lodoss War campaign series and the blockbuster RPG it eventually spawned, Sword World, this small company dominated the early years of the roleplaying industry. Beyond its own creations, Group SNE also oversaw the localization of many major Western properties, including Shadowrun, Mechwarrior, GURPS, Tunnels & Trolls, Earthdawn, and the D&D Rules Cyclopedia.

Following the release of Magic: The Gathering, Group SNE pivoted to collectible card games with 1997′s popular Monster Collection, one of the Japan’s first homegrown CCGs. Unfortunately, subsequent titles proved significantly less popular, and by the mid-2000s, the company renewed its focus on the tabletop space with Sword World 2.0 in 2008, which was followed by Sword World 2.5 in 2018.

Group SNE’s more recent output has included localizations of Kenneth Hite’s Trail of Cthulhu and the anthropomorphic fantasy RPG Pugmire, licensed RPGs based on the Dark Souls, Elden Ring, and Goblin Slayer franchises, and a number of original board and card games. The company also produces the quarterly magazine GM Warlock, which covers a variety of analog hobbies.

Key Works: Record of Lodoss War, Sword World, Crystania, Demon Parasite

Far East Amusement Research

More popularly known as “FEAR,” Far East Amusement Research represents the second generation of Japanese RPG talent, coming to prominence just as the country’s roleplaying market started collapsing in the mid-’90s. Born from a collective of experienced writers and designers, FEAR played a major role in the hobby’s transition to a more narrative type of play and was instrumental in popularizing the use of structured, scene-based game sessions.

In its earliest years, the company struggled to get its titles to market as more and more publishers withdrew from the roleplaying space, ultimately opting to establish its own publishing and distribution arm, Game Field, alongside a monthly magazine called Gamers Field. As a result, from 1998 to 1999, FEAR was virtually the only significant source of new RPGs in the Japanese market.

Unlike its competitors, the company has never ventured too far outside of the tabletop genre. The one notable exception is its work in the video game industry: since the mid-’90s, FEAR’s staff have provided story and world-building support for a number of titles, including Square Enix’s Octopath Traveler and Bravely Default II.

Key Works: Tokyo N◎VA, Tenra Bansho, Seven = Fortress, Double Cross, Night Wizard, Alshard, Arianrhod

Arclight

Technically no longer an independent developer - the business has been wholly owned by Shinkigensha since 2020 - but bears mentioning all the same. Arclight started out in the play-by-mail market as a branch office of the company You-En-Tai before going independent in 1998. After a brief stint in electronic gaming, the company refocused its operations around the analog scene, and now develops and publishes a broad slate of board, card, and roleplaying titles. Its most prominent property by far is the Japanese edition of Call of Cthulhu, which Arclight has overseen since launching its 6th Edition back in 2003; in addition, the company currently handles Japanese localization for Pathfinder and Shadowrun.

CoC aside, Arclight is arguably more notable for its general business activities than its game releases: the company operates dozens of specialty retail outlets in addition to providing editorial oversight for the monthly RPG magazine Role & Roll and organizing Game Market, one of Japan’s most significant analog gaming events.

Key Works: Call of Cthulhu (6E/7E), Pathfinder (1E), Shadowrun (5E)

The now-defunct Akihabara branch of Arclight’s Role & Roll Station, one of the company’s three retail chains.

Adventure Planning Service

Formed in 1987 by designer Koji Kondo (近藤功司) - not to be confused with the legendary Nintendo composer - APS has had three distinct incarnations over the years. During the RPG boom, the group’s claim to fame was its generic rule system Apple Basic, which underpinned most of its early releases, including 1991′s Kiki’s Delivery Service-indebted cult classic Witch Quest. By the early ‘90s, however, Kondo and his colleagues shifted their attention to the electronic gaming market, providing production, planning, and story support for various titles across six console generations in addition to penning an assortment of strategy guides and fanbooks.

The company’s return to roleplaying in the late 2000s was driven by the arrival of developer Toichiro Kawashima (河嶋陶一朗), whose Saikoro Fiction system now powers a majority of APS’s releases. To date, there have been over a dozen Saikoro Fiction titles, most notably multi-genre horror RPG Insane, modern-day wizarding game Magicalogia, and contemporary ninja drama Shinobigami.

Key Works: Witch Quest, Satsupe, Labyrinth Kingdom, Shinobigami, Insane, Magicalogia

ORG

Though effectively inactive in the tabletop space now, ORG was one of the very first RPG development groups to go professional. Its founder, Masayuki Onuki (大貫昌幸), earned his spurs translating the original D&D and would subsequently author WARPS, an anime-inspired universal system emphasizing high power levels and flashy action, which released soon after ORG’s establishment in 1987.

Whlie the company developed a number of original and licensed roleplaying games in the ‘90s, it is perhaps most fondly remembered for Legend of Double Moon (ダブルムーン伝説), a play-by-mail “reader participation” RPG featured in the gaming magazines Marukatsu Famicom and Marukatsu Super Famicom from 1989 to 1993. Following Onuki’s death in 1993, ORG largely refocused its activities on the CCG market, helming tie-ins like the Digimon and Monster Hunter card games.

Key Works: WARPS, Legend of Double Moon

#tabletop roleplaying #pen and paper roleplaying #rpgs #trps

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ironforgedrp · 7 years ago

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the PLOT DROP SUMMARY page is now up and running, so any new applicants or anyone who wants to know why the capital is in such chaos need only to pop over to that page to find a summary of each development in the plot drop, and will be added to as the next plot drop begins to unfold !

and, the NON PLAYABLE CHARACTER (NPC) PAGE is now up and running as well, with two NPC characters listed and information on the tavern the broken axe. if you have any ideas for a place that you have included in threads or paras that you think would be a good addition, please contact the main or find me in the discord !

#got trp #game of thrones rp #medieval rp #asoiaf rp #oc rpg

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summon-daze · 7 years ago

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!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Another sneaky item from my campaign’s Slightly-Cursed Item Shop since the other ones got such a nice response. This time it’s everyone’s favourite inappropriate party game!

#trps #tabletop games #tabletop roleplaying #tabletop rpgs

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lakegrimstonerpg · 8 years ago

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“Sometimes what you should do and what you have to do are not the same.”

CLARK MORRISON

TWENTY-FOUR

CYBER SECURITY/TRP

ELLIOT FLETCHER

CLOSED

Clark Morrison, before Lake Grimstone, was pretty much average. Grew up in a suburb with a two-parent home. Mom worked part time, Dad worked a 9 to 5 office job. He loved video games and computers, and soccer on the weekends. His sister and he fought a little, but not a lot. Just normal stuff. He went to college, majored in Comp Sci, and mostly minded his business. Yes, his life seemed boring from the outside, but he never had any complaints. Being normal was just fine with him. Clark had never aspired to anything else, honestly. His schedule left him with time to join a small sports club on the weekends. He had drinking buddies and people he chatted with at the water cooler. Things were just fine.

Then, he lost his job. He’d been working for a CyberSecurity firm that got hacked, and someone had to take the fall. That someone ended up being his whole team, which stunk. But for a guy with his skill set, another job would crop up. And, sure enough, it did. He’d been living in DC for a while, so he knew some government people. One of them approached him and asked if he wanted to do Computer Security on location for the government. Clark had never really thought about living anywhere else; it could be fun. Plus it was a job, so he took it, packed up, and moved out to Grimstone.

By the time they moved the residents to the town now known as Lake Grimstone, Clark had changed his views quite a bit. He was mostly against the entirety of the town, the government project that fueled it, and everything it represented. He thought it was morally wrong to keep the superhumans here like prisoners, cutting them off from the rest of the world. He sure as hell didn’t trust the doctors, and had access to some files which fueled that distrust. And he didn’t want to continue to protect the government when they were the bad guys. Fortunately for him, being a man on the inside has its benefits--after all, where better to take the government down than inside their preciously protected data?

POSITIVE: easygoing, moral, objective, compassionate

NEGATIVE: pliable, unadventurous, shy, slow-thinking

MELANIE PARKER

Clark and Melanie have become close friends rather quickly, partially because they are members of TRP, but mostly because their personalities just fit together. They worked together to gather intel and eventually helped formulate a plan to bring the government down. After what seemed to be a lifetime, TRP finally took over Lake Grimstone and his and Melanie’s friendship only seemed to get stronger.

FIONA DRAKE

No one would have been more betrayed about his siding against the government than Fiona. She has been working as a guard for almost as long as he’s been doing cybersecurity, so they know each other pretty well. Clark was worried that Fiona suspected something. Or, worse, that she knew what he was up to. They used to be close, but he had to pull away from her because he knew what side she was on. It hurt him to pull away from someone he considered a friend, but TRP’s mission is bigger than any friendship and Clark knows that.

CAROLINE PACE

Caroline’s change in attitude outright frightens Clark. He thought she was a level-headed and fair judge. And yes, he understands that what happened to her is horrible; he wouldn’t be able to forgive a resident for killing his best friend. The difference was that what happened to her was one resident, and she was hurting so many people. The very fact that she didn’t see that made him very scared which was just another reason he had to help TRP bring down the government.

JOHN ACOSTA

Before Lake Grimstone, Clark was on the dull side. However, once he got to Grimstone, before he got somewhat swept up in The Rising Power stuff, he decided he wanted to be less dull. He wanted to try something. So he tried dating. A guy. John, specifically. Even though it didn’t work out between them, they stayed close. Clark doesn’t regret his time with John and feels close to him, even though they did break up. He does often wonder if things would have worked had he not been so involved with TRP.

#mutant roleplay #bio rpg #lsrp #roleplay #superhuman rpg #clark #trp #government #elliot fletcher #elliot fletcher fc #tm #allt

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wyrmguardsecrets · 3 years ago

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I wish RPG Rating was more common on WoW to put in your TRP. On FFXIV, a lot of people have it in their carrds. It's a simple rating system of the content of your rp, 3 numbers, 0-3 each. The first number is language, the second is sexual content, and the third is violence. 0 is none, 1 is infrequent/mild, 2 is permitted but limited, 3 is permitted and detailed/frequent. I feel like people who ERP though would be shy to put a 3 on sex in this game, due to the stigma, despite even infrequent ERP being a 3. 1 is only innuendo permitted, and 2 is still not describing full on sex. 3 guess you could stretch to a 1 or 2 if you only ERP with the same person for a long time.

literally have never seen or heard of this on ffxiv - is this a certain server or what

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nobodysuspectsthebutterfly · 3 years ago

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This is so good! It's great to see all the various "present-day" references to the Dance in one place. And glad you included the 1st edition AGOT appendix, the fact that Viserys II was originally Aegon III's youngest son is always a fun bit of trivia. (And one of the biggest examples of GRRM can't math, lol.)

Though you've got a few small errors -- Rhaenyra's fate was first given in The Hedge Knight (August 1998, before ACOK was published):

Dunk had heard the story half a hundred times, how Ser Arlan had been just a little boy when his grandfather had taken him to King's Landing, and how they'd seen the last dragon there the year before it died. She'd been a green female, small and stunted, her wings withered. None of her eggs had ever hatched. "Some say King Aegon poisoned her," the old man would tell. "The third Aegon that would be, not King Daeron's father, but the one they named Dragonbane, or Aegon the Unlucky. He was afraid of dragons, for he'd seen his uncle's beast devour his own mother. The summers have been shorter since the last dragon died, and the winters longer and crueler."

So GRRM has known about how Rhaenyra died and why Aegon III hated dragons from near the very start, maybe even from the moment their characters appeared in the Westeros and Targaryen backstory he developed when writing AGOT.

Also, the SSM's can tell us a few things -- GRRM had developed that Rhaenyra was 10 years older than Aegon, and that her mother was an Arryn and that Viserys I's second wife (and mother of 4 children) was a Hightower by 2006. (It makes sense that GRRM had figured the Hightower connection to the Dance by that point, considering their prominence in AFFC.) The Green Ronin ASOIAF RPG (2010) also has a lot of info, some taken from the books, but some provided by GRRM to them directly from his unpublished notes, and basically summarizes all that was known at the time.

And I'm afraid there's a little bit of mis-ordering in that chronology at the very end. TWOIAF was planned before 2010, with GRRM participating by intending to write "sidebars" of historical info for it. (He talked about this at Worldcon 2012, we were all very excited. In TWOIAF the sidebars are usually attributed to Archmaester Gyldayn, but there's also some sidebars he wrote with no attribution.) (Un?)fortunately, once GRRM got started (after finishing ADWD in 2011, then the book tour for ADWD, and some scripts for GOT), he wrote far too much, something like the whole book was only supposed to be 50,000 words (including E&L's Yandel text), but GRRM wrote 350,000 words. (Over one hundred manuscript pages about the Dance alone, by September 2012, and he wasn't even done at that point.) So much new text that his editor Anne Groell started talking about using it all for a "GRRMarillion".

Anyway, also at this time, GRRM was due to write a D&E story for Dangerous Women, one of the sff anthologies he used to co-edit, planned to be the She-Wolves of Winterfell story, but he couldn't finish in time and was holding up the book's publication (by like a year). So instead he submitted the already-written Dance section that would become TPATQ, and his friend and co-editor edited it down to fit. (Going from 80K words to 30K.) Same with TRP a year later, he owed another story to an anthology (Rogues), so again they edited down the text he'd already written. When TWOIAF was published in 2014, E&L also edited down the material, but in a slightly different way, making different cuts than TRP/TPATQ had, and having "Yandel" summarize most of it (except for what appears in Gyldayn's sidebars). So, the full text of the Dance was finally published in 2018 in F&B (the first book of the "GRRMarillion"), but almost all of it had been written in 2012-3. (Though before F&B's publication, GRRM did write some additional stuff beyond the original TWOIAF "sidebar" text, but mostly just in the J&A and post-Dance sections.)

tl;dr: the complete narrative of the Dance that appears in F&B came first before TRP/TPATQ/TWOIAF, and the story that appeared in those histories was just abridged extracts from that whole work, and not earlier versions of it. That is to say, GRRM is still a gardener, but almost all of the Dance garden was completed in 2012, not 2018.

Anyway, thanks so much for putting this all together, and hope my additions help!

Dance of the Dragons - seeds of the story: mentions of the Dance in the 5 main A Song of Ice and Fire books (1996-2011)

before the publication of The Princess and the Queen (2013), The Rogue Prince, The World of Ice & Fire (2014) and Fire & Blood (2018)

Let's get really nerdy and see how GRRM, with his "gardening" style of writing, gradually came up with the story that is currenly being adapted as House of the Dragon!

The Dance is first mentioned in the first book in the series, A Game of Thrones (1996), as a Targaryen brother-sister civil war, and the subject of songs that are popular in Westeros.

You will probably never guess who were the first characters from this story to be mentioned in the text of the main series...

(the screenshot quotes contain spoilers for the fates of some of the HotD characters)

The first Dance characters to be mentioned are the twin brothers Erryk and Arryk Cargyll, in an early Bran chapter. (spoiler!)

The Dance as the subject of songs is also mentioned in an Arya chapter:

AGOT also has a chronology of Targaryen kings at the end of the book, but there are some big differences from where GRRM would later take the story:: Rhaenyra is only 1 year older than Aegon, and Viserys II is her grandson rather than son.

A Clash of Kings (1998): In a Tyrion chapter, Sansa mentions the fate of Erryk and Arryk again (spoilers again), which seems to be the most popular part of the Dance for the singers.

A Storm of Swords (2000):

Davos chapter: Stannis calls Rhaenyra a usurper, which is highly ironic considering he is on Dragonstone and preparing to keep fighting for his throne that has been usurped... but that may not have been the intention, since this was probably written before GRRM had worked out the details of the succession crisis. In retrospect, we can ascribe that to the fact that Rhaenyra was described as a usurper by the Westerosi historians and Aegon II listed as the true king, and that Stannis goes by what official history is saying.

We also get the first mention of Otto Hightower, described as one of the bad/failed Hands of the King, but there's no indication here that he was in any way involved with the Dance (and there won't be until The Princess and the Queen).

Ryam Redwyne - another, but very minor character from HotD, is also mentioned as one of the Hands, after being mentioned early in AGOT as a Kinsguard (in the show he was just the Lord Commander of the Kingsguard and not also the Hand), but he dies before the Dance in both book and show and plays no real role in the events leading up to it.

Also in ASOS - another mention of Dance of the Dragons - the popular song, one of those sung at Joffrey's wedding to Margaery (Tyrion's chapter).

Finally, also in ASOS, Jaime thinks about how the Kingsguard was divided during the Dance:

A Feast for Crows (2005): At this point, GRRM had come up with Criston Cole, and there's a bunch of references to him, and the first mention of Viserys choosing Rhaenyra as heir.

But first, another mention of Dance of the Dragons, the song, in a Sansa chapter:

First mention of Criston Cole is, fittingly, in the Arys Oakheart chapter. Arianne is the one to bring him up. She also mentions that Viserys wanted Rhaenyra to succeed him.

(If Stannis' mention of Rhaenyra is ironic, there are multiple levels of irony in Arianne identifying with Rhaenyra! She condemns a female heir being usurped by her brother, while she is herself trying to organize a usurpation in the other direction - and Arys is not smart enough to point out that 1) Viserys wanted Rhaenyra to succeed him and she fought for her throne; but no one has named Myrcella heir and she's just a pawn and hasn't expressed any wish to do that? And Arianne is really doing all of that because she fears that her father does not want her to succeed him, the opposite of Viserys. Dorne has absolute primogeniture while the rest of Westeros has male preference primogeniture, and Viserys never changed that, he just picked his heir... Arianne believes is that her father will ignore the customary rules of succession and instead choose the child he prefers to be his heir. Girl, you may be comparing yourself to Rhaenyra, but in that scenario in your head, you'd be Aegon.)

The second mention of Criston Cole is, of course, in a Jaime chapter. GRRM really using him for the knight/Kingsguard theme. It seems his role in the Dance was conceived as bigger than what GRRM finally wrote (let alone bigger than on HotD), since he still hadn't conceived Otto's and Alicent's role in the events.

And also in AFFC, an obligatory mention of Erryk and Arryk (spoiler), in a Cersei chapter. She may be thinking of them in the context of Loras and Bronn, but it's very fitting that she's thinking about siblings fighting each other while she's obsessing over her brother Tyrion (with whom she has a lot more in common than either would ever like to admit) as her biggest enemy, in her head at least.

A Dance with Dragons (2011):

Even though the title is a reference to the civil war, there were just two mentions of it I could find. However, they introduce some new details and reference some other characters.

Tyrion (at this point an infamous Kinslayer!), staying in Pentos in Illyrio's mention, debates a very minor detail from the Dance with Illyrio's Haefmaester Haldon, concerning a bold but very dumb knight called Byron Swann. First mention of Aemond, as well as of Rhaenyra's dragon Syrax, and the fact that Aemond rode Vhagar (who had been mentioned a lot already as a Conquest dragon, but this is the first time we learn she participated in the Dance, and also the first time she's confirmed to be female).

It's interesting that we see here that Tyrion is reading his histories paying attention to the details, questioning them, and noticing when they aren't making sense. Just the way that Martin's "historical" accounts by Maester Gyldayn and Maester Yandel are meant ot be read. For comparison, this is the account of the event and the multiple versions of what happened, from Fire & Blood:

Back to ADWD, the second mention of the Dance is in a Dany chapter. She is thinking to herself about the monstrosity and danger of dragons (prompted by a certain event with Drogon) and (spoiler) this is the first time we learn about Rhaenyra's fate. (Which would also be spoiled in season 3 of Game of Thrones.)

And that's all as far as mentions I was able to find. The Dunk and Egg novellas, if I haven't missed anything, don't have any references to the Dance. Maybe there still wasn't enough time passed for the Dance to become just a subject of songs, but at the same time, it was not contemporary enough, and everyone is instead far too busy with the Blackfyre rebellions.

TL:DR:

Characters from the Dance mentioned in ASOAIF: Erryk and Arryk, Vhagar (but only as a Conquest dragon and with no mention of her participation in the Dance), Aegon II, Rhaenyra, Aegon III in the Targaryen line rather than the main text (AGOT), Otto Hightower (but with no mention of his role in the Dance) in ASOS, Criston Cole (AFFC), Aemond, Syrax, Byron Swann; Aegon II's dragon Sunfyre is referenced but not named. Vhagar's involvement is confirmed in ADWD.

Some pretty big differences: there was no mention at all that Rhaenyra and Aegon were half-siblings - which would only be revealed in The Princess and the Queen, where we first learn that Alicent Hightower was Aegon's mother. Rhaenyra was also said to be 1 year older than Aegon, but tPatQ makes her 10 year older (and the show aged down Alicent and her kids and made the age difference between the half-siblings even bigger). Viserys II was supposed to be Aegon III's son rather than Rhaenyra's.

I think this is how GRRM probably came up with the story of the Dance, with his "gardening" style of writing:

1) came up with the idea of two twin brothers with incredibly similar names fighting each other on the opposite sides of a civil war, as one of the tragic tales songs are made about;

2) decided the war would be a fantasy version of the Anarchy - the 12th century English civil war (just like War of the 5 Kings waa inspired by the Wars of the Roses) between cousins Mathilda and Stephen, only bloodier, with dragons, and make them Targaryen brother and sister. He came up with the poetic name "Dance of the Dragons". The only characters aside from Erryk & Arryk thought up at this point are Rhaenyra, Aegon II (full siblings, she a year older) and Aegon III. Aegon III is already "Dragonbane", dragons said to have died off in his reign. Viserys II is Aegon III's son at this point, before GRRM realised that he's bad at math and had messed up the timeline and that this was impossible, and that Viserys had to be older and Aegon III's brother.

3) Writing AFFC and ADWD, he invents more details to be mentioned in the main series as thematically relevant. He creates Criston Cole, "Kingmaker" (nickname inspired by Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick's nickname, even though he has virtually no other similarity to Cole), credited as the guy behind thd war, described as a controversial Lord Commander of the Kingsguard and an angry ex-lover of Rhaenyra. Cole gets mentioned in Jaime's and Arys' chapters as a thematic link with the theme of Kingsguard knights and their honor. The Dance gets mentioned by Arianne - for the themes of succession crisis, female heirs, father/daughter relationship (first memtion that Viserys wanted Rhaenyra to succeed him.

4) Writing ADWD, GRRM is planning a second Targaryen civil war between Dany and Young Griff, so he gives the novel a title accordingly, but in the end he just sets it up for the next book. The title still stays, but becomes more about literal dragons. He comes up with more details, which are about the literal dragons who participated in the Dance, and a couple of incidents of dragon vs human, to include in a story about how dangerous dragons can be.

4a) He comes up with Rhaenyra's fate as an explanation of why Aegon III hated dragons.

4b) Vhagaris first confirmed to have participated in the Dance, and Aemond is mentioned for the first time ever, as her rider and Aegon II's brother who fought on his side, because GRRM, per his usual MO, wouldn't want the oldesrt and largest dragon to be ridden by either of the rival monarchs, and he has a thing about second sons. He already had two pairs of Targaryen brothers called Aegon & Aemon (Aegon IV & Dragonknight, Maester Aemon & Egg) but he tweaks the name a little.

5) GRRM probably goes on to write a bunch of other stuff from Targaryen history and Dance, especially to tie it up with the upcoming Targaryen civil war in TWOW. It goes faster than the main plot of TWOW, so it gets turned into a novella, and other supplementary material.

He finally comes up with the idea that Rhaenyra and Aegon II were half-siblings with a big age difference, and needs Aegon's mother to be from a powerful Westerosi family and her father a Hand of the King. Probably gets reminded that he mentioned Otto Hightower in ASOS, as one of the bad Hands, decides "I can make him Aegon's grandfather."

The character of Alicent Hightower is created, and the story completely reframed as a conflict between two women, as seen in the novella title "The Princess and the Queen, or the Blacks and the Greens".

At the same time, he creates Daemon, anti-hero "rogue prince" uncle-husband to Rhaenyra. The only historical Daemon mentioned in ASOIAF before was Daemon Blsckfyre. GRRM says "what if he was named after this guy?" He gets so into the character he writes a prequel novella about him, too.

And a bunch of other details get worked out in the two novellas, then in The World of Ice and Fire, and then even more added and expanded in Fire & Blood.

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