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1 Table of Contents Abstract ......................................................................................................................................... 2

Resumen........................................................................................................................................ 2

1 Introduction .......................................................................................................................... 3

2 Translation Theory ................................................................................................................ 3

2.1 Basic concepts of translation theory ............................................................................. 3

2.2 Wargame translation theory ......................................................................................... 4

2.3 Difference between wargame and board game ........................................................... 5

2.4 Fluff and Crunch ............................................................................................................ 6

3 Dystopian Wars: The Wargame ............................................................................................ 8

3.1 Description of the wargame: An overview of its rules .................................................. 9

4 Text Translation Tools, Resources, and Method ................................................................. 10

4.1 Tools and Resources .................................................................................................... 10

4.2 Translation Process ..................................................................................................... 11

4.3 Text Translation Analysis ............................................................................................. 12

5 Main problems .................................................................................................................... 15

5.1 Main problem alien to the translation of the source text .......................................... 15

5.2 Problems affecting the translation of the source text ................................................ 15

5.2.1 Problems affecting the fluff ................................................................................ 17

5.2.2 Problems of crunch ............................................................................................. 20

6 Conclusion ........................................................................................................................... 26

7 References ........................................................................................................................... 28

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Abstract

The miniature game market is a difficult one to compete in because of its high costs and the

popularity of cheaper forms of entertainment. However, there is a large number of different

English-language miniature games covering a wide range of themes and target users.

Unfortunately, the texts that supplement and explain the features of most of these games

(rulebooks, in-board textual information, etc.) remain untranslated into Spanish. The present

study discusses the translation of wargame texts. Specifically, this piece of work focuses on

the description of the methodology applied and on the analysis of some of the main and most

frequent problems encountered in the English-into-Spanish translation that I made of the

rulebook of the well-known tabletop miniature wargame Dystopian Wars An account of these

problems is given and how they were solved. Overall, there are two different types of

problems, literary, belonging to the lore or decorative text, and technical, problems related to

the rules. The two types of problems require different approaches, the first one with the style

and form as a priority, the second one giving prominence to the message, the wording, with

clarity of understanding as the goal.

Resumen

Es difcil competir en el mercado de juegos de miniaturas en trminos comerciales, debido a

su alto coste y a la popularidad de otras formas de ocio ms baratas. A pesar de todo, existe

un gran nmero de juegos de este tipo que abarcan diferentes temticas y usuarios.

Desafortunadamente, la mayora de los textos, escritos en ingls, que suplementan y explican

el funcionamiento de estos juegos se quedan sin traducir al espaol. Este estudio se centra

en la traduccin de materiales textuales de los llamados wargames (juegos de guerra). En

concreto, el trabajo analiza la metodologa empleada y los problemas que encontr en mi

traduccin del ingls al espaol del libro de instrucciones del wargame llamado Dystopian

Wars, un juego de mesa muy conocido. En general, existen dos tipos de problemas: literarios,

pertenecientes al lore o trasfondo del juego, y tcnicos, relativos a las reglas. Estos dos tipos

de problemas exigen diferentes enfoques, el primero tomando el estilo y la forma como

prioridad, y el segundo dando prominencia al mensaje, la frase, la claridad y la comprensin

como objetivo.

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1 Introduction

Wargames are a relatively unknown form of tabletop game. They are related to board games,

but are genuinely different and with a varying though normally high degree of complexity.

This high degree of difficulty and the fact that a wargame often requires its users to invest

quite a lot of money for full gaming experience are the main causes for a small wargame

market. Thus, only the most popular wargames are translated into languages other than the

original, leaving a huge number of relatively unknown English-language wargames

untranslated. This poses a barrier for their expansion into countries speaking languages other

than English. In modern times and as a consequence of globalization, translation has become

a commercial service key to successful marketing. In the case of Dystopian Wars, the lack of

a Spanish version of its rulebook is a major disadvantage to the commercial promoters of the

game.

Taking all this into consideration, and to fill this translation gap, the present study analyses

the translation process of the rulebook of the tabletop wargame Dystopian Wars (book written

by Glover and Walpole in its 1.1 edition) and the issues particular to translating a wargame.

The study is divided into four sections: (i) a general introduction; (ii) presentation of wargame

translation theory; (iii) the methodology and tools used for the translation of the Dystopian

Wars rulebook; (iv) presentation of the main and most remarkable problems and discussion

on how they were solved.

2 Translation Theory

2.1 Basic concepts of translation theory

This section deals with some basic concepts about translation. In the past, translators

practiced their profession without a solid and standard theoretical framework; however, as

from the 1950s, theorists started developing theoretical premises and theory on translation in

academic studies.

Therefore, being a relatively new and acknowledged field of knowledge and expertise,

there has even been debate over the very definition of translation. Munday (2001/2008:5)

and Mary Snell-Hornby (2006:21), for instance, draw on Jakobson (1959:139) to define the

following three categories of translation:

1. intralingual translation or rewording: an interpretation of verbal signs by means of

other signs of the same language;

2. interlingual translation or translation proper: an interpretation of verbal signs by

means of some other language;

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3. intersemiotic translation or transmutation: an interpretation of verbal signs by

means of signs of non-verbal sign systems.

The first category refers to transferring the meaning inside one same language, for example

when a teacher explains a complicated concept in simple terms. The second category is the

common definition of translation that is, transferring knowledge from one language to

another. The last category involves the transfer of the message from a verbal system into a

different semiotic system, for instance sign language.

Particularly useful for the purposes of this study is the work by Newmark (1988), which

is a standard practice guide for translation valid for the type of translation task carried out in

this study.

2.2 Wargame translation theory

As opposed to more widespread subjects of translation, wargame and board game translation

can draw on hardly any authoritative theory and translation research. As will be explained

below, board games and wargames are not entirely the same thing. However, there is a body

of research studies on board games that provide useful insights to the present paper. One of

these studies is that by Evans (2014), who claims for a multimodal approach to board game

translation insofar as successfully translating a board game involves not only the

consideration of textual information but also of other types of information , such as images,

gaming pieces, the board, etc. Evans (2013: 28) argues that clarity and usability are key

elements in the translation of the rules and the in-game text, as they are in the translation of

websites (Pierini, 2007). He also explains that in-game text is usually short, and sometimes,

shortened to ease the translators task. Importantly, Evans (ibid: 34) highlights that the

relevance of images to conceptually support, and sometimes, even replace the source and

consequently the translated text, thus reducing the need for players to read text during the

game. This secures maximum effectiveness and accuracy in the understanding of the rules on

the part of the target audience.

The several combined components that make up the multimodal structure of board games

are the following: first of all are the rules, which are usually included in a small booklet or

piece of paper. Rules contain the necessary information and instructions to play the game,

which is, how to prepare the game, which actions are available for the players, and finally,

how to win. The second element is the board itself. Often made of cardboard, boards are an

expensive material in comparison to paper; consequently, game boards are designed with as

little translatable text as possible, and thus, the company does not need to produce localised

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boards for each country; with the notable exception of Monopoly1, which has the street names

adapted to every country. The third element is the playing cards. They commonly represent

actions, items or anything that interacts with the board or other players and they almost always

contain a piece of text describing the effects of the card.

Translating the rules does not pose much of a difficulty, but the text on the cards is often

constrained to little space and there may be cultural references on the cards or the board, for

instance, the street names in Monopoly. Cultural references are a particular problem in my

study, where there are very difficult to translate nautical expressions, for example, 'Tally

Ho!!2. These expressions pose a problem for the reader as well as the translator because they

have a very specific and exclusive sense in a highly contextualised setting, the nautical field,

with which few people are familiar. As we shall see, it is common for the rulebook to contain

images which illustrate the rules and the game process, as well as other forms of assistance,

such as the text layout. The fourth element, which is intangible, is the interaction between all

three elements discussed above (rules, board and cards) and the players. Considering Evans

view that successful playing relies on a combination of images and texts, the translators task

should preserve this multimodality, as the desired result is a game played the same way in

every country where it is available.

2.3 Difference between wargame and board game

There is a major difference between a wargame and a board game: the board game is a self-

contained game usually coming in a box that has everything necessary to play the game

immediately, out of the box. In contrast, on purchase, a wargame only includes the rulebook,

and everything else needs to be acquired separately. There are many wargames which only

involve the rulebook when they are bought. For example, Osprey Publishing3 company

distributes many rulebooks, but does not produce any miniatures. In this case, the rulebook

often contains instructions and advice about miniatures that fit in the scale of the game. In

addition, wargames can be played with anything pretending to be the troops e.g. pieces of

paper and cardboard boxes passing for hills and forests. No boards are involved with

squares where the pieces move and the scenery is purely decorative.

Taking this into account, the effect of multimodality when translating a wargame is

diminished, since there is not a playing board or game cards although in Dystopian Wars

there are game cards, they are entirely optional. However, there is certainly a number of new

1 Monopoly by Hasbro, first version published by Parker in 1935, (http://www.hasbro.com/monopoly/ consulted on 11/05/2015) 2 Dystopian Wars, Spartan Games, (2012) p. 39 3 https://ospreypublishing.com/store/osprey-games (Consulted on 30/01/2014)

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factors that contribute to multimodality. The main factor is the measurement system. In a

wargame, the units shoot and move over the table, covering a concrete distance according to

the range of the weapon fired or the models attributes regarding the movement capacity.

Therefore, the table and the space are part of the game. This factor is important because

measurement units vary across countries and cultures. For this reason, the translation of the

original game version in a target country with a different measurement system from the source

country might present a problem to the translator. At first glance, this exercise would mean

an effortless change, but it may actually be more complicated. There may be rules that are

intrinsically related to distance. For example, for a miniature that moves a certain distance

randomly as determined by adding up the numbers given after the cast of two dice, the

numerical result is the amount of inches that miniature unit can move forward. If the

measurement system is adapted to foreign players, the Imperial measurement system should

be changed to the international metric system to avoid (e.g. 12 inches the top number that

can be obtained by the rolling of two dice are much more than 12 centimetres4). This and

other factors will be discussed in detail in the analysis section of this study (4.3).

The rulebook in a wargame represents the only conventional element shared by all gamers.

It contains all of the rules prescribing the course of action in a game. A rulebook sometimes

contains a background story as well, which anchors and describes the setting of the game, the

world, the factions, the characters and the story. The sequence of rules is usually presented in

a logical order as players advance in the game, which facilitates its dynamic. Rulebooks

normally include many visuals, including pictures and diagrams that support and reinforce

the guidelines. The story is often provided in a separate chapter with illustrations to assist the

players in fully understanding the rationale of the game.

2.4 Fluff and Crunch

In wargame slang, fluff and crunch are two different items. Fluff, or lore, is the background

story, presented in a literary fashion and often using a writing style and vocabulary related to

the setting of the game. For example, the lore in a medieval game will include colourful,

archaic medieval words and it will have no mechanical effect on the rules. The lore is not

restricted to the rulebook; the most popular wargames may have their story expanded with

novels and other complements. Some games can have army books, in which a certain

faction is fully described, and include the lore and the specific units belonging to that faction.

4 12 inches equals 3048cm (1 inch = 2.5cm)

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Therefore, the lore fragments of the source text should be approached as a literary text for

its translation. High fantasy settings commonly contain compound words, invented names,

etc., and therefore, creative and free translation is suggested, for example pistoliers as

herreruelos, jabberslythe as escuerzo alado, Grimgor Ironhide as Grimgor

Pielierro5. In the first example, the translator resorted to an archaic word in Spanish instead

of a literal translation, which may had been acceptable. This decision results in a colourful

and accurate translation. The second example in English is a reference to the jabberwocky,

the monster from the poem by Lewis Carroll. In the article in Wikipedia there are a list of

translations in Spanish of the poem, from which the translator could have drawn inspiration6,

but instead used the word escuerzo, which is a type of toad, a show of free translation. The

third example is the name of an orc chieftain. In English, the language used by orcs is

intentionally bad, with misspelled words, to give a comical impression of primitive and

brutish. In Spanish the translator preserves this style, for example Kaudillo Orco Zalvaje,

and the example above. Furthermore, in some other cases in English, several units have names

with very similar meanings such as scouts, explorers, and rangers. For these cases, the

use of synonym dictionaries and thesaurus is recommended. The names above can be

translated as montaraces, batidores and exploradores, respectively.

In contrast, the crunch involves the actual mechanics of the game system, that is, only

rules and numbers. The rules are the essence of how the game is played, and thus, the crunch

can be considered to be technical, where the main objective of the translator should be to

preserve the meaning and sense and be less perceptive about the form and the style. The game

must be played the same way everywhere and in every language. Even a small change in the

rules for example, a missing comma could be interpreted as two actions taking place

simultaneously, instead of one right after the other. This will doubtless disrupt the normal

running of the gameplay, causing conflicts between players from different countries in

international tournaments.

Fluff text is often accompanying a crunch text to decorate the rule with the purpose of

illustrating it in the context of a games background history. See context (1), extracted from

Dystopian Wars (2012) on page 85:

(1) The main engine block has taken a powerful, jolting shot.

The Movement (Mv) of this model is reduced by HALF.

5 These examples are taken from the English and Spanish versions of the following books by Games Workshop: Warhammer: El Imperio, (2012), Warhammer: Hombres Bestia (2009) and Warhammer: Orcos y Goblins (2010) 6 https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jabberwocky (Consulted on 21/6/2015)

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In this example, the fluff text is clearly separated from the rule and it is marked in italics.

In some cases, both types of text are put together in the same fragment and are

indistinguishable from one another, as in context (2), extracted from the text of the wargame

Warhammer: The Empire, Games Workshop (2006):

(2) If the Steam Tank is not engaged in close combat, then the Engineer can

open the hatch and fire his repeater pistol with a 360 fire arc (...)7

This fragment visually illustrates the action of the Engineer while explaining a rule too.

Hence, the crunch fragments, the mechanics and rules, as opposed to the lore, should be

approached with a methodology aiming to preserve the action as the main priority. This is

essential for the game to work as it was intended by its creators. It is a prescriptive text, as

Malcolm8 states, the advice contained in an instructions manual is prescriptive once readers

have entered the pact, symbolised by breaking the seal, if they want the instrument to

perform its intended task. (Harvey). If the players want to play the game designed by the

company, they need to follow the rules, and for this to happen, the translator should preserve

the rules as they were designed in origin. The crunch in Dystopian Wars rulebook was not

difficult to translate, the rules and actions are written in simple, straightforward language.

However the game remains somewhat complicated to learn, a consequence of the bad quality

of the book in general, as we will see later on in the analysis.

On the other hand, the fluff of the source text was not particularly difficult to translate due

to the simple language and style. One issue with this style of writing was the reiteration of

adjectives. In p. 4 the adjective vast is repeated twice in a very short span, vast factories,

vast flying engines, and it felt unnatural to use the same word several times. In my

translation I used different words to avoid this repetition and to produce a more agreeable text

and lexical variety, inmensas fbricas, gigantescas mquinas voladoras.

3 Dystopian Wars: The Wargame

This section introduces Dystopian Wars, the wargame whose source text was translated

into Spanish. An explanation of the nature of this game is provided to secure a better

understanding of the rulebook and its translation.

7 Warhammer: The Empire, Games Workshop (2006) 8 Malcolm Harvey, Meta : journal des traducteurs / Meta: Translators' Journal, (2002) vol. 47, n 2, p. 177-185

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3.1 Description of the wargame: An overview of its rules

Wargames were formally born in the XIX century as a form of training officers in the Prussian

army, using an umpire with real combat experience to determine the results. This format was

called Kriegsspiel, German for war game. This format was later adapted for civilian and

commercial use (Leeson 2015). Dystopian Wars, our object of study, is a tabletop wargame

published originally in English in the United Kingdom in 2012 by the company Spartan

Games. The revised 1.1 edition includes the current source text, which was translated in this

study. It should be highlighted that the source text has never been translated into any other

language. The game is set in the XIX century. According to the background story, a scientist

discovered a new element, Element 270 or Sturginium, which allowed for the rapid advance

of science and technology, contributing to the science-fiction of the setting. In addition to

this, the classical oppressive industrial atmosphere of the Victorian Age adds to the science-

fiction resulting in a particular Neovictorian steampunk aesthetic. Steampunk is a genre and

a cultural movement which can be described as retro-futuristic and prominently features

steam machinery and many other tropes of science-fiction with a Victorian, XIX century

flavour (Oxford Dictionary). Examples of this trend are the books by Jules Verne9 and H.G.

Wells, as well as the movie Wild Wild West.

In the game, two or more players fight against each other using armies of tanks, ships and

planes. Each unit in the game has a numerical point value proportional to their power. Each

player chooses one of the nations available and makes a list of units up to a limit of points

agreed upon beforehand. Units in the game have a set of attributes which defines features

such as firepower, a measurement of the potential damage they can inflict to other units;

movement, how much distance they can cover in a turn; hull points, how much damage the

unit can withstand before being removed from the game, etc. Players activate their units

taking turns. In their turns, they can perform a series of actions in sequence, moving,

attacking, boarding or any other. Victory is achieved when certain conditions are met,

typically when one side eliminates a minimum percentage of the other sides army point

value. The random factor in the game is determined by rolling a six-sided dice, abbreviated

D6. The number of dice rolled will depend on the attributes of the unit and the distance to

target. For example, if a ship has a firepower stat of 9, to determine the damage done to the

target, nine six-sided dice should be rolled. This is abbreviated as 9d6.

9 Not all of Vernes books can be considered steampunk, but an example is Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea (1870).

10

Therefore, understanding the background history and lore is important for the translator to

adapt the writing style of the fluff, to prepare the required resources and do proper terminology

research in this case, mainly naval and military vocabulary.

4 Text Translation Tools, Resources, and Method

This section describes the method and process of translation of the Dystopian Wars gaming

instructions book as well as the resources used for this purpose.

I received the English source text the Dystopian Wars game book (Glover y Walpole)

from the company Spartan Games10 (UK) in 41 small text files. Each file included one

book chapter, and some of them contained the table of contents, acknowledgements, and other

sections, such as the glossary at the end of the book. Each chapter was three pages long on

average, the longest chapter taking up to six pages. The total word count of the source text is

52,102 English tokens words. The Spanish translated version that I produced is 53,584 long.

4.1 Tools and Resources

The most useful tools for the translation task were cloud storage and a variety of dictionaries

and language databases. Cloud storage is a model of information storage where the digital

data is stored in logical pools, and files can be saved, allowing access anywhere and protecting

the files from conventional storage failure. As highlighted below, monolingual dictionaries

helped to understand words in context and bilingual ones provided handy translation

proposals.

I made extensive use of cloud storage services, such as Dropbox and Google Drive, with

a special preference for the latter. Google Drive has a web-integrated word processor, so that

I could work on the translation on any computer anywhere (e.g. in the library or on a

smartphone). The changes that I made to the text were saved in real time and I had access to

the files from any electronic terminals. In addition, Google Drive offers a downloadable

program that can be installed on any computer and it synchronizes the files with the server.

The service also preserves a file record in case of accidental data deletion or unwanted edition,

and can restore previous versions of any files.

Essential resources of a translator are dictionaries. I made use of a set of online dictionaries

to make my translation assignment. Wordreference is an Internet platform connecting users

queries and word searches to bilingual and monolingual reference dictionaries, such as

Collins. Apart from this option, Wordreference integrates an open-access forum where

everyone can raise language-related questions of any type. This option was of great use to

10 http://www.spartangames.co.uk/ (Consulted 15/05/2015)

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resolve certain issues and clear some doubts concerning my translation for example, the

translation of the word ordnance, artillera or municiones, which led me to produce a

different translation. Linguee is a search engine that tracks online official documents based

on text-string or single-word searches of running words in real usage and context, such as

documents issued in European Union Parliament sessions and their corresponding official

translations. You can also consult full webpages for context. Linguee presents the search

results in two columns, one for the source language and the other for the target language. This

helped me quickly find parallel texts and their official translation texts. For example, when

looking up a military expression, combat air patrol, the platform retrieves results from other

wargames and a specialised think-tank paper.

Another valuable dictionary was the Diccionario Martimo Espaol, which provided

useful language information about nautical terms in the source text. This dictionary also

contains a really helpful bilingual English-Spanish, Italian-Spanish and French-Spanish

glossary. For instance, the English word broadside, is translated as andanada in the bilingual

glossary (Diccionario Martimo Espaol 1831: 706). The Oxford Thesaurus was exploited too,

as it offers broad thematic vocabulary, and provides synonyms to understand uncommon or

semantically obscure words. An example is the word tattoo, which appears in the source text

with the sense of a rhythmic tapping or drumming, a meaning that is entirely different from

the well-known markings of the skin.

Another useful source of information besides the dictionaries was the culture-popularizing

website Wikipedia, which supplies quick-and-easy-to-access information in a friendly,

summarized manner. I used Wikipedia to mostly find clarifying semantic and pragmatic data

on words and concepts that have various meanings and interpretations, which would

subsequently enable me to produce accurate and well-documented translation proposals and

adaptations. For example, I did not know the meaning of the word Oblast. A quick search in

Wikipedia assisted me in understanding the concept underlying the word and produce a proper

Spanish translation equivalent (see below). Another useful function of Wikipedia is the

possibility to switch from one article in English to its equivalent version in Spanish and vice

versa. Even though I am fully aware that Wikipedia is not an authoritative source, it normally

does offer accurate information provided by experts in subject- specific contexts. Therefore,

this source of information was used as a strategy to detect potential translation candidates and

proper translation equivalents.

4.2 Translation Process

The first step in each translation session involved opening a Windows Notepad file. I placed

it next to the paragraph of the source text that I was translating, which was a duplicate of the

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original file, and was opened in a web browser on Google Drive. Then I would write out the

translated text in the notepad file, and after reviewing it, I would copy the translated text in

the original file in Google Drive, overwriting the paragraph in the duplicate file. This way I

was able to keep track of the progress and of the source and target texts simultaneously. This

method is simple but effective because it makes the translation process more fluent.

Whenever I encountered a serious translation problem, I left the original English version in

the translation to solve it later. Once the full translation was finished, a thorough and more

contextualised reading of the complete text was performed. I then went back over the

untranslated stretches of text, and translated them.

4.3 Text Translation Analysis

This section analyses and discusses the translation process of the Dystopian Wars gaming

book. As mentioned above, there are two main text types in this book: fluff and crunch, which

correspond to literary and legal texts, respectively. The analysis of both text types is largely

based on Newmark (1989) theoretical and practical translation principles and guidelines.

Comments and observations will be made on the major problems encountered during the

process of translation, how they were solved and the rationale behind the decision-making

for problem solving.

Below is a number of factors, aspects, and agents that Newmark (1988) suggests should

be taken into account when carrying out any translation task. These factors are considered in

relation with the translation of the Dystopian Wars game text.

a) First reading: this helps gain a first take and understanding of the text, the topic and

the context, identify the clearest translation problems, and think of potential resources

and strategies to solve them. Obviously, a first reading of the full Dystopian Wars

source text was done in order to get an overall impression and understanding of the

text and context and assemble the required research and lexicographical resources, as

Newmark (1988: 11) highlights.

b) Intention of the source text: the text to be translated might be written with an

underlying intention for example, hidden or nuanced criticism in a newspaper

article. In the case of Dystopian Wars, a tabletop game, the authors intention is

expected to be transparent and unpretentious, focused on explaining rules and

eventually, amusing players, as pointed out by Newmark (1988: 12).

c) Intention of the translator: in our case, the translators intention should be to facilitate

the understanding of the rules, game history and features of the game characters and

avoid ambiguities and misinterpretation of the rules.

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d) Text type and style: the book in my translation assignment has two types of text, fluff

and crunch. The first is the literary text, which provides ambience and the background

narrative; the second spells out the rules. The literary fragments include many

adjectives and colourful vocabulary, and easily lends itself to a less restrictive

translation style, whereas the rule text is full of verbs and contains legal and technical

terms that should be translated as accurately as possible. This hybrid nature of the

book makes the translation a demanding, but at the same time, interesting endeavour.

e) The readership is the target public of the text. Newmark (1988:13) argues that the

translator had better try to assess the level of education, the class, age and sex of the

readership, and then, determine if these circumstances might influence the translation

in some way. In the case of Dystopian Wars, the readership is mainly teenagers and

young adults with previous experience in wargames. Many of them are stereotyped as

geeky or nerdy with a degree of general knowledge and education that is above the

average. Assuming the familiarity of the readership with tabletop games allows for the

use of common phrases and expression in wargames, such as the abbreviation D6 for

the rolling of dice.

f) The stylistic scale refers to the levels of formality, difficulty or generality, referring to

the level of technicality of the vocabulary, from simple to opaquely technical and

emotional tone of the source text (Newmark 1988:14). The essence of all of levels

should be preserved in the target text. As for the two text types in Dystopian Wars, the

level of formality should strike a balance between formality and colloquialisms. As

concerns the level of difficulty, there is no particularly difficult or complex

vocabulary, which means that the company has considered the readership and kept the

language popular and simple. The emotional tone should be absent in the rule

fragments, but it may appear warm and colourful in the literary fragments in the form

of, for example, profuse adjectives, as can be seen in this fragment of the introduction

of the Dystopian Wars rulebook:

It has made possible incredible metal alloys, fuels and propellants of

enormous efficiency

g) Attitude: in our case, the attitude of the author towards the topic of the text should be

non-existent. The author should not express an opinion because of the characteristics

of this book genre, which is not subject to opinion. Objectivity for particular text types

is underlined by Newmark (1988: 15).

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h) Setting: this factor calls for the questions Where is the target language text going to

be published? and Does the client have any specific requests? According to

Newmark (1988:15), the translator should assess whether the readership is likely to be

motivated [], familiar with the topic and the culture, and at home in the variety of

language used. As mentioned above, the wargame market is narrow and the number

of users is not very high. Dystopian Wars and its rulebook are only sold in specialized

physical and online shops, and therefore, the potential readers will be very familiar

with the topic and setting of the game.

i) Quality of the writing: Newmark (1988:16) points out that the quality of the writing

has to be judged in relation to the author's intention. In Dystopian Wars, the authors

goal is to amuse its players by making them effortlessly understand the gaming rules.

In this regard, the measurement of the writing quality should be focused on how easily

the game is understood and played. From my experience in translating the original

Dystopian Wars rulebook, I argue that the quality of the writing of the source text is

low; not that the wording is particularly poor, but the rulebook is very confusing and

messy, hampering the learning of the gaming rules. The major deficiency is an

inadequate order of the chapters and an inappropriate sequence of presentation of the

rules to the reader, who may get demotivated. This is detrimental to the dissemination

and sales of the game because the main source for wargame marketing is the word of

mouth. In my opinion, the only solution to the problem would be to rewrite the book

from scratch, making a more sensible rearrangement of the chapter and rule

presentation.

j) Connotations and denotations: In the rules sections, the most important goal of the

writer is to convey the action as it is described, discarding any possible connotations

of the vocabulary used. The literary section of the source language text was written in

a popular style, but the authors personal style is not reflected on the text. To obtain

the same effect on the target text, I attempted to preserve this popular style and avoid

leaving any traces of my personal translation style.

k) Last reading: in the last reading, Newmark (1988:17) suggests that the translator

should note the cultural aspects of the source language text, underlining all

neologisms, metaphors, cultural words and institutional terms, proper names, technical

terms and untranslatable words. An account of these aspects for the translation of the

Dystopian Wars text is given in the following section.

15

5 Main problems

This section lists and addresses some of the main and most representative problems

encountered during the translation process of the English tabletop wargame text Dystopian

Wars and how they were solved. Problems arose that concerned (i) factors alien to the

translation of the source text; and (ii) the source crunch and fluff texts themselves (e.g.

semantic aspects and vocabulary).

Importantly, because of space restrictions, the complete translation of the Dystopian Wars

rulebook is not included in this study. Only the most illustrative examples featuring the

decision-making to solve the most relevant translation problems are presented and discussed.

However, the full translation is available to the reviewers of this paper on request via

email.

5.1 Main problem alien to the translation of the source text

The files that I first received for my translation assignment were plain text documents, free

of images from the original book. At the initial stage of the assignment, the absence of images

led to difficulties because the source text includes a great deal of references to pictures and

images. To solve this problem, I solicited a copy of the original book to the company, Spartan

Games, who agreed to send it out to me. But if the translation is performed before the

publication of the book, this could be problematic because the company might not have

created the visual support at the time of the translation.

5.2 Problems affecting the translation of the source text

Indirectly affecting the translation of the sematic and conceptual structure of the source text

was the lack of methodology and authoritative theory specific to the translation of wargames.

One of the reasons, as (Evans 2013) argues, is that many games are designed to target a wide

range of market users, leaving out unnecessary text on in-game elements and opting for

images. Because of lack of specialized literature and in order to develop a valid theoretical

framework for wargame translation, I had no other option but to rely on standard translation

theory (e.g. Newmark, 1988) as a general rule.

For specific passages of the text, and during my documentation period, I could find some

blogs run by translators who offer guidelines and advice on how to tackle the translation of

board games. In addition to Evans article, the information found on another translators blog

turned out to be really useful: This translator, Joseph Lambert, writes that some board games

are translated in a natural way and the translation hides any notion that translation has taken

place (Lambert 2013), so that players do not notice that the game originally comes from a

foreign country. As an example of natural and successful game name translation, Lambert

16

discusses the German game Kackel Dackel, which is called Doggie Doo in English and Bruno

Pup in Spanish. The common elements to be preserved in the translation of this name are

rhyme and alliteration. While this technique is common in games targeting children,

wargames have different target users, so that their names are not intended to rhyme.

Examples are Dystopian Wars, medieval fantasy wargame Warhammer, science-fiction

wargame Infinity and World War II wargame Flames of War. These games names evoke

conflict and violence, rather than innocent fun. Curiously enough, these original names are

most times left untranslated.

Another useful blog that I found is run by blogger Melissa, who deals with the translation

of a German board game called Agricola, designed by Uwe Rosenberg and published in

200711. Melissa encountered several problems which also occur in my translation of

Dystopian Wars. The first problem involves the highly specialized thematic language.

Agricola includes many words that come from the XVII century farming terminology. She

resolved the issue by using a very specific terminology dictionary. In my translation, I had to

deal with English military and naval vocabulary, which I translated based on the specialized

dictionary Diccionario Martimo Espaol.

A second major problem concerns the large number of overlapping terms belonging to the

same semantic field in the source text. In the case of agriculture, the author of the blog found

two words in German that have the same meaning and needed to be differentiated because

they have different functions in the game: Fleischer and Metzger. Melissa was creative and

translated these terms as Butcher and Meat-seller, respectively. In my assignment I

encountered a similar case with Ordnance and Gunnery, which both mean Artillera in

Spanish. In the game they have different functions, though. I came up with a creative solution

to discriminate the two terms: I used the term Armamento Pesado for Ordnance (this example

will be explained in detail in 5.2.2).

Problems directly affecting the translation process concern the style and wording of the

source text, or its semantics or conceptual structure. In the majority of cases, these problems

were solved by doing extensive research and finding creative solutions. The text-inherent

problems were classified into two different types: problems affecting the rules or crunch, and

problems affecting the lore or fluff. The explanations of the most remarkable and

representative examples of these types of problem and how they were fixed are given below.

11 http://boredgamegeeks.blogspot.de/2007/10/translating-boardgames.html (Consulted 18/12/2014)

17

5.2.1 Problems affecting the fluff

Problems that affect the fragments of fluff or lore are usually caused by specific culturally

charged or fantasy words. These problems are normally solved by coming up with creative

and imaginative solutions, considering cultural transferring. Below are some examples of the

most remarkable lore problems.

Faction names.

In the Dystopian Wars game are several factions, each usually representing one nation in the

games world. Players must choose a faction to collect, buy the miniatures representing the

models, and form an army. Logically enough, the faction names are recurrent words in the

game. They are often abbreviated into an acronym (e.g. FSA is short for Federal States of

America), or players use just one word of the full name for example, los lagartos is used

to refer to Hombres Lagarto in the wargame Warhammer. Other names are nicknames

referring to particular factions, as is the case for cabras to designate the faun Hombres Bestia.

Faction names should be translated into the target text as names simple enough, different

enough from each other and with a structure that easily lends itself to being abbreviated. With

as the example above, Federal States of America was translated as Estados Federados de

Amrica. The acronym would be EEFF, but FSA is shorter and easier to use even for Spanish-

language users; thus this acronym has been left in English in the Spanish target text. The

English acronym also helps establish parallel atmospheres between English- and Spanish-

language gamers, which promotes the internationalisation of the game.

Complicated unit names

There are two flying airships units in the game called gyro and rotor (Dystopian Wars, page

29). These two terms were problematic to translate due to the fact that the words themselves

seem to be incomplete or abbreviations, and there are no clues in the rest of the book regarding

the origin and meaning of these words. In this case I had to guess the significance of these

words: gyro come from gyrocopter or autogyro, a primitive form of the helicopter, and rotor

could come from rotorcraft, the broad term which encompass helicopters and autogyros. Then

I decided to translate gyro as autogiro and rotor as rotocptero, a word I invented for the

occasion, in this way the two words are sufficiently different but has a similar semantic

meaning, given that the two units function essentially in an identical way.

Country names in the games background story

18

Real names are generally simple to deal with because either they have a standard translation

(e.g. Prussian Empire is translated as Imperio Prusiano) or they preserve the linguistic form

in the target language (e.g. League of Italian States as Liga de Estados Italianos). However,

some fantasy or invented names pose a problem. When translating certain historical countries

that no longer exist, research had to be done to find the right translation; for these cases

Wikipedia became really handy. I searched for an article including the name of a country,

and then, toggled the language of the article into Spanish. For example, Polish-Lithuanian

Commonwealth turned out to be known, back in the past, as Repblica de las Dos Naciones

or Mancomunidad de Polonia-Lituania12. I opted for the second translation proposal because

it is more transparent and lets the player know which current countries the former nation

comprised.

Another example is Empire of the Blazing Sun, probably a wordplay of the nickname

Empire of the Rising Sun, the equivalent of real Japan in the game. This name was translated

as Imperio Del Sol Ardiente because its meaning stays true to the source language and because

it sounds very much like Imperio Del Sol Naciente, the Spanish nickname for Japan. When

translating country names, the general rule is to maintain the fantastical flavour of the original

name, and whenever possible, to try to give a nod to the target audience with familiar names

or play on words.

Another example concerning place names is the word Oblast, which is a geographical

division that belongs the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, but is outside the Asian

continent. This word is barely known by Spaniards, and thus, I decided to translate it as regin

or provincia, specifying that this is the proper noun of an ex-Soviet region (regin rusa de

Alaska for Oblast of Alaska; in the games world, Russia conquered Alaska). In addition, the

game is set years before the making-up of the USSR, when the geographical divisions were

not called oblasts. This may be an error made by the writers or the word might be used

intentionally as part of the science-fiction setting.

Military terms

They are mainly categories of the units, such as frigate, destroyer, etc. Even though most of

military terms have standard equivalents in Spanish, some others do not, and thus, raise

questions to the translator. A clear case is the English term dreadnought, which designates a

British battleship built in 1906 with such a sophisticated design that it pioneered a new

12 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish%E2%80%93Lithuanian_Commonwealth (English) http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rep%C3%BAblica_de_las_Dos_Naciones (Spanish) (Last consulted on 14/6/2014)

19

shipbuilding era, where battleships that bore a physical resemblance to the pristine HMS

Dreadnought were named after it: post-dreadnought battleships13. Although the term has

officially never referred to a specific military ship category, the compound has become very

common in popular culture, games and science-fiction environments to describe very heavy

vehicles, mostly ships. Several sources, such as the bibliographical sources of the Museo

Naval de Madrid14, were consulted to check the existence of an interlinguistic equivalent in

Spanish, to no avail. I also discovered that the word dreadnought is commonly used in the

Spanish version of many wargames instruction books, for example in Warhammer 40k15.

Moreover, it is a word complicated to pronounce by Spanish players. Therefore I decided to

use a naturalised version of the word, drednot, which shows the original pronunciation. This

way players will feel familiar with the term and relate the unit with the tradition of very heavy

vehicles.

Unit names

Each unit belongs to a class, that is, a type of ship (for example, Emperor Class Battleship).

A player can deploy several units of the same class and they will have identical attributes.

The name of every class normally appears in the language of the country that the name is

associated with. In the game, in addition to English, the language of the Kingdom of Britannia

and the Federal States of America, there are names in Japanese (e. g. Tsukuyomi class,

Kiyohime class, Tenkei class) and German (e. g. Gewitterwolke class, Seydlitz class, Metzger

class), corresponding to the Empire of the Blazing Sun and Prussian Empirerespectively.

There are more factions in the game written in different languages, but these four are the only

ones with their complete lists of unit listed in the source text. Nevertheless, there are few

names which do not correspond to the language of the faction that they belong to. This is the

case for Emperor Class Battleship of the Prussian Empire, since Emperor is not a German

but an English word (this may be a mistake made by the game company). Considering that

the original languages are preserved in the English-language source text, I decided to adhere

to this strategy and not to translate the unit names into Spanish. This way, the game becomes

more immersive to Spanish gamers and complies with the faction unit naming policy of the

source text.

13 http://www.nmrn-portsmouth.org.uk/dreadnoughts (last consulted on 14/6/2014) 14 http://www.armada.mde.es/ArmadaPortal/page/Portal/ArmadaEspannola/ciencia_museo/prefLang_es/ (last consulted on 14/6/2014) 15 http://www.games-workshop.com/es-ES/Dreadnought-de-los-Marines-Espaciales (last consulted on 14/6/2014)

20

5.2.2 Problems of crunch

The problems below were found in the fragments of the text known as crunch. These

problems differ from the fluff ones in that they could potentially disrupt the normal

development of the game if they are not solved properly. Moreover, these problems are not

caused by vocabulary or cultural issues, and need to be sorted out with practical solutions that

give priority to the actions rather than to literary creativity.

Measurement system

The measurement system is key to the general deployment of the game. For example, while

moving, the units can cover a certain distance on the game board depending on the movement

attribute of each unit and the die casting, which randomly constrains the units movement

scope. In addition, the weapons have a specific shooting range. The measurement system in

Dystopian Wars is the Imperial system. Only inches can be used in the game. An exception

is reference to feet in the recommendation about the size of the game table.

The Imperial measurement system was not adapted to the metric system in my translation

for various reasons. The primary one involves the rules governing the distance to cover on

the basis of the rolling of the dice. An example, extracted from the source text (Dystopian

Wars, 2007, page 37), is given in context (3):

(3) A model (the plastic miniature) affected by an Energy Vortex must move

1D6 directly towards its centre [].

In this case, the model affected by the energy vortex must move along on the board to

cover a distance that is randomly determined by rolling one six-sided die. The number given

by the dice equals the number of inches the model will move, in this case due to the nature of

the energy phenomenon, towards the centre of the vortex. If the Imperial measurement system

were adapted to the metric one, a more complicated formula would be needed to keep the

balance in the game, because 1D6 inches is not the same as 1D6 centimetres. An example of

an overly complicated adaption into Spanish is given in context (4), extracted from the

rulebook of Ejrcitos Warhammer: El Imperio (6th edition) to determine the shots fired by an

artillery piece.

(4) Tira el dado de artillera (...). Si el objetivo se encuentra a 30cm o menos,

el resultado obtenido divido entre tres (redondeando las fracciones hacia

arriba) indicar la cantidad de impactos (...). Si el objetivo se encuentra

a ms de 30cm, el nmero de impactos que le han alcanzado ser la mitad

del resultado anterior.

21

The dice here is a six-sided dice specific to the wargame Warhammer. In the original

English version, it includes numbers 2, 4, 6, 8, and 10, and a special symbol to indicate that

the war machine has suffered a malfunction. This goes to determine the shots and to designate

a random distance, for example the margin of error of a catapult, hence its name. In Spanish

these numbers were changed to centimetres, 5, 10, 15, 20, and 25cm. With this formula, apart

from being cumbersome , the eventual punctuation does not match the English one (e.g. a

dice roll of 20 equals 7 shots, not 8, and 25, the highest possible number in the dice rolling ,

equals 9 shots; therefore, this artillery piece is less effective in the Spanish version. This

mismatch may cause confusion to gamers and quarrels about the punctuation.

Another reason to keep the inches is that Warhammer, the most popular wargame

according to a recent survey,16 kept the Imperial system in its most recent edition, and a

Spanish wargame, Warthrone17, uses the Imperial system as well. Taking into consideration

that the potential readership of Dystopian Wars, as has been mentioned before, are regular

wargame players, they will be familiarised with the Imperial inches. In conclusion, the

Imperial measurement system was preserved in my translation.

Weapon types

Military Units in the game are equipped with a variety of weapons, which are classified into

two big categories: ordnance and auxiliary. Ordnance refers to primary armament, including

gunnery, rockets, torpedoes and bombs. Auxiliary weapons include ack ack (sic) and

concussion charges. The word ordnance was problematic to translate. According to the

Collins Dictionary, it designates gunnery, artillery or military equipment, and ammunition;

however, in Dystopian Wars it encompasses not only artillery, but also torpedoes and other

heavy weapons. This is why neither artillera nor armas de proyectiles would work as a

translation into Spanish. I opted to translate the term as armamento pesado, which makes up

a perfect tandem with armamento auxiliar, the Spanish equivalent of auxiliary armament, the

second weapon category. This way, armamento pesado includes artillera, and better features

the concept of heavy weaponry in the Dystopian Wars game.

Auxiliary weapons, concussion charges, are used to defend the unit from underwater

attacks, submarines, torpedoes, etc., as opposed to anti-air, which has the mission of

protecting the unit from rockets and airplanes (Dystopian Wars, page 66). Thus, the first

option was to translate it as cargas de profundidad, which is a direct translation of the English

16 http://www.cargad.com/index.php/2015/03/18/la-encuesta-del-miercoles-resultado-censo-wargames-2015-1-lo-mas-jugado/ (Consulted 18/03/2015) 17 http://www.avatars-of-war.com/esp/web/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=65&Itemid=66 (Consulted 18/03/2015)

22

expression depth charges. In fact, the lexical unit depth charges is used in a different context

in a separate section of the rulebook, with the sense of safely detonating mines (Dystopian

Wars, page 66). This seems to be the game rulebook writers decision, who uses the term

concussion charges for a broader context because it is not exclusively used when attacking

submarines, thus leaving the more restrictive term depth charges to have a very specific,

exclusive meaning in the rulebook. All things considered, I opted for Spanish expression

with a broad meaning similar to the English one, cargas detonadoras. The literal translation

equivalent, cargas conmocionadoras, was also considered, but it was too long and sounded

unnatural and unfamiliar to Spanish natives.

Attributes of the units

Every unit has a set of attributes and military characteristics that condition and determine its

performance in combat (see Figure 1). These attributes are displayed in a graphic on the stat

card of each unit. In general, the objective here was to try to preserve the same letters of the

target text acronyms or provide very similar ones without repeating them. This was all done

with a view to ensuring easier acquisition of the rules by the Spanish players and to avoiding

confusion.

Figure 1. Attributes Card Sample of a Military Unit in Dystopian Wars

In what follows in this subsection I will address the most remarkable translation proposals

for unit attributes in my assignment. The first proposal concerns the English phrasal unit

damage rating (DR), which expresses the degree of endurance against attacks, i.e. the number

23

of impacts a unit can withstand in a single attack without suffering damage If the impacts

suffered surpasses this number, the unit loses one HP (hull point). This phrasal unit was

translated as resistencia al dao into Spanish because it stays true to the meaning of the source

unit and its acronym, RD, is simply the swap of letters in the English acronym. As a result,

the target language element hardly departs from the source one in their abbreviation. The

second lexical item is critical rating (CR). This stat attribute is linked to damage rating, and

denotes the top threshold of hits a unit can receive. Once the critical rating is surpassed, the

unit suffers a critical effect, which is randomly determined from the critical table by rolling

2d6 and applying the result from the list of crippling effects corresponding to the number

obtained, from 2 to 12 (for example, dice result: 3, shredded defences, effect: the unit loses

the ability to use anti air weaponry, Dystopian Wars page 85, this result leaves the unit

completely vulnerable to airplanes). The higher the damage and critical rating of a unit, the

higher the amount of punishment it can put up with. I translated critical rating as resistencia

crtica, dropping the sense carried by rating in the source lexical unit and bringing up the

sense of endurance (resistencia). This way the Spanish lexical unit is more illustrative and

true to the original than the literal translation equivalent, ndice de dao.

Movement (Mv) is the highest number of inches a unit can move on the table in its turn.I

first decided on desplazamiento, which implies moving along in space. However, despite

being a technically inaccurate translation equivalent (one can move without shifting in space),

movimiento is the most widely used Spanish choice in wargames. For this reason, I opted for

this term. Moreover, movimiento has the same abbreviation as its English equivalent

movement, that is, Mv. The third phrase is hull points (HP), which signals the degree of health

of a unit. When the hits received by the unit in one attack equals or exceeds the damage rating

but not the critical rating, the unit loses one hull point. When the hit exceeds the CR too, the

unit suffers a critical effect, usually crippling essential abilities of the unit. When the unit runs

out of hull points because of an attack, it is deactivated and ejected from the game. Hull points

were translated as puntos de casco, a literal translation that is a natural equivalent in Spanish

(in fact, we can speak of casco to refer to e.g. revestimiento o cubierta for missile casing) and

works for the three types of units: naval, land and flying. Other translation alternatives that

were considered were puntos de armazn and puntos de estructura, but they rather designate

elements of buildings, not of war or battle. Furthermore, since there are not infantry units in

this edition of the game, the Spanish translation equivalent cannot be argued to exclude

military units. The names of the rest of attributes were easy to adapt into Spanish and did not

pose any remarkable problems.

Model Applied Rules and General Rules

24

The model applied rules, abbreviated MARs, are a collection of rules/effects or skills that

only apply to some units. The name itself was troublesome to translate, since a literal

translation would not work. The translation equivalent proposed is reglas propias. This

category includes numerous rules, some of which have names that are occasionally difficult

to translate. An example is the terminological unit armoured topside In Spanish naval

terminology, topside means obra muerta (Diccionario Martimo Espaol 1831: 758), the part of

a ship above the sea level. Taking into consideration that in the game there are tanks and

airships, I decided to translate armoured topside as parte superior acorazada, which links up

to a similar rule term, armoured belly, translated as parte inferior acorazada. Armoured is

also used in the game to design certain land units, so I chose the Spanish translation equivalent

acorazada to avoid confusion.

Difficult to cope with was the ambiguity of general rules of the game, particularly when

considering the high degree of competitiveness of the players. Dystopian Wars is a

competition game, where there is only one winner and one loser. Therefore, players will often

attempt to gain advantage over their adversary by making biased interpretations of the rules

and taking advantage of ambiguous instructions (omissions, mistakes or contradictions,

ambiguity in the wording). With highly complex rules, the chances for vagueness and

loopholes in the rules to arise increase. I found no mistakes or contradictions in the rules of

Dystopian Wars, the explanations of these rules have been written in simple language, the

message is straightforward. Nonetheless the book in general is confusing because the rules

are presented in a chaotic way, for example mentioning advanced rules at the beginning but

not explaining these advanced rules until much later in the book. An example of this, in page

19 of the book, in the chapter game basics, appears this fragment:

A Prussian Empire Hussar Class Gunship with +1 to hit rolls 5D6 against an enemy

model.

But the concepts of attack dice, shooting, hitting and combat between units are not

explained until page 61, and there is nothing I can do as a translator without changing the

structure of the book. Ambiguous and unspecific rules normally lead to situations where one

player gains unfair advantage over his/her opponent. Furthermore, players usually have many

lengthy discussions over the duration of an average match as a consequence of overly

complex and ambiguous wording, as Luis in his blog mentions18, he measured the time

18 http://descansodelescriba.blogspot.com.es/2012/04/carrera-de-derecho-para-jugar-warhammer.html (Consulted on 20/6/2015)

25

players wasted arguing during several different games, often amounting up to nearly half the

regular duration of a common battle. He also made the accurate comparison of a wargame to

a law degree, thanks to the complexity and vagueness of modern wargames, indeed the

translator could approach the rulebook as if it was a legal text. Dystopian Wars suffers from

occasional dense paragraphs with complicated lists of rules and restrictions, for example, in

page 56:

ALL Counterattacks MUST be declared BEFORE you roll any dice. Each Attack can only be subject

to ONE Counterattack, however, a Counterattack from CAP may be declared in ADDITION to any

Counterattack from a model in its Parent Models Squadron. A model or Tiny Flyer Wing can only

Counterattack ONCE during any ONE Squadron Activation.

This is an example of bad writing and wrong presentation of the rules, this paragraph

dumps a large amount of items for the player to remember. Instead, a good rulebook should

present the rules and the restrictions gradually, in the order they appear in a real game. This

fragment illustrates as well the importance a single word can have in the overall balance of

the game: if the translator makes a mistake or forgets to translate the word BEFORE in the

first line, the phrase can be interpreted differently, that the counterattacks take place any time

before or after rolling the dice. This gap in the rules could lead players to make biased

interpretations favouring their own situations in detriment of their rival.

Despite improving the original writing in the English source text, the problems affecting

the presentation of the rules in Dystopian Wars cannot be fully solved with just an improved

translation into the target language, as I did. Rather, it really requires a new edition of the

source language book, providing a clear rewording and rearrangement of the linguistic

elements used to account for the rules of the game. This major reworking should be done by

the company Spartan Games.

Editing the source text involves proofreading and sufficient playtesting of the rules that

is, the rules need to be tested by playing the game before both the game and its rulebook are

launched to the market. Despite sufficient testing, mistakes usually remain in the published

text, and players try hard to find loopholes and ambiguities to exploit and take advantage over

their competitors. This issue is commonly resolved by publishing FAQs (Frequently Asked

Questions) lists, which helps gamers in the face of ambiguities and semantic gaps of the game.

These lists are usually put up on the website of the games company, including updates and

modifications of the rules. This poses another problem to the translator: should he or she

include the FAQ amendments in the translated version or simply translate the source text as

it stands? Including the FAQs has the advantage of presenting the updated version of the text

in the target language. They might, however, become out of date soon because the company

26

sometimes publishes newer FAQs, so that the players would be playing an obsolete version

of the game and would not know which changes should be applied to the translated version.

Translating the source text as it stands would produce a target text faithful to the source

version, but the players would end up looking up the FAQs online to play the updated version

of the game. In this case, the FAQs ought to be translated as well and they would be the same

version in every language the wargame has been translated. In the case that the company

decides not to translate the FAQs, players who are native of languages other than English

could consult the files online in the English original language and thus, would have to

understand and deal with a foreign language.

In my case, I asked the company whether or not I should include the FAQs including the

updated rules of Dystopian Wars19 in my translation. They asked me to produce the

translation modified according to the FAQs. The FAQs are commonly in the following

format, the page indicate where in the original text the change takes place, the players then

assume that the official text is the modified one:

TERRAIN CLASSIFICATION

Page 34 - Delete the term D6 from each entry in the list of Terrain.

In this example, I had to translate the section eliminating the term D6 from the source text

according to the FAQ, but curiously enough, despite the company telling me to include the

FAQs of the webpage, the text files they sent me had already the modifications which appear

in the FAQs.

As with the crunch, the translator must be very careful not to misinterpret any rules when

translating the FAQs, prioritising the semantics of the source text over the style.

6 Conclusion

There is an evident gap in the production and standardisation of theoretical models and

practical guidelines for the translation of tabletop wargame texts. To fill this gap and give

insights into this field of expertise, the present study analyses and discusses some of the main

and most illustrative problems encountered in the English-into-Spanish translation that I

made of the rulebook of the tabletop wargame Dystopian Wars. For this assignment, apart

from dictionaries and glossaries, I drew on assumptions from general translation theory

19 These FAQs are available on the games website at http://www.spartangames.co.uk/resources/downloads (The FAQs corresponding to the source text are no longer available because the first edition is gone obsolete after the release of the second edition of the game).

27

(Newmark 1988) and on procedural advice and suggestions given by wargame translators on

their subject-specific blogs online.

The main distinguishing feature of the textual support of a wargame is the combination of

two types of text, the fluff and the crunch. Their translation should be approached with

differing methods. The fluff should be translated preserving the literary creativity of the

source text, keeping an eye on style and rhythm. The crunch should translated foregrounding

the contents of the source text and putting every effort to remain true to the semantics of the

original message. Reasonably enough, the primary goal of wargames is having full

experience, which is mostly achieved if ease of expression and description of their rules is

guaranteed. Thus, when translating a wargame accuracy in spelling out its rules is pivotal. In

the translation of the Dystopian Wars rulebook, some instances of ambiguity caused by

grammatical and punctuation mistakes were identified. Special attention must be paid to

avoid transferring this ambiguity to the target language text. (a misplaced comma or word,

as we have seen before, can change the sense of a rule and produce an undesirable unbalance

in the game). Consequently, the professional wargame translator should be familiar with the

idiosyncrasies of board games, in general, and of wargames in particular. From my own

experience, being a regular wargame player crucially assists in gaining a full understanding

of the nuances and particularities of this game type, and thus, in identifying and correcting

common mistakes found in the source text. In summary, the wargame translator will face a

number of unique problems when translating the game, namely: the text files sent by the

company may lack the visual support of the final product; the absence of specialised theory,

culturally challenging words in the fluff of the book, for example the names of the units and

the names of the factions and countries, military semantic field; these problems are addressed

by the used of specific resources such as dictionaries; problems in the mechanic area of the

game, the crunch, for example the measure system and the general rules, was approach with

faithfulness and clarity as the main priority.

28

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