Blind Idiot Translation/Tabletop Games

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Competition from the face to the office (Tabletop Games)

  • There are some bootleg Pokémon cards which included, as the Pokémon names, a description of their appearance. "Little Yellow Mouse (Evolves into Yellow Mouse)" for Pichu, "Small Worm" for Caterpie, and "Little Bird (Evolves into Bigger Bird)" for Pidgey, and the list goes on.
  • The Polish translation of Cyberpunk 2020 RPG consists mainly of things translated needlessly (like song lyrics used as one chapter's opening motto) or wrongly ("cyberwear" gets translated as "skin cyberations" in the description of boostergangs or "bag lady chic", ie. hobo wear, as "old fashioned"), but at least it's So Bad It's Good when it turns "Input" (slang name for a girlfriend) into "Socket". At least it's consistent with changing "Output" (slang name for a boyfriend) into "Plug", forming an interesting Double Entendre. Curiously, the phrase "Stuffit" (slang name for sex) is entirely omitted from the Polish translation.
  • Word of God has it that one of the Fantasy Counterpart Culture place names on the map of Mystara, a Dungeons & Dragons game-setting, translates as "Goat Dropping" in English.
  • The Spanish translation of the Magic: The Gathering card Pride of Lions should be "Manada de Leones", instead we have "El orgullo de los leones" (as in the "feeling proud" kind of pride).
    • The Italian translation is often quite poor. The card "Mind Spring", clearly representing a flow of knowledge, had the spring translated as the bouncy, metallic coil. "Brush with Death", similarly, was given as "Brush of Death", the brush being a literal plant. In many other cases the wrong synonyms are used, and sayings wrongly interpreted.
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