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Real Life Examples
- The Nineties saw Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay as the generic RPG in Poland, as opposed to D&D. It is not so nowadays, though, with the appearance of new editions of D&D and a new generation of gamers. That is, gaming folk still will recognise it, but it's not as dominant as it was.
- WFR is still considered the generic RPG, some folks even go as far as marking D&D not an RPG.
- Blood Bowl is a "Specialist Game" in most countries, with miniatures available but not usually in stores and not pushed as much as the trinity of Fantasy Battle, 40k and The Lord Of The Rings, but in Germany it is considered one of the core games and tournaments are still held there.
- Lizardmen and Skaven in Warhammer are considerably more popular in America than in Britain.
- Thanks to having been for quite a long time among the few foreign RPGs translated and published in great numbers, Call of Cthulhu is quite well-known in Italy together with the aforementioned Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay. As with the Polish example above, this is mostly true with older gamers nowadays.
- France also has had a long love affair with Call of Cthulhu, in this case despite the fact that lots of foreign RPGs have been translated into French since the 80's at least. It seems to still attract new gamers there as well, as a publisher there released over a dozen superlatively translated, beautifully refurbished (if expensive) hardcover volumes of the rulebook and many of the most iconic adventure compilations and setting books, including a 30th-anniversary edition of the main rulebook as well as Delta Green and its rare-as-hell-in-English expansion, Countdown!!!
- Japan is another Call of Cthulhu stronghold, especially with the advent of TRPG Replays on Nico Nico in the 2010s. It sells more Japanese-language copies than every other language combined, including the original English. It's even been said that if in America roleplaying is divided between D&D and everything else, in Japan it's Call of Cthulhu and everything else. And interestingly, it's most popular among female roleplayers - Chaosium says that its biggest buyer demographic is Japanese women age 17-35.
- Vampire: The Masquerade also had, and largely still has, an enormous popularity in Italy, with several running LARPs and a widespread rejection of the New World of Darkness system in favor of the old game. Since Vampire was the only old WoD game to be translated, this leaves its sister games (Mage, Werewolf et cetera) pretty much unknown.
- Vampire (As well as the rest of the Old World of Darkness) was also popular in the 90s and early 2000s in Brazil, including a high reported case of a supposed murder because of the game (Later reported to be false) and a appearence in a talk show trying to solve the "relationship problems" between a couple of Vampire players that separated because each one were from a different clan.
- Privateer Press's Monsterpocalypse sold out world-wide within a week of its release, but nowhere did it sell faster than in Japan. Given that it's the country that made Godzilla, Mazinger Z, and Ultraman, it's hardly surprising.
- Warhammer 40,000, while still decently popular in its homeland of Britain, really took off in the United States, completely displacing Games Workshop's previous works in much of the American tabletop wargame market and providing fuel for large numbers of books and a number of computer games, most with American authors and produced by American companies, respectively.
- It is also HUGE in Russia, where it's one of the most popular tabletop wargames ever, only really challenged by the WFB, and even the people who don't play on the tabletop, frequently play the 40K-based video games; and where you can have a degree-level discussion about the economical problems of the Segmentum Obscurus hive-planets or Tau xenology with a random dude in the random forum.
- Shadowrun is disproportionally popular in Germany. The largest fan wiki of it online is entirely in German and Germany is one of the best-supported and best-known parts of the Sixth World after the UCAS, thanks in large parts to officially licensed and sanctioned guidebooks that were made in Germany by Ascended Fans. During the kickstarter for Shadowrun Returns the overwhelming fan support led to the creation of a second campaign, the location of which would be determined by fan vote. Berlin won handily, giving rise to the Dragonfall expansion.
- Skat still enjoys considerable popularity in the Polish region of Upper Silesia. Justified, since for centuries this part of Poland was profoundly influenced by German culture and still had a large German population before 1945.
- GURPS still has a following in Brazil. It was the first RPG released in Brazil in 1991, having a lot of popularity during the 90s and early 2000s, including Fandom Rivalry with Vampire: The Masquerade and Dungeons & Dragons. Eventually their popularity waned and went out of print, but there's still a cult following.
- Uno was originally created in Cincinnati, Ohio, and whilst it has grown into a worldwide success, it's seen a noticeable playerbase arise in Japan. There have been multiple video games based on Uno released exclusively in Japan, and unlike most countries receiving the No Export for You treatment, if there's an Uno variation released in America, odds are, it's been released in Japan. And don't even get us started on Natsuki Hanae's Uno of Darkness
. - Chess became very popular in the USSR, and remains popular in its remnants, due to the game's (relatively) simple rules, and wooden chess sets' durability and low cost of production. Eventually the government caught on and started encouraging more people to play due to the aforementioned reasons and because Smart People Play Chess.
- In its native Japan, the Link era of Yu-Gi-Oh! is a defining Audience-Alienating Era, which saw card sales drop by half over the course of its first year. The sales were so bad that it caused the end of the franchise's longstanding association with Studio Gallop, forcing Yu-Gi-Oh! VRAINS to be cut short and Konami to essentially reboot the brand with Yu-Gi-Oh! Rush Duel. Meanwhile, in international territories, though the Link era was certainly controversial, it didn't particularly dent sales—if anything, they seem to have improved. This largely owes to the fact that the major critiques of Link Summoning were its complexity, its high power ceiling, and it blocking out other playstyles, all of which make it unattractive to kids. Yu-Gi-Oh!'s international audience (or at least, the part of the audience that actively buys cards) trends older and tends to be at least somewhat competitive, so they were more willing to roll with the punch. Due to the TCG being as big as ever abroad, Konami has yet to even try to import the Rush format and its associated anime.
In-Universe Examples
- Rocky, one of the Emerald City Sentinals in the Emerald City setting of Freedom City, is a Former Child Star who spent most of his career after his show ended touring Japan, becoming moderately popular there as a result. In fact, his character sheet has "Benefit: Status (Big In Japan)" as an actual character trait.
- Erin Tarn, the narrator in Rifts, set in an After the End/Science Fantasy future Earth, is this trope literally. While the Coalition States in her native North America consider her to be Public Enemy Number One due to her writings criticizing their evil, across the Atlantic in the New German Republic she is a cultural icon positively worshiped by the public, with television shows and films depicting her (real and fictional) adventures. Since her actual appearance and age (about 70) are not common knowledge, she is generally portrayed as a gorgeous young woman based on photos taken during her youth which have managed to circulate. She was comically shocked when she secretly visited the NGR and discovered both her enormous fame and the Ms. Fanservice CGI depictions of her.
- Castle Falkenstein: One of the things Tom Olam brings with him to Europa as part of his trans-dimensional jaunt is tabletop roleplaying games. The inhabitants take to it with a will, and the Great Game, as Tom's rules become known, becomes a fixture in every home rich enough to afford pens, paper and cards or dice.
