Ryuutama

[virgil]

So, I'm doing this here, because I appreciate the game design here than in other places.

Ryuutama is a Japanese TTRPG where you play traveling commoners in an anime fantasy setting.

The rules make you care about wearing the right clothing for a long hike. Because you make individual checks each morning and day, the DM has an incentive (explicitly in the book, even) to describe the travel montage specifically to offset the mindless dice rolling.

There's enough support indicating that different towns place different values on goods that being an at least part-time merchant is a good use of your travel for income; thought outright doing quests also works. This doubly emphasizes your character's need to care about their carrying capacity.

The combat system is *there*, but it's so barebones compared to D&D that you're not going to spend a lot of time thinking about it...except that your damage is anywhere from 1d6 to 1d8+1, doesn't increase with level, and monster HP goes from ~12 to 40+. This means that it's comparatively padded sumo, and so if/when combat does happen, you'll be at it for as long as regular D&D combat but with fewer meaningful choices. On this basis, some of the chatter I've seen elsewhere about finding ways to increase damage (or lower monster HP) to speed up combat seems like a good line of thinking.

Other than class abilities, you don't have skills. You just make attribute checks, which range from d4 to d8 each. In theory, you can get some additional differentiation from another player by focusing on gear. But otherwise? There's no rules for stealth, diplomacy (except haggling), investigation, or whatever - you make a straight ability check against a DC or opposed check set by the DM.

So, ultimately, what does Ryuutama have over D&D? Overland travel and inventory management. The DM's ability to frame a narrative is vital, and the setting premise is a near literal railroad. This isn't necessarily bad, but you need to be aware of what you're getting into. Really, what this game needs is more pre-made adventures and scenarios.

The system does spend a notable bit of text mentioning different types of campaigns, with some (but not a lot) amount of rules for promoting said style. This seems like prime splat material - the Red Ryuujin splat would have additional rules for combat, war, etc.

[Schleiermacher]

What are the inventory/carrying capacity rules like?

Are they remotely portable to other games or would they take up too much time and effort to use, since they're so central to Ryuutama?

A good inventory system is sort of a holy grail of dungeon fantasy.

[virgil]

You have a carrying capacity of [Strength + 3], and your Strength is anywhere from 4 to 8. As you level, you can increase your Strength and/or your Carrying Capacity stat directly. All pieces of gear have a Size value, and you suffer a penalty to all actions if [combined Size] > [Carrying Capacity]. There are two caveats on this rule:[*] Weapon + Armor cannot exceed Carrying Capacity[*] Clothes, armor, and items held in your hand (you can only hold one item per hand) does not count toward your Carrying Capacity.

You can further expand your Carrying Capacity by carrying containers. While a container has a Size value, and thus contributes toward your encumbrance, it has its own Carrying Capacity and can thus hold items without adding to your limit. As an example, you can carry a backpack (Size 3), and thus 5 Size worth of items can be stored in it, functionally increasing your Carrying Capacity by 2. Note: you cannot matryoshka containers - sticking a filled backpack (Size 3, Can Hold 5) into a barrel will use up 8 points of the barrel's carrying capacity.

I consider the above rules to be neither revolutionary nor noteworthy. What they are, however, is very present. As you need to care about food, water, trade goods, and backup/conditional/consumable gear; it's remarkably easy to run into your inventory limit, and thus you are made aware of its presence more often than in other games. I'm certain that the fact Ryuutama doesn't have concrete rules for much else helps; when the rules pie isn't cut much, those larger pieces seem bigger.

[erik]

Does the game have Liefeld pouches (Size 0, Can Hold 1)?

I cribbed a similar encumbrance system off of Lamentations of the Flame Princess. About the only thing good about the system, so it probably has its own roots in another game. Didn't have a mechanic for containers tho, so I think I'll poach that idea as well.

[virgil]

Closest thing is a belt pouch (Size 1, Can Hold 2), and you're only allowed to equip one. Another way to expand/maximize storage is to get a pack animal and load it with containers; there's even a class where one of its features is "can manage more pack animals"

[DrPraetor]

This has a devoted community - does that mean people actually play it?

I'd assumed it was just a clever deconstruction of the genre, but seemingly they're serious. The core conceit is that all of the player characters are under some kind of wanderlust geas (something something seasonal dragons), which does support a group storytelling dynamic.

The background is that every person in the setting, at some point in their lives, feels an intense need to go on a long journey. Their family, friends, and co-workers understand, and help them prepare for their journey.

You call that railroady - I call that strong design. It's such strong design that many other aspects of this thing could be a train wreck.

I don't see why you can't give the PCs a map and some "rumors" and let them decide where to go, except that this would be a very challenging game to run. You need to be able to evocatively extemporize a travel-log in some high fantasy land, so you might very well want to steal a gazetteer from some highly evocative setting lacking in systemic depth
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dinotopia
for example.

[virgil]

This has a devoted community - does that mean people actually play it?

Sorta? Lurking, it looks like only a couple play it, the rest just talk about the idea of playing it while also being vitriolic at the idea of people playing D&D.

You call that railroady - I call that strong design.

I will admit that I was dismissive of the strength of the central premise. However, it's railroady because there's a precious lack of rules for doing anything. Even among the actual Ryuutama community, they admit that hex-crawl exploration isn't that good of an idea, leaving you with the structure of "go from point A to point B".

Now, yes, you could certainly extemporize a kind of rural gazetteer of a land for your players to explore, and I'm certain you can get some enjoyment out of that. But you're doing that on your own, because Ryuutama doesn't give you any real tools for this.

[JigokuBosatsu]

Honestly, the little bit I looked at it, Ryuutama seems more like a minigame than a complete RPG.

[OgreBattle]

Interview with Ryuutama creator:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1gNO ... Yx9Vw/edit

He talks about inspirations, travel focused Dragon Quest III, Drizzt in the Underdark, an RPG called Traders!

[Guts]

Interview with Ryuutama creator:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1gNO ... Yx9Vw/edit

He talks about inspirations, travel focused Dragon Quest III, Drizzt in the Underdark, an RPG called Traders!

Cool interview, thanks.

Anyone know the difference between Ryuutama and Chuubo? I hear both are "feel good" games.

[virgil]

Ryuutama is structured with elements of hexcrawl and resource management. Chuubo is more akin to Fate, with mandated narrative checklists.

[shinimasu]

Ryuutama is a game in which you can tell a story.

In Chuubo the story is the game. As in, it has gamified the process of creating a narrative itself. Advancement is tied to setting up and completing character arcs, and the structure of game play reads a lot like the kind of outline you would use when writing a short story.

Unfortunately this means that it's impossible to really get a cliff notes version of the behemoth of a rulebook, since the parts of the rulebook that are story are also partly rules. It's like if you had to read the fluff bits in shadowrun or vampire in order to know how to roll for skills.

Which is a shame, trying out "fiction writing: the game" sounds kind of interesting to me, but I don't have the time or attention span to wade through that brick.