Quote from: ForgottenF on January 06, 2025, 04:05:17 PMI think a lot of people have the wrong end of the stick on the whole "cozy" thing, including a lot of the people who write these games. Like you say, the genre seems to be developing in the direction of "roleplaying the things that aren't adventure", whereas I'd rather see it develop in the direction of "a different kind of adventure".

Much as I love Swords and Sorcery, I also enjoy things like Discworld, Chronicles of Narnia, The Hobbit, and The Book of Three: stories that are maybe a bit less grim, fewer conflicts escalate to deadly force, death is rarer (and more impactful as a result), enemies have to be tricked, persuaded or escaped more often than slaughtered, and the challenge is in the journey as much as in the monster to be fought at the end. I look at a game like Ryuutama and think that's what it's meant for, not roleplaying a cabbage farmer trying to woo the buck-toothed milkmaid next door.

It's a unique challenge in RPGs, because hitting that kind of tone essentially requires you to encourage restraint in your players. You have to get them to stop playing like psychopaths, and you have to do it in a way other than by escalating the violence against them as a deterrent. I've had some success in my games, and it mostly comes down to setting the tone through how you portray NPCs. I would be curious to see how that tone could be encouraged through system design, but I don't see many people taking it on. Instead, you get the "barista simulator" school of design, which does not interest me.

Greetings!

Outstanding, ForgottenF! I agree. I think there is a balance somewhere in there between kind of being engrossed in absolutely normal, mundane activities, and getting involved with various activities and dynamics that, while seemingly ordinary, relationship-driven, and socially meaningful to the Players involved, seek to maintain a dynamic scope, goals, and emotional, social, political, and financial consequences.

In my own campaigns, I strive to achieve that balance so that there are plenty of normal things going on, developing relationships, but also different kinds of challenges, goals, and rewards that the Players can obtain. It isn't always an easy task, to be honest. I think it requires a DM to have a deep knowledge of their campaign world, very fine local details at his fingertips, and an organized, and detailed profile of a large number of NPC's for the Players to interact with.

I think this kind of "Changing Gears", at least temporarily, for the campaign, requires far more effort and thoughtfulness from the DM. There has to be a depth of relationships, substance, and drama there, to really get the Players invested and interested.

That dynamic creates a whole tapestry of different kinds of "Adventure Goals", as well as different kinds of challenges, problems, and rewards. It can get deep, and very meaningful, but often, I also think, it takes on a kind of slower pace, punctuated with tension, difficulty, and drama, and which may actually take more than one game session to fully resolve.

I think a key element of that approach is, and you highlighted a problem--NPC's always escalating violence. This, in turn, encourages Players to always be violent psychopaths. *Laughing* A key element then, is to create NPC's that don't resort to life-threatening violence at the drop of a hat. I frequently bake in romantic consequences, emotional stress, and things like oppositional Characters expressing their anger, disapproval, or opposition through other aspects, such as using lawyers, business practices, social intrigue, and political developments. These dimensions can also be very entertaining and absolutely gripping in seizing the Players attention. The Players, for their part, despite how angry they can get--must gradually or swiftly arrive at the conclusion that many problems must be resolved that don't involve a blood-dripping broadsword. The Players must avail themselves of different tools, different resources, to achieve their goals and function successfully in this kind of new campaign dynamic.

"The Journey"

The "Journey" aspect is embraced by some, and certainly exemplified by Tolkien. I think that is very worthwhile, because we experience so much and learn and grow so much precisely through "The Journey" getting to some place, rather than merely reaching the destination point. In our game sessions, I think that adopting this kind of dynamic requires again, a particular "Slowing Down" of the campaign pacing. It requires the DM to yes, have a deep knowledge of the campaign world, of history, mythology, religion, folk ways and practices, as well as nature, and animals, for much of this aspect of the adventure tapestry to have meaning. Honestly, while some DM's are quite capable, I don't think very many are willing to get to this kind of depth, detail, and campaign mastery.

The "Barista Adventure"

This is related to my point above, in "The Journey". I think many of the younger DM's and the trend in more recent adventure modules embraces the whole "Barista Adventure" as a shortcut so that DM's don't have to do all the work I mentioned previously concerning their campaign world. They can just phone in the stupid coffee shop and the "Hot Mess" Barista adventures, everyone can giggle and SQUEE, and the game session can easily be controlled to a session or two, and not demand much more work or effort from the DM.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Quote from: SHARK on January 06, 2025, 07:30:59 PM

Quote from: ForgottenF on January 06, 2025, 04:05:17 PMI think a lot of people have the wrong end of the stick on the whole "cozy" thing, including a lot of the people who write these games. Like you say, the genre seems to be developing in the direction of "roleplaying the things that aren't adventure", whereas I'd rather see it develop in the direction of "a different kind of adventure".

Much as I love Swords and Sorcery, I also enjoy things like Discworld, Chronicles of Narnia, The Hobbit, and The Book of Three: stories that are maybe a bit less grim, fewer conflicts escalate to deadly force, death is rarer (and more impactful as a result), enemies have to be tricked, persuaded or escaped more often than slaughtered, and the challenge is in the journey as much as in the monster to be fought at the end. I look at a game like Ryuutama and think that's what it's meant for, not roleplaying a cabbage farmer trying to woo the buck-toothed milkmaid next door.

It's a unique challenge in RPGs, because hitting that kind of tone essentially requires you to encourage restraint in your players. You have to get them to stop playing like psychopaths, and you have to do it in a way other than by escalating the violence against them as a deterrent. I've had some success in my games, and it mostly comes down to setting the tone through how you portray NPCs. I would be curious to see how that tone could be encouraged through system design, but I don't see many people taking it on. Instead, you get the "barista simulator" school of design, which does not interest me.

Greetings!

Outstanding, ForgottenF! I agree. I think there is a balance somewhere in there between kind of being engrossed in absolutely normal, mundane activities, and getting involved with various activities and dynamics that, while seemingly ordinary, relationship-driven, and socially meaningful to the Players involved, seek to maintain a dynamic scope, goals, and emotional, social, political, and financial consequences.

In my own campaigns, I strive to achieve that balance so that there are plenty of normal things going on, developing relationships, but also different kinds of challenges, goals, and rewards that the Players can obtain. It isn't always an easy task, to be honest. I think it requires a DM to have a deep knowledge of their campaign world, very fine local details at his fingertips, and an organized, and detailed profile of a large number of NPC's for the Players to interact with.

I think this kind of "Changing Gears", at least temporarily, for the campaign, requires far more effort and thoughtfulness from the DM. There has to be a depth of relationships, substance, and drama there, to really get the Players invested and interested.

That dynamic creates a whole tapestry of different kinds of "Adventure Goals", as well as different kinds of challenges, problems, and rewards. It can get deep, and very meaningful, but often, I also think, it takes on a kind of slower pace, punctuated with tension, difficulty, and drama, and which may actually take more than one game session to fully resolve.

I think a key element of that approach is, and you highlighted a problem--NPC's always escalating violence. This, in turn, encourages Players to always be violent psychopaths. *Laughing* A key element then, is to create NPC's that don't resort to life-threatening violence at the drop of a hat. I frequently bake in romantic consequences, emotional stress, and things like oppositional Characters expressing their anger, disapproval, or opposition through other aspects, such as using lawyers, business practices, social intrigue, and political developments. These dimensions can also be very entertaining and absolutely gripping in seizing the Players attention. The Players, for their part, despite how angry they can get--must gradually or swiftly arrive at the conclusion that many problems must be resolved that don't involve a blood-dripping broadsword. The Players must avail themselves of different tools, different resources, to achieve their goals and function successfully in this kind of new campaign dynamic.

"The Journey"

The "Journey" aspect is embraced by some, and certainly exemplified by Tolkien. I think that is very worthwhile, because we experience so much and learn and grow so much precisely through "The Journey" getting to some place, rather than merely reaching the destination point. In our game sessions, I think that adopting this kind of dynamic requires again, a particular "Slowing Down" of the campaign pacing. It requires the DM to yes, have a deep knowledge of the campaign world, of history, mythology, religion, folk ways and practices, as well as nature, and animals, for much of this aspect of the adventure tapestry to have meaning. Honestly, while some DM's are quite capable, I don't think very many are willing to get to this kind of depth, detail, and campaign mastery.

The "Barista Adventure"

This is related to my point above, in "The Journey". I think many of the younger DM's and the trend in more recent adventure modules embraces the whole "Barista Adventure" as a shortcut so that DM's don't have to do all the work I mentioned previously concerning their campaign world. They can just phone in the stupid coffee shop and the "Hot Mess" Barista adventures, everyone can giggle and SQUEE, and the game session can easily be controlled to a session or two, and not demand much more work or effort from the DM.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

I may be having a brain fart here, but a very good balance of adventuring and cozy roleplaying is the standard Traveller Free Trader campaign. The cozy roleplaying happens in the aspect of running a merchant spacer business where you have bills to pay and passengers your crew is stuck with during that week in jump. The adventuring branches off from that when there are unexpected expenses to pay or one of the passengers wants to pay for some help or even the local starport needing to rent the services of a starship. It is all baked together perfectly.

Shouldn't be too hard to apply the same campaign paradigm to fantasy, especially sword & sorcery.

I'm a bit confused here, because the definition of "cozy" RPGs is not what I am normally used to.  It comes from video games (originally):

Quote from: Wikipediaa video game genre that emphasizes non-violence and relaxation. Initially derived from the life simulation genre, cozy games commonly include activities such as gathering and growing plants and nurturing other characters. They often have open-ended goals that encourage self-expression.

So, the downtime activities in most RPGs don't really qualify, at least in my understanding.  I don't see haggling with the magic item dealer or carousing as "nurturing" or "self-expression" (well, depending on the detail in your descriptions of carousing... but I don't want to know).

I think we are giving "cozy games" too much credit when we compare them to downtime.  Cozy games usually avoid conflict and are about feelings and touchy-feely crap.  Just because both might involve buying stuff doesn't mean they are analogous in kind or in import.  Maybe some folks do the whole "no-conflict, no-stress" downtime stuff with their players.  That's not really been my experience...

Quote from: Eirikrautha on January 06, 2025, 10:38:02 PMI'm a bit confused here, because the definition of "cozy" RPGs is not what I am normally used to.  It comes from video games (originally):

Quote from: Wikipediaa video game genre that emphasizes non-violence and relaxation. Initially derived from the life simulation genre, cozy games commonly include activities such as gathering and growing plants and nurturing other characters. They often have open-ended goals that encourage self-expression.

So, the downtime activities in most RPGs don't really qualify, at least in my understanding.  I don't see haggling with the magic item dealer or carousing as "nurturing" or "self-expression" (well, depending on the detail in your descriptions of carousing... but I don't want to know).

I think we are giving "cozy games" too much credit when we compare them to downtime.  Cozy games usually avoid conflict and are about feelings and touchy-feely crap.  Just because both might involve buying stuff doesn't mean they are analogous in kind or in import.  Maybe some folks do the whole "no-conflict, no-stress" downtime stuff with their players.  That's not really been my experience...

In a bit of overlap, some games have luck (or luck-like) stats that get depleted and the 'cozy' downtime activities are used to replenish it. The 2d20 Star Trek Adventures has something like this for refreshing your Values (used with the narrative currency of Determination). Another example is Soulbound where the Doom level (a variable difficulty enhancer that adjusts based upon PC successes and failures) can be lowered a bit through 'cozy' downtime activities.

Quote from: HappyDaze on January 06, 2025, 10:43:53 PM

Quote from: Eirikrautha on January 06, 2025, 10:38:02 PMI'm a bit confused here, because the definition of "cozy" RPGs is not what I am normally used to.  It comes from video games (originally):

Quote from: Wikipediaa video game genre that emphasizes non-violence and relaxation. Initially derived from the life simulation genre, cozy games commonly include activities such as gathering and growing plants and nurturing other characters. They often have open-ended goals that encourage self-expression.

So, the downtime activities in most RPGs don't really qualify, at least in my understanding.  I don't see haggling with the magic item dealer or carousing as "nurturing" or "self-expression" (well, depending on the detail in your descriptions of carousing... but I don't want to know).

I think we are giving "cozy games" too much credit when we compare them to downtime.  Cozy games usually avoid conflict and are about feelings and touchy-feely crap.  Just because both might involve buying stuff doesn't mean they are analogous in kind or in import.  Maybe some folks do the whole "no-conflict, no-stress" downtime stuff with their players.  That's not really been my experience...

In a bit of overlap, some games have luck (or luck-like) stats that get depleted and the 'cozy' downtime activities are used to replenish it. The 2d20 Star Trek Adventures has something like this for refreshing your Values (used with the narrative currency of Determination). Another example is Soulbound where the Doom level (a variable difficulty enhancer that adjusts based upon PC successes and failures) can be lowered a bit through 'cozy' downtime activities.

Based on your examples, I think you are inadvertently making my point...

I also would include it in the downtime-ish activities.
 
We have a text message stream going to plan for games and make Monty Python Jokes and such. The previous session the players went into a city. A day or two before game-day I dropped texts into the stream about history of the city and factions (rather than a big infodump at the start of the game or have them learn about it bit by bit). I made these bits little gifs so they'd stand out from the rest of the stream. They seemed to like that.
The next week I have planned a few more. Last week they were ambushed by a cult, this week one of those bits of info will be someone telling the the cults hide-out location. They can do with that info what they want. I'm not big into investigations, we don't have much time each week and half the group tunes out so I can drop to the chase and let them decide what to do about the info or false info.

So back to the point, if they wanted to do "Cozy" things I'd drop it into the pre-game the same way. Make too many jokes about flirting or bedding the barmaid she may show up pregnant, or suddenly homeless at the place the PCs are staying or she might bring in info as well. Last week they had a meeting with the Lord of the city and one of the players decided to help out a noble from his home city and help the guy get a shipment of cargo unloaded that was blocked because of the Merchant's Guild. This week they'll learn that the Merchants Guild is pissed the Lord of hthee city broke a deal they had, they'll also learn that somehow something was smuggled into the city. They'll figure it came in on the cargo they helped slip through. Cause & effect but also not to far off from the "cozy" we're talking about as it was non-adventure activity the player got involved in for a moment (If I'm understanding the 'cozy' correctly.

Its easier and doesn't put the other players into a coma when done as part of the downtime. Anyway that's my thought, I'm not overly stuck on it though.

in the videogame world "Cozy gaming" is a nice term that emerged to make those that disliked being called "filthy casuals"

Brad nailed it. The Sims has been around forever (I remember when it was "Little Computer People" on the C64). The divide in PCgaming is the same in RPG's.

I don't begrudge anyone playing the games they like. But I'll be damned if filthy casuals want to compare their Fruit Ninja game to me and my Division 1 team in Battlfield 4, and say "Look we're all gamers." Yeah, we game, but we're not the same.

Same is very true in RPG's. I've had a few Fruitninjas in my RPG's... and while they loved to walk around do Fruitninja things... the Realitysamurai came down on them a little too hard on their dainty sensibilities.

The Fruiting of D&D is complete. Points to them. Now let them keep it... Maybe they'll get their Sims gloryhole,  maybe not? Doesn't matter to me, because it's like trying to convince me Sims Battlefield is the same as what I do. It's not. D&D as a brand, now,  is not what D&D is to me. That's fine, I still have and use *all* my Basic, 1e, and 2e material and I'm very cozy with that.

Quote from: tenbones on January 07, 2025, 10:20:10 AMThe Fruiting of D&D is complete. Points to them. Now let them keep it... Maybe they'll get their Sims gloryhole,  maybe not? Doesn't matter to me, because it's like trying to convince me Sims Battlefield is the same as what I do. It's not. D&D as a brand, now,  is not what D&D is to me. That's fine, I still have and use *all* my Basic, 1e, and 2e material and I'm very cozy with that.

This is true. Those who 'Saved D&D' (and even have the t-shirts to prove it) saved it for it all to become what it has. Good job, it became a trainwreck. Was it worth saving with all that we have from before?

I love cozy. But I like it more as a change up to adventure tempo, often in a campaign. It's that break from the adrenaline, that return to safety, that allows the cycle of tension and mystery to recharge for the future.

I can perfectly well do cozy all the time, but just like Hardcore Xtreme Adventure , it's a flavor that works best with added content with which to contrast.

Quote from: SHARK on January 06, 2025, 10:46:07 AMGreetings!

If I understand the whole "Cozy Roleplaying" thing right, it is running the campaign with an emphasis on romance, farming, running a business, exploring, making friends and socializing.

So, that all seems like *Downtime* activities to me. I get that some people can run an entire campaign where the "Cozy Roleplaying" is not downtime activities at all--but the main focus. Dungeon raiding, fighting and plundering, *ALL THAT* is kind of reversed and is the "Downtime" *Laughing* I have several women gamers that could easily embrace that style of play. Most of the men, however, would not in my experience.

Still though, having said that, even the men players in my groups enjoy "Cozy Roleplaying" now and then, as Downtime. It is definitely meaningful, useful, and even essential.

Have I got this "Cozy Roleplaying" thing down wrong? What do you all think about it?

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

(I had this real scathing tirade on the subject and accidentally closed the browser before posting, now it's gone into the void. shit. oh well..)

Long story short: Cozy Roleplaying is the effect the woke crowd has upon the industry. they've reversed the whole adventuring dynamic where romance, farming, running a business, SAFE exploring, making friends and socializing is the primary driving force of the campaign. There is no hero's journey. No combat/conflict. Those things are triggering and problematic. It's all about going to the bazaar in town, for endless game sessions, and making shopping a big fucking deal. It's about spending an entire session having your PC get the awesome, super, meat pie recipe right for the meat pie competition. All of the combat and going into dungeons is icky and triggering. They've turned D&D into the joke cartoon in the original PHB: Papers & Paychecks.

Quote from: tenbones on January 06, 2025, 12:17:51 PMAs indicated in your S&S thread, since most of my games are very S&S foundationally, survival is a big deal. Even for civilized characters. So after bloodcurdling adventuring in the world outside of civilization, Downtime activities are a massive tonal shift and respite from the shit their PC's have been dealing with are a welcome.

My players don't do "Cozy playing", so much as they're in town, to get some relief from the wild shit they've been subjected to. But then invariably large city-centers are places where that "wild shit" festers in the dark dank corners so they generally know to play stupid unless one or more of them go poking around. They do the "Cozy thing" simply to get a gulp of air, handle roleplaying business (we tend to deal with a lot of politics and skullduggery), so it's never *quite* Cozy at all.

Drinking, partying, whoreing, gambling, - yeah they do all that stuff. But even then, they all know it takes very little to go sideways. They're always looking over their shoulder. So while it might appear "Cozy" it rarely actually is.

100% YES!!

I used to like this, but I've seen it derail a campaign, so now I prefer to keep it to Downtime and keep a strong focus on adventure.

Edit: It really depends on the players. I've run some fairly detailed romance plots over the years that could qualify as Cosy RP. My love interest NPCs can be awesome. But sometimes you have to say goodbye to your True Love, go out there and face the Dragon/Heldannic Warbird with Disintegrator Cannon/Colombian Drug Lord Security Detail. And sometimes you don't come home.

Quote from: SHARK on January 06, 2025, 07:30:59 PMGreetings!

Outstanding, ForgottenF! I agree. I think there is a balance somewhere in there between kind of being engrossed in absolutely normal, mundane activities, and getting involved with various activities and dynamics that, while seemingly ordinary, relationship-driven, and socially meaningful to the Players involved, seek to maintain a dynamic scope, goals, and emotional, social, political, and financial consequences.

In my own campaigns, I strive to achieve that balance so that there are plenty of normal things going on, developing relationships, but also different kinds of challenges, goals, and rewards that the Players can obtain. It isn't always an easy task, to be honest. I think it requires a DM to have a deep knowledge of their campaign world, very fine local details at his fingertips, and an organized, and detailed profile of a large number of NPC's for the Players to interact with.

I think this kind of "Changing Gears", at least temporarily, for the campaign, requires far more effort and thoughtfulness from the DM. There has to be a depth of relationships, substance, and drama there, to really get the Players invested and interested.

Yeah, "downtime" is something I've struggled with in my last couple of campaigns. I don't really like the term, because it implies a separate mode from normal gameplay, where the players aren't doing anything significant. It really should just be time sent in relative safety and civilization. Possibly a lack of that detailed preparation is to blame. Dolmenwood was an interesting product to run in that respect, since the writers do provide a lot of detail to the occupants of the towns, and I was able to leverage that for some memorable sessions. But I think the bigger problem has been failing to give my players good enough reasons to take a break from adventuring. I'll have to do a lot of thinking on it for my next long campaign.

Quote from: SHARK on January 06, 2025, 07:30:59 PMthink a key element of that approach is, and you highlighted a problem--NPC's always escalating violence. This, in turn, encourages Players to always be violent psychopaths. *Laughing* A key element then, is to create NPC's that don't resort to life-threatening violence at the drop of a hat. I frequently bake in romantic consequences, emotional stress, and things like oppositional Characters expressing their anger, disapproval, or opposition through other aspects, such as using lawyers, business practices, social intrigue, and political developments. These dimensions can also be very entertaining and absolutely gripping in seizing the Players attention. The Players, for their part, despite how angry they can get--must gradually or swiftly arrive at the conclusion that many problems must be resolved that don't involve a blood-dripping broadsword. The Players must avail themselves of different tools, different resources, to achieve their goals and function successfully in this kind of new campaign dynamic.

I apologize if I've made basically this same post before (it's easy to forget), but for me it's partially just a question of immersion/plausibility. Sapient creatures generally don't want to die, and initiating a conflict with deadly weapons always presents a risk of getting yourself killed, especially if the opposition is a party of belligerent PCs. An approach I find useful is to consider whether your NPCs are outmatched, and if so, would they know that? If they know or suspect they're outmatched, they should act accordingly. There are reasons why someone might choose to fight even if they're unlikely to win, but even then they'll approach the conflict differently. There's nothing like an NPC who apparently expects to die and is prepared to fight anyway to get your players doing the "Are we the baddies?" meme. Of course the flip side of that is that if your players are used to evenly matched opponents being reluctant to fight, they're going to get really concerned when an NPC is confident about beating them.

Quote from: SHARK on January 06, 2025, 07:30:59 PM"The Journey"

The "Journey" aspect is embraced by some, and certainly exemplified by Tolkien. I think that is very worthwhile, because we experience so much and learn and grow so much precisely through "The Journey" getting to some place, rather than merely reaching the destination point. In our game sessions, I think that adopting this kind of dynamic requires again, a particular "Slowing Down" of the campaign pacing. It requires the DM to yes, have a deep knowledge of the campaign world, of history, mythology, religion, folk ways and practices, as well as nature, and animals, for much of this aspect of the adventure tapestry to have meaning. Honestly, while some DM's are quite capable, I don't think very many are willing to get to this kind of depth, detail, and campaign mastery.

It's a tough narration challenge, too. Tolkien can make walking across a clearing engaging because his prose is so good. I've played with DMs who try to make it travel a key part of the campaign, and then run it as "You go through hex 1013. It takes 2 days. Roll for random encounters". A little bit of artfulness in your narration can go a long way in keeping your players awake while they traipse through the marshes, so long as you don't lapse into purple prose and bore them back to sleep. Another thing I'd like to work on for future games is marrying the color commentary to something that gives the players some actual interactivity. Tough goal, though. There's only so many times you can say "do you want to walk along the ridge line or climb down into the dell?"

Quote from: SHARK on January 06, 2025, 07:30:59 PMThe "Barista Adventure"

This is related to my point above, in "The Journey". I think many of the younger DM's and the trend in more recent adventure modules embraces the whole "Barista Adventure" as a shortcut so that DM's don't have to do all the work I mentioned previously concerning their campaign world. They can just phone in the stupid coffee shop and the "Hot Mess" Barista adventures, everyone can giggle and SQUEE, and the game session can easily be controlled to a session or two, and not demand much more work or effort from the DM.

Laziness could be a factor. Another potential cause are the nu-school gamers reacting against a made-up strawman of the old school as a bunch of bloodthirsty chuds. This is a depressing thought, but could easily be true: Maybe young people are so disaffected and live in such a nightmarish cosmopolitan ennui that the idea of a simple life, where people are decent to each other and have a semblance of community, genuinely represents an unattainable fantasy to them.

Nah, it's not just the Sims. At least one major thread of cozy computer games that feels TTRPG-adjacent is the whole Stardew Valley / Rune Factory / My Life In Portia / Little-Known Galaxy category of games: you have a farm to make money, and there's a village nearby where you're making friends & romantic partners, but you also have to go delving in the wilderness & dungeons nearby killing things in order to gather resources & advance the plot. You cannot win without fighting your way to the bottom of the dungeon.

I have no interest in running something on the story-gaming side of things, but if I wanted to go cozy at my table it'd be some combination of Beyond the Wall with village-defense-and-growth games like https://tesladyne.itch.io/home-an-rpg-sandbox-toolkit. Here's your village, there's a threat out there, the campaign is about building up your village over the next several years until it's strong enough to survive, then it ends. Lots of opportunities for slice-of-life when you want it in your downtime, but still fundamentally a challenge-based game; understanding at the start that there are going to be threats to your family but they'll be "fair", and that you'll focus the game on the village and not up sticks and move to the megalopolis / empire.

(Home itself has some oddities with scale/passage of time that require a lot of suspension disbelief, and although the example setting "Yaloon" claims to have been written using Home, it breaks _so many_ of the conventions it suggests the author realised that their toolkit doesn't work but didn't want to admit it.)

Cozy/Anti-Cozy would be the old RuneQuest campaign about being settlers on the edge of Dorastor - your party is homesteading much like in those computer games, but on the EDGE OF CHAOS, so you're probably going to die. I wonder if you could have Ars Magica magi who were grounded enough to make a Cozy Covenant?

Quote from: Naburimannu on January 08, 2025, 03:59:17 AMNah, it's not just the Sims. At least one major thread of cozy computer games that feels TTRPG-adjacent is the whole Stardew Valley / Rune Factory / My Life In Portia / Little-Known Galaxy category of games: you have a farm to make money, and there's a village nearby where you're making friends & romantic partners, but you also have to go delving in the wilderness & dungeons nearby killing things in order to gather resources & advance the plot. You cannot win without fighting your way to the bottom of the dungeon.

The casualization sells more games because people are stupid or can't bother to learn the game mechanics. Atelier games have deadlines in them so you need to manage your ingame time well and have an overall plan. This means you can't play them as a "my little dream alchemist shop" and it hasn't been as popular as other simulation games despite being a well established franchise. AFAIK, none of the popular farming simulation games have strict time limits and fail conditions. You might miss a yearly event but there is always next year. You might waste a day (get sick) and have your crops die but there are always activities like fishing or dungeon delving that doesn't require you to prep and daily manage in your farm.

I like sims 1 because despite the weird hijinks of a you can have in it, it has some tight management requirements and you can end up with unhappy/dead sims if you aren't careful. Sims4 on the other hand is an utter trash in terms of gameplay and most people use it to just make families and build houses. Which is the main reason why people play these games (and why Minecraft became so popular): They let you do something that would require hard work and/or knowledge of special software with very little knowledge of them. You need to know 3D modelling, texturing, rendering etc. to make your dream house on a computer. Or you can play a cozy game and do it in game.

Back to the RPGs,

I think a "cozy game" is possible as a campaign, but it needs some high stakes thing going on in the background. I have played one such campaign in D&D. We spent 90% of our time exploring a city and talking with npcs, even planned a party and one player had in game flirt/girlfriend. But we weren't normal adventurers, we were ambassadors from an empire and the city was ruled by intelligent undead. Our main goal was gathering intel and establish ourselves as people/nation the rulers of the city can side with. As fun as our tea parties were, there was always the fear of a high level necromancy crisis happening if shit goes down.

If there is no high stake thing going on, then I don't think its a good idea to run them anything other than a one-shot. Even then, a cute low-stake boardgame might be a more fun experience to spend your time on for the cozy feelings.