Greetings!

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

The women that play in my game are mostly bloodthirsty and I don't think would take to that. One lives on a farm, the most bloodthirsty, and I don't think she would take to that approach at all. I have to think of my own safety too!

Oh yeah, one of my players literally convinced a noblewoman he rescued to call off her wedding (a political affair meant to secure troops for her city) to be with him, left her in the village they took over thinking he'll be back in acouple of days- it's been months in game (and IRL)... but he understood he was on the hook for the city's safety and to his credit, managed to secure troops to defend it- after about 15% of it was left...

I also have a player with a whole "disgracrd noble with a bastard taking over his house and killing legitimate heirs" problem and it's been TONS of fun. had him attached to a little niece over time- super cozy and adorable. Then, he carved a bloody path through the capital to prevent her kidnapping...


If done right, they can also double as hooks, faction turns and rewards.

As 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.

Several of the C7 Warhammer/WH40k-based games have "Endeavours" that add some crunch to abstract downtime activities. They're not bad if you want to quickly resolve what happens in the days/weeks/months between adventures quickly, but no help if you have players that want to actually play out all that stuff at the table.

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've been incorporating "cozy roleplaying" in to my games over the past year and the best way that I can describe it is that it is small stakes domain management. Instead of a domain of hundreds of thousands of citizens and its complexities, it is a domain of a single household or player character party. As a break from figuring out the Secrets of the Ancients, two crewmen are arguing over putting a poster of Dogs Playing Poker in the common room of the Free Trader (there is some concern over it offending any Vargr who come aboard).

So far, it has been great. The world-shattering heroics have more "oomph" as punctuation to sentences and paragraphs of character interaction with what would be considered everyday life, regardless of whether that is domestic life or the typical drinking and whoring of a sailor's liberty call.

Two thirds of "The One Ring" by Free League is centered around this kind of play, burdened with tons of intrusive mechanics to ensure the "coziest" experience.  It's a key reason I don't like that game despite being a huge Tolkien fan.

A little of that is okay and I do like domain play at higher levels where such interactions become more common, but it's not my preferred style.

I 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.

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.

I'm a big fan of Lloyd Alexander and his Chronicles of Prydain, but doing the kind of heroic journey of self-discovery that Taran Wanderer does may be more fit for one-on-one adventures than the group play that is most common with RPGs.

(I cribbed a lot of those books for my initial B/X D&D games when I was between 12 and 14. Uncle Charlie was an English Lit professor and made sure I had the books.)

It's useful as a contrast to adventures, which can start to seem mundane of there's nothing to compare them to.  It's also useful for getting players emotionally involved in adventures.  Defending a village is one thing.  Defending a village full of your family and friends is quite another.  You just have to be a bit careful with this - constantly threatening everything a character holds dear discourages them from making attachments.

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.

Tone is the key here, any game can be ran as Cozy as long as the stakes and tone are nailed down to start with.  Well...maybe not "ANY" game, but most.  That said, I'm not sure how much sprinkling it into a "standard" campaign would elevate it.  Talking with your players will sort out if there's a desire for this sort of thing, and offering it as a one off "hey you get back to the village and there's a shop front up for sale" style hook would be an easy way to gauge things without totally derailing their quest to slay the epic dragon of death mountain.

Quote from: SHARK on January 06, 2025, 10:46:07 AMIf 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.

All things you can do in the real world. Whats the fun in doing it at the table?

Quote from: Ruprecht on January 06, 2025, 05:39:09 PM

Quote from: SHARK on January 06, 2025, 10:46:07 AMIf 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.

All things you can do in the real world. Whats the fun in doing it at the table?

You're never going to tell me Papers & Paychecks wasn't a highly popular game. Real response: The Sims is one of the best selling computer games of all time, so there are lot of people who DO want to do mundane crap. Maybe it's just Mary Sue stuff, but this bleeds over into RPGs to some degree. Cf Amber has a part of the GM guidelines that talks about this, letting the players see how badass their characters really are so you can sort of goad them into real adventures vs. five hundred years of whoring around.

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.

Greetings!

*Laughing* Yeah! I love that! I almost always keep dangerous situations and developments "ON TAP" to keep the players on their toes. Of course, when I do this, some of the Players lament and cry at me that "Can't we just enjoy some normal happy time now and then?"

I laugh. I indulge them, to a point. I have some players that get twitches in their eyes when too much time goes by and blood isn't being spilled and people or creatures aren't dying horrible deaths in combat. *Laughing*

As the DM, I have to keep these things in balance. As I tell them, "Never forget--you live in a harsh and brutal world. Peace and happiness is attained by few, and is often fleeting."

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Quote from: jeff37923 on January 06, 2025, 12:42:16 PM

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've been incorporating "cozy roleplaying" in to my games over the past year and the best way that I can describe it is that it is small stakes domain management. Instead of a domain of hundreds of thousands of citizens and its complexities, it is a domain of a single household or player character party. As a break from figuring out the Secrets of the Ancients, two crewmen are arguing over putting a poster of Dogs Playing Poker in the common room of the Free Trader (there is some concern over it offending any Vargr who come aboard).

So far, it has been great. The world-shattering heroics have more "oomph" as punctuation to sentences and paragraphs of character interaction with what would be considered everyday life, regardless of whether that is domestic life or the typical drinking and whoring of a sailor's liberty call.

Greetings!

I agree, Jeff! "Cozy Roleplaying" definitely provides I think more depth and scope for the campaign. Deeper relationships between characters, and a kind of "Fabric of Life" that is more measured and normal, providing a good and vivid contrast with the group's normal, blood-soaked activities.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK