The term "cozy game" has been floating around in the videogame world for a while now, to describe stuff like Harvest Moon or Animal Crossing: low stakes games which people play more to relax than to challenge themselves.
Meanwhile, I've sometimes used the term "cozy fantasy" to describe things like The Hobbit, Chronicles of Narnia, The Book of Three, Redwall, etc.: heroic fantasy stories where the scale/stakes are a bit lower, violence is a bit less of a foregone conclusion, and the atmosphere is a bit more quaint and homey than your standard fantasy adventure. I quite like this sort of thing, and I've wondered before if it's doable in a roleplaying game.
Just in the last week or so, I've seen a few people (on this forum and elsewhere) refer to "Cozy RPGs" as if it's a movement or recognized style of game. Never heard of this until recently. Is this something that's popped up on other people's radar? Is there particular game that made this a trend? Is it related to what I term "cozy fantasy", or is it a whole different thing?
I do this for kids.
Ryuutama I think might qualify.
Quote from: ForgottenF on February 04, 2024, 06:40:05 PM
The term "cozy game" has been floating around in the videogame world for a while now, to describe stuff like Harvest Moon or Animal Crossing: low stakes games which people play more to relax than to challenge themselves.
You mean Chick games. A percentage of dudes enjoy them too, but they're Chick games.
The majority of female video gamers (#NotAll) don't like games that are overly competitive, frustrating, difficult, or that have a likelihood of dying (or even the ability to die.) They like puzzles, stories, safe exploration, tending resources and acquiring cosmetics.
Golden Sky Stories does it pretty well.
(https://i.imgur.com/c1JUPp0.jpeg)
I can see a video game like this. Sometimes you just want to shut off the brain and just craft, solve puzzles, manage resources...etc. And like Grognard GM mentioned, it caters to girls and women. And soy boys. They seem to like it too.
But not for a tabletop roleplay. It sounds pretty tedious at a table.
Quote from: Grognard GM on February 04, 2024, 09:10:41 PM
Quote from: ForgottenF on February 04, 2024, 06:40:05 PM
The term "cozy game" has been floating around in the videogame world for a while now, to describe stuff like Harvest Moon or Animal Crossing: low stakes games which people play more to relax than to challenge themselves.
You mean Chick games. A percentage of dudes enjoy them too, but they're Chick games.
The majority of female video gamers (#NotAll) don't like games that are overly competitive, frustrating, difficult, or that have a likelihood of dying (or even the ability to die.) They like puzzles, stories, safe exploration, tending resources and acquiring cosmetics.
Greetings!
*Laughing*! Very true, Grognard GM!
I haven't called game sessions precisely "Cosy Games"--but I have described where in my campaign, the wife, and other women gamers playing in the campaigns--are especially fond of this kind of stuff in the RPG campaign. Roleplaying, making friends, pursuing romance, attending masquerade balls, going to parties at dance clubs, going *shopping", engaging in culture lore, and dealing with resource management, as well as jumping into social and romantic drama involving their circles of friends, as well as family members, henchmen, hirelings, and so on.
The women can do all this kind of stuff for *hours and hours*. With no combat whatsoever, no danger involved, and everything being social and fun. They LOVE THIS.
As the DM, I have even now in my campaigns, indulge the women for an episode or two, to let them do their feminine stuff. It is entertaining, and fun--to a point. At that line, for myself, I've had enough, and it becomes time for blood and steel. *Laughing* The men players, yeah, when dealing with the women, they have kind of recognized that this is an element that is especially appealing to the women, and important for them. So, yeah, we have embraced it for a bit for regular, periodic episodes. Most of the time, though, yeah, creatures are dying and blood is flying. *Laughing*
Semper Fidelis,
SHARK
After reading the replies, I think Ryuutama indeed fits the bill. As far as I can remember, the game is about living a story and then feeding it to some kind of a dragon. I guess it's got its own market, albeit quite niche.
:o OOOooooOOOOH! 8) Shopping excursions! Escapades! Quirky Misunderstanding! Goose Chases! Holiday Retreats! Culinary Getaways! Spa Days! Hijinks & Shenanigans! Mysteries + [Insert Craft & Hobby here] :D Yay!
:) Those are such nice vacations from the same old, same old "one man (or squad) kills everybody! >:( Hell yeah!"
It's doable in just about every RPG game, if you want it! :D I mean, look at "Courage the Cowardly Dog" and how it starts in bucolic cartoon farm life. You can make any RPG have interludes of cozy rainy days, snuggled in a blankie, cradling a big mug of pumpkin spiced hot cocoa! :-* Mmm, rainy day hot cocoa...
It sounds like "cozy rpgs" would be ideal for people who are easily triggered.
Ryuutama is an odd one. The GM is represented by a kind of character called a ryujin in the game. Each kind of ryujin wants a different kind of story and they have various powers to push the story in the direction they want. The tone of the game depends greatly on which kind of ryujin the GM is using. The basic green Ryujin tilts the game toward that cozy rpg vibe though the journey system can be surprisingly punishing. The red or black ryujin produce an entirely different sort of vibe.
Sounds like the tame version of a beer and pretzels version of an RPG.
A game simple to pick up and play and you don't care if your PC dies (after all most board games have a loser and people expect that). Except the Cozy version is nerfed so you don't die, at least not until you agree that would be okay for the story and you can start up a new character with all the old ones hard-earned possessions and memories.
I think the closest I get to that is something like the Persona video games. Half of the game is your usual dungeon crawling, turn-based combat. The other half is a slice of life, school days kind of game where your biggest concern is trying to hang out with your friends.
Otherwise I don't think I'd really be interested in something like that personally. Even in games like Minecraft, I like having monsters on and working towards a goal and struggling to get there. I can't imagine playing something without combat or difficulty.
I do Cozy Grimdark.
The inns are warm and inviting, I go to great lengths describing the food and drink and decor. The NPC's all have these fun innocuous "problems" that can be roleplayed through, some with cross-wired agendas that can lead to hilariously fun hijinks.
then the cute Chibi-zombies smash in the door and eat everyone in slow-motion, as the inn catches fire.
Quote from: Tod13 on February 04, 2024, 08:25:02 PM
Ryuutama I think might qualify.
I remember backing the Kickstarter for this purely for the die mechanic. It's an interesting game but I ended up thinking, "WTF would I ever do with this?" Now my kids are getting older, I think it'd be a decent style of game to play with them, although my daughter is reading The Hobbit and likes Mentzer D&D, so maybe not.
It's a form of game play that appeals to teen and preteen girls.
I would argue that running a cozy game for a group of girls is a good idea for a GM looking to up their game. I had to come up with encounters and events that were interesting and challenging without leaning on throwing monsters at the party. Villains needed to be run as long standing NPCs. I did races, treasure hunts, mysteries, and all sorts of social encounters. While I found it to be a little stifling in a way, I think I learned a lot about how to mix it up and run batter games.
Quote from: BadApple on February 05, 2024, 11:21:38 AM
It's a form of game play that appeals to teen and preteen girls.
I would argue that running a cozy game for a group of girls is a good idea for a GM looking to up their game. I had to come up with encounters and events that were interesting and challenging without leaning on throwing monsters at the party. Villains needed to be run as long standing NPCs. I did races, treasure hunts, mysteries, and all sorts of social encounters. While I found it to be a little stifling in a way, I think I learned a lot about how to mix it up and run batter games.
The reason I said this works well with video games is because social encounters tend to become romance encounters for women. At least that's what I experienced. Romance works great in video games because it's self contained. At a table, it can lead to one person monopolizing the time to advance their personal agenda.
If it remains casual and fairly simple, yeah it can work for a limited time. But like real life, once the players form cliques and develop social circles, drama tends to follow. But everyone's mileage may vary.
Quote from: Silverblade on February 05, 2024, 11:45:35 AM
Quote from: BadApple on February 05, 2024, 11:21:38 AM
It's a form of game play that appeals to teen and preteen girls.
I would argue that running a cozy game for a group of girls is a good idea for a GM looking to up their game. I had to come up with encounters and events that were interesting and challenging without leaning on throwing monsters at the party. Villains needed to be run as long standing NPCs. I did races, treasure hunts, mysteries, and all sorts of social encounters. While I found it to be a little stifling in a way, I think I learned a lot about how to mix it up and run batter games.
The reason I said this works well with video games is because social encounters tend to become romance encounters for women. At least that's what I experienced. Romance works great in video games because it's self contained. At a table, it can lead to one person monopolizing the time to advance their personal agenda.
If it remains casual and fairly simple, yeah it can work for a limited time. But like real life, once the players form cliques and develop social circles, drama tends to follow. But everyone's mileage may vary.
That's because men and women have different power fantasies.
Look at comics and games since women took over. They said no more muscle men kicking ass and scoring with chicks, because it was just appealing to the male power fantasy.
Then they made all the main characters incredibly average women, that everyone inexplicably loves and constantly validate. Female power fantasy.
Quote from: Silverblade on February 05, 2024, 11:45:35 AM
Quote from: BadApple on February 05, 2024, 11:21:38 AM
It's a form of game play that appeals to teen and preteen girls.
I would argue that running a cozy game for a group of girls is a good idea for a GM looking to up their game. I had to come up with encounters and events that were interesting and challenging without leaning on throwing monsters at the party. Villains needed to be run as long standing NPCs. I did races, treasure hunts, mysteries, and all sorts of social encounters. While I found it to be a little stifling in a way, I think I learned a lot about how to mix it up and run batter games.
The reason I said this works well with video games is because social encounters tend to become romance encounters for women. At least that's what I experienced. Romance works great in video games because it's self contained. At a table, it can lead to one person monopolizing the time to advance their personal agenda.
If it remains casual and fairly simple, yeah it can work for a limited time. But like real life, once the players form cliques and develop social circles, drama tends to follow. But everyone's mileage may vary.
I watched a lot of Rainbow Bright, Strawberry Shortcake, My Little Pony, and later Winx Club due to the girls in my life. I was able to draw from these stories to GM for girls.
Yes, there was a lot of forming cliques and dealing with drama. A lot of my effort was about tempering that and keeping the party a team. One of my biggest tools was having a NPC start drama with a PC in a way that the other PC needed to help and sort it out.
This is not my favorite form of gaming. I did it because I love my daughter and wanted to do something fun for her. In the end, I found ways to make it fun for me and to to keep things fresh and moving forward.
Quote from: tenbones on February 05, 2024, 10:00:27 AM
I do Cozy Grimdark.
The inns are warm and inviting, I go to great lengths describing the food and drink and decor. The NPC's all have these fun innocuous "problems" that can be roleplayed through, some with cross-wired agendas that can lead to hilariously fun hijinks.
then the cute Chibi-zombies smash in the door and eat everyone in slow-motion, as the inn catches fire.
That's sorta how I tend to run games. The towns where the PCs frequent are safe and inviting, and the people are (mostly) welcoming. Once they step outside the town, however, it gets dangerous and uninviting.
Cozy games sound like a great way to introduce your normie girlfriend to roleplaying games.
Quote from: BadApple on February 05, 2024, 11:21:38 AM
It's a form of game play that appeals to teen and preteen girls.
I would argue that running a cozy game for a group of girls is a good idea for a GM looking to up their game. I had to come up with encounters and events that were interesting and challenging without leaning on throwing monsters at the party. Villains needed to be run as long standing NPCs. I did races, treasure hunts, mysteries, and all sorts of social encounters. While I found it to be a little stifling in a way, I think I learned a lot about how to mix it up and run batter games.
Greetings!
Indeed, Badapple. In my own campaigns, playing with younger girls, though mostly also adult women, has been a good experience. Cultivating the DM skills to incorporate "Cosy Roleplaying" has certainly made me a more flexible, detailed, and creative DM. It broadens the DM's skills and abilities in running a kind of multi-dimensional campaign.
I definitely appreciate my men gamers that play with me, as I can trust them to resist the women flooding the campaign with too much estrogen. *Laughing*
Running games for kids though can be so much fun, too. I think kids--both boys and girls--demand a different kind of game from playing with adults that is refreshing. While obviously I change the campaign rating for kids--the pre-teens and teens I have gamed with, honestly, in many ways, are superior gamers than many adults in the hobby. Kids are often 110% devoted to the campaign, full of wonder, creativity, and craziness, while also being entirely unconcerned with 75% of the issues that adult gamers bitch about.
Semper Fidelis,
SHARK
Semper Fidelis,
SHARK
Quote from: 1stLevelWizard on February 05, 2024, 12:03:37 PM
That's sorta how I tend to run games. The towns where the PCs frequent are safe and inviting, and the people are (mostly) welcoming. Once they step outside the town, however, it gets dangerous and uninviting.
That's pretty much how Ryuutama plays though. The travel rules can be surprisingly punishing especially when you add in weather. There's a death spiral of sorts in there. The Ryujin make a big difference in how the game works as well.
What's more, there are four types of Ryuujin: Green, Blue, Red, and Black. The Ryuujin's color determines the kind of stories that the campaign will be focused on:
– Green dragon stories focus on classical adventure, journeys, travel, new experiences. This is the "default" dragon.
– Blue dragon stories focus on friendship, love, family, and particularly feelgood human dramas. This is the second-most-common dragon used for Ryuutama stories.
– Red dragon stories focus on competition, adventure, war, monster hunting and dungeon exploring.
– Black dragon stories focus on suspense, conspiracy, betrayal, disorder, and tragedy.
Red dragon stories aren't that different from regular D&D adventuring fare.
I think this is the major dividing line with these cozy games. The good ones like Rytuuama or Golden Sky Stories invoke that cozy feeling while still including conflict with real stakes and adversity the PCs must overcome. The stories in Golden Sky Stories are small scale and have small stakes but the stakes and problems are still there. Every story with someone who has a problem that they need the PCs help to overcome. The bad ones like Wanderhome try to invoke that cozy feeling but forget to include the other stuff. Everything is fine. There are no problems. Everyone is nice. The player can say, "No" to any outcome they don't like. Nothing ever goes wrong in any significant way. It renders the entire thing a tedious, pointless improv exercise.
Quote from: yosemitemike on February 05, 2024, 07:32:55 PM
Quote from: 1stLevelWizard on February 05, 2024, 12:03:37 PM
That's sorta how I tend to run games. The towns where the PCs frequent are safe and inviting, and the people are (mostly) welcoming. Once they step outside the town, however, it gets dangerous and uninviting.
That's pretty much how Ryuutama plays though. The travel rules can be surprisingly punishing especially when you add in weather. There's a death spiral of sorts in there. The Ryujin make a big difference in how the game works as well.
What's more, there are four types of Ryuujin: Green, Blue, Red, and Black. The Ryuujin's color determines the kind of stories that the campaign will be focused on:
– Green dragon stories focus on classical adventure, journeys, travel, new experiences. This is the "default" dragon.
– Blue dragon stories focus on friendship, love, family, and particularly feelgood human dramas. This is the second-most-common dragon used for Ryuutama stories.
– Red dragon stories focus on competition, adventure, war, monster hunting and dungeon exploring.
– Black dragon stories focus on suspense, conspiracy, betrayal, disorder, and tragedy.
Red dragon stories aren't that different from regular D&D adventuring fare.
I think this is the major dividing line with these cozy games. The good ones like Rytuuama or Golden Sky Stories invoke that cozy feeling while still including conflict with real stakes and adversity the PCs must overcome. The stories in Golden Sky Stories are small scale and have small stakes but the stakes and problems are still there. Every story with someone who has a problem that they need the PCs help to overcome. The bad ones like Wanderhome try to invoke that cozy feeling but forget to include the other stuff. Everything is fine. There are no problems. Everyone is nice. The player can say, "No" to any outcome they don't like. Nothing ever goes wrong in any significant way. It renders the entire thing a tedious, pointless improv exercise.
See the first one, Ryuujin, sounds neat, but the other ones you mentioned sound boring. I'd want some sort of conflict to keep the game tense, with downtime to pad it out. That's why I never really got behind the thespian style games that eschew dice and random outcomes. Ultimately, to me, it is a game and you should be able to lose. I wanna roll some dice and feel like my actions have real outcomes, good and bad.
Quote from: SHARK on February 05, 2024, 06:57:21 PM
Quote from: BadApple on February 05, 2024, 11:21:38 AM
It's a form of game play that appeals to teen and preteen girls.
I would argue that running a cozy game for a group of girls is a good idea for a GM looking to up their game. I had to come up with encounters and events that were interesting and challenging without leaning on throwing monsters at the party. Villains needed to be run as long standing NPCs. I did races, treasure hunts, mysteries, and all sorts of social encounters. While I found it to be a little stifling in a way, I think I learned a lot about how to mix it up and run batter games.
Greetings!
Indeed, Badapple. In my own campaigns, playing with younger girls, though mostly also adult women, has been a good experience. Cultivating the DM skills to incorporate "Cosy Roleplaying" has certainly made me a more flexible, detailed, and creative DM. It broadens the DM's skills and abilities in running a kind of multi-dimensional campaign.
I definitely appreciate my men gamers that play with me, as I can trust them to resist the women flooding the campaign with too much estrogen. *Laughing*
Running games for kids though can be so much fun, too. I think kids--both boys and girls--demand a different kind of game from playing with adults that is refreshing. While obviously I change the campaign rating for kids--the pre-teens and teens I have gamed with, honestly, in many ways, are superior gamers than many adults in the hobby. Kids are often 110% devoted to the campaign, full of wonder, creativity, and craziness, while also being entirely unconcerned with 75% of the issues that adult gamers bitch about.
Semper Fidelis,
SHARK
Semper Fidelis,
SHARK
Any GM that hasn't had the pleasure of running a high heroic campaign for a bunch of 10yo boys hasn't lived. You tell them that they are going to slay dragons and save princesses and they will show up with plastic swords, bed sheet capes, and dinosaur toys ready for the game. They are 153% in with no hesitation. I get to ham it up and the boys go bananas. I also find that boys really do want a more challenging world where they can put it all on the line. I also learned that I don't need to simplify everything into black and white for them as they love to explore morally grey problems and contrasting ethics codes.
For girls, It's less about running a game than it is allowing girls to feel out difficult personal interactions. The fun for me is in seeing the girls grow up. It's more work though and I need to be extra careful in keeping the moral codes in game very consistent. Oddly, that seems to be the point for them as they discover who they are against a constant.
Mixed gender adult tables are the hardest for me as everyone has completely different desires for an experience and everyone won't talk about it at the table. It's a series of one on one conversations after sessions and I feel like I'm a referee for an emotional cage match.
Quote from: BadApple on February 05, 2024, 11:21:38 AM
It's a form of game play that appeals to teen and preteen girls.
I would argue that running a cozy game for a group of girls is a good idea for a GM looking to up their game. I had to come up with encounters and events that were interesting and challenging without leaning on throwing monsters at the party. Villains needed to be run as long standing NPCs. I did races, treasure hunts, mysteries, and all sorts of social encounters. While I found it to be a little stifling in a way, I think I learned a lot about how to mix it up and run batter games.
I did find it sad that several people seemed to equate fights with challenging. And that there was no other way to challenge the players. Our favorite parts in it are not the fights -- but all come from the other stuff in the game. We can go several sessions without a fight.
Quote from: Tod13 on February 05, 2024, 09:05:05 PM
Quote from: BadApple on February 05, 2024, 11:21:38 AM
It's a form of game play that appeals to teen and preteen girls.
I would argue that running a cozy game for a group of girls is a good idea for a GM looking to up their game. I had to come up with encounters and events that were interesting and challenging without leaning on throwing monsters at the party. Villains needed to be run as long standing NPCs. I did races, treasure hunts, mysteries, and all sorts of social encounters. While I found it to be a little stifling in a way, I think I learned a lot about how to mix it up and run batter games.
I did find it sad that several people seemed to equate fights with challenging. And that there was no other way to challenge the players. Our favorite parts in it are not the fights -- but all come from the other stuff in the game. We can go several sessions without a fight.
Yep, like I said, running for girls re-tuned how I saw gaming and made me a better GM for it.
Quote from: 1stLevelWizard on February 05, 2024, 07:45:36 PM
See the first one, Ryuujin, sounds neat, but the other ones you mentioned sound boring. I'd want some sort of conflict to keep the game tense, with downtime to pad it out. That's why I never really got behind the thespian style games that eschew dice and random outcomes. Ultimately, to me, it is a game and you should be able to lose. I wanna roll some dice and feel like my actions have real outcomes, good and bad.
Golden Sky Stories doesn't have combat but it does have conflict in it. It's just low key. It's more helping the kindly old lady find her lost cat than life and death battles. Ryo Kamiya is an eccentric character who writes eccentric games. This is one of his least eccentric games.
Back in my day a cozy rpg was one you played sitting on the living room floor in front of a fireplace with a cheery fire crackling-while you killed things and stole their shit.
Quote from: Exploderwizard on February 05, 2024, 09:41:32 PM
Back in my day a cozy rpg was one you played sitting on the living room floor in front of a fireplace with a cheery fire crackling-while you killed things and stole their shit.
Hell yeah!
I can name at least a dozen "cozy" RPGs off the top of my head. The term is a bit of a neologism, but the design pattern has been around for some time. You've all just never heard of them because they're not D&D clones.
Ok, so it looks like "cozy roleplaying games" are at least a little bit of a subgenre. I did not anticipate it being so much a Japanese thing, but in retrospect I probably should have.
Quote from: Grognard GM on February 04, 2024, 09:10:41 PM
Quote from: ForgottenF on February 04, 2024, 06:40:05 PM
The term "cozy game" has been floating around in the videogame world for a while now, to describe stuff like Harvest Moon or Animal Crossing...
You mean Chick games. A percentage of dudes enjoy them too, but they're Chick games.
The majority of female video gamers (#NotAll) don't like games that are overly competitive, frustrating, difficult, or that have a likelihood of dying (or even the ability to die.) They like puzzles, stories, safe exploration, tending resources and acquiring cosmetics.
I don't know much about Animal Crossing, but yeah, the impression I get is that it's largely a girls' game. I wasn't really into games when Harvest Moon came out, but based on what I've seen of other farming sims, I suspect it might actually be a male-dominated audience. That's down to the whole planning/building/routine element, which tends to be more of a guy thing.
Quote from: Tod13 on February 05, 2024, 09:05:05 PM
I did find it sad that several people seemed to equate fights with challenging. And that there was no other way to challenge the players. Our favorite parts in it are not the fights -- but all come from the other stuff in the game. We can go several sessions without a fight.
For me, combat tends to be one of the less satisfying challenges you can face in tabletop games (relative to dungeoneering, puzzles, intrigue, negotiation, mysteries, etc). I'm not going to claim there's no skill to TTRPG combat, but it's too random and arbitrary for me to care all that much about winning or losing. It is, however, the easiest way to challenge players. Part of the appeal of running a lower-violence game is that it forces the DM to be a lot more creative with scenarios.
Quote from: yosemitemike on February 05, 2024, 07:32:55 PM
That's pretty much how Ryuutama plays though. The travel rules can be surprisingly punishing especially when you add in weather. There's a death spiral of sorts in there. The Ryujin make a big difference in how the game works as well.
...
I think this is the major dividing line with these cozy games. The good ones like Rytuuama or Golden Sky Stories invoke that cozy feeling while still including conflict with real stakes and adversity the PCs must overcome. The stories in Golden Sky Stories are small scale and have small stakes but the stakes and problems are still there. Every story with someone who has a problem that they need the PCs help to overcome. The bad ones like Wanderhome try to invoke that cozy feeling but forget to include the other stuff. Everything is fine. There are no problems. Everyone is nice. The player can say, "No" to any outcome they don't like. Nothing ever goes wrong in any significant way. It renders the entire thing a tedious, pointless improv exercise.
Agreed. Some of the games which I saw attached to the "cozy" label made what I would consider the critical mistake of being D&D-esque fantasy adventure games, but then prescribing that the characters can't die. Death isn't the only possible failure-state for an RPG, but I think you do have to have a failure state of some kind. And if you're not going to have a death mechanic, you'd better have a good reason why. Golden Sky Stories looks like it might have a justifiable excuse (PCs are spirits and violence is not part of the subject matter), Ryuutama would not have that excuse, but you can die in that game, so not an issue.
And yeah, I also have no time for an RPG where if things go badly for the players, they can just say "nuh uh! I had my Everything-Proof Shield on!". Games need rules, and the rules need to apply consistently, or else the whole exercise is pointless.
Ryutaama looks quite interesting in general, based on what I've been able to look up in the last day. It's more in line with what I termed "cozy fantasy" in the OP than what a lot of other posts on this thread seem to be talking about. Seems like it'd actually be a pretty good system for running a campaign based on something like
Redwall or the
Chronicles of Pridain. It even sounds like the combat and travel mechanics share a few defining features with the
One Ring RPG. Not sure which one did it first, though.
Quote from: Ruprecht on February 05, 2024, 09:08:23 AM
Sounds like the tame version of a beer and pretzels version of an RPG.
A game simple to pick up and play and you don't care if your PC dies (after all most board games have a loser and people expect that). Except the Cozy version is nerfed so you don't die, at least not until you agree that would be okay for the story and you can start up a new character with all the old ones hard-earned possessions and memories.
This description, is somewhat in the ballpark of Dungeon World. Half the time, when you would normally be failing, in a D&Desque RPG; you instead succeed with a hitch. Half the time, when you would normally be failing a saving throw vs death; death offers you a deal, instead. Consequences are softened, in Dungeon World. A player's character can die in DW, but it's easier to avoid death.
Ryuujin sounds very cool.
One of my players Kimberly also GMs and tends towards a "cosy roleplaying" style, in a good way I think. She's working on The Tales Were True, a 5e D&D campaign & setting based on English folklore with that sort of feel, that looks very cool. You can see more at https://www.backerkit.com/call_to_action/bead37d8-4ea3-434f-b354-198caae19f06/landing (https://www.backerkit.com/call_to_action/bead37d8-4ea3-434f-b354-198caae19f06/landing) and even get involved in the free playtest on Discord & Roll20 I think.
I remember playing an orc-hating dwarf in a 5e game Kimberly ran, 'The Shambles'. She makes all her NPCs so loveable, I had to go out of my way to avoid talking with the orcs, or I'd feel bad about killing them. ;D
Quote from: ForgottenF on February 06, 2024, 12:43:23 AM
Quote from: Tod13 on February 05, 2024, 09:05:05 PM
I did find it sad that several people seemed to equate fights with challenging. And that there was no other way to challenge the players. Our favorite parts in it are not the fights -- but all come from the other stuff in the game. We can go several sessions without a fight.
For me, combat tends to be one of the less satisfying challenges you can face in tabletop games (relative to dungeoneering, puzzles, intrigue, negotiation, mysteries, etc). I'm not going to claim there's no skill to TTRPG combat, but it's too random and arbitrary for me to care all that much about winning or losing. It is, however, the easiest way to challenge players. Part of the appeal of running a lower-violence game is that it forces the DM to be a lot more creative with scenarios.
Even with the combat ones, we surprise our GM. He had us with nothing but stunners, and an APC with a machine gun showed up. He thought we'd scatter and try to hide. We attacked it. Stuff stun grenades in the firing slits, fired a stun shotgun into the turret though the view port.
The best combat was one my wife and two female friends were in and I was GM. They and the enemies kept missing each other. One of the women yelled something semi-random at the enemies. I rolled. They listened to her. The NPCs ended up as returning characters in the next campaign.
Been a thing in board games for a long time.
In RPGs theres been tries at it or at least tries to incorporate it.
In writing you have the Travelogue story. HP Lovecraft was one of the first encountered doing this of all things.
Players have been trying it in RPGs for probably as long as there have been RPGs.
And there are a huge majority of room LARPs that are non-combat oriented.
Quote from: daniel_ream on February 05, 2024, 11:55:02 PM
I can name at least a dozen "cozy" RPGs off the top of my head. The term is a bit of a neologism, but the design pattern has been around for some time. You've all just never heard of them because they're not D&D clones.
Well said. There's a very strong OSR bias around these parts.
Ribbon Drive (https://composedreamgames.com/marketplace/ribbon-drive) (2009/2011) is firmly in this camp. You all bring actual music and then listen to it on a "road trip" together. This is one of the earlier one's that I'd put firmly in this camp, but I am sure there are others.
Buried Without Ceremony also created the
No Dice, No masters engine (also called
Belonging Outside of Belonging) and a lot of that family of games are of this type.
Wanderhome is one of the better known ones, but there's a plethora of games using it like A Christmas Belonging (https://dannymakesrpgs.itch.io/a-christmas-belonging) which somehow seems like a quintessential cozy game.
(This was pioneered in Dream Askew / Dream Apart (https://composedreamgames.com/marketplace/index.php?route=product/search&search=Dream%20askew))
Something like
The Warren might fit for some people, but your rabbit characters definitely can get eaten by owls frequently in that one so I would discount it.
Here We Used to Fly (https://composedreamgames.com/marketplace/here-we-used-to-fly) is a good example that released last year and has sold well for us. In it you rotate between being the kid version of your character and the adult version of your character at a them park that was once great but is now a dilapidated shell.
I think there is a tendency for these games to be GMless, and one-shots, though there are certainly exceptions. It's not the kind of game I want to play all the time, (I like some teeth now and then) but the emergent narrative in these games can make for wonderful experiences. And an certain sense of tragedy and suffering is not uncommon.
Quote from: ForgottenF on February 06, 2024, 12:43:23 AM
Ryutaama looks quite interesting in general, based on what I've been able to look up in the last day. It's more in line with what I termed "cozy fantasy" in the OP than what a lot of other posts on this thread seem to be talking about. Seems like it'd actually be a pretty good system for running a campaign based on something like Redwall or the Chronicles of Pridain. It even sounds like the combat and travel mechanics share a few defining features with the One Ring RPG. Not sure which one did it first, though.
I was a player in a complete
Ryuutama campaign where we made the effort of sticking to the game's intended atmosphere. I felt the result was like some of the more adventurous Saturday morning cartoons of the 80s-90s: Wholesome and soothing overall, but just enough carefully calibrated danger to keep things lively.
The whole "special dragon character for the GM to feel like a player" part felt a bit superfluous though, at least from my side of the screen. I guess I never really understand resource-management mechanics for the GM in any game I've seen them in.
Quote from: Shipyard Locked on February 15, 2024, 10:18:22 PM
The whole "special dragon character for the GM to feel like a player" part felt a bit superfluous though, at least from my side of the screen. I guess I never really understand resource-management mechanics for the GM in any game I've seen them in.
Right with you there. I picked up the pdf and have been reading through it since my last post. The Ryuujin is a fun concept in lore, but I'm iffy on it in practice. I've had some experience with other games that try to give GMs more PC-like rules to play under and the results are usually either irrelevant or disastrous.
I get there's potentially some appeal to a designated GM character for "forever GMs" who feel left out, and maybe that's doubly so for the kind of groups that would want to run a feelgood game. I know Ryuutama was designed as a starter RPG, so maybe it's meant to reassure new players by making it explicit that the GM is just another player and is on their side, or it could be meant to ease new GMs in by giving them a more structured role in the game. Or it could just be some kind of cultural thing that doesn't translate clearly to Americans.
Quote from: Thondor on February 15, 2024, 08:07:44 PM
Well said. There's a very strong OSR bias around these parts.
"Bias" is putting it mildly. "Shrieking, tribal, GOLLLLDSTEEEEINNNN-level hatred for everything else" is more accurate.
Quote
Ribbon Drive (https://composedreamgames.com/marketplace/ribbon-drive) (2009/2011) is firmly in this camp. You all bring actual music and then listen to it on a "road trip" together. This is one of the earlier one's that I'd put firmly in this camp, but I am sure there are others.
Joe McDonald's done several in that vein but I'm not sure they really fall into "cozy". I think there's a distinction between "cozy" and "introspective". I wouldn't call
A Quiet Year "cozy", for instance.
I think "cozy" requires some level of cuteness in the art style, a lack of physical violence, and an overall theme of helping others. What's sometimes called "Studio Ghibli style".
Off the top of my head I'm thinking the ones previously mentioned on this thread,
Do: Pilgrims of the Flying Temple,
Apothecaria/Apawthecaria,
Monster Care Squad,
Yazeba's Bed & Breakfast, and others.
Quote from: Shipyard Locked on February 15, 2024, 10:18:22 PM
I was a player in a complete Ryuutama campaign where we made the effort of sticking to the game's intended atmosphere. I felt the result was like some of the more adventurous Saturday morning cartoons of the 80s-90s: Wholesome and soothing overall, but just enough carefully calibrated danger to keep things lively.
The whole "special dragon character for the GM to feel like a player" part felt a bit superfluous though, at least from my side of the screen. I guess I never really understand resource-management mechanics for the GM in any game I've seen them in.
One odd thing about Ryjjuin is that they have levels too. The GM levels them up by playing sessions with them. In the first session, they only have one ability. For the green Ryuujin, the only thing they get is as item that tells the players how much the GM has altered the rules. Using their abilities also has a cost and it is possible for them to kill themselves by using too many. Yeah, they can die.
Quote from: daniel_ream on February 16, 2024, 12:22:54 AM
Quote from: Thondor on February 15, 2024, 08:07:44 PM
Well said. There's a very strong OSR bias around these parts.
"Bias" is putting it mildly. "Shrieking, tribal, GOLLLLDSTEEEEINNNN-level hatred for everything else" is more accurate.
This thread seems very positive about what is not an OSR style! I actually think you can get a lot of open minded discussion here, more than on heavily moderated sites.
Quote from: ForgottenF on February 15, 2024, 11:27:19 PM
I get there's potentially some appeal to a designated GM character for "forever GMs" who feel left out, and maybe that's doubly so for the kind of groups that would want to run a feelgood game. I know Ryuutama was designed as a starter RPG, so maybe it's meant to reassure new players by making it explicit that the GM is just another player and is on their side, or it could be meant to ease new GMs in by giving them a more structured role in the game.
Hmm, those are some interesting ideas. I never would have thought of that.
Quote from: yosemitemike on February 16, 2024, 02:32:49 AM
One odd thing about Ryjjuin is that they have levels too. The GM levels them up by playing sessions with them. In the first session, they only have one ability. For the green Ryuujin, the only thing they get is as item that tells the players how much the GM has altered the rules. Using their abilities also has a cost and it is possible for them to kill themselves by using too many. Yeah, they can die.
Yeah, this is the type of stuff I don't get. If you're going to structure one very specific aspect of the GM's experience like that, why stop at that arbitrary point? Why not put restrictions and resources on all of the GM's choices, lest he use one aspect of his godlike power to work around his "restricted" aspects?
Quote from: Shipyard Locked on February 16, 2024, 07:59:19 AM
Yeah, this is the type of stuff I don't get. If you're going to structure one very specific aspect of the GM's experience like that, why stop at that arbitrary point? Why not put restrictions and resources on all of the GM's choices, lest he use one aspect of his godlike power to work around his "restricted" aspects?
That's not the point of it. Ryuutama, like a lot of Japanese ttrpgs, is written assuming that everyone is an absolute newcomer including the GM. Having a Ryuujin start with simple abilities and level up has the same point as starting characters at low level and having them level up. The GM gets more abilities to play with as they get more experience running the game. The Ryuujin's abilities are not everything a GM can do. They are specific abilities that the GM can use to nudge the story in a certain direction to match the sort of story that Ryuujin wants.
I can see where an RPG based on The Wind in the Willows or Will Huygens' Gnomes or even Jill Barklem's Brambly Hedge books would be fun once in a while, as a break from more serious games. I don't think a campaign in such games would be very interesting for long -- not enough conflict, not enough danger or reward -- but such games, once in while, might be a nice "palate cleanser" of sorts. I think I'd enjoy such a game occasionally.
It can work with the right DM and players for sure.
Star Frontiers had options for like opening up your own business and say running a starliner or freight transport system. Or going out and mining planets or asteroids. Even straight up starcharting. And go fairly far without any combat. Just dealing with the technical problems and logistics.