Ryuutama!

Played some Ryuutama last night at the LGS and had a pretty fun time! It was also the first time I got to be a player in a while. Here are some details.

I played Halibut the Merchant, and was joined by Sho the Healer and his calico cat, Cat, as well as June the Minstrel, Asteros the Hunter, and Sweets the Farmer. 

Now, I'm always a little tentative when playing a low conflict game like this, as I think it requires a little more buy in and trust that the table is going to stick to the tone. I was friends with a few people at the table, and a few only acquaintances. They were all great!

We did a one-shot, where we all had plans to travel to a neighboring town and attend a festival. The GM (or Ryuujin, Ryuutama does a fun thing where the GM is both a narrator and a character, but we didn't get to experience this much) did narration, which they read from something they had prepared beforehand, and then we began rolling condition checks.

You roll a condition check every morning, to see how your character is feeling that day. A good condition roll means you get a stat bonus for the day, and there are various things you can do to give yourself and your friends help on a condition roll. After we all rolled, we went around the table describing why our characters were feeling that way.

Halibut got an 11 (a good roll), so he also got to increase a stat by a die size. I decided that he was a little sad over losing his pack animal the day before, but found that carrying the saddlebags wasn't as hard as he thought it would be, which resulted in an increase in Spirit for the day.

This little, casual exchange of what side of the bed our characters woke up on, gave us so much to work with. We learned how our characters were feeling, why they were feeling that way, and some tension even came out of it.

Sho woke up with aches and pains, Asteros rolled a 3 and decided he was kept up all night by June, who played her tambourine. And Sweets woke up with a pep in their step, and even assisted some of the neighbors with their chores.

Now came the journey portion of the game, each day made up of a Travel Check, a Camp Check, and occasionally a Direction Check. Each player that fails a Travel Check loses 1/2 their HP, but things like abilities, equipment, and songs give special bonuses. Camp Checks are made by one person, with another assisting. If its passed, current HP is doubled. We only had a Direction Check when we had foggy weather, and with the help from a song from June we passed, so I don't know what happens on a failure here.

Another fun way to manipulate your rolls is via Concentration, of which there are two different resources: mana and fumble points. Each character has Mana, and can spend half of it on any roll to gain a +1. You get it back after a night's rest, but if you reach 0 mana you are unconscious for a few scenes. Fumble Points are very fun, in that any time a player rolls two 1's on their dice, every person at the table gets a Fumble Point. Points can then be spent to gain a +1 on any roll.

This creates a nice little framework to pass each day, and between each check our Ryuujin gave us an event. These gave the journey a very unique feel, as we travelled through the grasslands towards Arietta.

During the days, we encountered Great Raspberry bushes with sharp thorns, multiple times. Each required a roll to try to forage, without getting cut. A herd of 100's of bunnies passed through our camp, inspiring June to begin writing a song that would take quite a turn by the end of our journey.

There were quite a few events that resulted in increased tension, albeit not your normal tension that would result from your typical Dragon Game.

The first was tension that came up between Asteros and June in regard to hunting. Asteros, a Hunter, kept looking for opportunities to capture some game. We all played pregens, and Asteros' player had chosen randomly. He wanted to use the abilities on his character sheet. Sho could gather herbs, June could sing, Sweets could look after their sheep, Halibut could haggle, and Asteros could... kill. I think we all sensed at the table the friction that this subject has with a game like Ryuutama, but its still in the game. Asteros wanted to hunt rabbits that passed through our camp, and June was a vegetarian. This ended up passing, however, as Asteros ended up not catching anything with his snares.

However, we eventually came upon a grassland dragon, blending in with the rolling hills, and Asteros was intent on tracking and potentially killing it. The party wanted to go along, I think all of us in cahoots to make sure the dragon wasn't hurt.

Upon finding it, the group came together and taught Asteros about the ecological and spiritual significance of the grassland dragons, and Asteros decided for himself not to go forward with the hunt. Seeing his willingness to listen, and upon encountering some rabbits on the way back to the trail, June encouraged Asteros to hunt responsible and try to get some dinner.

With this tension resolved, the group woke up the next morning to find themselves atop a massive flower. It seemed that the dragon had passed nearby, and with its powers caused the plant to sprout beneath the party during their rest. In the attempt to climb down, a young girl Quikka and her nekogoblin companion Kimeko robbed June of her treasured trinket with a fishing rod.

A chase ensued, where stats were tested for characters to capture Quikka and retrieve the trinket. In the end, only Sweets, June, and Sho could catch up to her in a clearing. After some wrestling (Sweets), intimidation (Sho with a drawn bow, June with a Cicada swarm), and negotiation (Halibut, once he caught up), the trinket was returned to June, and Halibut was out 40 gold. 

They followed the would be thieves the rest of the way to Arietta, and that's where the session ended.

A Big Thought I had throughout this last encounter was about the tension in this scene, and how we would resolve it in Ryuutama vs a Dragon Game. There are no persuasion or diplomacy rolls in Ryuutama. As a Merchant, Halibut could turn to negotiation, but someone like Sho the Healer, all he had on his character sheet to deal with the threat was a bow, so that is what he used. June turned to her Spells, but didn't have one that was exactly applicable, so she twisted it to her purpose. Sweets was the only one to attempt something that wasn't on their character sheet, but it was still violent. Its here, where the tension was highest, that I realized we were pushing the bounds of the genre that we were in. But I also realized, that this fit within the genre. Look at how many Ghibli movies contain violence, its quite a lot of them. But they draw the line in a different spot, than say, a more violent anime. The line of tension isn't whether someone will die, its whether blood will be spilt, or if the situation can be resolved peacefully. I'm seeing now that this is a much more volatile and interesting space for me to play in than the black and white of life and death in your average Dragon Game.

This also had me thinking about the Sean McCoy rules elide thing. The way I understand it, is if you want something to be a big part of your game, don't make it a dice roll, make it a conversation. I think I agree with this, but it does run into a big problem. Some people just want to play what is on their character sheet. If stealth isn't there, they're not going to think its an option, and they're not going to want to try it. I think this is a side effect of 5E and video games.

So what does Ryuutama hide with its dice rolls? travel, camping, combat. I see this as building you a framework, you know how the day will go, and how you roll effects you in meaningful ways. And what do the rules omit? Roleplay. The framework gives you a place to start, a number, and the rest is up to the table and the shared genre they generate. When you are someone that plays your character sheet it can be hard to make that jump from rolling to roleplay. But if you have a good table, you can see the examples they set and maybe that makes it easier to join the roleplay. 

The last thing I really enjoyed? Table chatter in character. I'd say like 70% of the words spoken at the table were in character, and those kinds of sessions are my favorite. For that reason, I'd play Ryuutama again.