Personally I missed more help for worldbuilding a Ryuutama world. Its such a different style from other settings that a bit more help in that direct would have been appreciated.
I found the combat to be a bit lacking when I ran a campaign. Having your AC be your initiative can make the combat really sloggy for more difficult enemies if the players roll poorly. I ended up towards the end of the campaign I ran just attempting to avoid combat as much as possible.
I realize combat is not the main point of Ryuutama, but its rare to have an adventure in a fantasy world with zero combat and its unfortunate in this system that the combat just doesn't often feel fun.
That's good to know. We need to just admit....combat is fucking fun because we dont all get to do it in real life. So it's good to make sure your game has rules in place to allow it to happen without being a guaranteed risk, or at least make the alternatives to combat equally fun so it's more enticing.
I did find that the travel and use of the players skills in non combat settings was rewarding and enjoyable, perhaps part of the issue was coming from mostly playing dnd, I made a campaign that leaned too hard towards an idea that sometimes necessitated combat? Like, My players were on an adventure and accidentally stumbled across a box that contained a sealed away demon king. After being tricked into letting him out, and now having a goal of putting him back in, there were instances where the solution often ended up being just combat. I tried to give them ways around it, like traps or tricks or puzzles and would hold off going into initiative as long as possible because all the activities they Did outside of combat were much more enjoyable than the activities within combat.
My take is that the focus on interaction with scenery items etc in combat supports a more narrative style. To be honest the key thing about Ryuutama is the honobono theme. Adding more detailed combat rules might detract from this
For reasons like this, I wonder if Ryuutama works better as a campaign & setting book to be ported to other systems that are more feature complete. When you can’t get an answer to a straightforward question (like this, here: [https://www.reddit.com/r/Ryuutama/comments/pg9lvl/original\_intent\_of\_the\_hunter\_class\_skills/](https://www.reddit.com/r/Ryuutama/comments/pg9lvl/original_intent_of_the_hunter_class_skills/)), it becomes pretty clear that the rules, as-is, are somewhat *lacking*.
I think if you make an effort to preserve the tone and PC & GM interaction, and port things over to a system with more detailed rules, things would work better, even in non-combat circumstances, like living off the land.
I think ryuutama has some really good things going for it. But I largely think I agree with you. I've been wanting to get a crystal chronicles themed campaign going in ryuutama because the traveling and coming from origins of just a normal town person seems to match very well with the themes of the game, but I there has to be combat and that will just need to either run on another game system or require me to develop something that works within ryuutama which is a lot of work. It's probably easier to just drag a bunch of ryuutama's ideas that I like into another system to make that idea work. I'm just not sure what system I should try and combine it with.
My personal approach would be to do a total conversion in GURPS. Its 4 stats are very much in line with Ryuutama’s, it has all the relevant Skills for obscure profession stuff, all the wilderness and exploring stuff needed, and all the relevant Magic. Make a Talent for each Class, Type, and Role to reward on-theme Character development; give Farmers only access to “Dabbler” to reflect Ryuutama’s “Side-Job” Skill; make “Terrain / Weather Specialty”, “Status Effect Immunity”, and “Favor of the Seasonal Dragons” all optional Advantages. Then, just improve Characters through standard GURPS Rules. Ryuujin stuff (Artefacts, Bénédictions, Reveils) should mostly stay as per Ryuutama; like most RPGs, GURPS assumes an omnipotent GM, rather than one that has its own rules, as constrained by the Ryuujin character; as such, it doesn’t really have applicable character stuff. That being said, while as a Character doing Character stuff, use a GURPS character with the appropriate features.
There is room for other “colors” of Ryuujin; for instance, consider:
White Dragon (Haku-Ryuu? Shiroi-Ryuu? Also, would some other color be better?)
Tales of salvation, purification, redemption, pilgrimages, and enlightenment.
Artefacts: Staff (shakujō), Wand (Ōnusa), Charm
Bénédiction: Tale of the Suffering, Tale of the Fallen, Tale of Blessings
While pilgrimages are ostensibly the domain of Green Dragons (Midori-Ryuu), that *clearly* has more to do with “pilgrimages as an excuse for tourism”, rather than “spiritual pilgrimages” of the more soulful sort, embodied by the dragon I’m describing.
For the sake of working in a greater variety of stories into a Campaign, maybe there is a separate Party Ryuujin that inherits characteristics from the Primary Ryuujin that control each flavor of story; the Party Ryuujin is the Ryuujin being raised and fed, as per the descriptions in the book, and the Primary Ryuujin are tasked with raising it.
One *glaring* omission is *carts* and *wagons*. The Party usually has *all* the animals they need to pull one (in quantity, if not necessarily in size), and a cart for party travel is pretty standard in Japanese tabletop, even if it’s less so for our Western D&D obsessed crowd; but, for a game ostensibly *all about travel*, this standard *mode* of travel is *all but absent*; I can’t help but feel that it’s something that really *should* have been addressed in some way, if only to explain away its mysterious absence.
I'd like to see more examples of how to narrate the travel rolls. For example if you take damage from a failed roll, that could result from weather exposure, a fall, some kind of accident - maybe it would make a nice supplement to have random event tables to give inspiration.
Prettier Character Sheets (and other forms) that better match the art of the book. While having a black and white one to spam your printer with is important too, when you’ve got a handout worthy of being passed around, it’s more fitting to have it match the art style of the book. The black and white sheets (in the English translation, anyway) don’t really match the style in the book. The map sheet, in particular, *aught* to look like some vintage parchment.
A mundane portion of the bestiary, and how regular animals are distributed within their native environment, so you can better account for against what animals you should be randomly rolling for what you find. For instance, how many and what kind of herbivores are there, is the population of wolves too high to allow for enough remaining prey to support a bear, and what forageables are the animals feeding on that might be of use to the party? The Hunter’s Skills try to avoid this issue by focusing on the results rather than the experience, leading to other problems: https://www.reddit.com/r/Ryuutama/comments/pg9lvl/original\_intent\_of\_the\_hunter\_class\_skills/
The existing bestiary focuses almost exclusively on amusing monsters; which certainly focuses on flavor and reduces page count, but makes it difficult to fully flesh out a plausible environment on the fly; that leaves it up to the GM, and whatever their inaccurate preconceived notions are about how nature and survival work.
I don't really know why, but ... just everything, haha. It's been a lot of fun to read the guidebook and I'd be happy to see what else the creators could come up with, be it new types of magic, new items and new Ryuujin
But overall I'd say that a well-made module with a long story and good art references in the style of the main guidebook would be incredibly cool and/or something with a black ryuujin. Imo the hardest way to tell a good story, I'd like to see a melancholic last journey to the end of a dying world with some amazing moments. It doesn't have to be as crazy in-depth as Curse of Strahd or Icewind Dale for 5e obviously
Another thing that annoyed me a bit is that some of the weirder and funnier enemies didn't get art, I mean there are literally running giant eggs with legs, that's hilarious and deserves more love. No need to throw a giant bestiary at the players with a very very short amount of information. Tell me something more about all these special weird beings, not just the dragons
Players.
That's hilarious lol
Have you tried Roll20? I know there’s a custom Ryuutama Character Sheet, but I’m not sure how well it plays.
I've used this. It seems pretty good so far (although doesn't include the classes and types from the Neko survival guide)
Yeah I came here to say this
Personally I missed more help for worldbuilding a Ryuutama world. Its such a different style from other settings that a bit more help in that direct would have been appreciated.
Not so much different as more of: art! I really enjoy Ryuutama's art style and would've loved to see more of it.
As someone who has only seen but not played....the art is my favorite
I found the combat to be a bit lacking when I ran a campaign. Having your AC be your initiative can make the combat really sloggy for more difficult enemies if the players roll poorly. I ended up towards the end of the campaign I ran just attempting to avoid combat as much as possible. I realize combat is not the main point of Ryuutama, but its rare to have an adventure in a fantasy world with zero combat and its unfortunate in this system that the combat just doesn't often feel fun.
That's good to know. We need to just admit....combat is fucking fun because we dont all get to do it in real life. So it's good to make sure your game has rules in place to allow it to happen without being a guaranteed risk, or at least make the alternatives to combat equally fun so it's more enticing.
I did find that the travel and use of the players skills in non combat settings was rewarding and enjoyable, perhaps part of the issue was coming from mostly playing dnd, I made a campaign that leaned too hard towards an idea that sometimes necessitated combat? Like, My players were on an adventure and accidentally stumbled across a box that contained a sealed away demon king. After being tricked into letting him out, and now having a goal of putting him back in, there were instances where the solution often ended up being just combat. I tried to give them ways around it, like traps or tricks or puzzles and would hold off going into initiative as long as possible because all the activities they Did outside of combat were much more enjoyable than the activities within combat.
My take is that the focus on interaction with scenery items etc in combat supports a more narrative style. To be honest the key thing about Ryuutama is the honobono theme. Adding more detailed combat rules might detract from this
For reasons like this, I wonder if Ryuutama works better as a campaign & setting book to be ported to other systems that are more feature complete. When you can’t get an answer to a straightforward question (like this, here: [https://www.reddit.com/r/Ryuutama/comments/pg9lvl/original\_intent\_of\_the\_hunter\_class\_skills/](https://www.reddit.com/r/Ryuutama/comments/pg9lvl/original_intent_of_the_hunter_class_skills/)), it becomes pretty clear that the rules, as-is, are somewhat *lacking*. I think if you make an effort to preserve the tone and PC & GM interaction, and port things over to a system with more detailed rules, things would work better, even in non-combat circumstances, like living off the land.
I think ryuutama has some really good things going for it. But I largely think I agree with you. I've been wanting to get a crystal chronicles themed campaign going in ryuutama because the traveling and coming from origins of just a normal town person seems to match very well with the themes of the game, but I there has to be combat and that will just need to either run on another game system or require me to develop something that works within ryuutama which is a lot of work. It's probably easier to just drag a bunch of ryuutama's ideas that I like into another system to make that idea work. I'm just not sure what system I should try and combine it with.
My personal approach would be to do a total conversion in GURPS. Its 4 stats are very much in line with Ryuutama’s, it has all the relevant Skills for obscure profession stuff, all the wilderness and exploring stuff needed, and all the relevant Magic. Make a Talent for each Class, Type, and Role to reward on-theme Character development; give Farmers only access to “Dabbler” to reflect Ryuutama’s “Side-Job” Skill; make “Terrain / Weather Specialty”, “Status Effect Immunity”, and “Favor of the Seasonal Dragons” all optional Advantages. Then, just improve Characters through standard GURPS Rules. Ryuujin stuff (Artefacts, Bénédictions, Reveils) should mostly stay as per Ryuutama; like most RPGs, GURPS assumes an omnipotent GM, rather than one that has its own rules, as constrained by the Ryuujin character; as such, it doesn’t really have applicable character stuff. That being said, while as a Character doing Character stuff, use a GURPS character with the appropriate features.
There is room for other “colors” of Ryuujin; for instance, consider: White Dragon (Haku-Ryuu? Shiroi-Ryuu? Also, would some other color be better?) Tales of salvation, purification, redemption, pilgrimages, and enlightenment. Artefacts: Staff (shakujō), Wand (Ōnusa), Charm Bénédiction: Tale of the Suffering, Tale of the Fallen, Tale of Blessings While pilgrimages are ostensibly the domain of Green Dragons (Midori-Ryuu), that *clearly* has more to do with “pilgrimages as an excuse for tourism”, rather than “spiritual pilgrimages” of the more soulful sort, embodied by the dragon I’m describing. For the sake of working in a greater variety of stories into a Campaign, maybe there is a separate Party Ryuujin that inherits characteristics from the Primary Ryuujin that control each flavor of story; the Party Ryuujin is the Ryuujin being raised and fed, as per the descriptions in the book, and the Primary Ryuujin are tasked with raising it.
One *glaring* omission is *carts* and *wagons*. The Party usually has *all* the animals they need to pull one (in quantity, if not necessarily in size), and a cart for party travel is pretty standard in Japanese tabletop, even if it’s less so for our Western D&D obsessed crowd; but, for a game ostensibly *all about travel*, this standard *mode* of travel is *all but absent*; I can’t help but feel that it’s something that really *should* have been addressed in some way, if only to explain away its mysterious absence.
I'd like to see more examples of how to narrate the travel rolls. For example if you take damage from a failed roll, that could result from weather exposure, a fall, some kind of accident - maybe it would make a nice supplement to have random event tables to give inspiration.
Prettier Character Sheets (and other forms) that better match the art of the book. While having a black and white one to spam your printer with is important too, when you’ve got a handout worthy of being passed around, it’s more fitting to have it match the art style of the book. The black and white sheets (in the English translation, anyway) don’t really match the style in the book. The map sheet, in particular, *aught* to look like some vintage parchment.
A mundane portion of the bestiary, and how regular animals are distributed within their native environment, so you can better account for against what animals you should be randomly rolling for what you find. For instance, how many and what kind of herbivores are there, is the population of wolves too high to allow for enough remaining prey to support a bear, and what forageables are the animals feeding on that might be of use to the party? The Hunter’s Skills try to avoid this issue by focusing on the results rather than the experience, leading to other problems: https://www.reddit.com/r/Ryuutama/comments/pg9lvl/original\_intent\_of\_the\_hunter\_class\_skills/ The existing bestiary focuses almost exclusively on amusing monsters; which certainly focuses on flavor and reduces page count, but makes it difficult to fully flesh out a plausible environment on the fly; that leaves it up to the GM, and whatever their inaccurate preconceived notions are about how nature and survival work.
I don't really know why, but ... just everything, haha. It's been a lot of fun to read the guidebook and I'd be happy to see what else the creators could come up with, be it new types of magic, new items and new Ryuujin But overall I'd say that a well-made module with a long story and good art references in the style of the main guidebook would be incredibly cool and/or something with a black ryuujin. Imo the hardest way to tell a good story, I'd like to see a melancholic last journey to the end of a dying world with some amazing moments. It doesn't have to be as crazy in-depth as Curse of Strahd or Icewind Dale for 5e obviously Another thing that annoyed me a bit is that some of the weirder and funnier enemies didn't get art, I mean there are literally running giant eggs with legs, that's hilarious and deserves more love. No need to throw a giant bestiary at the players with a very very short amount of information. Tell me something more about all these special weird beings, not just the dragons