Hey all,
We’re really excited here to talk to you about our upcoming four part game! We’ll be playing Ryuutama, a game focused on adventure, travel, and the wandering spirit that dwells in us all.
Designed by Atsuhiro Okada and Translated by Matt Sanchez and Andy Kitkowski, Ryuutama takes place in a world of dragons, travel, nature, and adventure! Carrying an aesthetic similar to Harvest Moon, or Final Fantasy Chrystal Chronicles, the game uses an interesting dice leveling mechanic to represent stats, and presents a lot of different ways to model the ups and downs of a journey, all while presenting the players with a cast of monsters and settings that give a refreshing change of pace to the typical DnD milieu.
Edit: We have some more information on viewer participation and interaction here
Episode 1 Recap
The World
The world of Ryuutama was originally created by the four dragons - each representing one of the four seasons. They then breathed life into twenty more dragons, who together crafted the beautiful chaos of the natural world, in all it’s variety and wonder.
In game, players assume the roles of “travelers”. At least once in everyone’s lifetime, people get an itch to travel the world and leave their hometown on a journey. This aspect of humanity is so embedded in culture that citizens take it for granted and account for it in their daily lives - travelers can expect for their farm to remain tilled, their animals to remain fed and loved, and their job remains there to return back to once they head off into the sunset, so there’s little friction stopping someone from leaving once the spirit of adventure comes knocking.
In addition, travelers may find themselves accompanied by Ryuujin - guardian spirits that collect the stories and experiences of travelers through “travelogues” in order to help raise the seasonal dragons - all of which are quite young compared to their nearly-eternal lifespan. As this process occurs - the Ryuujin aid travelers through journey-aiding benedictions and intervening with life-saving reveils. As the Ryuujin help travelers, collect travelogues, and feed the seasonal dragons the stories of travel, the world becomes brighter and more colorful - growing and changing with the dragons.
These Ryuujin appear in many forms - from beautiful humans with dragon wings and horns, to animals and plants, or even ordinary humans. They use special powers to aid travelers in their journey - using three powerful tools: “Artefacts” - powerful objects that can influence the laws of the natural world; “Benedictions”, which can impact the travelers creating a Travelogue directly, and “Reveil”, an ability which lets Ryuujin trade life energy in order to use their physical form to impact events.
GMs play the role of these Ryuujin - often staying on the sidelines, gathering stories from players, but growing in power as the campaign progresses and gaining the ability to have a more direct impact on events as they collect Travelogues and feed the seasonal dragons.
Mechanics
The game at its core works off of a dice leveling system tied to the player’s statistics. Each player has four statistics - Strength [STR], Dexterity [DEX], Intelligence [INT], and Spirit [SPI]. They assign dice to these statistics ranging from a d4 to a d8, although stats can be raised as high as a d12 (or, using powerful magic, a d20).
When making skill checks to, for instance, overcome obstacles or perform tricky tasks, the DM picks two stats. For instance, sprinting through a forest might require a [STR] [DEX] roll. Getting into a drinking contest might be a [SPI] [SPI] roll. Unjamming a mechanical contraption might require an [INT] [STR] roll. Players roll the dice corresponding to those two stats, and add the result - plus any situational modifiers - to determine whether they beat the DC of the roll, which is set by the GM.
When it comes to combat, things are a bit different. Each weapon has an “accuracy” check and a “damage” check. These work similar to DnD’s attack rolls and damage rolls, but the stats and modifiers used are based on the weapon rather than the player character. For instance, making an attack roll with a light blade involves rolling [DEX] + [INT] + 1 for accuracy, and [INT] - 1 for damage (with each weapon having their rolls specified by the rule book). The accuracy check opposes the enemy’s Initiative check, made at the beginning of battle. You can reroll this stat as the action for your turn. The result of this system is that being slow on your feet not only means you’ll get your turn last, but also means you’re the most vulnerable to attacks!
When it comes to the battlefield combat takes place on - the players and GM go around seeding each combat arena with items before combat starts. These could be things like “barrels” or “bystanders” or “rocks to provide cover”. Once these are agreed upon and everyone rolls initiative, players and enemies decide which part of the battlefield they’re on - front or back. Characters in the front of combat can always attack any character also in the front of combat, but any characters in the back of the battlefield must be targeted by ranged weapons or spells - e.g. bows. This changes if one side of the fight loses all of the characters in the front - in that case, players can attack characters in the back with impunity. In this way, it’s possible to ensure certain characters stay out of harms way by placing tanks between them and the enemy, although expect to get hit hard if your defensive characters go down.
Travel
In the game world, the player’s goal generally revolves around travel - finding new places, seeking out treasure, visiting a distant city, and so on. While players make checks for individual obstacles and challenges encountered during their travels, they also have a stat determined at the beginning of each day which dictates how well the day’s travel goes, called “condition”.
When players wake up in the morning, they all roll a [STR] [SPI] check, which dictates how well they’re feeling that day. With a high roll, they’re feeling really good. With exceptional rolls, they might even get to buff a stat for the day, increasing it to the next die level. Likewise, with a low roll, the player is off their game - forced to downgrade one of their dice. It also affects things like "whether the player is effected by status effects” and “whether the player dies after getting knocked unconscious”, et al - so it’s important to roll well for this!
After the players have determined their status (and likely played out a small scene reflecting the outcome - perhaps explaining a high status with a really good breakfast or a bad status by stubbing their toe during the morning routine) players make a [STR] [DEX] Travel check. The GM determines the difficulty based on the day’s Terrain and the Weather, each of which come with associated difficulty levels. Success means travel passes without incident, while failure could mean losing a big chunk of the player’s HP!
Next, a single player, known as the “mapper”, makes an [INT] [INT] “Direction” check to determine how travel goes. With a success, the party finds their way through the terrain they’re in, while a failure means the party makes limited progress - if any. As a result, the Mapper has an important roll to play for the success of the party.
Finally, at the end of the day, one of the players make one final [DEX] [INT] Camping check - potentially supported by one other player. A success means the player created comfortable sleeping quarters, which lets player recover a significant amount of MP and HP. Failure, meanwhile, limits the amount of recovery players can achieve, and potentially even impacts their condition the following day!
Character Creation & Advancement
When making a character, players start off by choosing a class and then a type. Classes include Minstrels, Merchants, Healers, Hunters, Artisans, Farmers, and Nobles. Each class comes with certain perks, and suggests certain things about a characters’ background - such as what job they held before deciding to go on their journey.
The type, meanwhile, gives specific benefits to the player depending on what they intend their role to be on their journey. Attack types specialize in using weapons, Technical types excel at finding clever ways to tackle challenges and can quickly asses the situation, while Magic types gain access to powerful incantation and seasonal magic.
From there, players decide on their stats, as explained above. Players can pick from 1 of 3 distributions of stats, either 4 d6’s, or some of those d6’s traded out for d8’s and d4’s - allowing specialization in certain stats.
These stats allow the player to figure out certain derived stats:
HP: [STR]*2
MP: [SPI]*2
Carrying Capacity: [STR] + 3
Next, players pick a mastered weapon, which allows them to use that weapon during combat without penalty. Weapon types include light blades, blades, polearms, axes, bows, and unarmed combat. Attempting to use a weapon without specialization in it inflicts 1 damage per attack during combat, reflecting the exertion required to use an unfamiliar weapon.
After that, players figure out their personal item. This acts as a “flavor” mechanic - helping flesh out the character, and comes with no mechanical advantage.
Finally, it’s time to go shopping! Players start with 1000gp with which to supply themselves for their journey.
To advance in the game, players keep track of their experience. XP gets calculated at the end of each “Journey” e.g. session, and gets calculated based on the terrain encountered, activation of the Benediction ability (more is better), and the monsters defeated. When players reach the threshold of XP for the next level, they get to level up. This brings benefits like increased stats, terrain specialization, access to other classes, and - in later levels - even recognition from the Seasonal Dragons, or access to Legendary Journey’s.
Magic
The world of Ryuutama is filled with magic from the Seasonal Dragons, and the Travelers can tap into this magic in order to help aid themselves on their journey.
Magic in Ryuutama falls into two categories: “Seasonal Magic” and “Incantation Magic”. Incantation magic covers magic cast by repeating a draconic word or phrase, generally written down in a spell book. This means that, to cast incantation magic, the caster must have their spellbook handy to cast. Seasonal magic, meanwhile, stems directly from a deep connection with one of the seasons. Casters choose a season they identify with during character creation, and then gain access to new spells every few levels. The ability to cast Seasonal magic is innate - everyone starts off unable to use seasonal magic, but, one day, those especially attuned to one of the seasons suddenly find themselves able to cast those spells. As a result, as long as the caster meets the usual requirements for casting (has enough MP, can speak and move freely, etc) the caster doesn’t need anything extra to cast the spell.
To use either, a player must choose to make a “Magic” type character. Doing so gives them a spell book for “incantation” magic, 2 incantation spells, and access to the “low level” seasonal magic for the season they’re attuned to. Players get new spells as they level up - 2 incantation spells every level, and then access to new tiers of seasonal magic at specific levels.
These spells accomplish a variety of effects, from creating umbrellas to help with travel, to helping cure injury, to the ability to summon devastating weather or inflict grievous harm to enemies - making them valuable additions to a party’s arsenal, even as it means limiting your ability to focus on martial and physical traits and skills.
Anyway, as I’m sure you’ve gathered, Ryuutama comes with a lot of cool mechanics which help set it apart from other games. The dice leveling mechanic makes it easy and intuitive to represent the power of characters without needing to resort to anywhere near as much math as a straight d20 system, while the mechanics of the Ryuujin help gently ramp up GM inclusion in the story. The system eases the GM in slowly, never allowing an overbearing presence, but still integrates the GM into the story in a way I haven’t seen in other systems.
We’re really excited to play through the game, starting July 2nd at 5:30pm PST, so please join us then for Ryuutama: A Journey’s Tale!