Hi there folks,
I am writing a book (pay what you want, DTRPG) about game design in TTRPG, and some of you folks are in it, so I wanted to share some early draft and well deserved thanks. So this is a long post. And images didn’t translated well from my document to the blog, sorry about that.
I’m Jaune, a french game designer and developper that have been enjoying TTRPG and making them since 15 years. I saw a bunch of repeating questions on Reddit and other places, so I figured I’d give some stuff to chew on to anybody wanting to do their own stuff, being GM or game makers, and started writing a book about my own personal TTRPG and game designer journey.
Before my wife could tell me “shouldn’t you just do a blog ?” I was at 140 pages, with still 60 easily in the oven, so I figured I wouldn’t stop there.
But exposure is important to any cultural stuff, and giving credit is as well, so today I’m sharing an early draft of a section on “What would the process be to add something like a journey/traveling mechanic ?” as well as the "why"s and "how"s on the topic. You guessed it, I’m here to give credit to @FilBot3, @CJRD4 and other contributors to posts like Hex Crawling with HEARTS & EFFORT (among them : Phil, Andrew | s5photog | 2716 Gaming, Kane Driscol, Chlodwig Chub [Clo-Vis], CJRD4 / David again, NightWorm - Jojo and the Kane’s Kiln Discord) or Hex Crawling with HEARTS & EFFORT
Also, thanks a lot @kagozaiku for your Learning from HEART: Give your scenes HP, I can’t talk share the draft about it because it depends on other topics from across the whole document, but your post was an eye opener on how to finish my main tool I’ve been working on since 10 years. I can’t thank you enough.
So here is me blablering about Ryuutama being great before talking about Travel hacks for ICRPG :
Stage 4.1 - Ryuutama take on travels
Ryuutama DTRPG page abreviated elevator pitch :
Ryuutama is an RPG […] set in a world where the “NPCs” of the village–the bakers, farmers, shopkeepers and healers–set off on a wonderful adventure exploring a fantasy world together. Some people colloquially call it " Hayao Miyazaki’s Oregon Trail ", because of its heartwarming […] feel of family anime, and its focus on traveling and wonder over combat and treasure.
The characters are travelers in a world without classical fantasy wizards and warriors. Instead, the characters are minstrels, merchants, healers, hunters, artisans, farmers and nobles who decide (or were fated) to leave their towns and explore the world. Using a light rules system based on polyhedral dice where the randomness in results leads to more story development, Ryuutama provides a framework for travel-focused stories fun for adults and enjoyable for all ages.
The game master also creates a special character with its own unique character sheet, called the " Ryuujin ". The half-dragon Ryuujin remains "offscreen" most of the time, but watches over the other characters, and can provide limited spells and abilies to support them. The GM provides adver s i t y that the players have to overcome, but at the same time they protect and nurture the characters.
- Experience is gained in Ryuutama primarily by making difficult journeys to new places, far more than monster slaying. * Magic is based on seasonal essences, and focuses on the classic creative use of magic to overcome problems, over combat-themed spells. * Combat is simple and fun, featuring a classic console style "Front/Back Line Battle Mat" * The players at the table have a hand in creating the towns that their characters visit together, so that everyone has an interest in the next leg of the journey! * Critical fumbles (rolling 1s on both dice) hurt, but all the characters at the table get a bonus to a future roll in return.
The game was produced as a flagship project in Japan to easily get people into playing and GMing RPGs; to that end there’s a lot of advice for brand new GMs, including scenario creation. There are lots of sheets and templates to help brand new or novice GMs develop great Ryuutama-worthy scenarios. […]
Ryuutama says explicitly that traveling is the core part of the experience since it is what awards experience, far more than monster slaying . It is the classic carrot and stick/reward and punishment tools : if traveling is the interesting part, it makes sense for this part to have bigger rewards.
Also, Ryuutama is a Natural Fantasy RPG, but…
What is Natural Fantasy ?
It is a world of Fantasy, often medieval but not only, were the nature plays a major role and has a good amount of focus on. It can take many shapes and embodies various ideas, but at its core there often is a concept of cycle, of unity, and gray morality in some shape. You can for example picture a human colony like a big ant colony, striving for resources in the same ways. If there is an emphasis on this parallel, and that human are just like other animals when you take a step back, just another part of a bigger system, then it probably is Natural Fantasy.
It is more common in eastern fictions than western one, notably because the religion and philosophies that cultures are based on are really different. Notably, Hinduism and Buddhism are major roots of the eastern Natural Fantasy and explains why Natural Fantasy is more common in eastern media than western ones : there simply is no religion or philosophy based as much on nature in western roots. There is some example tho, the most well known probably being the Realm of the Elderling saga, a novel collection by Robin Hobb. Most well known title of eastern Natural Fantasy are Ghibli movies (not all, but Nausicaa or Mononoke are probably the best examples) and some manga : recently we have Delicious in Dungeon ( Dungeon Meshi ), Made in Abyss (content warning, is also in anime) or the first season of Rising of the Shield Hero. In some ways, Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood, while not being a natural fantasy piece of art still finds some shared root in some main themes. Videogame-wise, I think Monster Hunter might be a simple yet efficient example.
Why does Natural Fantasy matter for traveling in Ryuutama ?
Traveling is a way to make characters interact with the world itself. Having an emphasis on said world, making said world as much of a main character as the main characters in a fiction (or the player character in a TTRPG) is not the most common thing nor the easiest to pull off.
Players can grow impatient rather quickly. Spouting descriptions would just bored them out and make them less interested in the world. You have to make the world a core element of player interactions if you have a focus about nature and world building.
How does Ryuutama answer to this question ?
It makes the whole game about this, basically.
From the get go, the art and visuals are mostly about nature, and even the GM, by being half human half dragon, is part of nature… and of most illustration :
Figure : The character in the bottom right part, hidden behind the bushes, is the GM character watching carefully the PC journey from afar
Even in an illustration with many different little scenes in it, you can see how nature matters : The character with the map seems lost, the character helped by the bearded man and the donkey struggles against the terrain, and the GM hides in the bush : 3 of the 4 scenes are about nature.
Also, there is a lot of rules that makes nature a key component of traveling :
- Players have different roles, one of the 4 is mapper
- One of the most important stat for your character is their Condition : Missing a night of sleep or feeling bad in the morning happens, and in a journey, it can do a lot of harm.
- Terrain and Weather both are main sources of tensions in the game
- The equipment traits are Terrain and/or Weather based : Windbreaker, Jungle Boots, Walking Stick, Sand Hood. Also, traveling gear covers 1.5 pages while fighting gear covers only 1 page. Yet another hint at what is the main meal.
- The GM tools all talk about elements such as travels days, current season, how the 5 senses affect the players, and even the beginners advice talk about journey : For Level 1 Travelers. Rules used: Check Rules, Condition Rules, Status Effects, Journey Rules. You also have 3 scenario types : Travel - Gathering – Fight , 2 out of 3 are explicitly about nature.
- Each sub module of GM tools is about setting a mood with Time of Day, Weather, Terrain, Weather&Terrain difficulty
- Even the book is split in seasons !
- Last but not least… Terrain dragons :
 As you can see, Ryuutama makes everything about nature, and this is why Natural Fantasy as a core concept is too interconnected to its rules and systems for us to just take it as it is.
However, there is some simple aspect we can take. For example, in Ryuutama, a Journey Check has a difficulty of Terrain + Weather, simple as that. Of course there is tables and gears and mechanics around this, but the simple concept of “nature = terrain + weather” is a good basis to work on.
Stage 4.2 – ICRPG hack take on travels
The post “HEARTS as Distance, EFFORT as Travel” (available here HEARTS as Distance, EFFORT as Travel) on the Runehammer forum is also about traveling. The idea of HEARTS and EFFORT in ICRPG is basically applying having HP and damage to most take you can encounter : opening a chest requires efforts, like hitting baddies require efforts, so why do not we use HP for chests as well as baddies ? That is what ICRPG made. This is also one of the factor that convinced me to write this ever so long document : Wounds work like this as well, so I might as well share them.
So HEARTS as Distance, EFFORT as Travel translate to “Distance == HP, Travel == Damage”, and it makes sense. Like you can resist some elemental attack or some type of damage (blunt, piercing, yada yada), some terrain will resist you more than other, or be easier to cross with the right tool.
Now, the two main differences I see are the tone and the purpose :
Ryuutama is about stopping to smell the flower , ICRPG is about going in, doing epic stuff , running away from literal death every other day. It translate into different use cases as well : In Ryuutama, Terrain and Weather are what makes the journey a proper one. You are here for the journey , a lot of mechanic, art element and writing are focused on the journey. The journey is what is tying everything together. In ICRPG, it is just an addon, an optional element for those who enjoy what it brings to the table : The journey is not stopping you, because you are a badass, it can only make you weaker so your victory shines brighter. It serves a power fantasy before anything else. Other hack have different takes on the subject, but most are power fantasy centric. For example, “Hex Crawling with HEARTS & EFFORTS” (Hex Crawling with HEARTS & EFFORT) adds a fun “PUNCH IT : Increase your speed, burn faster through supplies” trade-off that also powers up the power fantasy : you are badass enough not only to traverse though terrain but also to be able to rush through it. How badass is that ?
One is not better than the other, they serve different purpose and you should not have the same expectations for a hack that wants to add on top of an existing game and for a full blown game designed specifically for it.
After notes :
Feel free to give me any comment or advice, and I’m not an English native speaker but I am writing the first draft in English and intend on releasing the book in English first, so any help or advice on this front is very welcomed.
Thanks for reading, I hope it was interesting.
