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Okay folks. I know that there are only about two or three of you who are tabletop gamers out there on the forum, but I felt this was big enough to take a look at. Basically, on some tabletop RPG forum sites, people will take an detailed look at RPG books to comment, examine, and generally give other people a more informed take on what's available in certain products. I wouldn't exactly call it a review, as that's far more difficult to do with tabletop games- all tabletop RPGs are multiplayer, and so the game experience may vary wildly and is certainly outside the purview of the ESRB.
So, what a Ryuutama is.
Ryuutama: The Natural Fantasy RPG, is a Japanese Tabletop Roleplaying Game centered around travel in a fantasy world. The game was created by Atsuhiro Okada, the founder of Tabletop Cafe Daydream, the first cafe in Japan dedicated to providing a spot for tabletop boardgamers and roleplayers. It's part of a genre of RPG which isn't especially well-represented in the Western Market, called honobono which roughly translates to things like "heartwarming" or "feelgood" or some other things that I can't recall right at this very moment- the game was described to me as "Hayao Miyazaki's Oregon Trail". I figured this book would be one worth talking about because unlike video games, Tabletop RPG books are only rarely localized due to the fact that tabletop gaming is a much smaller hobby than video gaming, and so there are very few companies that have anything that might be considered a large staff. The translation, promotion, and localization of this game was handled by only two people, Andy Kitowski and Matt Sanchez. It's basically what it would be like if the only localizations of video games were fan translations.
The Kickstarter was a pretty large success, and as a backer, I have received access to the text translation, and I recently received what the translators call the "Death Star 2" version of the final PDF of the game.- it has most of the proper elements, but it's still a bit of a mess and incomplete in a couple of places, but everything essential is there, making it a "fully armed and operational battlestation... of fun!" This look will be based on that copy. So, let's begin with the introductory stuff.
Getting Started
The first thing- This is a pretty lovely book, even though some of the elements go a bit outside the art borders.
All right, first off we get a bit of introduction to the idea of RPGs- and one thing that tends to separate Japanese Tabletop games from Western ones is the point of reference they use. While TRPGs written hereabouts tend to use fiction as their basic reference point for describing TRPGs, Japanese games tend to use computer or video RPGs as the reference point. Here he uses it as a jumping off point to explain that the players are fully responsible for character actions and dialogue, and that much of what makes TRPGs different is the ability to act outside the box. Fair enough.
Now, the game doesn't really include a full world or setting- that's up to the Game Master, but it does provide some central conceits that any Ryuutama world is built on. The first one is that once in every able person's life, they feel the compulsion to go on a journey. Whether it's for some personal or higher reason, or they just come down with a case of The Travels, there's a point where people just feel the need to get up and go. Everybody has either done it or knows about it, and so they don't treat it as strange, the traveler's home is even looked after and protected by the community while the traveler is away for the year or two that they're on the road. Some people, after they get back, even decide that they don't want to stop, and so spend the rest of their lives traveling. Of course, going it alone is hard, so most travelers go on the journey with at least a few other people. And bring a weapon, it can be a jungle out there.
The travels are actually part of the life cycle of the world, as the stories of these travels are collected by the Ryuujin, beings who generally appear as beautiful humans with draconic features, like wings and horns, but can take many other forms besides. These are the caretakers of the seasonal dragons who are the creators and maintainers of the world, and are fed by the essence of the travelogues collected by the Ryuujin. There's some division of labor here, as different kinds of stories are collected by different kinds of Ryuujin, color-coded for your convenience. The green Ryuujin cover stories of adventure and exploration, the blue Ryuujin cover stories of family and community, the red Ryuujin record stories of battle and valor, and the black Ryuujin cover stories of tragedy and intrigue.
This is kinda important, because not only is Ryuujin an alternate name for the GM, but they also fill a rather unusual role for this type of RPG- the Ryuujin is also the GM's official character in the game, but more on that later.
Beyond that are explanations of the sequence of play from the Player side of responsibilities and the GM side, accompanied by neat little comic illustrations on the opposite side, depicting the Ryuujin as just hiding in the bushes or whatever as he writes it all down. Okada generally refers to combat as a sometimes food which is fair considering the focus of the game- and there are probably practical reasons for players and the GM to think of it like that, as characters are just a bit closer to the three men in a tub than heroes of legend.
Beyond that is just the list of terminology, which includes illustrations of the dice used in the game and what everything means when the book refers to NPCs and whatnot. If you've played Dungeons and Dragons for any length of time, you're probably good for the dice you need, as it does make use of all the regulars. It does make a sidenote to describe the two kinds of four-sided dice, one type having the rolled number appear at the top and the other type having the rolled number appear near the base. It also includes a rather helpful reminder about the D4- "It hurts when you step on it, so be careful."
My gamer sense tells me that Okada is speaking from experience.
Next time- Character stuff.