I can name at least a dozen "cozy" RPGs off the top of my head.  The term is a bit of a neologism, but the design pattern has been around for some time.  You've all just never heard of them because they're not D&D clones.

Ok, so it looks like "cozy roleplaying games" are at least a little bit of a subgenre. I did not anticipate it being so much a Japanese thing, but in retrospect I probably should have.

Quote from: Grognard GM on February 04, 2024, 09:10:41 PM

Quote from: ForgottenF on February 04, 2024, 06:40:05 PM
The term "cozy game" has been floating around in the videogame world for a while now, to describe stuff like Harvest Moon or Animal Crossing...

You mean Chick games. A percentage of dudes enjoy them too, but they're Chick games.

The majority of female video gamers (#NotAll) don't like games that are overly competitive, frustrating, difficult, or that have a likelihood of dying (or even the ability to die.) They like puzzles, stories, safe exploration, tending resources and acquiring cosmetics.

I don't know much about Animal Crossing, but yeah, the impression I get is that it's largely a girls' game. I wasn't really into games when Harvest Moon came out, but based on what I've seen of other farming sims, I suspect it might actually be a male-dominated audience. That's down to the whole planning/building/routine element, which tends to be more of a guy thing.

Quote from: Tod13 on February 05, 2024, 09:05:05 PM
I did find it sad that several people seemed to equate fights with challenging. And that there was no other way to challenge the players. Our favorite parts in it are not the fights -- but all come from the other stuff in the game. We can go several sessions without a fight.

For me, combat tends to be one of the less satisfying challenges you can face in tabletop games (relative to dungeoneering, puzzles, intrigue, negotiation, mysteries, etc). I'm not going to claim there's no skill to TTRPG combat, but it's too random and arbitrary for me to care all that much about winning or losing. It is, however, the easiest way to challenge players. Part of the appeal of running a lower-violence game is that it forces the DM to be a lot more creative with scenarios.

Quote from: yosemitemike on February 05, 2024, 07:32:55 PM
That's pretty much how Ryuutama plays though.  The travel rules can be surprisingly punishing especially when you add in weather.  There's a death spiral of sorts in there.  The Ryujin make a big difference in how the game works as well.
...

I think this is the major dividing line with these cozy games.  The good ones like Rytuuama or Golden Sky Stories invoke that cozy feeling while still including conflict with real stakes and adversity the PCs must overcome.  The stories in Golden Sky Stories are small scale and have small stakes but the stakes and problems are still there.  Every story with someone who has a problem that they need the PCs help to overcome.  The bad ones like Wanderhome try to invoke that cozy feeling but forget to include the other stuff.  Everything is fine.  There are no problems.  Everyone is nice.  The player can say, "No" to any outcome they don't like.  Nothing ever goes wrong in any significant way.  It renders the entire thing a tedious, pointless improv exercise. 

Agreed. Some of the games which I saw attached to the "cozy" label made what I would consider the critical mistake of being D&D-esque fantasy adventure games, but then prescribing that the characters can't die. Death isn't the only possible failure-state for an RPG, but I think you do have to have a failure state of some kind. And if you're not going to have a death mechanic, you'd better have a good reason why. Golden Sky Stories looks like it might have a justifiable excuse (PCs are spirits and violence is not part of the subject matter), Ryuutama would not have that excuse, but you can die in that game, so not an issue.

And yeah, I also have no time for an RPG where if things go badly for the players, they can just say "nuh uh! I had my Everything-Proof Shield on!". Games need rules, and the rules need to apply consistently, or else the whole exercise is pointless.

Ryutaama looks quite interesting in general, based on what I've been able to look up in the last day. It's more in line with what I termed "cozy fantasy" in the OP than what a lot of  other posts on this thread seem to be talking about. Seems like it'd actually be a pretty good system for running a campaign based on something like Redwall or the Chronicles of Pridain. It even sounds like the combat and travel mechanics share a few defining features with the One Ring RPG. Not sure which one did it first, though.

Quote from: Ruprecht on February 05, 2024, 09:08:23 AM
Sounds like the tame version of a beer and pretzels version of an RPG.
A game simple to pick up and play and you don't care if your PC dies (after all most board games have a loser and people expect that). Except the Cozy version is nerfed so you don't die, at least not until you agree that would be okay for the story and you can start up a new character with all the old ones hard-earned possessions and memories.

This description, is somewhat in the ballpark of Dungeon World.  Half the time, when you would normally be failing, in a D&Desque RPG; you instead succeed with a hitch.  Half the time, when you would normally be failing a saving throw vs death; death offers you a deal, instead.  Consequences are softened, in Dungeon World.  A player's character can die in DW, but it's easier to avoid death.

Ryuujin sounds very cool.

One of my players Kimberly also GMs and tends towards a "cosy roleplaying" style, in a good way I think. She's working on The Tales Were True, a 5e D&D campaign & setting based on English folklore with that sort of feel, that looks very cool. You can see more at https://www.backerkit.com/call_to_action/bead37d8-4ea3-434f-b354-198caae19f06/landing and even get involved in the free playtest on Discord & Roll20 I think.

I remember playing an orc-hating dwarf in a 5e game Kimberly ran, 'The Shambles'. She makes all her NPCs so loveable, I had to go out of my way to avoid talking with the orcs, or I'd feel bad about killing them. 

Quote from: ForgottenF on February 06, 2024, 12:43:23 AM

Quote from: Tod13 on February 05, 2024, 09:05:05 PM
I did find it sad that several people seemed to equate fights with challenging. And that there was no other way to challenge the players. Our favorite parts in it are not the fights -- but all come from the other stuff in the game. We can go several sessions without a fight.

For me, combat tends to be one of the less satisfying challenges you can face in tabletop games (relative to dungeoneering, puzzles, intrigue, negotiation, mysteries, etc). I'm not going to claim there's no skill to TTRPG combat, but it's too random and arbitrary for me to care all that much about winning or losing. It is, however, the easiest way to challenge players. Part of the appeal of running a lower-violence game is that it forces the DM to be a lot more creative with scenarios.

Even with the combat ones, we surprise our GM. He had us with nothing but stunners, and an APC with a machine gun showed up. He thought we'd scatter and try to hide. We attacked it. Stuff stun grenades in the firing slits, fired a stun shotgun into the turret though the view port.

The best combat was one my wife and two female friends were in and I was GM. They and the enemies kept missing each other. One of the women yelled something semi-random at the enemies. I rolled. They listened to her. The NPCs ended up as returning characters in the next campaign.

Been a thing in board games for a long time.

In RPGs theres been tries at it or at least tries to incorporate it.

In writing you have the Travelogue story. HP Lovecraft was one of the first encountered doing this of all things.

Players have been trying it in RPGs for probably as long as there have been RPGs.

And there are a huge majority of room LARPs that are non-combat oriented.

Quote from: daniel_ream on February 05, 2024, 11:55:02 PM
I can name at least a dozen "cozy" RPGs off the top of my head.  The term is a bit of a neologism, but the design pattern has been around for some time.  You've all just never heard of them because they're not D&D clones.

Well said. There's a very strong OSR bias around these parts.

Ribbon Drive (2009/2011) is firmly in this camp. You all bring actual music and then listen to it on a "road trip" together. This is one of the earlier one's that I'd put firmly in this camp, but I am sure there are others.

Buried Without Ceremony also created the No Dice, No masters engine (also called Belonging Outside of Belonging) and a lot of that family of games are of this type. Wanderhome is one of the better known ones, but there's a plethora of games using it like A Christmas Belonging which somehow seems like a quintessential cozy game.
(This was pioneered in Dream Askew / Dream Apart )

Something like The Warren might fit for some people, but your rabbit characters definitely can get eaten by owls frequently in that one so I would discount it.

Here We Used to Fly is a good example that released last year and has sold well for us. In it you rotate between being the kid version of your character and the adult version of your character at a them park that was once great but is now a dilapidated shell.

I think there is a tendency for these games to be GMless, and one-shots, though there are certainly exceptions. It's not the kind of game I want to play all the time, (I like some teeth now and then) but the emergent narrative in these games can make for wonderful experiences. And an certain sense of tragedy and suffering is not uncommon.

Quote from: ForgottenF on February 06, 2024, 12:43:23 AM
Ryutaama looks quite interesting in general, based on what I've been able to look up in the last day. It's more in line with what I termed "cozy fantasy" in the OP than what a lot of  other posts on this thread seem to be talking about. Seems like it'd actually be a pretty good system for running a campaign based on something like Redwall or the Chronicles of Pridain. It even sounds like the combat and travel mechanics share a few defining features with the One Ring RPG. Not sure which one did it first, though.

I was a player in a complete Ryuutama campaign where we made the effort of sticking to the game's intended atmosphere. I felt the result was like some of the more adventurous Saturday morning cartoons of the 80s-90s: Wholesome and soothing overall, but just enough carefully calibrated danger to keep things lively.

The whole "special dragon character for the GM to feel like a player" part felt a bit superfluous though, at least from my side of the screen. I guess I never really understand resource-management mechanics for the GM in any game I've seen them in.

Quote from: Shipyard Locked on February 15, 2024, 10:18:22 PM
The whole "special dragon character for the GM to feel like a player" part felt a bit superfluous though, at least from my side of the screen. I guess I never really understand resource-management mechanics for the GM in any game I've seen them in.

Right with you there. I picked up the pdf and have been reading through it since my last post. The Ryuujin is a fun concept in lore, but I'm iffy on it in practice. I've had some experience with other games that try to give GMs more PC-like rules to play under and the results are usually either irrelevant or disastrous.

I get there's potentially some appeal to a designated GM character for "forever GMs" who feel left out, and maybe that's doubly so for the kind of groups that would want to run a feelgood game. I know Ryuutama was designed as a starter RPG, so maybe it's meant to reassure new players by making it explicit that the GM is just another player and is on their side, or it could be meant to ease new GMs in by giving them a more structured role in the game. Or it could just be some kind of cultural thing that doesn't translate clearly to Americans.

Quote from: Thondor on February 15, 2024, 08:07:44 PM
Well said. There's a very strong OSR bias around these parts.

"Bias" is putting it mildly.  "Shrieking, tribal, GOLLLLDSTEEEEINNNN-level hatred for everything else" is more accurate.

Quote
Ribbon Drive (2009/2011) is firmly in this camp. You all bring actual music and then listen to it on a "road trip" together. This is one of the earlier one's that I'd put firmly in this camp, but I am sure there are others.

Joe McDonald's done several in that vein but I'm not sure they really fall into "cozy".  I think there's a distinction between "cozy" and "introspective".  I wouldn't call A Quiet Year "cozy", for instance.

I think "cozy" requires some level of cuteness in the art style, a lack of physical violence, and an overall theme of helping others. What's sometimes called "Studio Ghibli style".

Off the top of my head I'm thinking the ones previously mentioned on this thread, Do: Pilgrims of the Flying Temple, Apothecaria/Apawthecaria, Monster Care Squad, Yazeba's Bed & Breakfast, and others.

Quote from: Shipyard Locked on February 15, 2024, 10:18:22 PM
I was a player in a complete Ryuutama campaign where we made the effort of sticking to the game's intended atmosphere. I felt the result was like some of the more adventurous Saturday morning cartoons of the 80s-90s: Wholesome and soothing overall, but just enough carefully calibrated danger to keep things lively.

The whole "special dragon character for the GM to feel like a player" part felt a bit superfluous though, at least from my side of the screen. I guess I never really understand resource-management mechanics for the GM in any game I've seen them in.

One odd thing about Ryjjuin is that they have levels too.  The GM levels them up by playing sessions with them.  In the first session, they only have one ability.  For the green Ryuujin, the only thing they get is as item that tells the players how much the GM has altered the rules.  Using their abilities also has a cost and it is possible for them to kill themselves by using too many.  Yeah, they can die.

Quote from: daniel_ream on February 16, 2024, 12:22:54 AM

Quote from: Thondor on February 15, 2024, 08:07:44 PM
Well said. There's a very strong OSR bias around these parts.

"Bias" is putting it mildly.  "Shrieking, tribal, GOLLLLDSTEEEEINNNN-level hatred for everything else" is more accurate.

This thread seems very positive about what is not an OSR style! I actually think you can get a lot of open minded discussion here, more than on heavily moderated sites.

Quote from: ForgottenF on February 15, 2024, 11:27:19 PM
I get there's potentially some appeal to a designated GM character for "forever GMs" who feel left out, and maybe that's doubly so for the kind of groups that would want to run a feelgood game. I know Ryuutama was designed as a starter RPG, so maybe it's meant to reassure new players by making it explicit that the GM is just another player and is on their side, or it could be meant to ease new GMs in by giving them a more structured role in the game.

Hmm, those are some interesting ideas. I never would have thought of that.

Quote from: yosemitemike on February 16, 2024, 02:32:49 AM
One odd thing about Ryjjuin is that they have levels too.  The GM levels them up by playing sessions with them.  In the first session, they only have one ability.  For the green Ryuujin, the only thing they get is as item that tells the players how much the GM has altered the rules.  Using their abilities also has a cost and it is possible for them to kill themselves by using too many.  Yeah, they can die.

Yeah, this is the type of stuff I don't get. If you're going to structure one very specific aspect of the GM's experience like that, why stop at that arbitrary point? Why not put restrictions and resources on all of the GM's choices, lest he use one aspect of his godlike power to work around his "restricted" aspects?

Quote from: Shipyard Locked on February 16, 2024, 07:59:19 AM
Yeah, this is the type of stuff I don't get. If you're going to structure one very specific aspect of the GM's experience like that, why stop at that arbitrary point? Why not put restrictions and resources on all of the GM's choices, lest he use one aspect of his godlike power to work around his "restricted" aspects?

That's not the point of it.  Ryuutama, like a lot of Japanese ttrpgs, is written assuming that everyone is an absolute newcomer including the GM.  Having a Ryuujin start with simple abilities and level up has the same point as starting characters at low level and having them level up.  The GM gets more abilities to play with as they get more experience running the game.  The Ryuujin's abilities are not everything a GM can do.  They are specific abilities that the GM can use to nudge the story in a certain direction to match the sort of story that Ryuujin wants.

I can see where an RPG based on The Wind in the Willows or Will Huygens' Gnomes or even Jill Barklem's Brambly Hedge books would be fun once in a while, as a break from more serious games.  I don't think a campaign in such games would be very interesting for long -- not enough conflict, not enough danger or reward -- but such games, once in while, might be a nice "palate cleanser" of sorts.  I think I'd enjoy such a game occasionally.