JRPG style TTRPGs

[jian]

Also for completeness one should mention Dungeon Smashers, which is basically an OSR game with JRPG dungeon fantasy stylings and a more expansive 5E-style approach to stat boosts - for instance, the Monk can routinely get +10 to unarmed damage.

DS looks completely fine and has nice consistent chibi-style art (thankfully AI-free), especially in the bestiary*. It’s also just a very solid OSR game, which feels a bit more like 2E in its Paladins and Princesses phase than anything else to me. DS also includes a random dungeon generator using normal playing cards which has a nice rogue-like feel. It looks ideal for playing and running with kids.

*Looks as if the assignment for the artists was “draw me some cute but deadly dragons” and “draw me some sassy lady giants” and by God that assignment was fulfilled.

Honestly, for the money (99 shiny US cents currently) you could do a heck of a lot worse on all counts. On deeper consideration it might actually be one of my favourites so far.

 

[Voadam]

I am not sure if this is JRPG in the video game sense, but Kamigakari: God Hunters is a Japanese TTRPG with Japan media themes so things like Japanimation including mechanics of building up to do your big strike a bit into the combat Voltron style instead of first shot D&D style.

The mechanics are a dice pool where you roll each round. Different powers require different combos with more powerful things requiring rarer activation conditions so two odd numbers for a minor power but four numbers in a straight sequence for a more powerful one, plus with a mechanical option to keep unused dice rolls you like round to round until you hit that big power unlocking combo. This way you have elements of luck, weighing unlocking mid things now versus building up to bigger things later, and you can adjust your strategy to the situation a bit.

I really like that design to build the pacing of the Voltron delayed big attack while still doing stuff as you build up to it.