It’s August and that means that the annual #RPGaDAY ‘question a day’ is here to celebrate “everything cool, memorable and amazing about our hobby.” This year we’ve decided to join in the fun and will be canvassing answers from the ENWorld crew, columnists and friends in the industry to bring you some of our answers. We hope you’ll join in, in the comments section, and share your thoughts with us too… So, without further ado, here’s Day 21 of #RPGaDAY 2017!
#RPGaDAY Question 21: What RPG does the most with the least words?
Darryl Mott: Roll for Shoes. It’s a fun microlite game. You can explain all the rules in a single message in a Twitch chat without hitting the character limit, or about 4 Tweets.
Angus Abranson: Cheat Your Own Adventure by Shane Mclean.
Simon Brake (Stygian Fox): Monsterhearts. It taps into people’s experiences of being an awkward teenagers and pretty much lets players loose against the scenery. There’s so much to be built up out of the internal conflicts that the GM is pretty much free to build the world around them as he or she wishes (in many cases based entirely upon what the players have come up with). Every game I’ve played of Monsterhearts has felt like it took place in a well realised world, even though much of it was spontaneously created as a backdrop to the intense emotional interplay of characters.
David Donachie (Solipsist, Starblazer Adventures): In a Wicked Age. It does a lot with almost no words at all, and the ones it does have are pretty much poetry.
Eran Aviram (Up to Four Players; City of Mist): Lasers and Feelings knows exactly what sort of experience it wants to evoke, and manages to do so in a single page, a third of which is just graphics, while still leaving room for a GM section. It's nuts.
Martin Greening (Azure Keep, Ruma: Dawn of Empire): I was very impressed with the conciseness of Legacy: Life Among the Ruins by James Isles. It’s a post-apocalyptic game Powered by the Apocalypse which focuses on a character’s family/clan and encourages multi-epoch play. James is currently running a campaign on Kickstarter for a second edition, which has some awesome new art. The campaign ends in a few days if you want to check it out.
Garry Harper (Modiphius Entertainment; The Role Play Haven): Fate Accelerated by Evil Hate Productions.
Rich Lescouflair (Alligator Alley Entertainment; Esper Genesis 5E): Fate, which is either a great or truly horrible thing.
Kevin Watson (Dark Naga Adventures): Sword and Wizardry Light wins here. Think Redbox boiled down to 4 pages. That is a lot of fun per word.
Ken Spencer (Rocket Age; Why Not Games): FATE Accelerated does the most in the fewest pages, and those pages aren't jam-packed. An entire playable system, setting hints, and options jammed into a thin little book. Best of all, it works, at least with the right players.
Egg Embry (EN Publishing; Tessera Guild): Santiago Eximeno‘s Memories. Just 200 words but the impact is stunning. You play an elderly person in a nursing home and you’re forgetting things. Important things. All things. It's an emotional game.
Simon Burley (Golden Heroes, The Super Hack): Laser and Feelings - a full RPG on a single side of paper. (Well almost.) The grand daddy of all "pocket mods". Personally I think it's such a neat idea and system that it's worthy of a tiny bit more development. Throw in a couple of example scenarios and SELL it as a slim, lightweight, book.
Federico Sohns (Nibiru RPG): I have to say Benjamin Reyna's RPGs are great at this. The guy has focused on producing a myriad of two-page long RPGs that really do the trick if you are looking for a very concise ruleset dedicated to a specific theme or setting. You can also download them for free here.
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Originally created by Dave Chapman (Doctor Who: Adventures in Time & Space; Conspiracy X) #RPGaDAY os now being caretakered by the crew over at RPGBrigade. We hope you’ll join in, in the comments section, and share your thoughts with us too!
#RPGaDAY Question 21: What RPG does the most with the least words?
Darryl Mott: Roll for Shoes. It’s a fun microlite game. You can explain all the rules in a single message in a Twitch chat without hitting the character limit, or about 4 Tweets.
Angus Abranson: Cheat Your Own Adventure by Shane Mclean.
Simon Brake (Stygian Fox): Monsterhearts. It taps into people’s experiences of being an awkward teenagers and pretty much lets players loose against the scenery. There’s so much to be built up out of the internal conflicts that the GM is pretty much free to build the world around them as he or she wishes (in many cases based entirely upon what the players have come up with). Every game I’ve played of Monsterhearts has felt like it took place in a well realised world, even though much of it was spontaneously created as a backdrop to the intense emotional interplay of characters.
David Donachie (Solipsist, Starblazer Adventures): In a Wicked Age. It does a lot with almost no words at all, and the ones it does have are pretty much poetry.
Eran Aviram (Up to Four Players; City of Mist): Lasers and Feelings knows exactly what sort of experience it wants to evoke, and manages to do so in a single page, a third of which is just graphics, while still leaving room for a GM section. It's nuts.
Martin Greening (Azure Keep, Ruma: Dawn of Empire): I was very impressed with the conciseness of Legacy: Life Among the Ruins by James Isles. It’s a post-apocalyptic game Powered by the Apocalypse which focuses on a character’s family/clan and encourages multi-epoch play. James is currently running a campaign on Kickstarter for a second edition, which has some awesome new art. The campaign ends in a few days if you want to check it out.
Garry Harper (Modiphius Entertainment; The Role Play Haven): Fate Accelerated by Evil Hate Productions.
Rich Lescouflair (Alligator Alley Entertainment; Esper Genesis 5E): Fate, which is either a great or truly horrible thing.
Kevin Watson (Dark Naga Adventures): Sword and Wizardry Light wins here. Think Redbox boiled down to 4 pages. That is a lot of fun per word.
Ken Spencer (Rocket Age; Why Not Games): FATE Accelerated does the most in the fewest pages, and those pages aren't jam-packed. An entire playable system, setting hints, and options jammed into a thin little book. Best of all, it works, at least with the right players.
Egg Embry (EN Publishing; Tessera Guild): Santiago Eximeno‘s Memories. Just 200 words but the impact is stunning. You play an elderly person in a nursing home and you’re forgetting things. Important things. All things. It's an emotional game.
Simon Burley (Golden Heroes, The Super Hack): Laser and Feelings - a full RPG on a single side of paper. (Well almost.) The grand daddy of all "pocket mods". Personally I think it's such a neat idea and system that it's worthy of a tiny bit more development. Throw in a couple of example scenarios and SELL it as a slim, lightweight, book.
Federico Sohns (Nibiru RPG): I have to say Benjamin Reyna's RPGs are great at this. The guy has focused on producing a myriad of two-page long RPGs that really do the trick if you are looking for a very concise ruleset dedicated to a specific theme or setting. You can also download them for free here.
****
Originally created by Dave Chapman (Doctor Who: Adventures in Time & Space; Conspiracy X) #RPGaDAY os now being caretakered by the crew over at RPGBrigade. We hope you’ll join in, in the comments section, and share your thoughts with us too!
