"Casual" RPGs

[hawkeyefan]

We've spent almost every Sunday of the pandemic playing casual and indie RPGs requiring little to no prep. A huge source of these has been Grant Howitt's one-page RPGs, such as Sexy Battle Wizards. While I'm not normally a huge PbtA fan, we've also had fantastic fun with games like Brindlewood Bay and Pasion de las Pasiones. I've run lots of GUMSHOE (including Swords of the Serpentine), I've playtested a new low-prep game I'm working on called LOOT THE KINGDOM, and we haven't even come close to running out of games we want to play.

I just wanted to cosign the above. Grant Howitt has made a few dozen one-page RPGs that are all freely available. There may be a couple that seem more of a novelty than something you would actually play, but the majority would make for fun one offs that are simple to learn and run and play.

I also think that the games he's written with Chris Taylor, Spire and Heart, are both relatively simple to play and to run, although the learning process of some elements is more involved. Compared to most they're relatively simple, and have a core mechanic that is easily grasped, but they do have a lot of player options and the like which can seem overwhelming to some folks new to RPGs.

 

[Umbran]

The GUMSHOE system is casual, for me. It does investigations very well. They also have a sci-fi version called Ashen Stars. I played Ashen Stars.

Gumshoe System - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

I ran Ashen Stars for years. The system is not at its best low-prep, and character generation isn't quick.

 

[Umbran]

Cotex is a system I keep meaning to try but never get around to.

Some Cortex games are simpler than others - Leverage is on the simple end.

 

[Piratecat]

I ran Ashen Stars for years. The system is not at its best low-prep, and character generation isn't quick.

I agree! I'll argue pretty convincingly that Ashen Stars is the least low-prep GUMSHOE game, at least in chargen. It's why I wrote the Warp Play rules that hack AS into a TimeWatch ability structure. I wanted a simpler system with more intuitive categories.

I can run a solid Ashen Stars game with little or no prep once the characters are made, though. We have all those seasons of Star Trek, Firefly, and B5 that's trained us on plot design.

Bubblegumshoe, Fear Itself, and Swords of the Serpentine all have fairly fast chargen.

 

[John R Davis]

As mentioned BoL is a fast jump into game.
PBTA certainly isn't. Takes a long and detailed session zero to create world and pcs??

 

[schneeland]

I have found that for pulpy action stories, Broken Compass works incredibly well - neither does it require a lot of prep nor is it very complicated for players. It might work for fantasy stories, too, but I think here you might find that you are missing at least a bit of crunch and procedure.
For that I would recommend Forbidden Lands (leaving out the whole base building part), but that's noticeably heavier than Broken Compass (though simpler or at least on the same level as D&D5). The abovementioned Barbarians of Lemuria is a solid choice for that, too.

 

[Kobold Stew]

I am hard pressed to think of a "casual" RPG where you can experience say, a heist adventure or a spy thriller, that is easy and fast and doesn't require prep.

Thoughts?

With apologies for self-promotion: this was exactly the hole we were seeking to fill when we wrote Hollowpoint. It's a one-session heist/spy/mob game that requires almost no prep. Meant as a palate-cleanser between longer campaigns.

 

[Malmuria]

Outside of D&D type play, though, I am hard pressed to think of a "casual" RPG where you can experience say, a heist adventure or a spy thriller, that is easy and fast and doesn't require prep.

*I would say any of the rules lite OSR games are both easy to learn and require minimal prep: Knave, Maze Rats, Black Hack, Mork Borg, Cairn, Into the Odd, and innumerable other variations on those. All of those involve between 1-10 pages of rules with a number of random tables (and online generators). There's any number of one page dungeons out there that work great with those systems and are easy to convert stats on the fly.

Lasers & Feelings is free and one page long.

Then there is the vast ocean of games on itch.io.

*Edit: the osr games qualify as dnd type games

 

[Piratecat]

With apologies for self-promotion: this was exactly the hole we were seeking to fill when we wrote Hollowpoint. It's a one-session heist/spy/mob game that requires almost no prep. Meant as a palate-cleanser between longer campaigns.

An enthusiastic cheer for Hollowpoint. We played a slightly variant game where we were adult aurors tracking down deatheaters in the wizarding world, all while trying to stay below muggle notice. It was freakin' amazing. If you want a game that mirrors violent action movies and requires zilch for prep, this is a great one. I bought it in dead tree form, and I'm delighted to own it.

 

[Aldarc]

Some Cortex games are simpler than others - Leverage is on the simple end.

It also helps that Leverage comes pre-assembled, as one of the biggest issues with Cortex Prime is that it feels like being handed a random assortment of Legos and told to build something with it. Constructing what you want from that toolkit is sometimes easier said than done due to all the different possible configurations, which requires knowing what you want out of the game and how to do it. But if you have something pre-assembled like Leverage or Tales of Xadia, then it becomes almost trivial to play from there.