In 'Who The Devil Are You?' The Players Do All The Work!

Zero-prep game where the players make the world and the story.

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Monte Cook Games' latest roleplaying game is a player-led experience called Who The Devil Are You? Instead of the GM building the world, the players do during the character creation process.

Even the story is player-led. The players create a scene based on an image prompt, and the GM just needs to fill in the details.

The game comes as a 50-page PDF, and it's a lightweight toolset which leans heavily on improvisation. Designed as a 'zero prep' game, it's best used for one-shots.

In most RPGs, the GM provides the story, setting, and context to the players and the players create characters to fit that world. But what if we turned all that upside down?

What if the whole process of making the characters also builds the world? And breathing life into those characters also builds the story? In other words, what if the lazy-ass GM makes the players do all the work?

This fun, fast-paced narrative game removes all the prep-work and delivers an entertaining, creative roleplaying experience that engages everyone around the table and invariably results in an entertaining, memorable story you’ll recount again and again, and a great time for everyone.

You start with an image prompt that sets a scene. Any prompt—science fiction, fantasy, horror, modern, or even weird or comical; it all works. The players collaborate to decide what the scene depicts: what’s happening, who’s there, and why. Then they build characters ready to engage the situation they created, while GM takes what they’ve come up with and sketches out the conflict, some basic plot points, and maybe a few details.

Then it’s into the action! The game provides the structure that turns these fun, fast-flowing, creative ideas into a coherent story with action, twists, turns, and always an element of the unexpected.


 

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BookTenTiger

He / Him
Is this assertion from MCG? I ask because a "story with action, twists, turns" sounds like campaign material.
It's interesting, I've been running a monthly Ironsworn game over the last year, which is a no-prep, player-focused system. As the GM all I do is remind the players of the rules, facilitate the creation of ideas, and suggest ideas myself. The number of twists and turns we've had are stunning. Allies turn to enemies, new threats emerge from nowhere, conspiracies bloom... It's really amazing just how gripping a good no-prep game can be!
 

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Vincent55

Adventurer
#badwrongfun, right?
No, I for one as a player love to figure out things and discover things and work within the rules to accomplish a task. If none of this is present then really I find no point in even participating in a game that really has no rules or that have rules that can change on a whim. As a GM i never fudge dice or help players or do the cop-out rule of cool, you work within the rules and any victory is that much better because i didn't help and you did it on your own merits.
 

Tonguez

A suffusion of yellow
No, I for one as a player love to figure out things and discover things and work within the rules to accomplish a task. If none of this is present then really I find no point in even participating in a game that really has no rules or that have rules that can change on a whim. As a GM i never fudge dice or help players or do the cop-out rule of cool, you work within the rules and any victory is that much better because i didn't help and you did it on your own merits.
Um what makes you think that working within the rules to accomplish a task and figuring things out isn’t present in this game too? What do you think they are doing with a 50 page rulebook if not providing a rules framework for you?
 
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Morrus

Well, that was fun
Staff member
No, I for one as a player love to figure out things and discover things and work within the rules to accomplish a task. If none of this is present then really I find no point in even participating in a game that really has no rules or that have rules that can change on a whim. As a GM i never fudge dice or help players or do the cop-out rule of cool, you work within the rules and any victory is that much better because i didn't help and you did it on your own merits.
When you said “no”, I think you meant “yes”. :)
 

Vincent55

Adventurer
When you said “no”, I think you meant “yes”. :)
I said no, and explained why, but I guess it might be a problem for some to understand my point of view that's fine. People need others who play checkers, I for one prefer more complex games, not those simplified for the masses.
 

GiantKitteness

Villager
no, i like doing the work and making and designing things and running the game like a DM is meant to do, i have seen DMs that just wing the whole game with no plan and i find those games of zero interest. But why stop there and just sit around and tell stories and interact that way heck why even have a rule book at all? I know i will just say i am a 20th-level wizard with a dragon or better i an a god that likes playing with mortals so really I can't ever die i just pretend.
I hear this reaction from old schoolers a lot, you might not fit that bill, but your reaction does. Yet old schoolers usually also say that fun is the goal, rules are guidelines not immutable laws... then when games come along that are the embodiment of those sentiments they push the MAD button and say “that’s not RPGing any more, why don’t you just go join your local amateur theatre troupe.”

I’m always inspired and amazed by the fearlessness of the RPG community to break down the barriers of what an RPG is. The old schoolers grognard about the new fangled things the kids are doing, but it’s all in the game, you feel me?

The OG’s from TSR play tested without boundaries, including playing gods, just to see what happened. Why not us?
 

BookTenTiger

He / Him
I said no, and explained why, but I guess it might be a problem for some to understand my point of view that's fine. People need others who play checkers, I for one prefer more complex games, not those simplified for the masses.
You're posting a whole lot of judgment for a game whose rules you don't seem familiar with.

It's totally alright to not enjoy a style of game play. But have you experienced this style at all, such as in a Powered By the Apocalypse game or Ironsworn? Or are you just unfamiliar with it?
 

Vincent55

Adventurer
Insulting other members
You're posting a whole lot of judgment for a game whose rules you don't seem familiar with.

It's totally alright to not enjoy a style of game play. But have you experienced this style at all, such as in a Powered By the Apocalypse game or Ironsworn? Or are you just unfamiliar with it?
I have seen many similar games and really the information is covered in their statement, 50 page PDF, and it's a lightweight toolset which leans heavily on improvisation. Designed as a 'zero prep' game, it's best used for one-shots. So the pop music of the game industry in other words very simplistic and zero complexity, " zero prep " "one-shots" so maybe like more of a jingle of a pop song then. Which as i said might be fine for those with a less complex pallet or mental capacity. I am betting more than a card game but not too much more.
 


pemerton

Legend
I have seen many similar games and really the information is covered in their statement, 50 page PDF, and it's a lightweight toolset which leans heavily on improvisation. Designed as a 'zero prep' game, it's best used for one-shots. So the pop music of the game industry in other words very simplistic and zero complexity, " zero prep " "one-shots" so maybe like more of a jingle of a pop song then. Which as i said might be fine for those with a less complex pallet or mental capacity. I am betting more than a card game but not too much more.
This post suggests that you have very little familiarity with developments in RPG design since the mid-to-late 1980s (RM, GURPS, HERO, etc; and then 3E D&D which tries to integrate that sort of RPG design with the core of AD&D).

Here are two RPGs with rulebooks considerably shorter than 50 pages: Cthulhu Dark and Wuthering Heights. I know, from experience, that both can be played "zero prep". Neither produces "simplistic" RPGing.
 

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