Just Roll With It

I LOVE one-page RPGs, but I often notice a lot of people tend to recommend them to folks who are just starting out with RPGs, or to folks with no TTRPG experience outside of D&D to convince them that branching out of D&D doesn’t have to be a massive investment of money and time, but honestly I think in msot cases one-page RPG are not a particularly good starting point to start exploring the medium. 

And like… I get the logic of recommending them because shorter = easier and less intimidating to get through, and the rhetorical utility of being able to take a D&D-only gamer who keeps insisting that playing another system would be too costly and take too long and be like “NO LOOK NOT EVERY RPG IS THREE BOOKS LONG AND COSTS 90 DOLLARS SOME LITERALLY FIT IN A SINGLE PAGE LOOK!”, but I think that one-page RPGs function best when all (or at least SOME) of the people participating are already familiar with the medium and have some prior experience with more mechanically complex systems, and the reason they are able to be that minimal and short in the first place is because they sorta piggyback off of a lot of intuitive knowledge that they assume from the players and gm (if there is one).

Gonna be speaking primarily from the point of view as a GM because that’s mainly what I am, so sorry if I sorta neglect GMless games or solo journaling games or stuff like that here. Most one page RPGs that follow the traditional format of “group of players + GM” tend to be like. A few short steps for character creation, a simple core resolution mechanic, a description of the flow of the game, and usually nothing (or very very little) in terms of GM tools (at best a few GM principles and a couple of random oracles/tables). And like. Yeah, that’s more than enough to run and play a game, but IMO it’s probably not enough FOR A GROUP OF NEWBIES to run and play a game, because this level of extreme abstraction and mechanical minimalism it’s not inherently more newbie-friendly than the other extreme of high-crunch mechanical density. 

The way I conceptualize mechanics, they are a tool to delegate decisions and rulings from the players and GM to the game system. Like, some games have HP so that the GM doesn’t have to decide and rule through pure narrative and logic how much violence everyone involved in a combat is able to withstand, etc. So like, obviously, less mechanics means the game takes less time to read, learn and remember, but there also comes a point where less mechanics means more specific, situational decisions piled onto the GM (or in case of GMless games, spread among the players) to attempt to rule fairly, consistently, and satisfyingly, and being able to make this kind of ruling is a skill that takes practice to develop. If you hand me a piece of paper that says the typical “The GM describes the situation, the players describe how they react and what actions they take, the GM describes how the situation changes in response. When the outcome of the players’ actions is uncertain or there are interesting consequences for failure, then [insert core resolution mechanic here]” I would probably be able to run a game off of that combined with my current GM skills, but if you had handed me that when I was just stating to dip my toe into RPGs, I would have probably be almost as intimidated as I’d have been if you handed me something dense and rules-heavy like Shadowrun.

Like, for better and for worse, most TTRPG players end up entering the hobby through very “trad” RPGs like D&D, Pathfinder, the 40k RPGs, what have you. These RPGs are often very crunchy but for those parts of the game that these games are most opinionated about you have this formula of “thing happens -> make a roll -> mechanical consequences.” Your character loses hit points, the enemy is stunned, they get a +5 to gleeblor, whatever. Now introduce players who are used to this type of play to a game where consequences are rarely reflected mechanically and boil almost entirely to your character’s position and situation in the fiction changing.

Warlock dice set. This set will be available for rhe shop update today July 27 at 3pmPT. This is the warm version of this set and the copper numbers really help that warm green shimmer to pop.

Alright, here's my submission to the One-Page RPG Jam:

Hunk o' Junk

Play as a duo of space scoundrels trying to recover "their" impounded ship.

But here's the catch: the agent asked each of you to sketch half of the ship to see if your descriptions match…

Wait, what?

That's right.

You've managed to “acquire” a shabby spaceship, but before you could even take it for a joyride, it got impounded!

Now, your beloved vessel is locked away in a government impound lot, guarded by a no-nonsense agent who’s not easily fooled.

Taking turns, you're each describing and drawing half of the ship without peeking at your partner's masterpiece, adding more details as you go.

There's a bunch of tables with ways to alter the shape of the spaceship.

As you invent outrageous tales about these parts, you must slip in some clues to let your partner know where to add the same element in their mirrored half of the drawing.

And don't make it obvious to the agent that you're trying to coordinate your stories!

After a handful of rounds, you put your sketches together for the final review.

If your drawings line up when you're done, you'll fly away in your beautiful bucket of bolts.

If not… well, it's time to get creative with Plan B!

Hunk o' Junk is a light-hearted two-player story-drawing game (with solo and 3-player variants) that I believe will get a laugh out of you!

Especially when you put your two halves of the drawing together XD

If that sounds interesting to you, check it out here!

It's on s@le until the end of the jam!

A tall ship with bright word art over it that says “FRIGATE FRIGGIN’ Friday”

[ID: Photos of an oxidized copper plate, an oxidized copper pipe, and oxidized pennies. End ID]