#gm-less

I would really love to tell you more about this game, but I don't think I can do it justice. So, I have three words for you:

Cuck Tent Game

Announcing Tangled Blessings, my upcoming solo or two-player tabletop RPG!

Take on the role of a senior student at a mysterious and magical academy for adults. In fewer than 24 hours, you’ll face your Rival in your last final exam before graduation, and learn about the destiny that awaits you. As you prepare and study, you’ll reflect on the last four years at Brackroot Academy:

the lessons you’ve learned

your experiences

your failures

your friendships

your secrets

Your entire future hinges on this exam, and should your Rival overcome you, you’ll lose access to a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

Tangled Blessings is a solo journaling or two-player roleplaying game set in the subgenre of dark academia, featuring a wizarding school, ghosts, rivals, houses, and curses. You should be able to play in one sitting, but if you really enjoy exploring the prompts, you can spread out your play sessions. There’s a natural break between each year of school. 

To play you’ll need a deck of tarot cards. If you’re playing alone, you’ll need a way to record your entries. A dark academia playlist may also help set the mood.

The text is nearly complete! We're finishing up playtesting, and then entering editing and layout.

I'm hoping to crowdfund a print run in February 2023! Sign up for my mailing to get notified when it goes live!

Tabletop Roleplaying Games, or TTRPGs, are meant by and large to be social affairs. A group generally consisting of a Game-Master and at least a few players, gather in person or online to play this style of game. That’s the way these games were designed to be played. That said, this is not the only way to play TTRPGs. For example, games like “Lovecraftesque” do not have a single Game-Master. The…

Lily Tarkovich, the Judge with an obscene knowledge of lawn gnome lore, lives in my head rent free.

Give it a listen: https://buff.ly/3hdj5Az

Some dedicate their life to the cause...

One day, you will dedicate everything

those who dream of a better world know one simple, terrible fact: not everyone who helps build it will be blessed with the opportunity to live in it. those who put their lives on the line to transmute dreams of rebellion into reality know the grim truth that to see this transformation occur, they may one day have to give their lives as catalyst. going rogue 2e is a GM-less TTRPG for 2-5 players that tells the story of that sacrifice.

going rogue was originally developed as an expansion for riley rethal’s Star Wars-inspired Belonging Outside Belonging system, galactic 2e. this second edition of going rogue expands it to a 32-page game that can be played as a one-shot or over the course of a limited-run campaign. while the base game is built to tell stories of charming, larger-than-life heroes, going rogue 2e—taking its inspiration from Rogue One: A Star Wars Story—uses galactic 2e’s mechanical foundation to instead weave narratives about troubled martyrs mired in messy, ethically gray conflicts who must face the possibility of making the ultimate sacrifice.

this new second edition adds a variety of new content:

a 5th playbook, THE LOYAL, inspired by K-2SO and other Star Wars companion characters, expanding the game to 5 players! THE LOYAL features a unique mechanic in which your moves interact differently when they target a bonded character!

a new pillar, THE BOND, a unique spin on Belonging Outside Belonging’s “setting element” mechanic, in which the unfailing trust between THE LOYAL and another player character becomes a discrete element of the setting

a set of 6 traits to supplement the 36 in the base book, which better match the tone of going rogue

a complete rework of the SACRIFICE fate mechanic, simplifying, streamlining, and adding more flavor

a completely revamped layout that's easy to read and easy to browse

more small improvements all over, as the result of additional playtesting

I get this is a tall order so I totally understand if there aren't many options.

Appreciate what you do!

THEME: Party Games

Hello friend, thank you very much! There’s quite a few GM-less games out there but I agree that’s important to be cognizant of the birthday party setting in order to make sure a game in which everyone understands what they’ve got going on. I hope you find these recommendations useful!

Please Report to Customer Service, by KitRole.

You are a Kid.

You have been separated from your Adult at the Store.

This is widely regarded as a Bad Thing. “Please Report to Customer Service…” is a rules-light, GM agnostic TTRPG, written  over 12 hours for the Lost Caravan Game Jam 2023. It has not been tested, needs no prep, and requires at most 2d6 to play. Gather your friends to play as a gaggle of siblings, or play solo. Either way, the goal is the same:

Find your Grown Up, or cause chaos trying.

This is a cute, lighthearted game that has great potential for silliness. You can choose whether you run this game with or without a GM: a GM would be responsible for setting the scene and coming up with encounters, but players can also collaboratively create problems for each-other. There's no inherent fantasy rules but it's easy enough to create fantastical or magical traits for your kids. Perhaps you're three elf children and a faun, or perhaps you're all secretly cryptid kiddos! If you want something that allows you to play silly little folks with low stakes, this game might be worth checking out. 

Hallow Unseen, by marymcharg

Spooky season has finally arrived, and your group of friends have all been invited to the biggest Halloween party in town. But while most invitees will be shopping for costumes, you won’t have to… 

Tonight is the one night of the year where creatures of myth, beasts of legend, and monsters of nightmare can live among humans without fear- and what better way to spend it than getting drunk at a stranger’s house, making a fool of some arrogant humans, and maybe learning a bit about yourself too?

Hallow Unseenis a Halloween-themed coming-of-age TTRPG, filled to the brim with cryptids and teen drama. This is a diceless system- all you need to play is a deck of cards!

The game is short and the character sheets are simple, which makes this game easy to learn. It makes use of tried-and-true tropes, which means that the premise of the game should be pretty understandable for new folks. It does require a GM however, so it’s probably something that one person should agree to pick up ahead of time. Check it out if you want to let everyone embrace their inner teenager, and all the messiness that brings.

Fey Critter Tea Party, by anniedisaster.

Gather your friends (2 or more) and journey through the Magic Wilderness gathering ingredients for some wonderful baked goods just in time for tea! This game is GM-less and only requires a simple D4 to play! 

It comes with 4 adventures, each with 4 sessions of play. Each session can take as little as a half hour-45 minutes to a few hours depending on how involved and how into the story building everyone is! 

There is no set DM, instead, everyone takes their turn building up parts of the story and role-playing as an NPC or an enemy, etc. The setting and the adventure outlines are simple and easy for both kids and adults to play. 

This game is cozy, cute, and with a theme of gathering ingredients for baked goods, I imagine it would pair well with some birthday cake to eat after you finish play! The game comes with 4 pre-written adventures, so to reduce prep you can simply pick one of those and follow along. 

Unlikely Ambassadors, by Luciano Correa.

The rumors circulating in the main hall are confirmed by the desperate cry of a mansion servant. The ambassador of Vol Redinjia, the country on the brink of an unprecedented revolution, has disappeared from the face of the earth, upsetting the distinguished partygoers. Nothing foreshadowed that an event like this, which would bring together important figures from the four main nations of the oldest continent, each with more conflicts than the previous one, would end so disastrously. By chance, fortune, or disgrace, nobody in this party is more qualified than you to solve the case. It is your duty to investigate every corner of the Duke of Nekronia’s mansion.

Unlikely Investigators is a GM-less roleplaying game of mystery and intrigue. Collaborate with your fellow investigators to solve the mystery of the disappearance of the ambassador; search for clues around the mansion, talk to the peculiar and distinguished party guests, and come up with a theory that explains the weird happenings around the case. The game comes in a trifold pamphlet format, ready to print and play.

THEME: 4-Player-Compatible GM-less Games.

Hello friend! I've got a number of recommendations for you here, and I'm personally very excited by all of the games on this list. Enjoy!

The Creature Comes for Us, by OrionQK.

The Creature Comes for Us is a game that can be played solo or multiplayer which uses a standard deck of cards, two six-sided dice, and the players' imagination. 

You play as a group of people preparing to fight against a currently unknown threat. You will learn (through drawing cards) about the creature that is coming for you, you will find resources and tactics to fight against them, and you will learn more about the unique traits and talents of the player characters. The second part of the game brings together what you've gathered to fight the looming horrors and you will find out if your characters and world can survive the onslaught.

You’re going to need both dice and cards for this one. Slowly uncover the creature that’s hunting you, and then take what you’ve learned and turn to face the horror. It’s inspired by games such as The Quiet Year and The Junkyard. The game comes with a simple outline of the game, and an oracle for each card that you may pull. The game also comes with a number of tips for a shorter game, a longer game, and how to make the game a fun experience for different kinds of players. If you want a great summer spook story, this is worth checking out!

Scary Monsters & Nice Sprites, by Pammu. 

Scary Monsters and Nice Sprites is a narrative RPG about spending your night in one of the only clubs in your city that’s safe for creatures of the night like yourself. All you want to do is have some fun just like the humans do. Play a supernatural creature of choice, put some sick EDM on the speakers and get your game on!

You can alter how long you’re going to play by lengthening or shortening the intimacy meters between each pair of characters. You will roll dice and spend tokens to indicate the advances you make with different characters, narrating what you do to get them to look your way. While this game is primarily designed for a one-shot, the creator also provides ideas for making this a longer game. If you’re interested in a heavily descriptive game that gives all of you plenty of opportunities to flirt with each-other, this is a great option.

Waxworm, by FeatherBoy.

Waxworm is a game about legacies, survival, spite, love, and reclaiming a world taken from you by others. It is also a rule-light solarpunk tabletop role-playing game set in a world covered in water and broken concrete spires baking in the sun, and named for the questionable theory that waxworm moths might be well on their way to one day digesting plastics. Players may find themselves helping regrow broken communities adrift on the waves. They may also find that they are adrift themselves, searching for a community in which they can grow.

In Waxworm, each player acts as a Crew, rather than an individual. These Crews work together to grow and support each other, and face down adversity upon the waves and islands. The core of gameplay involves exploring relations within and between Crews, and exploring how those dynamics shift as crew-members come and go.

Another game inspired by the Quiet Year, Waxworm is a great cozy game that explores a hopeful future. The game is designed to be printed, which means that you can bring a physical copy and not worry about reading the rules off of a screen or having difficulty reading the text. 

Here We Used To Fly, by A Smouldering Lighthouse.

Here We Used to Fly is a rules-light tabletop roleplaying game about a group of friends exploring an abandoned theme park. Over the course of a single session, players will create two versions of the same character: one a child visiting the vibrant amusement park, one an adult investigating the ruins. As they discover or revisit each location in the park, they’ll play out scenes spotlighting moments of joy, frustration, fear, love, loss, and more.

This game feels like it requires a bit of prep, but each character is packaged into playbooks, so all of your options will be laid out in the same place. The play is also structured to make it easy to follow: with each Attraction you visit you’ll move from a childhood scene to a current-day scene. I’m very intrigued by this game and its partner, Endless Summer by Kay Marlow Allen. The whole feeling of nostalgia and whimsy feels perfect for a summer vacation with your loved ones.

Games I’ve Recommended in the Past

Fedora Noir, by Less Than Three Games.

Seemannsgarn, by Max Kämmerer.

Space Bounty Blues, by the Nerdy Paper Games of Rob Hebert.