Rules-lite and ready to fight (or not)
March 14, 2024 5:46 PM Subscribe
What are some of your favourite micro-TTRPGs from the last several years?
I'm in an RPG group that's hit a fallow spell GM-wise and I'd like to introduce them to short, fun one-offs. I haven't really looked at micro-TTRPGs in three or four years, though. Ones I'm aware of that kind of fill the bill for what I have in mind: Games like Runecairn are great but getting a bit too systems-ish. As much as I like other alternate games I'm not looking for anything as big as Fiasco, even if the game itself plays quick.
I'm in an RPG group that's hit a fallow spell GM-wise and I'd like to introduce them to short, fun one-offs. I haven't really looked at micro-TTRPGs in three or four years, though. Ones I'm aware of that kind of fill the bill for what I have in mind: Games like Runecairn are great but getting a bit too systems-ish. As much as I like other alternate games I'm not looking for anything as big as Fiasco, even if the game itself plays quick.
Best answer: We’ve gotten our money’s worth out of this book of micro-RPG’s. They vary considerably in tone and gameplay; I was pretty impressed with the variety.
posted by tchemgrrl at 4:29 AM on March 15, 2024 [3 favorites]
posted by tchemgrrl at 4:29 AM on March 15, 2024 [3 favorites]
Lasers and Feelings is a good one in that most people know enough sci fi tropes to get it going quickly and it will reliably spin out a good yarn.
posted by rikschell at 5:18 AM on March 15, 2024 [2 favorites]
posted by rikschell at 5:18 AM on March 15, 2024 [2 favorites]
Best answer: Back in the early 2000s a couple of guys I knew from the internet asked me if I wanted to publish their horror RPG. They'd come up with a clever system, replacing dice with a Jenga tower to create suspense. I thought it felt gimmicky and turned them down. I was completely wrong, and DREAD is a masterpiece.
posted by Hogshead at 8:19 AM on March 15, 2024 [2 favorites]
posted by Hogshead at 8:19 AM on March 15, 2024 [2 favorites]
Best answer: Grant Howitt, who wrote Honey Heist, has also written a ton of other excellent one-page games which you can purchase in bundles or individually as pay-what-you-want. For instance, I had a hell of a fun evening playing Pride and Extreme Prejudice -- it's Jane Austin where the young ladies pilot giant mecha bots called Dragoons. (I liked it so much that I wrote a random generator to support gameplay.)
Truly, all his games are wonderful -- check out The Witch is Dead, Big Gay Orcs, Sexy Battle Wizards, This is Not a Place of Honor, and many others.
posted by ourobouros at 11:03 AM on March 15, 2024 [2 favorites]
Truly, all his games are wonderful -- check out The Witch is Dead, Big Gay Orcs, Sexy Battle Wizards, This is Not a Place of Honor, and many others.
posted by ourobouros at 11:03 AM on March 15, 2024 [2 favorites]
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For the Queen is getting re-issued on May 14. Meanwhile the website For the Drama has variants it can step you through interactively online. The print-and-play downloads appear to be broken at the moment, but just checking one, I see the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine has it.
Among communities playing games like these, the NSR Cauldron and (in French) C'est Pas du JDR have Discord invitation links online, and they are places where people routinely recommend things like Belonging Outside Belonging and I'm Sorry Did You Say Street Magic?, along with typical NSR games like Cairn.
posted by Wobbuffet at 6:20 PM on March 14, 2024 [4 favorites]