Danger Patrol (Roleplaying Game)
Oct. 23rd, 2020 10:28 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chuckroThreats are popping up all over the city, and it’s up to you, the Danger Patrol, to stop them!
This one is only nominally a roleplaying game…it’s really a dice stacker game that you build funny narration into. It took us the first few rounds of actions to really figure that out and get the swing of the mode of play. It was (likely for this reason) also the most polarizing game we’ve played recently: Dave and Ben would happily play it again; Jethrien quit after the first battle.
Character creation has you pick two main roles and put points into eight skills, then pick your bonus abilities/items. It works best if you realize you’re playing a trope rather than a character (in our case, a Xenomorph, a Pulp Hero, and a Ghost Detective) and that the stats are a motivation for the storytelling. (If you’re good at Action and bad at Science, that will determine how you try to handle dangers.) The real gameplay is risk/reward betting on how many Danger Dice you can afford to take on, and if you can afford to stop and reduce threat levels or quell complications before the villains advance the Danger Meter enough to defeat you.
For the first battle, I used their random Threat-o-Matic to roll up six dangers, which was amusing. In the second battle, I brought in the Sinister Six for good comic book fun, which lead to many more complications. (Also, I kept the strengths and weaknesses of villains secret in the second round, which I think helped the overall experience.)
Overall: This has a much more board-gamey feel than an rpg; like I said, it’s a dice-stacking game that you make up funny, pulpy narration for. And it’s a lot of fun for that, but lousy as an rpg.
This one is only nominally a roleplaying game…it’s really a dice stacker game that you build funny narration into. It took us the first few rounds of actions to really figure that out and get the swing of the mode of play. It was (likely for this reason) also the most polarizing game we’ve played recently: Dave and Ben would happily play it again; Jethrien quit after the first battle.
Character creation has you pick two main roles and put points into eight skills, then pick your bonus abilities/items. It works best if you realize you’re playing a trope rather than a character (in our case, a Xenomorph, a Pulp Hero, and a Ghost Detective) and that the stats are a motivation for the storytelling. (If you’re good at Action and bad at Science, that will determine how you try to handle dangers.) The real gameplay is risk/reward betting on how many Danger Dice you can afford to take on, and if you can afford to stop and reduce threat levels or quell complications before the villains advance the Danger Meter enough to defeat you.
For the first battle, I used their random Threat-o-Matic to roll up six dangers, which was amusing. In the second battle, I brought in the Sinister Six for good comic book fun, which lead to many more complications. (Also, I kept the strengths and weaknesses of villains secret in the second round, which I think helped the overall experience.)
Overall: This has a much more board-gamey feel than an rpg; like I said, it’s a dice-stacking game that you make up funny, pulpy narration for. And it’s a lot of fun for that, but lousy as an rpg.
