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WIZARDS! A game (Roleplaying Game)
You are a mighty and terrific wizard with nigh-infinite power and your cabal has come to solve the world’s problems, no matter how big or small. In average, you will create 33% more problems than you solve.
System-wise, this is exceedingly simple: Put a list of problems in a hat. Go around the table and roll a d6 to see if you successfully solve it (gaining Interest), fail to solve it (gaining Apathy) and/or create additional new problems. The entertainment value comes from describing the problem, describing your solution, mansplaining to another wizard how they’ve done their magic wrong, and (most importantly) acting as a victim or bystander to describe how another wizard’s solution has destroyed your life.
It's also totally GM-less, the first such game we’ve tried.
Honestly, the biggest problem with the game is in the (exceedingly simple) ruleset: Whether your solution succeeds or fails (and therefore whether you gain points) is entirely random, and the “knockout” mechanism is that if you get down to 4 Apathy, at which point you make a vehement speech and your wizard leaves (though you still act as bystanders, etc). At no point is your storytelling skill involved in your score. Suggestions were raised of making a “race to the top” or simply doing away with the elimination mechanism and ending the game when you ran out of problems (which we ended up doing: We started with 12 problems, created 4 new ones, and eventually just reached the end of our list).
It also came up that with a little tweaking, this could make an excellent celebrity con panel game: The fact that the other players get to mansplain magic and also play townspeople whose lives you wrecked is fertile ground for improv humor. And instead of the dice, you use audience votes or reactions to score each solution and apply Interest and Apathy to the players.
Overall: This was a delightful “storytelling prompt” game with meaningless mechanics. It requires virtually no prep and no GM. I want to watch Peter David and Bob Greenberger play it.
System-wise, this is exceedingly simple: Put a list of problems in a hat. Go around the table and roll a d6 to see if you successfully solve it (gaining Interest), fail to solve it (gaining Apathy) and/or create additional new problems. The entertainment value comes from describing the problem, describing your solution, mansplaining to another wizard how they’ve done their magic wrong, and (most importantly) acting as a victim or bystander to describe how another wizard’s solution has destroyed your life.
It's also totally GM-less, the first such game we’ve tried.
Honestly, the biggest problem with the game is in the (exceedingly simple) ruleset: Whether your solution succeeds or fails (and therefore whether you gain points) is entirely random, and the “knockout” mechanism is that if you get down to 4 Apathy, at which point you make a vehement speech and your wizard leaves (though you still act as bystanders, etc). At no point is your storytelling skill involved in your score. Suggestions were raised of making a “race to the top” or simply doing away with the elimination mechanism and ending the game when you ran out of problems (which we ended up doing: We started with 12 problems, created 4 new ones, and eventually just reached the end of our list).
It also came up that with a little tweaking, this could make an excellent celebrity con panel game: The fact that the other players get to mansplain magic and also play townspeople whose lives you wrecked is fertile ground for improv humor. And instead of the dice, you use audience votes or reactions to score each solution and apply Interest and Apathy to the players.
Overall: This was a delightful “storytelling prompt” game with meaningless mechanics. It requires virtually no prep and no GM. I want to watch Peter David and Bob Greenberger play it.