200 Words RPG Challenge - Quebec

[daisyninjagirl]

I was a reader for the 200 Word RPG challenge this year, which means reading through about 60 of the games submitted and picking my five favourites that get sent on to the Judges. There were some tough choices! But also, because I also come from a fanfiction background, Reviews Are King, so below are my thoughts.

The criteria we were asked to select by were that it was essentially a roleplaying game (ie not a board or card game) although it could use these kinds of games as supporting mechanics, and that we select games that are:

• Actionable. The entry should contain enough description to play the game.
• New and Overlooked Stories. The entry should encourage its players to tell a new kind of story, a story that has often been overlooked, or a familiar story from a new perspective.
• Engaging. The game should inspire the reader with ideas and questions. It should make the reader want to play this game as soon as possible.

I got a lot of appreciation while doing this of the balancing act between colour text, setting, and rule mechanics. There were a fair number of games that explained someone's cool idea for game mechanics in a lot of detail but I didn't feel excited by the setting, and a few that were great with drawing me into the premise but seemed too light on mechanics. The ones that I really liked were grabbing me with an idea of Play Me, and following it up with elegant mechanics that seemed to flow very naturally. When I was trying to whittle down my short list to my favourite five, I went for games I would be excited to see offered at a Games on Demand stream at a con over games which I felt more of an intellectual appreciation for.

Congratulations to all the finalists!

Quebec

Shortlist	Title	Comments
y	I've been seen with Farrah	Nice easy to understand premise, the chimp gives it a good quirk over the Incredible Hulk/Wandering Martial Artist shtick that commonly uses this format.
	Sidewalkia	Seemed more performance art than roleplaying game, didn't much feel like I'd want to play it.
		Rules text - I had to go back and reread to pick you the rules for how many people to a pavement square.  (Also, where I live doesn't have them, we have continuous footpaths.)
	PaperBits Showdown	Sounded like a fun party game, but felt it was less into roleplaying/storytelling (which we were specifically asked to look for)
y	Heist!	loved the premise and way it builds a roleplaying game into social drinks.
		Good for encouraging responsible drinking in the designated driver, it sounds like it could get chaotic in a fun way pretty fast.
		Minor rules comment - maybe put the description of GM actions in the same order as they appear in the text?
	Sensitive Emotional Breakthrough	- it felt more like it was taking the piss about 'arty games' than actually trying to achieve anything?
	Tower	nice extension of the Jenga game, gameplay will probably emphasise 'silly' moments
	Don't trust HUMAN	I liked how this was really pushing the point of communication difficulties (and how high stakes getting it wrong can be)
		With that said, I wasn't really sure how the game procedures would play out in reality - does the HUMAN player get to read the text?
		If you achieve PEACE does the game stop, or do you keep on playing?
y	Haiku Rebels Society	I liked the rule mechanic with the core Japanese artform, particularly how it wasn't just 'word count' but encouraging specifically
		Japanese poetic elements like the kigo and kireji.  I kinda feel that there'll be a Fruitful Void in this game as people build
		up their character's personality through the verses they write.
		With the text as a procedural document - I did have to read through it a few times to feel that I understood how the game was going to go.
	Goo-goo Ga-ga	Nice sense of empathy for how newborn babies feel.
		Couldn't work out how this plays out eg the "no nurse nearby" rider - is a board with counters implied?
y	Red Treachery	Really evocative scenario descripton, tightly written mechanics encouraging fear and betrayal.
	By Pinfall Or Submission	Sounds like people would have fun playing it, but I was a bit confused by some of the text.
		How many cards are played each round?  One at a time in a sequence?  Multiple cards at a time signifying multiple moves?  Do they get to pick?
	A Tiny Person	This felt like an arty experiential game.  I think it would work to evoke emotion (but I don't think I'd enjoy playing that emotion.)
y	Two People F*** in a Spaceport	This is a game I'd like to see in a Games on Demand stream at a con.
		It feels like a good kind of game to get to know someone better - I like the emphasis on negotiating how the encounter is going to go
		both in and out of character.  Also the comment "You may find yourselves with too much [time]"
	The President Has Been Kidnapped by Ninjas	Reads like this would be a fun party game and definitely better with actual booze.
	The Revolution Will Take Us All	A fairly bleak story game.  I think it would play well, but also that it's designed to have a sad ending.
y	Pressure Building	A very elegant design, that neatly establishes two opposing and disparate sides.
		I like how the mechanics encourage world building and description, and how it establishes both sides as heroes in their own head.
	Crystalium	This felt like character building rather than a game in and of itself.  I had to read through the text several times to get an idea of
		how the rules were supposed to go.
	Pay it Forward	A nice little game encouraging people to think through acts of kindess.
	Charlie, the Devil and Me	Interesting concept around the Devil vs the local newscaster as the contrasting voices in your head.
		Felt that it would play out more as a shared narrative than as people roleplaying dialogue
	Bury Mary: The Great Lich’s Bake Off	Take off of The Great British Bake Off and other cooking shows
	Confabulation	An open sourced detective story.  I liked the emphasis on the subjectivity of memory.
	Trench	A fairly meditative mini-larp about soldiers facing impending death.  I liked the use of space with the In The Trenches/Out of Trenches idea.
	City of Souls	A game about playing different aspects of a city (as people) which I thought was cool.
		I thought the way the Aspects were designed to reduce that the ending might have a bang, or it might have a fade away
		feel as the neighbourhoods drained away on their core features.
		If this turned into a game that ran for more than one adventure, is there a way to increase Aspects?
y	Home Church	An elegant design about losing connections with people in your community.
		I like how there were a lot of different ways to fade someone out, from Facebook rants to "they still send you Christmas cards" to "the kindest/cruellest person you ever met"
	Day At The Planet	A fish out of water game with an Alien trying to pass as human, looks like scope for a lot of comedy at both failures and successes of things that shouldn't be achievable.)
	Empathy Test	A sort of Turing game, was very heavy on procedural text.
	Life Behind Screens	Roleplaying courtship in a very status obsessed court.  It described the cards mechanic in a lot of detail, as well as the increasing bitterness of the characters
		but I would have preferred more flavour text.
y	Filling the Void	I really liked this one - a good balance between using techniques such as a priming text to encourage people
		into a storytelling frame of mind, use of the dice drop technique to create a map of stars,
		then encouraging people to go nuts telling stories about their map.