What Makes a Good One Page RPG
Thanks to Steve Norman for wonderful insights!
Today’s post has been co-written by my friend Steven Norman. He’s been playing TTRPGs since the 80’s and is even more of an advocate for RPGs in general than I am.
I’ve been vocal about my love of one page RPGs for a long time. They’re easy to learn, built to be silly, and are sometimes perfect intros into role playing for newbies. But those who may now know, what makes a good 1 page RPG?
Interesting Premise
You’re Jason’s Statham’s Body Guard. You’re a bear who is also a criminal. You’re trapped in a flooded trailer park with sharks. You’re a pack of raccoons in a street race. It’s Pride & Prejudice with mech robots powered by eldritch means.
A 1P-RPG thrives on the premise being big and silly. You can visualize immediately what your character or the setting looks like. The tone should also be clear as soon as you hear it. This goes hand in hand with knowing the genre. Honey Heist is clearly a crime based game.
What Steve Says
A one page RPG needs to grab your attention. It needs a compelling hook. A game where you crash a party? Yawn. A game where you play a goat crashing a party? Yes please! A game where you try and get your stolen car back? No thanks. But what of it was stolen by Bigfoot? Now you have my attention!
Simple Mechanics
Several of these games utilize a system started by Lasers & Feelings. You pick a number between 2 and 5, only roll six sided die, and the difficulty is based in rolling above or below your number. In fact a six sided die is typical of these games, since almost any board game would have them. Other games, like Honey Heist, give you literally one number on a track moving back and forth as you play the game.
What Steve Says
It has to be not only easy for players to learn, it has to be fun to learn! If you can completely screw something up, but still have a blast doing it, that’s solid game design! TTRPGs should feel like Dark Souls. You can and should play something that isn’t 100% optimal game play. You can do stupid stuff and still feel like you won.
Built for short games
The length of a game really depends on the group and their willingness to dig into the lore and expand everything. But most of these games aren’t built for marathons. Their sprints of fun and silly game play.
This adds to the low threshold of entry. No real chance of a massive campaign and obligation to keep week to week or month to month. Just show up and have a good time.
Steve’s Soapbox
I didn’t have a perfect spot to fit this block of text, but it’s so wonderful and on point for this article I’m giving Steve this chunk without the fancy pull quote treatment. Take it away, buddy!
Steve
The life and death stakes that games like D&D try and emulate can make players feel bad for trying something crazy instead of making the “smart” move. That’s where one page games come in. Do the silly thing. Swing out the window of a speeding car to launch raccoon feces into the eye socket of a rival street racer. “Accidentally” give Jason Statham a massive quantity of cocaine so he moves too fast for the Wesley Sniper to draw a bead on. There are moments in TTRPGs that make great stories which you will tell again and again. A good one page RPG will give you those moments every time you play. In the end, a one page RPG should be fun for everyone involved. It should open up new possibilities for new players and rekindle excitement for old players. I just want to sit around a table with my friends to tell stories and laugh my ass off. If your one page game can let me accomplish that lofty goal… I’m in.
It’s Blake again!
I sincerely hope any TTRPG players give a chance to the (probably) thousands of One Page RPGs out in the world. Even if you’ve been running the same campaign for ten+ years, take a break and steal some honey as a bear with a fun hat! The realm can wait for a session.
What Steve says: Great article!!