OPR & Last RPG Jam

 

Nearing the end of 2020 I took part in two game jams, both being jams to create physical or tabletop games rather than the digital jams I am used to. 

The first of these jams was OPR Game Jam #2, a 48 hour jam which required entrants to create a miniatures game with the rules housed on a single sheet of A4 paper. 

I knew I wanted to keep the number of units small and make each fighter distinct (I'm more a fan of Warhammer Underworlds than 40k) and after a brainstorming session decided an arena or colosseum game would be a good fit. Inspired by gladiator combat (plus Spartacus & the arena in Oblivion) I built Favour of the Crowd. 

In this game you spend some time building you team using a selection of Weapons and Keywords to create a number of distinct fighters. Your team must only cost 100pts and each additional fighter you add cuts into the points you have to equip them. Then over a number of rounds you pit your fighters against your opponents team. 

Favour is a key mechanic, you want to wound your opponents fighters early without killing them to work the crowd up. The higher your favour, the more you can reroll unfortunate dice and the less likely the crowd will allow you to be executed. On the flip side if you perform uninteresting or unfair attacks the crowd will lose interest and you will be more likely to lose your head. 

At the end of the game the team with the highest glory wins.  

This was a really fin project and creating character sheets and the customisation system was definitely a highlight for me. The ability to create a large fighter with a hammer and heavy armour or more nimble fighters which use movement as a key was a highlight for me. I also tried expanding the game with Veteran skills, optional rules that allows fighters who have survived multiple battles to gain a few extra perks. This a game that after more playtesting and work I would love to expand and create a more rigorous ruleset, perhaps in the form of a zine  

The second of these jams which I did over the few weeks of the Christmas break was The Last RPG Jam. For this the only goal was to create some sort of tabletop RPG.

My initial plan with this jam was to create a tabletop RPG for a solo player based around my worldbuilding project The Wailing Lands. However after some initial writing and testing I scaled the project back to focus on a single location. I chose a desert setting feeling it would give interesting interactions and considerations to the player. They would need to consider the heat, lack of food, sparse population. 

As this is a solo RPG I made sure it was a rules-lite game, having a success/failure system using a Dice Pool and allowing the player to progress via Keywords and items. The system allows the user to generate a simple character and then begin playing immediately. Events and encounters are chosen by rolling a d12 and checking oracle tables and then the player decides their actions and rolls for success.

The player is free to decide their own actions and interpret the Oracles as they wish, the idea is the game is a narrative adventure and worldbuilding tool from the characters point of view. The player can map their progress along a hex map and build the work around them through travel events, encounters and the landmarks defining their desert. 

I also chose a zine as the format for this game, allowing potential for creating a physical version of the game alongside the digital.