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[book report] The Ultimate Micro-RPG Book
Dec. 20th, 2023 10:46 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
yhlee(reposted from 2021)
The Ultimate Micro-RPG Book, ed. James D’Amato, is a collection of tear-out two-page (front and back of a sheet) micro-RPGs that I picked up on a whim at Barnes & Noble a while back. It’s not only good, it’s great. It includes forty micro-RPGs, opens with a brief introduction to roleplaying, and discusses not one but THREE safety/communication tools and their advantages/disadvantages: John Stavropoulos’s The X-Card, Emily Care Boss’s Lines and Veils, and Brie Beau Sheldon’s Script Change.
Each game comes with a “stats box” telling you the number of player (including some solo games!), playing time, complexity rated from 1 (easiest/suitable for beginners) to 4 (most complicated/for experienced RPG players), any tools needed (d6’s, Tarot cards, markers, whatever), tags (e.g. genre like science fiction or horror, tone from funny to serious, formats including GM’d, GMless, or rotating GM), and content (anything from “dystopia” to “suicidal ideation” to “farcical aliens”). And of course the games themselves are so short that you can read through them in case you have particular requirements, things that you enjoy, or things that you’re trying to avoid.
The part that really took me by surprise, in a good way, was how diverse the roster of creators was - internationally/ethnically (USA, UK, Malaysian/Chinese, Peruvian-American, Canada, Trinidad & Tobago, Japanese, Chinese-Canadian, etc.), gender identity, etc. A large number of creators in their bios identify as genderqueer/nonbinary/genderfluid or use they/them pronouns. There are creators who focus on Afrofuturism, Egyptian culture, queerness, activism, as well as more “traditional” gaming topics.
The games themselves looked like a solid bunch (I have not yet played any of them as my family is still attempting to scale Mt. Gloomhaven), with a pleasing variety of genres and tones and difficulty levels. My only complaint is that some of the games had font/color/background combinations that render them extremely difficult to read. Like, I don’t care how brilliant your game is, if it’s printed in black text on dusky purple, I can’t read it and I’m gonna skip to the next one.
My usual source for micro-RPGs is buying them direct from creators on sites like itch.io, but if you’re looking for a place to start, this is an excellent one.
The Ultimate Micro-RPG Book, ed. James D’Amato, is a collection of tear-out two-page (front and back of a sheet) micro-RPGs that I picked up on a whim at Barnes & Noble a while back. It’s not only good, it’s great. It includes forty micro-RPGs, opens with a brief introduction to roleplaying, and discusses not one but THREE safety/communication tools and their advantages/disadvantages: John Stavropoulos’s The X-Card, Emily Care Boss’s Lines and Veils, and Brie Beau Sheldon’s Script Change.
Each game comes with a “stats box” telling you the number of player (including some solo games!), playing time, complexity rated from 1 (easiest/suitable for beginners) to 4 (most complicated/for experienced RPG players), any tools needed (d6’s, Tarot cards, markers, whatever), tags (e.g. genre like science fiction or horror, tone from funny to serious, formats including GM’d, GMless, or rotating GM), and content (anything from “dystopia” to “suicidal ideation” to “farcical aliens”). And of course the games themselves are so short that you can read through them in case you have particular requirements, things that you enjoy, or things that you’re trying to avoid.
The part that really took me by surprise, in a good way, was how diverse the roster of creators was - internationally/ethnically (USA, UK, Malaysian/Chinese, Peruvian-American, Canada, Trinidad & Tobago, Japanese, Chinese-Canadian, etc.), gender identity, etc. A large number of creators in their bios identify as genderqueer/nonbinary/genderfluid or use they/them pronouns. There are creators who focus on Afrofuturism, Egyptian culture, queerness, activism, as well as more “traditional” gaming topics.
The games themselves looked like a solid bunch (I have not yet played any of them as my family is still attempting to scale Mt. Gloomhaven), with a pleasing variety of genres and tones and difficulty levels. My only complaint is that some of the games had font/color/background combinations that render them extremely difficult to read. Like, I don’t care how brilliant your game is, if it’s printed in black text on dusky purple, I can’t read it and I’m gonna skip to the next one.
My usual source for micro-RPGs is buying them direct from creators on sites like itch.io, but if you’re looking for a place to start, this is an excellent one.
