I just submitted my game Unincorporated, a game about small-town life. It’s inspired partly by tv shows and movies like Northern Exposure, Steel Magnolias, and every Drive-By Truckers album, but also by my love-hate relationship with many little crossroads communities where I’ve lived and worked.
But there’s no reason it has to be set in a small US town! The setting could really be any place or situation where the same few people play several roles in your life, whether you like them or not, and where your reputation dogs you whether it’s accurate or not. I’ve been thinking I’d like to create alternate community playbooks, with different sets of questions and problems, but I have neither the time nor the insider knowledge to do this for all the situations I’d like to.
So I’m opening the system up for others to create their own community playbooks! Want to play out stories about the congregation of a church? A neighborhood in a big city? The staff of a university? Hack away! Tweak the Questions and Problems lists as needed, rename the stats if you need to, and voila.
And of course, if you do it, I’d love to see the results.