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On a spiritual level, what is sobriety?

waittoometa

Much agreed.

Big fan of the entropy mechanics. I wish there was a bit more implicit setting/mythos, but still definitely one of the more playable entries.

I appreciate the explicit genre reference; saves a lot of words. Other entries would benefit from that approach.

Not really my cup of well-honeyed Earl Grey, but I can see this being interesting in a sorta storyteller circle format, if everybody is invested in the drama.

I like the resource allocation mechanics, but I'd need to ask: where are they coming home from?

It seems like this might be a stronger contender with a more robust, heartstring-pulling scenario, like coming back to a loved one.

As an addnote, since I didn't have much time to reply more than the general "thanks for caring enough to leave textual feedback," I'd be curious to know if this would be more interesting with or without the pseudo-identities. It would be certainly be more personal if the praise was directed at the actual individual, but it may very well cease to be an RPG. If only more words permitted, I'd have tried to add some traits to help actually characterize those identities, but I'd be curious to know how the game holds up with only the implicit instruction to make whatever identity you'd like.

Thanks for the feedback!

Indeed, it's optimized for that many, although I'd be able to see fewer.  If you only have one Vizier, you do of course eliminate any threat of the Vizier being overthrown. Looking back, if I were to add any rule, it'd be that the Sunlord must select at least enough Viziers to overthrow them. If there were more words allowed, I'd have created an organic incentive (losing access to key government features, like, say, an army if no Viziers are appointed to that position). But alas, you are quite right, in the current iteration, it certainly needs a full-size traditional gaming group. That said, this would be madness with even just a few more than five players.

As with much in the world, it would indeed also be more fun intoxicated. 

I greatly appreciate the prophet of the next generation of world entertainment leaving a comment on my humble RPG. Best of luck to you, my favorite internet alpaca.

Thanks for the reply! FWIW, I believe the rules are fine with "Aw I shoulda/woulda/coulda"'s in the comments, just that they aren't to be considered part of the game when reviewing. At least, I've seen it happen in a couple other submissions, so I don't think anybody's doing anything wrong. IDK for certain, though.

On a spiritual level, are we not all Space Kaiju Alpaca Mobster Bosses?

We exist in space. Some space is thicker than others, and space overlaps with each other, and humans stretch through time-space, gravity-space, electromagnetic-space, and even  hyperspace. We are the Kaiju of the ant. The overgrown ape toying with our playset in that tyrant Nature's garden. And in this garden, the white roses, they are the red roses, as white is composed of red, and the garden melds together in this way into a burst of shimmering light. Then it wanders, like the brave Alpaca, through the Andes and Himilayas ad across the peaks of metaphor-space, taunting us to come forward and ride with us. To do so, we form cults of territory and personality. We pass collective judgement, as a Mob. Our mob is sacred. Sacred items require guardians. Guardianship is not to be taken lightly, but we are not light creatures. Indeed, kaiju alpacas are among the heaviest land animals taken by species. We occupy our own space-thought-time, a sexydimensional arena where we are both boss and employee, fired for doing shrooms.

Nice overall theme. I would have liked more meat on those metanarrative bones, but it really does a good job IMO at capturing the jam theme's main idea: a wilting society.

Congrats on your first game!

Ya, I'm not sure how the rules are on outsourcing mechanics. To some degree, I feel like most of these require some sort of outside knowledge of what an RPG is supposed to be, and a few seem to assume at no instruction that we're playing d20. So IDK.

I guess maybe part of me is fine with being just another DnD world. I think that's sorta what it is, just with some extra mechanics on top of some assumed baseline. I suppose I would have rather the mechanics be more novel inclusions, systems not included elsewhere in the mainstream. IMO there's no reason to spend precious words detailing HP when most everybody reading this has their own way they deal with the problem that solves to begin with, and much the same for stats/abilities/etc. I'm here to find new tidbits that I can't get in huge high-production-value blockbusters, stuff I can patch onto my table. But that's me, and certainly not everyone.

We probably just have different visions of the contest, which is of course fine, but in terms of how I would use it, I'd rather see more appendages than bodies.

Good luck!

Really evocative. I have to say I respect the decision to be light on conflict resolution and let the party figure out what works for them. The dwindling power is something I like to terms of the theme of death. Also adds a nice coda when everybody runs out of dice. Would've been nice to see some guidance on how to adjust difficulties (should players be expected to expend five dice every action just to guarantee success? Do the players know how many dice the GM will roll? How should the GM adjust to the player's stinginess with dice?) Alas, of course, a ten score is too little for us all.

I really like the whole caper format here. I wish the risk/reward/agency mechanics were a bit more explored, but 200 is a small number. Definitely my favorite scenario in this jam. I love the whole supervillain thing. 

Thanks! You too! 

I really like how you managed to squeeze in more setting detail. I tried to cram a bunch of aesthetic in the first paragraph but looking at this I wish I did something similar with using evocative nomenclature (sky king and such) and left more explicit hints (though not directions) about how to format the table dynamic.

Regardless, I'm definitely glad to see more political intrigue out there, thieves be gladdened. It seems to be a winning format to explicitly leave as much extraneous structure to player preference as possible in these jams. Thanks for your contribution!

Well, I certainly don't think I'm in a position to tell you how to better execute your own concept, but personally I would've dived in deep with the whole 'humans corrupted turn to elves/orcs' thing much further. Like, those would've been my stats. Trying to balance between the two. (not even sure if that's how you intended that setting bit to sound, but that grabbed my attention) And I would have just said "use a standard d20 system in conjunction with these rules" super explicitly. I thought it was PbtA.

TBH, I'm not convinced 200wds is enough to make an RPG in any traditional sense that includes character abilities and DCs and such, but that's me.

I really like the idea of a tactical RPG in 200wds, and this is the closest I've seen to delivering on it. Good job!

Thanks for the reply! Always nice to get a real dissection like this.

I see your reasoning with the whole sans-difficulty-gradient thing. For me, I guess those games just aren't my cup of raspberry chai (I didn't like Dread much, more of an OSR person and less of a storygames person generally) but to each their own.

If you did ever expand this, I'd love to hear more about how exactly playing a cell works, and what sorts of things are inside.

I probably like it because we both have entries about playing Viziers, but this has one of the better mechanical systems I've seen in the contest. Really enjoy it.

A bit vague for my taste, but I get it, 200wds is hard to cram with content.

Well, the idea was for the absence in the rules to leave room for players to sneakily eye each other during play as much as possible. It would have been nice if I had a few more words to lay out how that looks, but alas, two hundred was yet too few.

I feel like this can't really be considered a 200wd RPG on it's own, given how much it relies on basic assumptions like ascending AC and HP/Hit. The setting seems cool, but IMO the mechanics just don't gel with it.

Thanks! I'm glad you like it!

It's a decent lightweight system. I don't think the mechanics are rooted in any particular theme (it really might as well be a generic system), but it's pretty cool.

I really like the premise, theme, and scenario, but mechanically I would've liked some insight on what exactly can be done by each player on their turn. Single-DC mechanics usually only work when there's a GM to rule out the stupid actions, like "Win the game." While you may have players more into this sort of thing, not having any difficulty gradient is just a bit unfortunate. It's also quite unclear who assigns the complications should they arise. I would have preferred to see the inactive players involved more in that judgment, seeing as it would kill two birds (inactivity and lack of human guidance) with one stone. Still a very innovative concept.

I like your premise, but as I'm sorta seeing with a lot of other submissions, I personally would've preferred you left your stats/chargen sparse and dealt with the setting and what makes a train so interesting. I really like the idea of mapping out such a frantic course as a group, but the size of that table (and its instructions) compared to the abilities seems a bit off. The sorts of things you find in a train would (IMO) be a better inclusion than explaining the whole Athletics/Engineering/Intelligence thing. I would have also proffered the last point (things related to your backstory get a bonus dice) have been expanded a bit. It sorta feels like a narrative mechanic shoved into a more standard chargen.  It's an interesting and valid method of conflict resolution, I'd just rather see more focus on it. Other than that though, it sounds like a fun night of mapping out an apocalyptic subway.

Nice ASCII art, but not a ton other than just general space-ness I found with the theme. I feel like you shouldn't have tried to cram a point-buy ability subsystem in there; it really feels like that could have better been left to "GM, go figure out what the players can do" and spend some time really developing a setting. I'm not sure if it was the word count or something else, but some spots were difficult to parse.

Thanks! I'm glad you like it. Good luck with your entry!

I like the premise, but not too much theme relation. I'm also not sure the d6 + ability score model works that well in this format. I've seen a lot of games try it and IMO it seems to rely to heavily on genre subtext not available in the game text to be applicable. Interesting though with the random train though.

Thanks for the comment!

The voting mechanism is basically designed to ensure all the uncertainty that a real coup entails. You can make an attempt with just a simple majority, but traitors to the rebels are loyalists to the kings. Replacing a regime requires common sentiment, and with so much power at the tyrant's whims, it's almost impossible to keep the government in check.

In short, I sacrificed a mechanical-fun point for a theme/setting point. Depressing, but reasonably accurate.

The policies may entail all reccomendations for the betterment of the Sunlord's glorious oasis, and that's all the citizenry must know. The game ends only when players get bored.

The actual idea of the endgame is supposed to get a bit like Mao, where the players design better systems but ultimately get caught up in all the possible backstabby incentives that can be provided in the base system.

This is the only perfect RPG. DnD should make way; this is stealing the mainstream marketshare.

Really interesting thing to do with friends, but IMO pretty divorced from the theme and not really much of an RPG.