Here's a mini-game, as best I've got it figured out. It looks (to me) like it would run to completion in about ten to twenty minutes. I'd love it if someone were to play it with some folks, and then post a little Playtest thread that I could gander at. Or, if not ... that's cool too.
ROXIE RACOON AND THE $@^*'D-UP PANCAKES
This is a roleplaying game of violent punk stories run through the form and restrictions of a children's book. Think how "Trainspotters" would have worked out as written and illustrated by Maurice Sendak.
The basic premise is that Roxie is the go-getter of her band (need a really good kiddy-cute but nasty band name here). The band gets a batch of $@^*'d-up pancakes. Are they $@^*'d-up because they taste bad? Because they put the band members in the hospital? Because they give the band-members spots? Who the $@^* knows. That's what you figure out.
Here's how you play. Each turn, three people narrate stuff, as follows.
- The Lead-Off player says the exact text that appears on this page of the book you're co-creating. Not a word more or less. That text should be squeaky clean (with the exception of the word $@^*, pronounced 'eff') and should, as much as possible be in simple declarative sentences of one- or two-syllable words. Example: "Roxie wasn't getting anywhere asking nicely. She decided to try something else."
- The person to the left of the lead-off player now describes the drawings on the page. The drawings may not contain any explicit violence, gore, sex, depravity, torture, cannibalism or graphic non-consensual piercings. The drawings may either show the consequences of such actions in the immediate past (blood-stained hands and two chunky garbage bags) or imply such actions in the immediate future. Example (to go with the text above): The outside of a seedy bar. Roxie is being closely questioned by the police. The fire department is hosing down flames that erupt from the upper stories.
- The person two to the left of the lead-off player now describes two small details hidden in plain sight in the drawing. Again, all the rules of normal illustration (above) apply. Example: JoJo's banana shaped earring is dangling from Roxie's back pocket. JoJo is sitting in an ambulance parked in the background, having his ear bandaged.
Each lead-off player gets to be lead-off for two pages: One in which they have Roxie get a spectacular idea for how to solve her problems, and another in which the outcome of the idea is seen and more problems are established (except for the last Lead-off player, who is allowed and encouraged to write Roxie a happy ending). After that, the position of Lead-Off player passes one player to the left (so the person who illustrated the previous two pages will now author two). When everyone has had their two pages of Authorship the game is done.
Most Roxie stories adhere to the following arc: Roxie's Band gets some $@^*'d-Up pancakes. Roxie sets forth into the seedy underworld of the city to solve the problems this cause, and to take liberal and disproportionate vengeance. Roxie encounters hardship, but eventually has a happy ending. Pacing is handled by people knowing where the $@^* they are in the arc of the story and narrating appropriately.