The Road Trip RPG

[Zebuleon]

Hello all,

Its been quite awhile since I've been here.  But recently I was recalling a spur of the moment game I played with a couple friends a few years back and I got to brainstorming and this was the result.



The Road Trip RPG.

This is a comedic, action adventure game with whatever genre you want, although Fantasy is the default, for your long drive to a gaming convention or just any long road trip.  The object is to have fun and not get overly concerned with specifics.  All you need to do is keep the driver awake.  While this is a diceless game, because that's the last thing you need, is the driver doing rolling dice, it still has a random method of determining outcomes.  You don't need any paper or pencils either; everything is simple enough that all you need is your brain.  

Character Creation.

A starting character is made up of 2 adjectives and 1 noun.  The adjectives are your abilities; the noun is the class, or what your abilities are in. The adjectives serve multiple purposes; they also are the descriptive characteristics of the character.  So here is an example character:

Big Ass Fighter – A fighter with a big ass.

This is meant to be loose so you can take some liberties with how you use the adjectives.  For instance the Big Ass Fighter's Big ability lets you do things like pick up cars, throw boulders, hit very hard, etc.  Ass needs a bit more creativity to use, for instance it can be used to grab opponents and crush them, produce a fart that sends a sonic wave knocking opponents over, etc.

All abilities need to be used in the most appropriate manner possible that fits with the Noun.  So if you had a Big Ass Mage then Ass would do something like create a noxious cloud that puts opponents asleep.  Big could be used for the same reasons though, as long as it remains reasonable.

The Noun
This is what the character is, he can perform any action that the noun could perform.  If he is a Fighter then he can do all the things a fighter can do without any restrictions.

Improvement
There is a reward system which adds an adjective to the list.  So an advanced character might be something like: Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers or Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.  After each leg of a trip, the GM may decide that a character has performed well enough to warrant an advance.  There is no limit to how many adjectives you can have, the only thing is you have to remember what they are.  You MAY NOT WRITE THEM DOWN.  This is a completely cerebral game; nothing is to remain other then thoughts.  If you forget one then that's your fault, you may not substitute another in its place you will just have to deal.

Combat/System
This system is meant to be simple yet effective.  Here's how it goes:  The GM (which is always the driver) sets the difficulty of an action by saying "pick a number between..."

1-10 very easy
1-25 easy
1-50 medium
1-75 hard
1-100 very hard

The GM has, to himself, decided which number will be the success number it will either be the low (1) or the high (10, 25, 50, 75, and 100)

The player then picks his number.  The closer he is to the success the better he performs the action.  The half way point is the cut off for a success.  So here's an example:

The GM calls for a pick of 50.
The Player picks 40 as his number

Now if 50 was the success marker then the action would succeed but not perfectly.  If 1 was the success marker then since it's beyond the half way mark it's a failure.  Now since it's actually 40 points away from a success it's a very bad failure.  

If he had chosen 50 and 1 was the success marker then it would have been the worst possible outcome.  If he had chosen 1 and that was the success marker then he would have succeed with the best possible outcome.  Now if the player thinks he is going to be clever and try to pick the middle number to give himself a better chance of succeeding although just barely.  If he does this 2 or more times you have the right to negate one of his adjectives for the rest of the trip.

There is an order to combat which totally depends on where you sit.  This also depends slightly on how many people you have in the car and how many seats you have. The first person to act each round is the person riding Shotgun (passenger seat).  Then it's Backseat Passenger, then Backseat Driver. If there are multiple rows of seats then it goes back a row the same way.  The last person to go at all times is the person riding true Bitch (middle backseat).  If there are other people riding Bitch, say in the front seat or in the rear seat of an SUV.  Then it will go front, rear, and then true.

So say you're in an SUV with two in front, 3 in the back and 3 more in the rear.  A round would go like this

Shotgun
Backseat Pass
Backseat Driv
Rearseat Pass
Rearseat Driv
Rearseat Bitch
True Bitch.

So whenever you stop for a pit stop, the order can change by whoever calls what seat for the next leg of the trip.



Thats pretty much it.  What do you think?

Mario

[Mario]

HeHe  I didn't realize that I had two login names  The last was posted by me.