One-page RPG's

[Philippe Tromeur]

I'm currently participating into a kind of casual contest on a French forum : each month, one has to write a full RPG, based on a given topic. The game has to fit on just one page.

I've been participating to it since the beginning (October 2006), and been writting one to four RPG's every month.
Topics were : Halloween (October), Soviet (November), Ocean(s) (December), Frontier(s) (January), Mask(s) (February), Mars (March)
My games are all collected on http://www.tromeur.com/1page.htm
I'm also hosting the page for the current contest (month of March, theme : "Mars") : http://www.tromeur.com/mars/

So far, I've only translated two of my games into English :
- my Halloween RPG from October : http://www.tromeur.com/samhain/
- my second Mars game for March (rough translation, still in construction) : http://www.tromeur.com/mars/hibernia-en.pdf
(Yeah, both games are somewhat about Ireland, that's a coincidence)

I enjoy that contest very much. It's not about speed (like those 24-hour contests) but that kind of short work is akin to poetry.

Is there such an attempt in the English language ?

[komradebob]

That's very cool. Have you been getting feedback on your games?

How many people are actively participating each month?

[scrandy]

That's very cool indeed. And it looks very profesional. Can you tell me perhaps, where you get all these graphics from. Do you paint them yourself / have a painter at hand, or are they from a public recource. Especially the Graphics from Voyages et Explorateurs are really great.

[Philippe Tromeur]

Can you tell me perhaps, where you get all these graphics from. Do you paint them yourself / have a painter at hand, or are they from a public recource. Especially the Graphics from Voyages et Explorateurs are really great.

I take my graphics from public resources, like Wikipedia and other websites.

I make some of them myself (combining OpenOffice and sometimes GIMP), such as those funky alien things :


Graphics from Voyages & Explorateurs (a kind of variation of Baron Munchausen) come from the "Graphic Ornament" compilation from Pepin Press / Agile Rabbit : http://www.amazon.com/Graphic-Ornaments/dp/9057680165

[Philippe Tromeur]

That's very cool. Have you been getting feedback on your games?
How many people are actively participating each month?

We're discussing the games at the end of the month, in threads of the forum. It's not a real contest, because there's nothing to win.

Web pages are dedicated to the results :
Halloween : http://fichier.tgcm.info/compil.pdf (17 games, 17 writers)
Soviet : http://www.nivaille.be/jeepeeonline/concours/soviet/soviet.html (13 games, 13 writers)
Ocean : http://www.nivaille.be/jeepeeonline/concours/ocean/ocean.html (18 games, 13 writers)
Frontières : http://studiogrendel.free.fr/jdr1page/frontiere.html (14 games, 10 writers)
Masques : http://tromeur.com/masques/ (5 games, 5 writers)
Mars : http://tromeur.com/mars/ (still running, 5 games and 4 writers so far)

The games from the "Frontier" will be published in a free webzine very soon.

[Filip Luszczyk]

Is there such an attempt in the English language ?

There was this:

http://www.indie-rpgs.com/forum/index.php?topic=20935.0

[salkaner]

Very interesting works!

Unfortunately my french is so bad.
Otherwise, I would try.

I usually play with a 6 pages RPG...

[Conteur]

Very strange indeed...I have a 16 pages web site in french and they complain that my game is too much undefined and need much more information. I was beginning to think that french people only wanted flash, bang boom site of 2500 pages...

[Kesher]

Hey Philippe---are you responsible for Wuthering Heights? That game is amazing!

I participated in the contest Filip linked to, and I thought it was an excellent challenge in constrained design. It definitely makes you pare things down to the essentials, which can get to that "poetic" element you mentioned above.

Aaron

[Kesher]

Sorry for the double-post, but I just now followed the link to look at the games you were talking about---holy crap! They look amazing! So the participants put these together, rules and layout, in just one month, every month? I'm impressed.

Aaron

[Philippe Tromeur]

Finally, we've got 12 games for March, not bad... http://www.tromeur.com/mars/

The theme for April is "President".

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Philippe,

I desperately want to compare the Soviet-topic games with the entries to my Ronnies contest which used the same term in November 2005. But my French is very poor, only good enough for the most basic things. Who can help me with translation?

Best, Ron

[Philippe Tromeur]

A complete translation would be a very long task, but I can summarize the topic of each game. I'll do it tomorrow...

[Callan S.]

Do you have a text version of the games? There are plenty of online translators, for example: http://babelfish.altavista.com/

I was surprised about that soviet parralel between the two competitions - bit spooky!

[Philippe Tromeur]

Do you have a text version of the games? There are plenty of online translators, for example: http://babelfish.altavista.com/

Even for single-word translations, I can't trust those things.

I'll try to do my summaries this week...