Quick and Dirty: No time for prep? No time for rules? No problem.

Anthony came over to play with us one afternoon. He'd played D&D as a kid, and his parents still played regularly, but he hadn't rolled the dice in years. I was worn out from work, and it was kind of impromptu thing, so of course I didn't have anything prepared. No one wanted to spend an hour or more rolling up characters for a one-shot, so I did what I do best: I improvised.

Step 1: The Brainstorming Session

We started out by brainstorming our setting and initial situation. I have to be really careful not to dominate brainstorming sessions because I'm both extroverted and hyper-creative, so I let myself sit back and enjoy the great ideas my players were coming up with. I'd only speak up if someone were stuck.

After about 20 minutes, we decided on a dustbowl-punk setting with elements of the Great Depression and The Road Warrior.

A quick aside...

A few months later, I hit on another idea for the brainstorming session that levels the playing field for different personality types. I stole it from the indie game Universalis. I've used in in about five games, and it's worked beautifully every time.

Each player gets ten tokens, and each token is worth one fact. Everyone takes a turn going clockwise stating facts. If someone doesn't like a fact, they're allowed to challenge it by offering up tokens of their own. The original player can match the challenge or back down. If both players are offering up the same amount of tokens and no one is willing to raise, the tie is broken with dice. Any tokens offered up are lost, regardless of who wins.

For instance, I might say "No elves," because I want to piss off Jared, and I put down a token. No one challenges me, but to get revenge, Jared says, "Okay, jerk. No vampires," and puts down a token. "No way!" and I put down two tokens to match and raise his fact. With a smirk, Jared puts down a token. I look down at my diminishing pile of tokens, and we pick up dice.

Don't feel the need for everyone to spend all of their tokens, especially if you have a lot of players. Also, at my table, I don't allow anyone to pass on their turn.

Step 2: Character Creation

After our setting creation session, we brainstormed a list of characters that we wanted to see in the fiction. At this point, there was no distinction between PCs and NPCs. We wrote their names out on a big sheet of paper and started writing down their relationships on line connecting names. Under each name, we wrote each character's ambition, or "Best Interest" (stolen from In A Wicked Age).

After all that was finished, everyone but me chose a character to play. We started fleshing out player characters a little further using aspects, which are a concept that I took from the FATE system. Aspects can basically be anything you want them to be: relationships, equipment, catch phrases. I required only that the players chose a background aspect, an occupation aspect, and an ambition aspect. The rest were up to them.

Each "character sheet" consisted of nothing more than the character's name and 10 aspects.

Step 3: System

I stole a lot of ideas from FATE. It's a great system, and a good way to be introduced to indie games if you're used to playing d20 or Savage Worlds. The main things I took were FATE points and aspects.

Each player began with 10 FATE points. FATE points are similar in a lot of ways to bennies or action points. A FATE point can be used to invoke an aspect for a bonus or make a declaration that adds facts to the in-game fiction. Players can gain more FATE points by being compelled to act according to their aspects. For instance, Anthony's character Seth had taken the aspect "Ladie's Man" which he could use to gain a bonus when talking to the ladies. On the other hand, I could offer him a FATE point to compel his character to flirt with a beautiful woman at an inappropriate time.

We kept the resolution system simple. Instead of spending half an hour rolling dice whittling down hit points, we decided to use a single-roll, stakes setting method. Basically, you tell me what you want to happen if you win, and I tell you what will happen if you don't. If the stakes I've set aren't acceptable to my players, I encourage them to negotiate with me (within reason).

Basically this takes a lot of randomness out of the game and makes all failures meaningful. No characters die unless it's decided beforehand by the all parties involved that it might be a possibility. This might be a bit strange to a lot of folks, but it keeps your game from dying in its tracks. It also makes your roleplaying games feel a lot more like movies or novels.

The Shadow of Yesterday, Trollbabe, and Dogs in the Vineyard have some great text about setting and negotiating stakes, and I highly encourage you to check them out.

A lot of small press games tell you to only roll dice if your character is trying to do something and someone is actively trying to stop him. In other words, if there's no conflict, don't bother rolling. Don't do anything that's going to keep the story from moving.

Step 4: Playtime

The session went great and everyone had a lot of fun. We played for about three hours and got some really great scenes in. There was even a pit fight. What else do you need?

I hope this article has given you some ideas to incorporate into your own games. In future articles, I'll be exploring the ever-expanding world of indie and small-press games, improvisation techniques, and ways for GMs to make their games more engaging with less work.