These are the Stories of the Starship Raptor
November 3, 2019 5:24 PM Subscribe
From the maker of Blades in the Dark comes Lasers and Feelings: a one-page RPG based on the songs of the Doubleclicks. Play as a member of the Starship Raptor, whose Captain Darcy has been overcome by the strange psychic entity called Something Else.
And one of the best dad jokes in history from the McElroys.
posted by Scattercat at 6:35 PM on November 3, 2019 [7 favorites]
posted by Scattercat at 6:35 PM on November 3, 2019 [7 favorites]
Just reading it was better than watching Enterprise.
posted by fleacircus at 7:14 PM on November 3, 2019
posted by fleacircus at 7:14 PM on November 3, 2019
And the delightfully silly Six Feats Under playthrough.
posted by Zalzidrax at 7:14 PM on November 3, 2019 [1 favorite]
posted by Zalzidrax at 7:14 PM on November 3, 2019 [1 favorite]
It's the perfect game for one-off actual play podcasts. If you added a character progression element it could be good for multiple sessions, but I feel like this is one of those things where adding anything detracts from the whole.
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 9:21 PM on November 3, 2019
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 9:21 PM on November 3, 2019
I have been enamoured with L&F's core mechanic for years! It manages to be completely transparent without unnecessary complexity, and doesn't distract players with hopes of "character advancement" grinds.
Somewhere on this hard drive, I have a sketch of a quadrant-based version of this where you set two attributes that define orthogonal axes. It's hard to pick traits that work well with this, so you kind of have to make them entirely unalike (such as adding a "quickly" vs "carefully" axis to the original lasers/feelings scale).
posted by rum-soaked space hobo at 11:59 PM on November 3, 2019 [3 favorites]
Somewhere on this hard drive, I have a sketch of a quadrant-based version of this where you set two attributes that define orthogonal axes. It's hard to pick traits that work well with this, so you kind of have to make them entirely unalike (such as adding a "quickly" vs "carefully" axis to the original lasers/feelings scale).
posted by rum-soaked space hobo at 11:59 PM on November 3, 2019 [3 favorites]
There's a rash of L&F-alikes out there as well for your other genre needs (can't really post any links as the web filter at work filter out anything gaming-related...)
posted by Harald74 at 12:14 AM on November 4, 2019 [1 favorite]
posted by Harald74 at 12:14 AM on November 4, 2019 [1 favorite]
There's a rash of L&F-alikes out there
Yep.
It is many years into the future. A wealthy and powerful person (or persons) has claimed a rare and much sought after prize: the “vault” of 200 unreleased (this is real!) songs from renowned Canadian pop artist, Carly Rae Jepsen.
Also Honey Heist has some mechanical similarity though I think it might (?) be a case of convergent evolution rather than one taking inspiration from another.
posted by juv3nal at 1:11 AM on November 4, 2019 [1 favorite]
Yep.
It is many years into the future. A wealthy and powerful person (or persons) has claimed a rare and much sought after prize: the “vault” of 200 unreleased (this is real!) songs from renowned Canadian pop artist, Carly Rae Jepsen.
Also Honey Heist has some mechanical similarity though I think it might (?) be a case of convergent evolution rather than one taking inspiration from another.
posted by juv3nal at 1:11 AM on November 4, 2019 [1 favorite]
Man. I've half-jokingly been dreaming of a pen and paper system that skipped all of the crap a videogame does so much better that it's insulting to involve it in PnP, just buckle down to the roleplaying. Maybe just use a simple coin flip for outcomes. This is a much nicer solution, just enough rules to structure thing, but none of the crap to metagame about and bog down turns. Would love to try it out.
posted by GoblinHoney at 9:01 AM on November 4, 2019
posted by GoblinHoney at 9:01 AM on November 4, 2019
I have a sketch of a quadrant-based version of this where you set two attributes that define orthogonal axes.
I once wrote an L&F hack along those lines called HARDER BETTER FASTER STRONGER. (Daft Punk-themed, inspired by this @FreyjaErlings tweet.)
posted by Iridic at 2:03 PM on November 4, 2019 [3 favorites]
I once wrote an L&F hack along those lines called HARDER BETTER FASTER STRONGER. (Daft Punk-themed, inspired by this @FreyjaErlings tweet.)
posted by Iridic at 2:03 PM on November 4, 2019 [3 favorites]
I'm chuffed to see John Harper's stuff mentioned on metafilter. His minimal designs are a great counterpoint to D&D and the traditional thiccbook shelfporn RPG paradigm.
Most of D&D's pagecount is about formalizing the escalation in the destructive capabilities of its characters. But tabletop roleplaying is a vast and powerful medium! The rise of a freebooter from a larva with 10 HP to a world-shaking demigod is just one of the limitless stories you can create at the table. And yet the D&D brand has such power that lots of people adopt it to create stories well outside of its golden zone, when they would perhaps be better served by something without quite so much ceremony.
So yeah, check out John Harper's stuff. His Lady Blackbird is another fantastic minimalist RPG, though it is 16x the size of Lasers and Feelings. Be assured there is value on every page.
posted by Sauce Trough at 4:48 PM on November 4, 2019 [2 favorites]
Most of D&D's pagecount is about formalizing the escalation in the destructive capabilities of its characters. But tabletop roleplaying is a vast and powerful medium! The rise of a freebooter from a larva with 10 HP to a world-shaking demigod is just one of the limitless stories you can create at the table. And yet the D&D brand has such power that lots of people adopt it to create stories well outside of its golden zone, when they would perhaps be better served by something without quite so much ceremony.
So yeah, check out John Harper's stuff. His Lady Blackbird is another fantastic minimalist RPG, though it is 16x the size of Lasers and Feelings. Be assured there is value on every page.
posted by Sauce Trough at 4:48 PM on November 4, 2019 [2 favorites]
Lady Blackbird is great!
There are a bunch of Hackbirds (NB lots of dead links).
One of my favourites is Always/Never/Now which is a cyberpunk conversion of it, but there's also Lady Blackbird Companion and Darkening Skies which add on to the original.
posted by juv3nal at 6:24 PM on November 4, 2019
There are a bunch of Hackbirds (NB lots of dead links).
One of my favourites is Always/Never/Now which is a cyberpunk conversion of it, but there's also Lady Blackbird Companion and Darkening Skies which add on to the original.
posted by juv3nal at 6:24 PM on November 4, 2019
There's always Spider and Man.
GoblinHoney - I'd also check out 200 word RPG finalists for even more minimal RPG ideas.
One page RPGs are a ton of fun and a lot easier to get people into playing than D&D - but they can be tiring to GM . I do like Grant Howlett's stuff, some one pagers, some longer. The one pagers can sometimes be more of a thought experiment than a game, but nobody says you can't mix and match mechanics until you find something you do want to play.
In terms of shorter stuff that doesn't really go into the hack and slash, I really like Avery Alder's stuff. It tends to be a little more serious than anything else listed here, but the are interesting, easy to understand mechanics and the GMless structure means it's a lot less pressure to put on. (The Quiet Year variant The Deep Forest is available for free - and about postcolonialism!)
I've also got a fondness for Bubblegumshoe, just because the friend skill mechanics (since you're playing a teenager, you don't have all the skills, but you know people who have skills you can use) in it encourage a social web that sounds like a teenager's drama. It ends up playing kind of like Persona, especially if you have supernatural elements in there - even though it's a much longer rulebook than anything else mentioned here - still relatively slim, but has a lot of details and modules. And while there's still 'combat', the combat is secondary to the investigation portions of the game and also might literally be a dance off.
posted by dinty_moore at 7:40 PM on November 4, 2019 [2 favorites]
GoblinHoney - I'd also check out 200 word RPG finalists for even more minimal RPG ideas.
One page RPGs are a ton of fun and a lot easier to get people into playing than D&D - but they can be tiring to GM . I do like Grant Howlett's stuff, some one pagers, some longer. The one pagers can sometimes be more of a thought experiment than a game, but nobody says you can't mix and match mechanics until you find something you do want to play.
In terms of shorter stuff that doesn't really go into the hack and slash, I really like Avery Alder's stuff. It tends to be a little more serious than anything else listed here, but the are interesting, easy to understand mechanics and the GMless structure means it's a lot less pressure to put on. (The Quiet Year variant The Deep Forest is available for free - and about postcolonialism!)
I've also got a fondness for Bubblegumshoe, just because the friend skill mechanics (since you're playing a teenager, you don't have all the skills, but you know people who have skills you can use) in it encourage a social web that sounds like a teenager's drama. It ends up playing kind of like Persona, especially if you have supernatural elements in there - even though it's a much longer rulebook than anything else mentioned here - still relatively slim, but has a lot of details and modules. And while there's still 'combat', the combat is secondary to the investigation portions of the game and also might literally be a dance off.
posted by dinty_moore at 7:40 PM on November 4, 2019 [2 favorites]
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posted by juv3nal at 6:29 PM on November 3, 2019 [4 favorites]