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Party's Past • 2019 rpg

James Hron • https://paperdicegames.com/

Party's Past is an introductory campaign mini-game. The game has 3 phases of play - CHARACTER, QUESTIONS, ANSWERS.

CHARACTER
Each player creates their character by picking five words that describe their character. 

Alternatively, players may create their character using an RPG of their choice.

These characters make up the Party.

QUESTIONS
Next, players will create questions for the party. First, roll a d8 to determine the Audience that will be asking the characters questions.

Audience Table
1 - Kids playing in the street
2 - Wizard undergraduates
3 - Soldiers in training
4 - A beginning adventuring party
5 - Snide adolescents
6 - Clerics just sworn to an order
7 - Old-timers at a bar
8 - Player's choice

From the perspective of the Audience, each player writes up to 3 questions on notecards. Shuffle the questions into a pile face down.

ANSWERS
Now, each player will be roleplaying from their character's perspective.

A random character reveals the first question. In turn, characters may do one of the following:

-Answer a revealed question on a new notecard
-Add detail to a previously answered question
-Reveal a new question to answer

When all questions have been answered, a unique, shared past will have been created for the Party!

Author Comments

A huge inspiration for this game, and credit to using notecards as organization, goes to Ben Robbins and his game Microscope.

I knew I wanted to create a game that allows RPG parties to create a shared experience of their past, as it has been boring starting campaigns with “You’re all at a bar…”. The Character-Question-Answer concept came easily enough, but I couldn’t find a succinct way to organize the details of the answers, until I re-read Microscope.

So, thank you Ben Robbins for the inspiration, and the wonderful experience that is Microscope.


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