A great scenario to run as a first Protocol game. I've played this system (Protocol itself) a few times at game cons, sometimes with Jim Pinto running. It's simple, elegant, and has DNA that's much more similar to a fiasco and prompt-based story game then a traditional RPG (D&D, etc.), and that's very much my jam.

Specifically, Chebyshev Function leads us to tell a great story similar to many media forms of "teenage supers running from big government agency", and to that end the chosen Locations and story prompts worked exceedingly well, given they appear to come randomly, but felt like they seemelssly drove the direction we went. I highly recommend this on it's own, but doubly so as a good intro to what Protocol does very well.

Fantastic game. I played with Krin at Origins 2019 at Games on Demand. The premise already sounds great... getting to look as guilty as possible in every scene, and yet not knowing the murderer until the end. Superb. But you could also see how the game has been playtested, refined, and distilled to the important and basic components, which make it sing and do exactly what is needed. Perfect little one shot for a con slot or meetup or one-off game, for all experience levels. It's definitely going in my con bag!

I played it again since Origins with a table of 4 friends, and it just SANG. Lovely little game, which gives you what you need. One of my favorite of recent years.

Praxis is a really nice framework. It gives you a GMless structured game to play, which really helps teach the players how to play with scene framing. Each archtype/character has a number of scene types they can play with and must cycle through: Ensembles, Interrogations, Interludes, flashbacks, and so on.

That, combined with a small number of simple, infinitely interpretable Milestones, helps the players play-to-find-out with their characters, but in a way that provides just enough structure in play to keep things moving.

If you are unfamiliar with GMless games, this may be a little strange to run. But Jim writes some good tips, tricks, and lots of little sample play text to help you along.

This game system says it's built on his prior Protocol engine, which also provides a looser framework for GMless story-forward games, but has much less structure. I think Praxis is a beautiful way to teach folks new to GMless games and GM-ing and story games, how to do the thing. I've run it with players new to GMless games a number of times.

Had a great time playing this game. I love the concept of online-specific role playing games and LARPs, and really like what this has done in that arena. The mechanics are almost non-existing, but there are story hooks and threads and some very minimal goals for the player characters, and the fascilitator. The fascilitator themself gets to play a character and have goals, even though that's slightly different from the rest, and helps both keep things moving along, and lets them participate in character. It's a very well thought out game, and I highly recommend it.

Here's my writeup playing it online with The Gauntlet: http://www.supernovembergames.com/tomes-of-tomes/2018/6/17/viewscream-black-widow-brown-recluse

I recently played this as a one shot at my local game convention. We had one person as Authority, and 2 players. As a big fan of build-at-the-table worlds and games, I very much enjoyed our game, but importantly: how this specific game leads you through the most important aspects of collaboratively creating that fiction. I feel like there is a great amount of solid design in pinpointing what is important in creating the world, the authority, and the characters (their stuggles, as well as their personality as it relates to the story and how it can change - more so than just a number of stats).

I was also very pleasantly surprised with how well structured the scene framework is. Very light-touch story prompts that can be used to tell such a great variety of narratives, but lends itself to the style of story we're trying to tell here, providing an in-bulit pacing mechanism around the scene types provided.

And then there are mechanics which are basically a sort of "craps" dice game, which is extremely effective in creating a beautiful back-and-forth during the struggle that takes place between the Youthful Offenders (aka PCs) and the Authority. The tension that this builds is as good as I've seen in many other games, such as Dread or Cthulhu Dark. Loved it.

What has made me so excited to run this game is that it's really built around creating a world that has it's sci-fi or other fictional elements, as much as trying to tell a story of the struggle itself. It is at the top of my list right now of games I want to run, and reading through the rules has only convinced me that I'm correct in that assertion.

Played this with Jim, the designer, and 5 other players at Strategicon (game convention). It worked with that number, but would be better with 5 total.

Initially, I was less excited about this setting, as compared to some of the other settings for Praxis (like Odin's Eye), however found that I actually enjoyed the setting: Playing gods against each other. I was impressed with how easily the system mechanics allowed for us to play gods and do god-like things, and yet in the end we're simply peers fighting against one another. We could've been goblins fighting one another about the last bone for dinner, except instead we were moving mountains, or causing all the animals in the sea to coordinate an attack. That's the beauty of the system, is that it consolidates all moves / rolls to the 3 basic things we'd care about in a dramatic narrative: Bringing harm to others, Getting what you want, Making things happen.

I'm very interested in playing this further, and although it doesn't work so much for any type of campaign play (that's not what it does), it can easily be played multiple times with different, or even the same, people, and get a very different game.

Here's my more detailed summary (bottom of the page somewhere): http://www.supernovembergames.com/tomes-of-tomes/2016/9/6/strategicon-gateway-2016-saturday-and-god-and-praxis

One of my favorites of the Platemailgames tracks. Check out the website for samples so you can see what they sound like (if you can't do so here). I love these tracks as ambient background loops.

Great soundtrack. I'm into some songs more than others... some work as good background. Track #2 (Beyond the Last Parsec) is probably the best as an ambient background. Some others are too reminiscent of movie soundtracks (with variable pacing) that I would not use them often, personally. I do like tracks for Contact and Planetside as well.

I got this earlier in the year, and have play/run it about 3-4 times. The first time it was with just 2 of us, the next times it was a short play-test with 3, and the last time I ran it as a pseudo-GM/facilitator with 5 players.

This game does some really clever things. You start with a character sheet that is almost entirely blank. You have no memory of your past life. You get to draw over the skeleton on the sheet, so there is a little art period, where you add a sword, or helmet, or whatever. I.e. what you might look like.

The great thing is that the questionairre on the character sheet gets filled out during the game, as you play... you start to fill in your path and remember things.

And then there are quite periods during the long dark between scenes, where you sit, quiet, in the dark, for a few minutes. It really catures some great essence.

If interested, I write about my sessions in pictures / more details / writeup: http://www.supernovembergames.com/tomes-of-tomes/2016/9/6/strategicon-gateway-2016-saturday-and-god-and-praxis (about half-way down) http://www.supernovembergames.com/tomes-of-tomes/2016/7/12/the-skeletons-in-space-a-very-short-playtest http://www.supernovembergames.com/tomes-of-tomes/2016/6/3/astg-the-skeletons

I got to play this game with Jim Pinto (designer) up at Go Play NW 2016. I've played a number of his games before, including some of his Protocol games. This game is similar to the Protocol system in that it is a GM-less, scene-framing game for about the same number of people. What differentiates this game, to its benefit, is that the mechanics give you more to grab on to, and provide a little more motivation to make things happen in specific ways (tied to each character). I like that each character has different motivations ("milestones") and issues they may run into / damage ("trepidations"). Also, each milestone opens up mechanical "powers", which are effectively narrative power you can use in the game.

This game specifically (Black Monk) leads you into a very strange narrative. The game just allows all sorts of bizarre twists and turns, and has an odd setting. I write about playing this (and some other postworldgames) in this blog post: http://www.supernovembergames.com/tomes-of-tomes/2016/7/13/go-play-nw-2016-saturday

The biggest disadvantage of the Praxis system, that this game uses, may be that if you aren't familiar with these types of GM-less scene-framing director-sharing games, this system may feel a bit odd the first time you try it. That said, the rules are complex, and if you just let it lead you, you should be able to figure it out. It does work best with people ready to share a story and want an entertaining outcome, and less concerned about "winning" or controlling the story themselves. Play accordingly!

I got to play this game online as part of The Gauntlet community. It was a great, simple GM-less story game. The rules are there to give you just enough structure so that everyone is a part of creating the characters and community, and then there is just enough mechanics (with a deck of cards) to provide some randomness around who does and doesn't survive the narrative. One of those great little games that can be played with experienced and unexperienced RPGers a like.

This game has found a place in my little convention / games on demand bag.

After funding the KickStarter, but not getting to play or run it yet, I finally got to play this at Big Bad Con 2016 at a convention game. The game does such a brilliant job of allowing you to play prey. The world is a rough and dangerous place, and you feel it at every turn. At the convention game they had the accompanying deck of cards, which is a nice touch, but by no means necessary.

If you are familiar with PbtA (Apocalypse World-based) games, then you will already be familiar with the success / success with complications / fail forward mechanics. One thing that differentiates this game from many other RPGs, is that there is really not much in the way of "combat". Being prey does have its disadvantages. That said, one brilliant mechanic in this game is the Innovate move, which allows you to cleverly come up with new moves that your bunnies discover or create. In our game we created "Speak for the first bunny" (i.e. Proselytize... i.e. Religion). A nearby table innovated a move to start fires, in helping fighting off the humans... but which resulted in a complete forest fire.

All in all, I can see this working equally well with younger audiences, but also can be brutal and dark with those that want it so. It also allows for easy progression of new characters in the continued tale-telling of the same rabbit warren, which means that even though characters can die easily, that doesn't have to stop the game.

Great game. My writeup of the con game is somewhere in here: http://www.supernovembergames.com/tomes-of-tomes/2016/10/19/big-bad-con-2016-saturday

If I have to run any sort of game that feels anything like Dungeons and Dragons, it's going to be Dungeon World. This is the perfect RPG that has all the elements of classic D&D lore and feeling, and for whatever reason just exudes the flavor I felt playing D&D as a kid 30 years ago. Additionally, it's a great starter system for anyone familiar with classic RPGs, but looking to get into the Apocalypse World style of GMing and games. The book reads partly as a how-to for the system itself, but so much of it actually reads as a how-to for GM-ing in general. The advice here is great for running almost any role playing game. Absolutely fantastic game.

I just finished reading this book. Well written, and as always in Jim Pinto's very entertaining style. There is much good advice for GMing and playing RPGs in general, in here. However, the real reason you will likely purchase this is to better understand how to run Protocol games. This is exactly the type of "how do you run Protocol" information that is perfect in demonstrating (with great examples) how a protocol game is put together, facilitated, and run. This is exactly what I've needed to get over the hump and actually run some of these myself (instead of just waiting until Jim is running it at a convention I'm attending). It makes his system very accessible to me. It also comes with its own Protocol game, which looks like a good thematic introduction to the style. I now also have a better appreciation for the work Jim has done in creating each of these thematic Protocol scenarios, and look forward to a day when perhaps I create one of my own. Who is to say? If you play or plan to play any Protocol or GM-less games, I highly recommend this book.

I've written my review of this game here: http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/131081/Forget-Me-Not-GMZero-RPG-3

The card deck itself is great. Yes, you could get away with just doing the print-and-play from the original game, but if you plan on playing this many times with many people (as I have begun doing; about half-a-dozen games so far), then having a real deck is a nice perk.

The deck comes with only the cards, but it is useful to have little cubes (similar to those used as resource markers in many games) to mark the cards during the game... personally I found little Lego 1x1 bricks fit and work perfectly.

The only thing left to be desired is to have some sort of token that you can use to illustrate who is playing which role at any given time, since you can't move the cards from their center position during the game (to do so breaks the bond connections that are purposefully built on 2 sides of the cards). This would really helps with newbs, and prevents the issue of accidently addressing someone incorrectly. The reason this happens is that character roles change frequently during the game.

Pro-tip: Print out the back side of the cards from the print-and-play (the side without the quotes, just the picture and name of the character), cut them out, optionally use sleeves to protect them, and and then use those as tokens that show which player is currently assigned which role.