This new TTRPG looks so good that I told the players in my game group not to read the titles or descriptions of the adventures. Thay way I can run Strange Stories without the players having a clue as to what sort of strange story is coming their way. Normally I’m wary about praising any new game because even games that look good are easy to design badly. In this case, however, both the format and the creative team are solid. I’m going out on a limb to say that this game is going to deliver the experience it promises, and it’s an experience that I want for my group.
Take a look at their Backerkit page and you’ll see that Strange Stories is rules-light a system for one-shot adventures anywhere in the pulp genre. My game group sometimes needs something to fill an evening when the regular campaigns aren’t running, and maybe Strange Stories will replace Magic as the game we use on those nights.
Back in the late ’80s, we in the Lion Rampant crew would speculate about what roleplaying games might look like in the future, and sometimes we imagined games a lot like Strange Stories: one-shots with light rules, pre-gen characters, and a dice pool mechanic. Now here’s Strange Stories doing just that.
Over the years, I’ve played several one-shot designs, and I’ve liked them enough to keep trying new ones. Robin D. Laws’s GM-less game Pantheon also offers a series of one-shot roleplaying scenarios, and I’ve had fun playing one of the scenarios twice. Live-action, one-shot Parlor Larps sure looked fun, and I had a good time running one of the games for a mixed group of gamers and non-gamers. My group played The King Is Dead by D. Vincent Baker & Meguey Baker, although I don’t think we got fully into the spirit. Vincent’s game Midsummer Wood is on my list to try, when I get the right group together. In addition, I’ve run a couple one-shots of my own invention for my game group over the years If I’m right about Strange Stories, it will give my regular playing group a kinda trad roleplaying experience that will fit into schedule gaps when the regular campaigns are not running. I sometimes put together one-shots for my group, but that’s a lot of work, and Strange Stories does the work for me.
Pulp seems like the right genre for this format. It’s casual, it’s familiar, and reality’s restraints are loose so there’s room for the designers to make up all sorts of fun stuff.
The promise that the authors will release a podcast covering a discussion about each adventure is a big plus. It’s hard to run a new game system, even if it’s “rules-lite”. After Everway shipped, the joke was that what the game really needed was me in every box to explain the game to people. With Strange Stories, this podcast could go a long way to making play more successful, especially the fateful first session.
On a personal note, Chris Lackey and I have been friend since the ’90s, and I’ve admired his work all that time.
Strange Stories looks like a highly accessible way to run fun one-shots, and my hopes are up.
—Jonathan Tweet
