RPG Review: Ariadne & Bob
Ariadne & Bob is a funky, improv-heavy little treat of an RPG published in 2021 by Jim “Jimbozig” Bozig McGarva, along with Paul “Ettin” Matijevic, Vel Mini, Nick Butler, Jasin Pitre, and Austin Ramsay. That’s some big developer guns right there, enn gee ell. Art is by Yuri Kavalerchik and Kyla Austin.
The basic premise of A&B is extremely simple: a super-smart blowhard and their dumb but loyal pal get into (usually) light-hearted scrapes, in the style of classic duos from Pinky and the Brain to Dexter and Dee Dee to Holmes and Watson to this game’s original inspiration, Rick & Morty. In truth, that kind of story pattern is about all this game is capable of. But for being all this game does, it does it with a laser-like focus that could shave diamonds like prosciutto.
The Way of Things
Another fine mess
Though A&B doesn’t have a GM per se, the developer describes A&B as “GMful” to separate it from typical GM-less role-playing games. This is both nonsensical and entirely accurate.
So. This review’s off to a good start then.
The game is designed for two players at the absolute minimum, one in the know-it-all Ariadne role and the other as their simple sidekick Bob. The rules stress that these aren’t actually character names so much as titles within the game. Your game’s Ariadne may be a cartoon ferret named “Xavier McGillicutty,” but they’re still filling the Ariadne slot.
The two main roles divide up the storytelling responsibilities that you would normally exploit a GM for.
Bob creates and describes elements of the world; adds weird things and twists without explanation; pokes holes in Ariadne’s explanations; gets things moving if the action slows down; and complains a lot. (That’s an actual game mechanic, by the way, not an editorial comment.)
Ariadne invents explanations for the weird things Bob creates; makes plans for them to carry out, usually with negative consequences for Bob; drops in little details that only they could notice; helps cheer Bob up; and pushes the story toward a positive result. Unless Bob slights them, in which case they can also unleash holy hell.
If you have a third or fourth player handy, they will portray the Chorus, incidental characters who flit in and out of Ariadne and Bob’s shenanigans. These players are mostly there to keep the story rolling for the two mains. A Chorus isn’t mandatory, but having another brain or two involved does make things extra lively. Choruses get their own C-plot as well (see below).
Before starting the game, the players need to decide a few things. Is Ariadne really a super-genius, or do they just think they are? Is Bob really stupid, or do they just seem so next to Ariadne? Does the Chorus have a recurring character as their main mouthpiece? Character generation is really just answering a handful of questions like these and then running with it. None of those pesky “stats” here.
Everyone must also choose a playset, about which (much) more later. You’ll also need a couple d6’s and a d10 if you’re fancy.
Making a Scene
I‘m not asking you, I’m telling you: Who is on first
Every A&B game has at least two plots, designated A and B. (Ohh see what they did there.) The A-plot is the major thrust of the story, like having something stolen or an encounter with your nemesis. The B-plot is a smaller, more mundane thing that runs parallel, like running errands or babysitting. Both plots are randomly generated at story start.
During play, the plot switches from A to B four times. Scene A1 sets the stakes, A2 introduces the main conflict, A3 pushes toward resolution but adds a twist, and A4 is the big finale. The B plots are less structured but will invariably flavor everything that’s happening in the A plot. If there’s a C-plot, it will occasionally pop up in the background as a running gag.
Bob sets up the A-plots and Ariadne sets up the B-plots. To begin every Scene A, Bob will roll a random prompt (which they can ignore) and then gin up some weird happenstance which Ariadne must tackle. For Scenes B, Ariadne describes what’s going on in broad strokes, continuing the previous scenes’ action, and Bob tries to tie that into the main story. If anyone struggles for details or direction, they can roll on the many provided oracle tables, both generic and playset-specific (we’re getting to playsets soon, promise).
Each scene continues until its main player declares the scene finished. That doesn’t necessarily mean everything in the scene is resolved, just that the story has reached a point where the spotlight might swing elsewhere. It’s not until Scenes A4 and B4 that the plotlines really need to be tied up with a bow.
Playsets
Pismo Beach and all the clams we can eat
The actual rules of Ariadne & Bob, including the generic oracles that apply to every set, take up a grand total of 16 pages out of the rulebook’s 116. By far the lion’s share of the game is its various Playsets, which are the story frames in which Ariadne and Bob can muck around. Playsets add genre-specific details to A&B games, in the form of extra agendas and moves for the protagonists, plus new oracles that apply only to that specific world.
Each Playset starts off with a great big colorful two-page spread which appears to be largely stock photography. Besides the cover and one lonely character drawing near the end, this is about all the artwork you’ll find in the book, so it’s not unwelcome. And it does set a tone.
All told there are 13 Playsets, of 3-6 (rules) pages each:
- Sci-Fi: Ricking and Mortying, a.k.a. the one Jimbozig had in mind when first writing the game
- Fantasy: The wacky adventures of Gandalf and Bilbo
- Twisted Timelines: Everyone into the Wayback Machine
- Horror: But, like, funny horror
- High Society: But what would Aunt Doris say?
- Superhero: An exploding shark was pulling my leg …
- Dystopia: Loooove that Big Brother! mugs for camera
- Time Loop (with Morgan Westbrook): Didn’t I just describe this?
- Magical Adventures in a Hidden Realm (with Mesarthim): Something something Ghibli
- Planar Portal Pandemonium (by Jason Pitre): Welcome to legally distinct Sigil
- Mech (by Austin Ramsay): Get in the robot, Goofy
- Cyberpunk (by Ettin): Gleaming that cyber hyper chrome stream info highway aaaaah nuts
- Explorer (by Vel Mini): No, no, here’s how I remember it …
A few Playsets make small but fundamental changes to the rules. Time Loop, for instance, inserts a montage of living the same day over and over in the middle of the A > B plot progression. The Explorer’s Playset tells the entire story in past tense, as old bloviating people recounting adventures from their youth. Planar Portal Pandemonium may even vault players into another Playset entirely.
Generally, though, Playsets are flavor. But they’re all the flavor. The game would be very bland without them.
Theme and Variations
I’m not even on this stupid show anymore
The last few pages of the rulebook discuss some ways to shake up a long-running campaign by switching roles, adding new Bobs, and running a “When Bob Met Ariadne” flashback episode.
One of the more interesting variants adds a third major character, the Mastermind, to the mix. This character wants to defeat Ariadne in any way possible, but the greatest humiliation would be to drive a wedge between them and Bob and maybe even steal Bob away.
There are also a couple of major role variants: Alice and Bellerophon, where the sidekick is the competent one, for all those Jeeves and Wooster / Inspector Gadget and Penny character combos; and Anastasia and Bear, which sets Anastasia as the villain and Bear as the good-hearted simpleton who wants to help but ultimately unravels the evil scheme by accident. Pull the lever, Kronk!
Settling the Score
Say good night, Gracie
All right. Let’s unpack all this.
This game is slightly guided improv. No sugar-coating that. There are practically no guardrails. Cooperation between the Ariadne and Bob players is an absolute necessity, even if the characters are in opposition. Everybody has to be clever and think on their feet. Oracles or no, prompts or no, plot structure or no, if any player doesn’t have their head in the game, the session will almost certainly be a turkey.
This isn’t a criticism (despite my kinda harsh tone), it’s a caveat. For a guided improv “GMful” RPG, it’s a pretty good one. But boy howdy is this not for everyone.
This game is definitely a cool and unique take on how to roleplay the smart-not smart duo paradigm. There aren’t a lot of two-player RPGs out there, and most of those are GM / player setups. Two people ping-ponging ideas back and forth, building a story in a shared but asymmetrical way, can be a lot of fun. The design hits that right out of the park.
Both the Ariadne and Bob players need to have something of a GM mindset, even though there’s not a GM in the traditional sense. If there’s a Chorus, they must understand how to support the story without being pushy about it. What I’m saying is all the roles here are unique, and no matter what kind of RPG you’ve played in the past, there will be a bit of a learning curve to really settle in.
The A/B plot swapping, though rather regimented, is generally a positive. I like the interplay between the high-concept A-plot and the B-plot about, I dunno, doing your laundry or something. Some may call it formulaic, but I call it a great way to ape a formulaic art form. The most fun way to go is resolving the A-plot with the B-plot. That’s when you really feel big-brained.
There’s a lot of content here for sure. Players never want for prompts. Sometimes they’re a bit vague, but that’s a feature, not a bug. Imagination and creativity are the point. If you have those in abundance, you’ll probably like it here.
I’d recommend this game only if you want the very specific type of game experience it gives you. But if that’s what you want, there aren’t any better games that I know of.
One point one thumbs, enthusiastically, up.