Publisher: Lester Smith Games Year: 2022 Dimensions: 2½” x 3½” x negligible thickness for the system alone, or ⅝” for everything you need to play Players: 1
All right, all right, let’s get those giggles out now
This unfortunately-named solo ruleset comes with the Bookmark No-HP RPG Compleat Bundle on DTRPG, or can be purchased separately for a couple bucks. The system is printed on four double-sided poker cards, but you also need a copy of Bookmark No-HP RPG (BNHP) and some variety of the Gamemaster’s Apprentice Deck (GMA) to play. That makes this the Avengers of game reviews.
Part of this complete breakfast
HandiQuest (heh) attempts to marry the random prompts of GMA with the simple play of BNHP to create a solo RPG experience that you can literally play anywhere. The rules don’t mention it, but I’d assume that if you’re playing a genre game (fantasy, sci-fi, etc.) with the BNHP rules, you’re expected to be using the generic GMA deck or a matching themed deck. Though as I think of it, playing e.g. sci-fi with e.g. the Age of Sail deck would certainly give it a unique flavor. Y’know what, I withdraw my objection. Mix ‘em up.
N.B.: The rules assume you’re using physical cards for all this. It can be played very easily with a virtual GMA deck (like you get with Bundle of Holding deals) if you use a card randomizer app or the deck system in your favorite VTT. I’ve been using a free Android app called Custom Image Dice, which works quite well. You just need to figure out your own system to hold and/or count cards.
Gameplay: To start a game, make a BNHP character, then cut the GMA deck. The cut card shows your ultimate goal in its Location spot, and the difficulty getting there in the Difficulty Generator spot on the other side. Take this card, invert it, stick it somewhere in the back half of the deck, and reassemble everything. This gives you a largish but random number of card pulls for your adventure.
From here, the game has a definite rhythm. Pull the top card, select a Location from either side, and take the Difficulty from the other. This is your next waypoint. Draw a second card and use the prompts there to make up what exactly the main obstacle will be on your way to the destination. Then run the encounter. When you would normally roll dice for BNHA, instead draw cards for the Dice Wheel.
If you survive to reach your goal, draw another card and look at the Likely Odds section. If most of the prompts are “No,” it’s an encounter; if mostly “Yes,” it’s a battle. Once again use card prompts within the scene to describe what you’re dealing with. In a battle scene, continue using the cards to make up an opponent and fight them. Encounters are more for imagination and storytelling. You can also rest after an encounter unless any of the prompts on the card are “NO!”
On to the next. When you reach the upside-down card, it’s automatically a battle, but otherwise run it like other locations. Win, lose, or draw, the game ends afterward.
If you want to make it an epic quest, shuffle and run through twice, first to find a quest item which you then use as a Trait or Vocation for your second journey.
Pocket fit:HandiQuest by itself weighs nothin’, but everything you need to play makes it hefty. The minimum set of HandiQuest + BNHP rules + one genre card + GMA is ~70 cards, and a slip case is practically required if you don’t want your deck to get all dog-eared. You’ll need a pencil to keep track of your character too. C-.
Legibility: Quite nice. HandiQuest uses a slightly chonky 11-point-ish serif font with bold sans-serif headers. It’s readable even from arm’s length. A.
Completeness: Hm. Well, literally by itself, this game is F-tier unplayable. With BNHP and a GMA deck, it’s about the same as BNHP itself, so I’ll crib from my previous review and give it a B-.
Final thoughts:HandiQuest gives you the barest, barest minimum to play solo BNHP + GMA. Since it can only generate very standard “go here, do this, go there, do that” stories, it’s not the Ultimate Story Experience by any stretch. I dare say even a minimal story engine like Storytelling Mints has this beat on that front. It’s fine if you don’t mind galumphing around the countryside like a Dark Souls player for an hour or two, but it’s not really built for ultra-memorable, story-rich games.
I appreciate it as a pack-in, but I wouldn’t recommend going out of your way to pick it up. One thumb passionlessly up.
Review the Last of pocket games from the same publisher. See Part 1 for notes on gameplay, or Part 2 for a review of a better game than Part 1. Now let’s finish this up and get out of here.
Big Eyes, Small Brains (BESB)
Writers: L.B. and Samatha Ferreira Year: 2019 Dimensions: 6¼” x 4” x ⅝” プレーヤー: 2+ Term for GM: Kami Term for PC: Avatar Page count: 310 (yes, you read that right) Oblique references to real-world anime count: ∞ Comparable media: The entire media output of Japan since 1982
Pulse pounding TV watching action
Unlike the other two books, there’s no monolithic setting here. Big Eyes, Small Brains (BESB) is a sandbox full of tropes where you can run around doing anime-inspired buffoonery. That said, there’s still more of an established world in this game than in its namesake and obvious inspiration, Big Eyes, Small Mouth. The rules are neither as comprehensive nor as complex as BESM, yet maybe because of this, they’re better balanced in many ways.
Not great, not terrible
The book is written from the point of view of an isekai’d person from Earth who became the god of the anime world of Abika. This conceit only exists to justify the writing’s meandering, casual-weeb tone. The enormous-eyed, unnaturally-colored-haired people of Abika live their lives as best they can: running late to school with toast in their mouths, dealing with all-powerful student councils, fighting ninjas while wearing maid outfits, fighting alien catgirls at regional festivals, choosing which of six supermodels to date while being a gormless milquetoast, piloting giant space robots right out of grade school, engaging in interminable tournament arcs when the author runs out of ideas, and about anything else you’ve ever seen happen in Japanese teen/YA media.
… Or so I thought at first. It turns out that there’s something like a plot built into the game setting, but you have to wait until page 200 to learn about it. In true BESB style, I’ll leave you in suspense until we get to that part.
The first thing I noticed during my readthrough was how sanitized BESB is compared to the others. There’s not a single “fuck” and only one “shit.” The humor is less transgressive and more genre-focused. There’s still some edge, but it’s greatly diminished. I’d go so far as to say this is less a parody work than a lighthearted spoof of anime fandom.
BESB adds six new Classes to the mix: Senshi (Sailor Power Moon Ranger transforming warriors), Androids (all-rounder characters with an impressive list of interchangeable parts), Combat Butlers/Maids (agile fighters with a cleaning fetish), Heroes (tank-ish swordsmen doing what Himmel would do), Ayakashi (nature yokai filling the cleric role), and Idols (dancing bards with Cyberpunk 2020 Rockerboy vibes). Again, you could port Classes from the other two games in or out if you really wanted to.
Something new here is Traits, which are optional attributes you can apply to your character. This list includes things like Chuunibyo, Crybaby, Family Business, Loli Body (grimace), Nosebleeds, Otaku, Tragic Past, etc. The list reads like anime’s greatest trope hits. These are entirely roleplaying prompts. There’s no bonus for taking them and no penalty for leaving them alone. If they amuse you, go for it.
Otherwise there’s the requisite list of wacky items (Magic Manga Pencil, Harem Whistle, Talking Cat Panties, Phone Charm, Demonic Contract, etc.) and weapons (surprisingly mundane, though there are things like the Bladed Serving Platter and Spiked Stilettos to spice things up).
Yes, really
You can buy cars, trucks, and mecha too. The vehicle and mecha rules are EXTREMELY rudimentary. Mechs are essentially big suits of armor equipped with giant versions of regular weapons. I mean, you don’t really need more than that for goofy Mobile Suit Gundam parodies, but Lancer this is very much not.
There follows a fairly comprehensive list of Foods, like takoyaki and omurice. These can be crafted with Cooking rolls and give minor bonuses upon consumption. It may be the most “anime” thing in this here anime game, and represents a missed opportunity in other games. No rules for cooking monsters, though, which feels like an oversight.
Now we get to the setting, which occupies almost the entire back half of the book. The world of Abika is divided into a number of realms embodying one or more sub-genres of anime. These realms are:
Mitakihara: Rural and/or coastal Japan-alike. Suburbs, safe streets, little shrines, woods, a magic academy, an interdimensional cafe, pretty much everything you’d expect from such a bucolic setting.
Sanzenin: The rich part of town, where most of the Combat Butlers and Maids in the world are employed. Home of the Bouran Academy, an elite school for stuck-up brats with gender confusion issues.
Siak: The wrong side of the tracks. Siak was once the high-tech part of town until the bottom fell out of the market. The BIOME Corporation churns out androids to steal the citizens’ jobs and drive them further into poverty. Gee that doesn’t feel frickin’ prophetic from here in 2026, huh.
Lancastar: The Shibuya neighborhood of Tokyo, expanded into a whole region. Idols and Senshi are thick on the ground here. Home to multiple rival rock’n’roll high schools.
Valis: Where the heroic fantasy happens. Castles, colosseums, adventurer’s guilds, barroom brawls, kidnapped princesses, rampaging dragons. A Hero’s paradise.
Vulkanus: All future war, all the time. This place is lousy with mecha, gleaming postmodernism, and overt fascistic vibes. Lots of ghosts in those machines, if you get my drift. Plenty of crises involving bubblegum, if you know’m sayin’.
Washinomiya: Shinto-land. Big shrines, cherry blossoms, shrine maidens, new years’ festivals, gurus muttering mantras along the side of the road, that kind of thing. The Abika version of the UN is housed here. Ayakashi feel right at home.
Yotsuya: The spoooooky yokai-infested zone. Superstition city. It’d be scarier if the descriptions of the stuff there didn’t remind me of the Ghost Stories English dub.
Fukusaku: Here we finally learn the “plot” of BESB. Years ago, a rogue Senshi named Tack planted himself on top of the tallest mountain in remote Fukusaku and declared war on anyone who wouldn’t bow down to him. In the ensuing struggle, thousands perished. When Tack was finally defeated, his death set off a dead man’s switch. A forbidden spell reduced Fukusaku to a radiation-ravaged hellscape. The rest of Abika abandoned Fukusaku and mages lifted the entire region into the sky. The few survivors there dwindle each day and horrible mutant monsters wander the land.
… Welcome to our fun wacky parody game. Geez. Note that the Fukushima nuclear power plant disaster had happened eight years before this was published. This is so on the nose, it crushed my septum. Every other joke is cartoony clownhammer stuff, then you run into this big clump of dethbludgore. You got your Dorohedoro in my Konosuba.
Hey!
Luckily the whole war stuff is only mentioned in passing in the other areas, though Fukusaku is still a place characters can visit if they want something other than sunshine and rainbows.
The book ends with over 70 pages of the enemies found in each area. Standouts include the Sadistic Student Council President, Motorcycle Gang Members, Space Pirates, Tween Witches, Kobolds, Ganguro Girls, Yuki-Onnas, and Insane Cultists. Still no intro adventure. That feels a bit weird considering how much space they had, but whatever.
Portability: Same as the other two, just thicker. Definitely has some heft that you can feel. C.
Legibility: They replaced the sans-serif font with a light serif, but it’s still all good. A.
Completeness: This one oddly doesn’t feel any more complete than Laser Metal despite having three times the pages. Therefore this one gets an A- too.
Final thoughts: At 310 pages, BESB is by far the largest pocket RPG out there. In fact we’re probably approaching the theoretical limit of pocket RPG physics. Therefore, you’d think I’d be raving about how stuffed and huge and sprawling this game is. But somehow it still feels … sparse.
A lot of that comes from the game’s breezy writing style. Just like me, the writers of BESB do like to ramble.
As in croaked! As in snorting dirt! As in pushing up daisies! Wait, what was I saying? Oh no, I got off track again. I’m such a silly billy. My bad. Tehe pero!
There’s a lot of that sort of “wacky” digression. If you picked up the book and squeezed out all those asides like a sponge, the book would lose about a third of its volume.
That’s not necessarily a good thing, either. Without the extra verbiage, you’d start to notice that everything is underbaked. The whole game has a mish-mash feel. Each area in Abika has only three or four landmarks and about four unique enemy types. I’ve reviewed less wordy games with more variety.
And yes, you need to be a weeb to get much enjoyment. Otherwise nearly all the jokes will fly freely, joyfully even, over your head.
If you are a weeb, well, here’s a game. It’s loose and unfocused and imperfect, but you can play it maybe. You and your friends may get a chuckle out of it. With a little work, you could even make it shine. As is, though, it’s a fine start. Just … fine.
Finally final thoughts: The Attention Span Games pocket series is a mixed bag, to say the least. Conceptually, DnDizzle is too narrow to fill a whole book, while BESB is too broad even despite its relative enormity. Laser Metal strikes the best balance between scope and vision. It’s juuust right.
And they all shit in the woods. The end.
Are any of them worth owning? That’s very subjective. I’d say DnDizzle requires you to be both REALLY into its subject matter and be easy to please. Laser Metal has a decent universe to play around in, isn’t full of impenetrable in-jokes, and, as it will constantly remind you, is pretty fuckin’ metal. BESB is cute and “for the fans,” but doesn’t have much of a skeleton, so it just flops around. BESB is BYOPlot.
It’s probably telling that only Laser Metal has a published adventure, Too Broke to Rock, that you can nab for a buck off DTRPG. That’s all the support you’re getting. Now go to that ledge and hang off it.
In total? Half a thumb up on one hand, half a thumb down on the other. Focus wherever you want.
The second of three reviews of pocket games from the same publisher. See Part 1 for info about the gameplay, and maybe stay for the review. If you dare.
Laser Metal
Writer: Ron Leota Year: 2015 Dimensions: 6¼” x 4″ x ¼” Metalheads: 2+ Term for GM: Metal Master Term for PC: PC (how disappointing) Page count: 116 “Laser” count: 72 “Metal” count: 252 Comparable media: Metalstorm: The Destruction of Jared-Syn, Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome, Judge Dredd (1995), KISS Meets the Phantom of the Park
It’s metal! It doesn’t have to make sense!
Millennia ago, humanity left a dying Earth to colonize other planets, including the small barren planet of Brutalia. Life on Brutalia was, to coin a phrase, brutal. Humans scrabbling out a life there built fortified cities and skirmished with each other to increase their pieces of the pie. One of these city-states built a giant orbital laser and threatened its neighbors with it. The other city-states didn’t care for this and tried to invade. Half the planet was scorched in the aftermath, and the surviving cities made ready to go to war and finish off the rest of it.
However! A metal band called The Saints of Thrash foresaw that the world was about to end, bought a tract of empty land, hired a bunch of science types who were tired of making WMDs, and built a gigantic dome. When the final war did finally happen, this dome, later known as Arena 66, was about the only thing on the planet that survived.
Then they discovered … The Metal (squealing guitar riff). Somehow, living on the planet Brutalia was changing humanity, giving them powers like telekinesis, raising the dead, shooting lightning from their hands, and otherwise twisting reality. Not everyone can use The Metal, but those who can are practically superheroes. Or at least super-metalheads.
Now, 20 years after the apocalypse, people are emerging from Arena 66 and learning what’s going on out there in the wastelands of Brutalia. Nothing good, generally speaking. But people go out there anyway, mostly to train their combat skills for the biennial Laser Metal Tournament, a literal battle of the bands, to win the right to rule Arena 66 and ride eternal, shiny and chr — whoops, wrong franchise. The players are assumed to be members of one such band, building up life experience to take on the Tournament themselves.
The game proper starts with the Laser Metal Classes: Doom Wailer (screaming bard with a connection to The Metal), Fat Bottom (tank, almost literally), Gun Witch (sneaky gun-fu fighter), Order of Metal Monk (Jedi wielding the power of The Metal, complete with laser swords), and Shred Master (master of destruction, and also pilot for some reason). The Classes are compatible with DnDizzle, in case you wanted to muddle your metal sci-fi with hip-hop fantasy.
Several powers from The Metal are then enumerated, allowing characters to put enemies to sleep, turn blood to ink, steal the life force from everyone around them, and tear open a hole in the sky and rain down hellfire. You know, Tuesday.
Next come lists of equipment, including Guitar Scythes, Rocket Propelled Knives, Jet-Powered Flight Suits, and Ruff the Cyberdog, followed by descriptions of all the internal areas of Arena 66, plus outside places like Arena 69 (giggity), the Church of Gas, Death Row, the Irradiated Wastes, and beyond. Then we get a bunch of adversaries (Cannibal Mutants, Company Men, Deth [sic] Bots, Gas Hunters, Posers, Sellouts, Zombie Pop Fans, etc.). Sadly there’s no adventure included.
So right off the bat, this game world is miles better. If you told me this was the plot of a backup feature in 2000 AD, I wouldn’t question it. The writing has a middling dose of punk attitude, but it’s not insanely annoying. Typefaces are readable, the writing isn’t constantly punching you in the face, and the world is silly but in a far less grating way. It’s a relief.
It’s not perfect, though. For one thing, the game tries too hard to convince us how totally hardcore it is. The author often breaks in to say “now THAT’s fucking METAL” like he’s not entirely sure of it himself. It doesn’t happen all the time, so it’s not as salt-in-your-eyes irritating as DnDizzle got, but it’s a stone drag when it shows up.
Yeah! Fuck yeah! I’m hyped! :slams chest repeatedly: Are you hyped? I’m totally hyped!
Portability: Same size and caveats as DnDizzle. B.
Legibility: Yes. 12-point-ish sans serif for body text, a Gothic-wannabe font for chapter headers, and a thin handwriting font for subheads. Every word is legible. That’s metal as fuck. A.
Completeness: This has lots more world-building than DnDizzle, but at the expense of an intro adventure. That tips this one slightly to the negative. Still a full-fledged game though. A-.
Final thoughts: I’m sure you’ve picked up that I like this one more than its older brother, even though it has the same author. I’m guessing he got some feedback on the first game and actually took it to heart. It’s nice seeing people improve.
There’s also more variety in this one. Laser Metal isn’t just about stretching the One Joke until it disintegrates, it has a living, varied, colorful, semi-cohesive setting. It’s certainly very trope-y, but there are flashes of cleverness in how they fit together. It’s not just random metal gags thrown in a bag and shaken. These random metal gags have been meticulously curated, damn it.
Of these three parody games, I think this one works the best. (Oh, spoilers for the next review, I guess.)
To finish up my series of pocket TTRPG reviews, I was originally going to write one big review of three similar games. As I dug in, it turned into a monster, since apparently I can’t shut my yap for two seconds. So I’m breaking it into three regular reviews instead. Please! … Enjoy.
In this series we’ll highlight three pocket-sized RPGs, all ostensibly parodies, from the same publisher, Attention Span Games. All the books in this review use similar rules, differing mostly in classes, campaign structure, and tone. Such as it is. You’ll see what I mean.
DnDizzle: Dragons in the Hood; Laser Metal; Big Eyes, Small Brains (BESB)
Print is dead, and we are its killers
Other pocket games deal with their small form factor by being innovative in their construction, packaging, and organization. These games, meanwhile, are just … books. Small, flimsy, soft-cover, perfect-bound books, printed in black-and-white on thin matte paper. The sort of books that merely opening them cracks the cover. Being actual books, they have far less need to be economical with their content. Their size fits our format, but it still feels like cheating.
Gameplay: All three games use the same basic rules. Characters have four Stats: Might (or “Strength” in BESB), Agility (“Speed” in BESB), Intelligence (“Brains” in DnDizzle), and a fourth metaphysical stat (“Soul” in DnDizzle, “Metal” in Laser Metal, and “Luck” in BESB, all doing roughly equivalent things). Players divvy up 7 points between these, with a minimum of 1 and a maximum of 3. Most Classes have a preferred Stat, so you probably shouldn’t take, say, the Combat Butler Class if your Speed were too low.
Each book has wildly varying names for their Classes, but they all generally fill classic party roles: the healer, the tank, the mage, the marksman, etc. A character’s beginning Skills (or “Skillz” … yes, thank you, DnDizzle, very droll) are determined by their Class. All Skills/z begin at rank 1, and the character has a number of extra points equal to their INT/Brains score to add to that.
Characters then gain one Ability based on their Class, like the Trigger Man’s Accurate Shot (+1 to hit for all ranged weapons), the Shred Master’s This Cut was the Deepest (+2 damage to melee and laser attacks), or the Idol’s Hypersonic Tune (a damaging sonic blast that can potentially push enemies away from you). You get more Abilities as you level up. Your Class also determines your initial equipment, plus a small amount of the coin of the realm (gold, credits, or Ryo) for accessorizing.
When attempting an action with a chance of failure, players roll 2d6 and add the relevant Stat plus Skill. If they don’t have the right Skill, they just add the Stat -1. Snake eyes is an automatic failure and boxcars is an automatic success. For non-contested rolls, the GM sets the difficulty. If it’s a contested roll, ties go to the defender.
This is a very simple, neat, easy dice resolution method, which also happens to be almost exactly the same as the classic Japanese RPG Sword World. Now I’m not saying the designer lifted the system wholesale, but I’m not not saying it either. (In 2013-ish, when this system was in development, /tg/ was already flogging around partial translations of SW 2.0. However, the rest of this system doesn’t resemble SW that much. I’m willing to give it the benefit of a doubt and chalk this up to some sort of 2d6 carcinization theory.)
When combat breaks out, everyone rolls 2d6 + Agility/Speed + Awareness and acts in descending order. Rounds are 5 seconds long, and characters can move up to 25 feet and perform one item from a pretty standard action list: attack, cast a spell, use a skill or ability, draw a weapon, stand up/lie down, grab something, or take a second 25-foot move. There are no “held actions;” if you do nothing on your turn, you miss out.
Each character has a Defense Rating equal to 5 + their Agility/Speed + any armor bonus (up to +5). A character’s DR defends against every type of attack from guns to spells to laser swords. If an enemy rolls an attack above this number, the character takes damage somewhere between 1d6 and 2d6 + some number, depending on the attack type. At 0 HP, they pass out and will die if they don’t get treatment within as many rounds as their Might/Strength score. Even after all that, they can be revived by anyone with a resurrection-type Ability, but only within the next hour.
Then there are items that affect blah blah, nobody cares, get to the actual games already, you cry. These are parody games, how to roll the dice is secondary. Just tell us about the funny stuff.
Well okay. You asked for it.
DnDizzle: Dragons in the Hood
Writer: Ron Leota Year: 2014 Dimensions: 6¼” x 4” x ¼” Playas: 2+ Term for GM: The Big Pimp (BP) Term for PC: OG Page count: 112 “Motherfucker” count: 79 Comparable media: Don’t Be a Menace to South Central While Drinking Your Juice in the Hood, Leprechaun: Back 2 tha Hood, Bright (non-laudatory)
They’re squinting because they can’t read the logo
In the ancient hood known as Comptonia —
Okay, yeah. That’s the level we’re on. Soak that in a second. Now let’s continue.
In Comptonia, all was chill under the enlightened rule of King Pimperton, the illest motherfucker in all the land. Everyone loved him and his fly honey of a daughter, Princess Fabula. Then one night, a big-ass snake motherfucker called the Black Dragon pulled up, straight wrecked Comptonia, and flew off with hella dolla dolla bills y’all, and, weaker still, the princess.
The king put out a hit on the Black Dragon, offering his daughter’s hand in marriage to whatever smooth OG could lock her down back home. All the big ballas of the kingdom turned out to punk the Black Dragon’s ass. Just when it looked like they were going to win, the Dragon called up his homies and everyone bailed before a flood of wack-ass monsters.
Meanwhile, the princess, hella mad that her daddy offered her up to the first golddigger to come along, went thug and dipped into the Big Ass Forest.
Now Comptonia’s all kinds of fucked up, and only the hardest OGs will be able to regulate the monsters, take back the hood, and bring the pain to that Black Dragon motherfucker once and for all.
I shall now present a direct quote from the book:
“Now it’s time for you to go forth! Cry, ‘thug life!’ and let slip the gats of war; just don’t be caught trippin’.”
All right. So. How did the previous section make you feel? A little second-hand embarrassment, maybe? Like you’re looking through a twisted portal at the thinnest veneer of 1990s-era hip-hop culture? About as hard as Vanilla Ice?
That’s this book’s one single joke.
The actual rules are presented in a clear straightforward style. But everything, and I mean every pig-friggin’ thing, is accompanied by running commentary by a character called “Fat Warrior” who uses thick wannabe gangsta speak. I’d estimate half the text in this book is Fat Warrior’s incessant, pointless fronting. I mean look at this shit:
SHUT UPPPPP
I’ll get to that awful font later. But gee Zeus. There are whole entire chapters that are nothing but Fat Warrior rambling on (and on and on) in this tone. It’s not even creatively done; by about the fortieth “motherfucker” the word had lost all meaning. The lack of chill, as they say on the streets, is palpable as all fuck.
This ragged cloak of hip-hop sensibility has been draped over the whole game, from its Classes (Doc [cleric], Freestyler [bard], Jacker [rogue], Street Magician [mage], Thug [fighter], Trigger Man [ranger]) to its equipment (Low-Rider Carriage, Sack of Holding Shit, Pimp Cane of Control) to its monsters (Crazy Ho, Weak-Ass Goblin, Ghetto Leprechaun, Medusafarian … okay that one’s funny). There’s a history of Comptonia which is essentially “we had a great pimp king, then a bad stoner king, and now it’s today,” a list of “interesting” citizen stereotypes, and a sample adventure, “King Smokey’s Secret Stash.” Then the book ends, which is my favorite part.
Portability: It actually fits the pocket quite well, even when you add 2d6, some copies of the character sheet, and a pencil. The book is a bit fragile, so don’t run a marathon with it in your pocket. B.
Legibility: The regular rules are easy to read, in a decently sized sans-serif font, with excellent spacing. Fat Warrior’s narrative text, on the other hand, is beyond awful. It’s some kind of bizarre cursive (?) typeface with enormous ascenders and descenders and horrible kerning that makes letters tend to blend together. Even that wouldn’t be a complete deal-breaker if there weren’t whole chapters of this shit. Honestly. D.
Completeness: It is at least a whole game. With as much space as they have, it would be weird not to be. This is the one thing I can’t complain about. A.
Final thoughts: Who is this game for? Well, I’d expect people who love (and I mean loooove) West Coast urban culture would get a kick out of the slang, repetitive though it may be. Obsessive collectors (raises hand sheepishly) would feel bad not having it. Cultural and linguistic anthropologists might get something out of it. People who really like fucking mothers, maybe? I’m kinda stretching here.
You may be thinking that my objection to this game is that I don’t like hip-hop (extremely untrue) or I’m clutching my pearls at the content (somewhat untrue; there’s some bits that feel like it’s making fun of the culture instead of having fun with it. But shit, man, I’ve been on the internet for 35 years, you think I’m gonna balk at tone?). No, my absolute, overriding objection is that this is a comedy game that stops being funny around page 5. Unforgivable. Off with its head.
Big-ass motherfuckin’ nope from me, homies. Peace out.
Another installment of my review mini-series about literally pocket-sized RPGs. See Part One for the explanation, and Part Two for more of … whatever this is.
Storytelling Mints
Publisher: Archmage Arispen Year: 2025 Dimensions: 3¼” x 2⅛” x ¾” Players: 1+
Didn’t we just leave this party?
Yet another joint from Archmage Arispen, maker of the previously reviewedTinny Dungeons. Storytelling Mints feels like a GM’s tool that somehow evolved into an actual RPG. This one has zero moving parts; no dice, no player sheets, no pencils, nothing but the cards in the tin and a song in your heart.
Storytelling Mints comes with one Player Guide card, one Game Master Guide card, 24 double-sided PC / plot cards, and a wee little hinged tin to hold everything.
Gameplay: Before play begins, the Game Master draws four plot cards at random. Each card has four sections: a Goal, a Location, an Obstacle, and a Twist. The GM silently reads one line from each card, then uses them as inspiration to create a secret quest seed.
Fantasy adventure, or Mickey Spillane novel?
Meanwhile, the players turn the deck over and choose their PCs from the characters described on the other side. Each character card lists a character name (ignorable), a race/class pair (mostly fluff), Strengths, Weaknesses, and Gear.
Slab Bulkhead! Buck Plankchest! Big McLargeHuge!
Notice how the bottom of each character card has an upside-down area containing one of four phrases: “Yes, And,” “Yes, But,” “No, And,” and “No, But.” I think you can see what’s coming.
To begin, the GM describes the world and is urged to start in action. Then play unfolds in a pure narrative style, funneled into the quest seed created earlier. A PC’s Strengths and Weaknesses make it easier or harder to do certain actions, and their Gear exists to do cool things with.
If the players want to try something risky, they draw a card and look at the inverted text on the character side. They succeed on a “yes,” fail on a “no,” and other stuff happens depending on their ands or buts.
Yes. This game runs on amateur improv.
Now what we need from the audience is the name of something found in a dungeon
There are no stats or anything; such limitations are only in your mind, maaan. It’s up to the GM to keep everyone engaged and the plot moving, and players are equally encouraged to add details and help shape the story.
By the end, the main quest was either successfully completed or utterly derailed. Nothing really happens either way. As you might expect, there’s no leveling up and no long campaign structure. The most you can do is get the GM to draw four more cards and climb back on that treadmill. The play really is the thing.
The provided PCs are very, very D&D coded in their race and class combos. There’s an Aasimar, a Tiefling, and an Aarakocra in the mix. Also a couple Goblins, so … some Pathfinder sneaking in there too, maybe? This isn’t a deal-breaker (and may be a bonus for some groups) but it feels … I dunno, infringe-y.
Also, and this is a much bigger thing: Removing cards from the main deck (for instance, when the PCs choose their character cards or the GM deals themselves the plot) changes the ratio of Yeses and Noes to be drawn during gameplay. I count 6 Yes Ands, 7 Yes Buts, 7 No Buts, and 4 No Ands in the deck. If you have a bunch of players who all want characters with Yes Ands on the bottom, they’ll end up inadvertently skewing the game negatively for themselves. The characters on the Yes cards aren’t particularly special compared to the No cards, so there’s no reason not to grab up all the No Ands and make the game easier.
This can be mitigated by either dealing PCs randomly, or else just taking a snap of the card(s) on your phones and returning everything to the deck. But there’s that niggling feeling that a different randomizer could have fixed this …
Pocket fit: The tin is about half the size of an Altoids tin by volume. It doesn’t even have extra parts inside to rattle around and disturb your prayer group. A-.
Legibility: Mostly good, with a mix of serif and sans-serif (for headers) typefaces. Text on the plot side gets difficult to see in spots, due to light-colored ink on the bright white background. A line or two on the character side is equally hard to read for being white text on a light-ish background. Not nearly as illegible as Pocket World of Dungeons, though, which has altered my perception for all subsequent reviews. B.
Completeness: Once again, we have a game with no leveling, no monsters, and no campaigns. But it does come with a kinda neat story generator that can generate over 250,000 plots (or so claims their advertising). And the game itself does have a complete gameplay loop, with lots of options for the players to choose from. So. B-.
Final thoughts: If nothing else, Storytelling Mints is a master class in compact game design. I really do think this was originally meant to be a simple RPG story generator, and Arispen had a wild hair to throw in a game to go with it. And it even works, after a fashion! I’d almost pick this up for the plot stuff alone, but a game on top of that is like getting chocolate in your peanut butter.
Hey!
Two things prevent me from giving this my full recommendation, though: the vibey, improv-driven gameplay which is not every table’s cup of tea, and its current $22 USD price tag. I mean, cripes, man. When I bought this a few months ago it was cheaper, but I think, you know, the world situation today has really stuck this game in the shorts. If it were like $10-15, it’d be a more solid choice. As it is, only consider this if you really vibe with the concept.
POCKET (Card Edition)
Publisher: Barely Playtested Year: 2022 Dimensions: 2″ x 3½” (business card size) x ¼” Players: 2+
Is that a game in your pocket or
POCKET (Card Edition) is a straightforward mini-OSR-like, which mostly stands apart from the competition by its formatting. The entire system fits on five business cards (double-sided), which read as if the cards were chapters in a very small book.
Besides the cards, players need a d20 (preferably one for each player), something to write with, and something to write their character info on. No char sheets provided this time.
Gameplay: To build a character, players simply choose a Race (which nets some sort of bonus, like a Dwarf’s resistance to poison or a Gnome’s ability to speak to small animals) and a Class. Each of the 12 Classes provides characters with their HP, starting skills, weapon/armor proficiencies, and special abilities. The player then chooses one armor set and three weapons from a short list, and they’re off to the slaughter.
Characters don’t have stats per se, instead having four very broad Skills: Athletics, Subterfuge, Lore, and BWAM (“Base Weapon Attack Modifier”). These are added to d20 rolls when they attempt stuff. To perform a task or resist an effect, roll the die and add your skill versus a Difficulty Check (DC) either laid out in the rules or chosen by the GM. To attack, do the same but add your BWAM versus the opponent’s AC (ideally shouting “BWAM!” when you do so). All weapons do fixed damage, so one roll does it all.
One thing to note here is that the weakest provided monster, the Dire Rat, has 6 HP, and the only weapons that inflict more than 6 HP in one blow are 2-Handed (plus a few spells, but there’s no guarantee you’ll have them prepared; see below). Nearly all fights will therefore be battles of attrition. GMs will need to be careful with their encounter balancing. The rules are silent on all this.
One card-side contains a list of 20 magic spells. Magic-using classes randomly roll from this list to find out which spell(s) they’ve prepared each in-game day. For any class except Wizard, their choice is limited to only part of the list. For instance, Druids will roll one spell per day from spells 6-10 on the list, Clerics roll two spells from 1-10, and Wizards roll three spells per day from the whole thing.
Points of order
Magic-users also get extra powers from and/or beyond this list. Druids can speak to, and turn into, plants and animals. Clerics get an extra Heal spell automatically. Warlocks get an at-will Eldritch Blast spell and can cast Darkness once per day. Wizards gain an at-will Magic Missile. Bards can cast Guidance three times a day and can sing to raise party morale as a standard action.
The non-magic classes get their own quirks too, from a Barbarian’s Rage to a Ranger’s animal companion to a Fighter’s simple mix of high Athletics, impressive BWAM, and a bonus to opportunity attacks. The classes feel kind of 3e-ish, if that makes sense. They aren’t all super exciting but they get the job done.
One final card is occupied with 12 monster listings, from the previously mentioned Dire Rats all the way up to Dragons. It’s a smattering of the greatest FRPG hits. No orcs though.
Pocket fit: Easy peasy. Even the d20s, pencils, and slips of paper for character notes hardly drag it down. A-.
Legibility: It ain’t fancy, but that’s a feature, not a bug. It’s around a 9-point serif font, spaced well, with clear headings and simple tables. It’s pretty readable even for its size. B.
Completeness: System-wise this is the barest of bones, but it still hits all the notes. It has a pleasant and diverse selection of races and classes, a solid handful of monsters, and decently enumerated rules. No leveling up and no campaign structure, though, and also no guidance for a GM at all. That all comes out to around a C.
Final thoughts: The word “workmanlike” popped into my head a lot while looking over this game. It’s well constructed but aggressively vanilla. Nothing about it made me go “wow” or “ugh.” I could definitely see someone using POCKET to run an OSR module with a minimum of tweaking, but out-of-the-box it’s just a toolkit.
It’s also free on itch.io, so I don’t feel like I should crap on it too much. And hey, it does work. So. Have at it, champ.
Next time: It’s the little things in life, you know?
In this series, I’m going to indulge a peculiar fixation of mine: pocket TTRPGs, a.k.a. physical RPGs which fit entirely within a pants pocket. These are essentially the RPG equivalent of Micro Machines, Polly Pocket/Mighty Max, Gameboy Micro, Tech Deck, Z scale trains, bonsai, and anything else made unfeasibly tiny.
Here are the ground rules:
Games have to be more than an interesting dice mechanic and a sentence or two suggesting a setting. This eliminates nearly all business-card RPGs and things like 36-word game jams.
The games have to fit in my pocket. Specifically, the entire game should fit within the front right pocket of my “good pair” of jeans, without folding/crushing the game or straining the fabric. This pocket is approximately 7” wide and 7” deep when empty. Being able to sit down while the game is in there is preferred, but optional.
These arbitrary constraints disqualify most one-pagers, digests, and trifolds. They also eliminate most pocket versions of bigger RPGs, since they’re often dependent on having a full-sized book for reference.
Games must be small by design, and not be just a larger RPG shrunk to fit. They also need to be legible at printed size. Otherwise I’d just be reviewing Pathfinder on microfiche.
It’s gotta be a real physical game. Phone games are cheating.
I’ll rate these games on gameplay, pocket fit, legibility, and completeness. (“Completeness” is a nebulous metric, but generally includes stuff like monster listings, character creation rules, spell lists, adventures, a campaign setting … pretty much any QoL improvement beyond the bare mechanics. The more the better.)
Dinky Dungeons
Publisher: Doc’s Games/Uncle Morty Productions Year: 1985 Dimensions: 3½” x 5” x about ⅜” Players: 2-5
A dime bag of adventure
Dinky Dungeons is what got me into tiny RPGs to begin with. I bought my copy, unknown and unreviewed, at a skeevy little table at a sci-fi convention in 1985, and discovered a goofy parody OSR-like that’s still surprisingly playable. (Though can you really call it “OSR” if it came out when “OS” was, you know, S? Let me know in the comments below. And don’t forget to like, subscribe, and smash that notification bell!)
So what did you get for your hard-earned one American dollar back in 1985?
The whole schmegeggi
A 32-page saddle-stitched rulepamphlet that looks like a Xerox copy from the era when Xerox was the only company that made copiers
Two blank character sheets, double-sided
A wee little Gamemaster Screen, printed on a 3×5 card folded in half
A sample adventure: Goblin Cave, complete with cardstock hex map
A relatively large “errata” sheet which is mostly just a continuation of the main rules
Two 5mm d6’s (I acquired the third one from a different game; I don’t remember which two are original)
The Doc’s Games/Uncle Morty catalog, featuring several adventures and comics available for between 50 cents and a dollar, plus SASE
Gameplay: Characters have two stats, PHY(sical) and MEN(tal); players roll 2d6 and apply one die to each. There are three classes, Warrior, Wizard, and Bard, and four races, Human, Elf, Dwarf, and Fuzzy Winker, a cowardly 1’ tall rodent that takes -1 to all stats and can’t wear armor or carry weapons. This is for all those players who want to be annoyingly useless, a much neglected demographic.
For most activity checks, each character has Muscle (equal to their PHY) and Idea (equaling MEN) Points, which is the number of times per day they can attempt a significant action. Each time they try something strenuous, they roll 2d6. On a 7 exactly, they succeed and don’t spend a point. On doubles, they succeed but also spend a point. On any other result, they fail and spend a point. This gives only a 1 out of 3 probability of succeeding at any action, 83% of that time losing one daily try in the process. The only bonus you get for having high stats is being able to try more often.
Saving throws work similarly, shrugging off effects on 7’s and taking half effect on doubles.
Combat, on the other hand, compares the attacker’s and defender’s relevant stats on a combat table. The attacker rolls under the table score on 2d6 to hit, doing damage equal to the difference between the roll and the target, plus a bonus die. Damage is taken directly off the target’s PHY or MEN stats, and you have to roll to heal each day.
Roll to kill
By these rules, even strong or smart characters will be mostly ineffective at anything besides combat. With the cartoony parody vibe of the rules, it’s somewhat forgivable, but can still be frustrating unless the players let go and get silly with their failures.
The remaining rules are actually quite extensive, with equipment and spell lists and a bestiary and XP/leveling up rules and all that. You can check them out at the charmingly Web 1.0 page http://dinkydungeons.com/origrules.asp. Despite its size, the system is only “rules-light” in comparison to the popular games of the day.
Pocket fit: A+. Immaculate. It’s like I’m carrying nothing at all!
Nothing at all … nothing at all …
Legibility: Middling. The text is a small, clean, readable OCR-style font (or maybe IBM Selectric, considering the era). Everything is stark black-and-white. Sadly, perhaps to cram everything in, paragraphs are at an all-time premium. Illustrations are also cramped, but at least not so small as to be smudgy. This won’t win any awards for layout, that’s for sure. That nets it a C- grade and a mandatory grammar refresher.
By this time my lungs were aching for air
Completeness: It has full rules, character sheets, a sample adventure, and a usable GM screen. I mean, jeez Louise.
I must dock it a little bit, though, since the players also need pencils. (I know that may seem petty, but wait ‘til the next review.) So I’ll downgrade my original A+++ rating to a simple A. Tough but fair.
Final thoughts:Dinky Dungeons has created a very high bar for me in the pocket RPG space. As far as I‘ve found, there’s never been another TTRPG so cheap, complete, and petite. About the only thing I truly dislike is that its ziploc bag is almost too small, and you kinda have to bend everything to take stuff out. Back when I first got the game, that was no big deal. Now that it’s a precious 40-year-old gaming artifact, it’s a bit white-knuckle.
I want to send a message back to my 1985 self to send Uncle Morty $10 for the supplements. Even with its heavy rules jank, this thing is absolutely the best gaming buck I’ve ever laid out.
Extra note: Just for grins, I tried to find a copy of DD for sale on Google Marketplace. All I could find is a single character sheet, used, which somebody is trying to sell on eBay for thirty fucking dollars. Holy cripes. I’ll just, uh, take my copy and put it in this safe deposit box. Nothing to see here.
Tinny Dungeons
Publisher: Archmage Arispen Year: 2022 Dimensions: 4” x 2½” x ⅞” Players: 2-8
These mints taste terrible
Archmage Arispen is a Polish game designer who’s pushing pretty deep into the tiny RPG market right now. Besides Tinny Dungeons, they have such games as Tinny Apocalypse (same format, but in a Fallout-esque world) and a couple of business-card RPGs. They also have an expansion pack for Tinny Dungeons called Journey Through Sands & Frost, which looks to expand this game’s world.
But I’m getting ahead of myself. Let’s talk basic components. All the cards are mini-playing-card-sized.
Six illustrated, pre-generated character cards, with stats and abilities on the front and game rules on the back
One blank character card, with the same game rules on the back
One GM Guide card
One card showing a map of the Dawnmoon Woods region, with places of interest on the back
One card with a map of the town of High Farm, with people/places of interest on the back
One card with a map of the city of Waycross, with people/places of interest on the back
Three adventure cards, each with a dungeon map on the front and descriptions of rooms, monsters, traps, etc. on the back
Two 12mm d6’s
A pencil! Ha! Take that, Dinky Dungeons!
Everything comes in an Altoids-sized tin with a removable lid, which you can use as a clattery dice tray.
Gameplay: The six pregen characters all have three stats, STR, DEX, and MIND, with two stats set to 1 and one stat of 2. The PCs also have an AC score between 3 and 5 (higher is better), either 3 or 4 HP, a weapon or two, and a special skill, like the elf wizard’s Fireball or the halfling thief’s Sneak Attack.
To attack an enemy, the attacker rolls a number of dice equal to the relevant stat of the weapon they’re using (STR for melee weapons, DEX for ranged attacks, and MIND for spells). If the die, or either of the dice for stats of 2, are equal to or greater than the AC of the target, you do 1 point of damage. The target straight up dies when HP reaches 0.
Though death is but a door, time is but a window
When a character faces a challenge tough enough to require a roll, the GM sets a difficulty from 4 to 6 and the player rolls (stat) number of dice to meet or beat it.
Though there’s a blank character card, there aren’t any enumerated character generation rules. It should be fairly simple to use the other characters as a template to make something up, but that requires thought. Like, gross.
No leveling up rules are provided either. Normally I’d say that tracks for a package this simple, but the remainder of the game feels semi-campaign-oriented. The adventure cards are mostly standard dungeon crawls, but the setting cards have more setpieces, adventure hooks, and local personalities to interact with. These cards elevate what would normally be a handful of quickie one-shots into something that a bright young GM could use to craft a continuing story.
Ah, look at all the lonely people
The adventure cards have nice (but tiny) color maps printed on one side, and descriptions on the other. This makes it awkward to show players the map and read the back at the same time. Maybe just give the players graph paper and make ‘em map it out old school. If it was good enough for their grandfathers, it’s good enough for them.
As mentioned, there’s an expansion pack (which I haven’t picked up) that promises to add new adventures, territories, and cities. Plenty of room in the box for more cards.
Pocket fit: If you can carry breath mints, you can dodge a ball carry Tinny Dungeons, no problemo. Might be awkward if you wanted to put your phone in the same pocket, though. Solid B.
Legibility: Ssssort of. There’s a lot of text on these cards, printed in seven- or eight-point serif font. If you can squint hard enough to read that, it’s decent. If not, you may need to go get a stronger prescription before you pick this up. C for eagle-eyes, D otherwise.
Completeness: It’s got all the pieces, simple but adequate rules, several mini-adventures, and even something like a campaign structure. No chargen and no way to level up knocks it down a couple pegs though. B minus.
Final thoughts:Tinny Dungeons is a cute diversion, best for pickup games. It’s several steps up from business-card RPGs but I wouldn’t call it “full-featured.” It works okay as a game and it has the potential to have legs if you put the work into it.
It’s also €30 (almost $35) for the physical version. It’s very much not worth that price. The digital print-your-own version is still $10, and even that feels high. Based on that alone, I can’t recommend this game unless your house is littered with Altoids tins and you’re desperate to put something in them.
Pocket Odyssey (Standard Edition)
Publisher: KaijuKraft Year: 2014 Dimensions: 5½” x 3½” x 1” Players: 2-4
Hmm, feels familiar somehow
I’ve already reviewed this game’s big brother, so I’ll make this quick. The Standard Edition gives up a few things (Flow of Battle, hidden powers, item tokens, monster/power/map variety, and two players) to deliver a limited edition of the same gameplay. More importantly, it lives up to its name and fits in a damn pocket. Finally.
Pocket fit: Tight. Not stretched beyond imagining, but you certainly know it’s there. I wouldn’t recommend walking around with it in your day-to-day life. C-.
Legibility: No issues. The cards are bright and low contrast, and the font is a bold sans-serif at around 14 point. Easy A.
Completeness: The Standard Edition still does the low-prep, three-act thing. A game session is essentially a full campaign, with two level-ups, in the space of an hour and a half. It’s not what you’d call a full, tell-your-own-story type of system. But for what it does, it has everything you need. Slightly reluctant A there.
Note that the Standard Edition only accommodates 3 PC’s; if you have more friends, or just want more maps’n’stuff, the Collector’s Edition is still the way to go.
Final thoughts: Oddly, I may prefer the Standard Edition for its brevity. The bits added to the Collector’s Edition are mostly gravy, and the game stands on its own without them. Otherwise, I feel about the same about both versions: a fun way to roleplay away an hour or two, but don’t hope for more.
The Standard Edition is available from the distributer, Outland Entertainment, for $25. I’d say it’s barely worth that. You can also find it cheaper if you look; at $20 or less, it’s much more interesting.
