24 Hour RPG

1KM1KT is the official mirror site for 24HourRPG.com. Project participants may submit their work for online publication and view archived 24 Hour RPG submissions.

The 24 hour RPG Project is basically the budding and professional game designer’s equivalent of a triathalon- You put your body, mind and spirit through some major punishment in a race against time, in this case to develop a full, working, playable role-playing game within a mere 24 hours with other peers. Like a triathalon, there’s no “award” for winning; Rather the award is in itself to participate, test yourself, overcome the challenge at hand at your own pace and skill level, and share in the brief glory with your peers. Learn about the history of the project and its creators at 24HourRPG.com

The End of Everything

Since the day the world ended, maybe the multiverse hasn’t finished with you. Some of you claim to know, but who’s to say, really? Whatever the case, as the cold closed in, each of you reached out, from some resource you never knew you had, for any way to go on. Your world died, but you coursed elsewhere, scattered around a happy and unsuspecting new variant with different lives and different names. Over the years, you found each other, those who wanted to be found, and another thing: a purpose.

Players take the roles of refugees from a destroyed universe – not destroyed by accident: they’ve come to realise that the consumption of their world and countless others fueled the establishment of a far distant utopia, a place of endless spring and the best of good fortune. What the players choose to do in this green January, if they ever find it, is up to them.

Something is coming, something dark and terrible and if you cannot escape it a vast and horrible fate awaits you.

You must escape the orphanage, your home with the other children for as long as you can remember before this doom finds you.

But what is this doom? What exactly is coming for you? Is it fire, darkness, a murderous Mr Keaton? It is up to you to decide, and the worse it is the more cookies you’ll get.

I have always been fascinated by anthropomorphic creatures in mythology, literature, and fictional sources such as cinema, video games, and comics. I would ask of the reader not to label this game as a ‘furry’ game as that term has garnered a negative connotation with some portions of the role-laying community lately. In many ways, this game is homage to one of my favorite obscure tole-playing games, the Justifiers RPG. The Justifiers RPG was written by Gideon and published by StarChilde Publications in 1988.

At one time their stores were once populated every strip mall in America. Children would line up to create their new friend: pick a skin, eyes, a nose, the mouth and then fill it with fluff. It was magical experience and every child wanted one. However, soon the economy failed and the stores were left to decline, leaving thousands of empty husks hanging lifeless on the shelves, waiting for someone to give them a home and love them dearly. This love never came.

Dr. Reginald Keeton, the CEO of TeddyBears, Inc. took three popular things and combined them into a marketing frenzy unlike anything anyone had seen before. Reality TV, Blood Sport, the cute wasted husks of the Teddy Bears of his empty stores and created entertainment that took the world by storm.

Dr. Keeton was as astute and powerful if misguided student of the occult and used his talents in dark magics to invest the empty husks with lost souls he pulled from the depths of Hell. This act of desperation led to many of the bears to be home to some of the most vile and twisted souls ever seen by humanity. However, this worked to his advantage…for a time. The bears were bloodthirsty killers and performed exactly as he directed.

Children and their misguided parents lined up to watch their favorite stuffed animals slash and tear each other apart, ripping the enchanted fluff from their guts, all while the audience screamed in sheer joy. The show became a massive hit and things were great for many months and TeddyBears, Inc. saw huge profit margins and Keeton was hailed as a master businessman. He named his creations ScareBears.

Then the trouble began. The souls became restless and unhappy in their condition. Frankly, they were a little pissed they had been trapped in puny little furry bodies, can you really blame them? People began disappearing from the set of the TV show, the telltale sign of a little fluff left at the scene of the crimes was a dead giveaway as to who was at fault. Initially Keeton did all he could to cover the problem and continue his show. Quickly the bears out smarted him and began plotting.

Recently, a few bears failed to appear for their performance. Their cages were checked but found empty. The ScareBears have been released upon the world. Keeton nervously now watches his back.

Enter the world of

Teddy Bear Blood Sport!

I hate being kept waiting to kill someone. I’d been sitting in my car for so long that my backside had forgotten what it was like to not be numb. The abandoned church across the street looked exactly the same now as it did when I pulled up six hours ago. An old Three Doors Down tune drifted up from the CD player – softly, so that no one could hear it outside the car while the windows were up – and tried vainly to
tweak my soul in places that were as numb as my ass. I pulled out my bone-handled lighter and lit my umpteenth cigarette of the evening. As I took that first deep draw my familiar drifted up beside me. “Those things will kill you, boss,” he quipped.

I gave Dyson my best “up-yours” glare and blew a smoke ring where his face should’ve been. Dyson was a featureless ball who usually floated at about shoulder height (on me, anyway). He appeared to be made of glass, but God knows what my mentor had crafted him out of. Glass wasn’t bulletproof, and I’d seen Dyson
take a .38 slug at point blank and show not so much as a scratch. His color slowly shifted to match my mood, which meant that right now he was deep, non-reflective black. “Not likely,” I responded, “If guns and knives can’t kill me, I don’t think bad habits will.” I shifted in my seat in a vain attempt to restore some feeling to my nether parts. “How much longer is this gonna take, Dyson? I have other appointments to
keep.”

“Don’t get your knickers in a twist, boss,” Dyson said jauntily, “I scan that the mark will enter the building in 11.023 seconds.” I turned my gaze to the door just in time to see two figures fade out of the night shadows. I blinked the darkness out of my eyes to see them clearly. It was a girl and a boy, both Latino teens. She was a bit chunky but firm, cute if you like chubby girls, with a jiggle to her middle that suggested baby weight. He was tall and wiry with multiple piercings and the half-mohawk haircut that all the wannabe hardboys were wearing in these parts. No doubt about it, this was the mark and the expected companion. The boy jimmied the lock with the ease of long practice and pushed the girl through the door, then he slipped in behind her.

“About time,” I grumbled as I tossed my half-smoked cigarette into the Shadow. I opened the car door as the church door clicked shut, unfolded my six-foot-three height from the cramped confines of the Firebird and crossed the street in what I hoped was a confident swagger. Dyson bobbed along beside me in silence, all business now that it was go-time. I stopped at the door and eyed my familiar. Dyson gave an electronic sigh and willed the sounds inside to percolate through the wood and into my ears.

“I don’t know about this, Raphael,” the girl whined, “Isn’t there some other way?” I could hear her clothes rustle as she fidgeted and a squeaking sound that was probably one of her hands twisting a ring on the other. Various thumps and bumps told me that Raphael was moving things around. I needed more information than my ears alone could provide. I signaled Dyson to oblige, and he extended my other senses into the church. My projected vision revealed desolate absence. The pews and pulpit were long gone, probably broken up for firewood, and any curtains or hangings that had once adorned the walls had long since been
converted to blankets. Such is the way of the world after civilization collapses, yet the locals retained enough piety that the stained glass windows were unbroken. Jesus remained on the wall, staring forlornly at the empty space where the sanctuary used to be. I knew how he felt. The girl stood next to her boyfriend while he knelt on the floor surrounded by boxes. He was unloading ritual paraphernalia and carefully arranging it according to some formula. A ring of candles surrounded a thin sleeping mat that lay where a more suspicious girl would’ve thought a sacrificial altar might go. One box remained unopened as he worked. I didn’t see them carry any of this stuff inside, so Raphael must have stashed it here ahead of time. The
room stank of mildew, but over that I noticed an aroma of peaches from the girl’s hair. I couldn’t tell if it was homemade or pre-Burn, but it was distractingly pleasant. I grabbed my attention by the scruff of its neck and pointed it back to the business at hand.

Joe in Ten Persons is a role-playing game of choices, consequences and being your own worst enemy. It’s designed to be played in a single session for 3 – 5 players running anywhere from two to three hours.

In JiTP, each player will take on the role of one of ten versions of a man called Joe. These versions all come from different times and possibilities. One might be Joe when he was 12 years old, dealing with a school bully. Another might be a 20-something college student with a lecherous boyfriend.

Joe is a pretty obsessive person, so it’s unsurprising that all of his variants are as well. Each of them is obsessed with a particular decision that he has to make, but has avoided making thus far.

All of the Joes in the game have come into contact with a person they know only as Keeton. From one innocuous conversation, they have each gained the ability to meet other possible Joes and influence them and their decisions. Unsurprisingly, after gaining this ability, most of the Joes choose to wander through time and space visiting and watching other versions of themselves rather than dealing with the decision they were avoiding in the first place.

The Joes embodied by the players are different, though. They’ve all become stuck, fixated on one, specific variant that they’ve found in their travels. They’ve dubbed him “Joe Prime.”

Joe Prime is just like every other Joe: he’s obsessive and he’s avoiding an important decision. Unlike the player-characters, however, Joe Prime has not met Keeton.

Joe Prime’s decision has become incredibly important to the stuck Joes. They each want his dilemma to be resolved in a different way, for different reasons. Maybe his problem resonates with their own, or maybe he’s come to represent something about themselves that they hate. Regardless of why, they’ve each decided to marshal their influence amongst the variants and push Joe’s situation towards their chosen conclusion.

But the Joes are risking more than they know. Interacting with variant versions of themselves can begin to take a toll on their sense of self. In the end, they may have to decide which is more important: the safety of themselves and their variants, or the success of their self-imposed mission.

And what of Keeton? What does he want? Why did he give this peculiar power to Joe?

Only time will tell.

Hi. My name is Joe. I’m pretty normal. Nothing interesting about me, really. I’m [twenty / twelve / thirty-five]. I live here in the city. I’ve been here most of my life. What else can I say?

I guess the most interesting thing about me is what happened a few weeks ago. I ran into this [guy in class / kid at the playground / man on the bus] and we somehow struck up a conversation. I’m not quite sure how it happened.

I’ll admit I was distracted. You see, I’ve been a little obsessed lately. I was kind of avoiding this decision I had to make about [my boyfriend / this bully at school / my future career] and I’ll admit Keeton showed up at just the right time to pull me out of my head.

Oh did I mention that? He said that was his name.

Anyway, we talked for a long time. About decisions, ironically enough. About how they can affect you and everyone around you. About how we seem to come to these points in our lives – these moments of decision that can change everything for us. Those moments we go back to late at night, and wonder how things might have been different.

Keeton asked me a lot of questions about things I might have done differently in my life.

I haven’t seen him since. I went home with my head spinning.

The next morning, I knew something had changed. I felt different, though I’ve never been able to put it into words. The first time I traveled, though, I understood what Keeton had done. It was the day I met myself. One of myselves. Whatever the word would be.

I met a Joe that [had never gone to college / lost his mom when he was little / had joined the army], and while it was weird, we had a nice conversation about the other Joes that might be out there.

Since then, I’ve met a lot of me, as I’ve learned how to wander through time and possibility. But there’s one Joe in particular I’ve become…well, I guess I’ve become obsessed with him. I … well, I guess we call him Joe Prime.

See I’m not the only one who’s obsessed with this Joe. There’s this [geeky twelve-year-old kid / old-sad-man-me / gay version of me] that I’ve seen around, and he seems interested in Joe Prime, too. I’ve gone up and down Prime’s time-line and seen him lurking everywhere in the background.

And I’ve seen how the other Joes are obsessed, too. Obsessed with the decision that Joe Prime is facing. You see, I want him to [stand up for himself / get away from the mess he’s in / admit the truth to himself] but I don’t think the others want that.

So we’re kind of at a stalemate. Every time I try doing something directly to Joe Prime, one of the others shows up and messes everything thing up.

But I’ve got a plan.

I’ve got some other Joes on my side. [Blue-collar Joe / That sad other kid Joe / Army Joe] and I have been talking and I think I’ve got some pull with him. He’s agreed to go out for me and do a couple things along Joe Prime’s time-line. Try and convince him that our way is the best. Then, once he’s made the right decision, I think I can finally go back and [tell off my cheating ass of a so-called boyfriend / tell my parents about what’s really been going on at school / leave my job and find my true calling].

And then everything’ll be great. Right?

See. I told you. I’m pretty normal.

Hundedämmerung is something different in the world of role-playing games. Most games allow players to portray beings of greater than human power wielding forces that ordinary people barely understand. This game allows you to play… a dog. Not just any dog, but a dog that has been lifted to human levels of intelligence, albeit the lower end of the scale, and endowed with minor telepathic powers that serve as
speech. In this game you will fight for the survival of your pack or the safety of “your” humans. And always, in the background, there looms the specter of a cat that is many cats – the undead, the undying, the (probably) evil Ozymandias. In Hundedämmerung you have no spells, you wield no magical or high-tech weapons and your psionic abilities aren’t much good for combat. What you have are your wits backed by natural canine ability. Use them right and evil will be your chew toy. Mess up and Ozymandias will use you as a scratching post. Welcome to the doghouse, sucker.

Players control robot explorers searching through the mysteries of a devastated Earth, while trying to avoid system failures, coyote attacks, shorting out in a pond, or being blown to pieces by deranged war machines

2499: We return home.
The colonies of Mars, born in hope, grew up in pain, despair and hard decisions. Some thought that the nations of Earth had learned their lessons and put aside the bombs forever. As it turned out, “forever” meant just long enough for them to build the Busway and send our forefathers down it – their smartest and brightest, their pride, their best hope – before everything that the Two Thousand knew collapsed at their heels into genocidal fire.

We survived, some of us. We dug into this lye-bitter dust and took from it air to breathe and water to drink, for those who hadn’t choked on CO2 and gone to graves scraped in the red slag while we toiled. We broke down the ships that could have taken us home, to build tools, to make the tools, to build the cities that could lift us again into the heavens.

In 2499, Director Keeton’s calculations have convinced the Martian nations that we’re ready to turn again to
whatever is left of the Earth, as Earth once looked outwards to this worn-down old globe where we stand today. With a stretch, we can reach the Busway and load onto the old shuttlers a few suitcases’ worth of cameras, radars and clever processors to go in our stead.

We may not get much. The probes might get killed in high orbit by vampiric satellite-hunters, flying junk that
we have no way to detect or track, sleeting radiation in the overloaded Van Allen belts, or our own carelessness with orbital mechanics. It’s been almost four hundred years, after all, since people tried this sort of thing.

The landers might not live a minute in the acid rain clouds, the war-dusts and the automated missile defences in the atmosphere, or the absolute unknowns that rove the bombed-out ground.

We’ve learned, on Mars, the value of sacrifice. We’ll send them anyway, for whatever we can get in the descent and the first 24 hours. After that, every hour is a gift. We’ll just have to play it by ear.

Activate the Cosmo Drive! There’s a menace rampaging through the city demolishing sky scrapers with enormous chains made out of pure energy. The Army, Air Force and Navy have all been crushed by the towering robotic monster. You might be young and inexperienced, but you’re our last hope. Only Space Getnar V can take that thing down and you’re the one person who can control him. Get out there and hold that beast off until Getnar is charged up enough to fire the Hyper Wave!

Gamba Robo! It’s a celebration of those glorious old robot shows that let the imagination run wild. Blazing swords and projectile weapons that looked like animals flashed across the screen to the amazement of many a yound child. Sure, they were written for companies that wanted to sell toys, but they were AWESOME! This is your chance to project yourself into their world as a daring hero or to create your own “show” as the narrator and throw all kinds of havoc at the poor unsuspecting Do-Gooders.

The mechanic is very simplistic and both play and character-creation are left mostly to the whim of the Narrator. This is an extremely rules-lite game designed to capture the feeling of those fantastic classic super-robot shows.

Chain fists, drill arms and tomahawks made of lightning were a regular feature of the 1970’s giant robot shows. The robots had names like Daitarn, Voltes V and Mazinger Z. They had personality and charisma of their own. Those towering heroes were shunned by the next generations in favor of more “realistic” mecha that emphasized the vehicular nature of the machines. Blazing swords were replaced by machine guns and guided missiles. We were no longer watching super heroes. We were watching wars. As fabulous and sophisticated as the new mecha shows are, some of us will always long for the super robots of days gone by. Nothing thrills like a huge, laser-edged disk hurling from a giant arm to cut right through the
shoulder of some immense monstrosity because our hero screamed, “SPINNN… SAUCER!”

Take part in the fight to liberate Texas from its French oppression!

This is a mostly-finished alpha version of what will hopefully be a more in-depth system/setting.

Based on 2d6+mods resolution, fixed damage.

The year is 1844. Following their successful defense against Mexican forces, the Republic of Texas faced a new foe. Quick to take advantage of their weakened position, French forces moved in by sea, seeking to regain a foothold in North America. Their forces were more disciplined, more determined, and better equipped than the forces of the Mexican Army, and soon France was calling Texas a French Territory. The United States of America, while wary of their new neighbors, had no cause for war, and left the Republic to their own devices. No Texan was comfortable living under French Rule, however, and the native tribes were divided, some siding with the French and others preferring the devil they knew to this new invader.

Texans began to fight back. Not all at once, but slowly and surely, the movement began. Gunmen, drifters, and bandits from nearby territories heard of the profit to be made fighting off the French Occupancy.

In this swirl of native warriors, French soldiery, and Texan roughnecks, any enterprising man (or woman) can make their mark. Will you?