10 Minute RPG Challenge

A member on the Story Games forum posted a challenge to make a "Dark Game" in 10 minutes, start to finish. Here is what I came up with.

20:52 - start writing.

Mercs the RPG

Setting.
Sit down to play at 5 mins to 6pm. The GM turns on the radio to a major news station something like BBC or your local gov. station. The first news story you hear about a major conflict is your setting.

Player Characters.
The characters are mercenaries who have been hired by a shadowy organization to "deal with" the situation. Your team has to get in and get out clean and stop the conflict by taking out the leader(s) of one side and restore "peace".

Mechanics.
One pack of playing cards. Actions are resolved by dealing 5 cards to each player and making the best poker hand you can. Best poker hand wins and narrates the outcome of the action based on the strength of the hand. A pair means you get a minor success, a full house you do awesome.

21:02 – stop writing.

20 second edit. I decided in retrospect that a game of Snap! would be better suited to resolve firefights. One round of Snap! per action should work.

Dark Ronin

My first attempt at a complete RPG hack. If you haven't read Cthulhu Dark please do so, google it, its pretty awesome. Here is my Cthulhu Dark hack, Dark Ronin. It's a simple rules-lite RPG design that explores playing a Ronin in feudal japan and all the trouble you can get into. I hope you enjoy it. If you play this or have any feedback please email me at matthelps(at)gmail.com, or post about it on the story games forum. Cheers.

Dark Ronin