I'd been playing more and more TTRPGs with my students and was looking for a way to shift away from only playing as the DM. I wanted to get involved as a player and enjoy things from the perspective of my students. So I began looking at rpg games that said they didn't require a DM or ones that supported solo play. I'd never tried this style of play before and was intrigued to see how it could work.
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Initially the most suitable for my table were Quill by Scott Malthouse and Together Among the Stars by Takuma Okada. They were both simple to set up and a session could be completed within an hour. They didn't require any roleplaying experience, but did rely on willingness and imagination. Something students don't always possess in abundance.
I liked both of the games and for the most part so did the students. The games ran best, as stated in the rules as creative writing exercises. I incorporated drawing into our play too and was able to roleplay somewhat more with Okada's space-faring game than with the medieval themed Quill. However, you did end up with a significantly better tale at the end when playing the latter.
A few years previously my way into roleplaying had been with Koebel and LaTorra's Dungeon World, so I was eager to see if I could find another PBTA type game that had attempted to go DMless. There are so many PBTA variants that I was sure I'd find something and I did. I found several, but by far the best for my purposes was One by One by Caitlin Collins. It's weird but I can't seem to find a copy of it online anymore so I'm unsure of how much I've added and taken away from the original. I'll need to dig through my cloud and try and find it there.
Anyway I immediately hacked it to make it suitable for all ages. It was originally a slasher type game, but contained a really simple and robust mechanic. It had that delicious single stat and leaned into a film format that would work really well in my short sessions and who doesn't love movies? It has gone on to be one of my most often played games.
So there we are. I hope you try out my mutation. You can create any survival/horror type film from Jaws to 28 days later or something completely unique. My last session played with friends in a pub was an episode of Star Trek. Morgan freeman was killed by a sentient space-jelly that eventually joined the crew as it learnt to be more human.
The game pdfs are HERE
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