Guerrilla RPG: Take the Game from the Players

You wake up, the smell of smoke and burnt flesh almost chokes you. Your head is pounding, you force your eyes open and try to sit up. You raise your hand to your face and notice it is covered with blood. You try to stand and notice the bodies littering the ground around you. You cough, your lungs are burning. You crawl to a nearby puddle. As you cup your hand and reach towards the dirty water, you notice your reflection. It is a face you have never seen before. Who are you? You try to remember your name but cannot. You look around at the devastation that surrounds you. With abject terror you hear a voice saying “Who am I?” You look around startled at the strange croaking voice, and then you realize, it was yours.

Guerrilla RPG: I have used that previous description in a couple guerilla role playing games. I have premade character sheets for the players with only the briefest of information. I keep in my possession a full character sheet with character history. The player’s job now is to find out who she is, what has happened, and my personal favorite who she was. The best part is this style works with any RPG and any setting.

This game style is rather GM intensive and you would have to gather some rather open role-players. I have found that this style can offer a role-playing intensive game with a lot of superb PC interaction, moral quandaries, and if the character’s history is sufficiently horrible possibly some psychological damage.