Flabbergasted!: A Comedic RPG

by Fleur Sciortino, Chelsea Sciortino

Flabbergasted is a highly comedic and narrative-driven roleplaying game drawing inspiration from the likes of Jeeves and Wooster and Fawlty Towers.

Set in the height of the Roaring ‘20s, you’ll take on the role of either an affable Aristocrat, an eccentric Bohemian, an entrepreneurial Well-to-do, or one of the ever-ready and steadfast Staff.

Together you and your friends will join an up-and-coming Social Club and get up to mischief, mayhem and many marvellous misadventures—all before your afternoon tea!

160 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2022

Reviews

[Paul Baldowski]

Flabbergasted! is a playful, lightweight game that captures the essence of Jeeves & Wooster and similar hijinks as its target theme, with the hodgepodge town of Pecadillo as a backdrop. Players take on the roles of Bohemians, Aristocrats, Well-to-Do and Staff, hooked into light-hearted predicaments by their mutual association with a Social Club that the gamers around the table create as part of the character generation process.

Founded on the Powered by the Apocalypse approach to games, there are pre-defined playsheets with an array of moves to select that make the creation of your personal character a simple process. The mechanic behind challenges and chances is closer to Free League's Year Zero than to traditional PbtA, requiring one or more 5s or 6s to achieve success and without concern for the session facilitator to come up with consequences every time a player rolls some form of partial yes, but success.

Character moves provide a chance for the individual to shine in certain circumstances, usually with an automatic success of some specific kind, but at the expense of their standing in the community—attracting either Scandal or Dignity in the process, which shifts a sliding scale over time.

For the campaign-minded, Flabbergasted! offers a range of options to upgrade the social club that forms the spine of the game, taking the HQ from a simply appointed room into more fanciful realms better equipped for the varied hobbies and social engagements likely to attract patrons, positive family attitudes, and outplay rival social clubs in grabbing newspaper headlines.

The back of the book includes two social club examples with a 10-part campaign suggestion for each, an out-of-town sandbox mansion house suitable as the backdrop for an ongoing game, and 70 suggested hooks for a session of frivolity and adventure.

Paired with a delightful palette and gloriously playful art, Flabbergasted! goes a long way in selling the possibilities of high and low adventures in the roaring 20s. However, I think it could have benefited from more examples of play and ideas on how to, perhaps, combine hooks into confounding adventures. Wooster certainly never seemed to find himself in straightforward predicaments.

[Claire]

This ttrpg is a breath of fresh air, with a great comedic mischievous feel throughout. The game is well explained and provides a great variety of scenarios to help the players throughout. The book is beautifully illustrated and very informative from cover to cover. I would highly recommend others to give it a try :)

[Salva]

A brilliant roleplaying game by ‘The Wanderer’s Tome’, full with evocative writing, witty jokes, clever mechanics and jaw-dropping art. All wrapped-up inside a well laid out, accessible and gorgeously designed book.

Highly recommended to any fans of story-driven and/or comedic tabletop games.

[Michelle Gruppetta]

A truly beautiful, funny and well-thought out book, I recommend this to anyone interested in trying something new! You can really tell that so much special care and attention was given to each page, the artwork is delightful and the writing engaging.