The Ultimate Micro-RPG Book: 40 Fast, Easy, and Fun Tabletop Games

by James D’Amato

Enjoy these 40 expertly crafted micro-RPGs that are fast, fun, easy to learn, and come in a variety of genres—from space exploration to jungle dungeon crawlers—everything you need to pick up and play today. Get gaming fast with The Ultimate Micro-RPG Book including brand-new micro-RPGs created by experts across the gaming world. From space exploration to jungle dungeon crawlers this book has everything you need to pick up and play today. With these quick-start games, you can create your own adventures, alone or with friends, without any prep, and with minimal set up and pieces. Whether you’re new to RPGs or working towards your level 20 mage, this collection is a great way to try out different games and systems, and test your roleplay skills on different character types and situations.

Genres: Role Playing Games, Reference, Gaming, Nonfiction, Games

127 pages, Kindle Edition

Published December 8, 2020

Reviews

[Diz · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a collection of one-page RPGs. I wasn't particularly inspired by any of the games included here.

[Kelsey Brennan]

A fun collection! I haven't played any of the games yet, so I'll hold off on a star rating for now, but I marked a number of them for future play. I'm particularly interested in:

- Mythology by Sasha Sienna and Jonathan Sims
- On All Frequencies by Nathan Blades
- Post-Match Interview by James Mendez Hodes
- Truth in the Mirage by Amr Ammourazz

The design of the book is also really fun, with each game on a two-page, removable spread with its own distinct visual style.

[Ty Arthur · Rating 5 out of 5]

Been looking for some outside the box RPGs lately to play with my pre-K son as well as my wife's family, who aren't really roleplayers and don't have the interest to learn a ruleset like Pathfinder. For the latter, The Ultimate Micro-RPG Book just knocks it out of the fuckin' park.

Whether all of these actually qualify as "role playing games" is sort of up in the air, as not all of them even use dice, but you are definitely taking on a role and playing the hell out of it will all 40 of these two-page games.

Not every single micro-RPG on display is going to work for every group, and that's kind of more a strength than a weakness because there are so many interesting ideas to play with here. You've got everything from gothic dark fantasy to a sci-fi entry that is very much channeling its inner Dead Space. The majority are more tongue-in-cheek and fun, though, and that's really where these games shine. Some highlights for me were:

- A game where you have to try *really* hard to keep a party in the sweet spot between exciting and boring so everyone has a perfectly adequate evening.
- Arcane cats saving the unsuspecting humans from supernatural incursions at the local bodega.
- Catering an intergalactic event, where everything is about to go terribly wrong.
- Putting together your own Spotify playlists to DJ the zombie apocalypse.
- Duking it out with your coworkers to decide who gets to go home early after a supernatural occurrence at your regular retail job.
- Playing a cast of writers on a show about a hero dog, and one player has to be the dog.

With the rules-light systems and super amusing premises, any of these could work as either an ice-breaker for people who don't know each other well, a great intro to roleplaying for folks who aren't familiar with the concept, or a 1 shot to use when your regular DM is out and the group still wants to get together.

There were only two games I can't imagine ever actually playing (and out of 40, that ain't bad) because they felt more like relationship building games meant for couples (or people who want to become couples soon), but I'm sure there's some group of there that will love 'em.

In short, just buy this and have a hell of a good time with your friends and family with super easy to learn mini-roleplaying games.

[Cy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lots of fun ideas, of different 'complexity' levels. I think this would make TTRPGs more approachable for a lot of people, as many of them are pretty light-hearted in nature (though there are still some more serious ones)!

[Genevieve · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lots of interesting RPG ideas, perfect when you want something different for your game night! Good variety in genres, number of players and themes.

[Marko · Rating 4 out of 5]

It is really nice to see some micro rpgs properly published!

Some of the games in this collection are really different, which is a good thing - I guess. Unfortunately I was not a fan of most of the games. Many of the games should have been a bit longer to make them work properly and many of them were not really games at all - IMHO. They were more like simple storytelling guides or improvisation tools.

The ones I liked most were Broken Swords and Twisted Trails, Breaking Rank, Dead Planet, Gnomesteaders, Hammer of The Earth, Summer Break!, Super Overtime and Unkindness. I guess my taste is somewhat traditional when it comes to micro rpgs. And then there was a game like Pyrewaltz, which I really wanted to like, but which I just could not understand. The game mechanics were just incomprehensible for me.

I must admit, that this collection was a disappointment gaming-wise, but at the same time, I loved the concept, layout and it was a really good book to read. So I went with the reading experience and gave this book four stars, because the world needs more stuff like this. Who knows, maybe the next micro rpg collection is more to my liking in gaming-wise too…

[James Tomasino · Rating 4 out of 5]

There are some absolute gems in here.

[Haz · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not great for new players and old ones. So nice ideas, but doesn't really excite me at all.

[Pete Kerby-Miller · Rating 5 out of 5]

Last Friday my friends and I vindictively crashed J. Beeb's wedding with a pig, whilst hilariously dodging queer ex-lovers. 11/10

[Quinn · Rating 3 out of 5]

What Worked For Me:
- The work offers a variety of game settings and flavors, from interstellar war to backyard base defense
- The games are all relatively short (no more than a few hours), meaning they could (potentially) be a good starting point for folks getting into roleplay
- The work includes a variety of definitions and best practices; like the low commitment time, this should also help newer roleplayers find their footing
- The work includes biographies for the various designers featured; it was nice to learn a bit more about them

What Didn't:
- I wish the work included more art to spark my imagination and immersion. Though each work has a small piece of "title card" art, few include drawings beyond that.
- I wish there was an easier way to sort through the work. I know tags are included, but a table of contents at the front would've been nice.
- (nit-pick) The work does not look good on Kindle. Some of the text boxes are squished and some of the "title box" sections look washed out / are hard to read. I'm listing this as a nit-pick because I doubt I'd have the same problem on tablet or PC.
- (nit-pick) Some of the games share surprisingly similar themes (e.g. fighting an old rival). I can only really list this as a nit-pick because I'm guessing all the various authors created their work independently.
- (nit-pick) There is an index at the back of the work that sort the games by difficulty. I wish there was also an index that sorted the games by minimum number of players. This could make finding a game that's the right size for a given group easier.
- (nit-pick) The tendency towards games with fewer mechanics (or less dice-based mechanics) may be more difficult for folks with no roleplay experience (or lots of experience in dice-based games like D&D). Speaking for myself: having started with D&D, I find dice-based mechanics a helpful springboard and struggle a bit more when only given a prompt (e.g. "how did this action make your character feel?).

Conclusion:
The work is a quick read and the games vary widely in tone and setting. While some of the mechanics are relatively similar, there's plenty of fun to be had here. I can also appreciate all this work does to onboard those new to the world of TTRPGs. The work is a great option for folks subscribed to Kindle Unlimited (since it is included for $0). I would hesitate to pay $15 for the paperback version; then again, I paid $12.99 for the digital version, so maybe the price isn't that far off. In any case, this game is sure to be a night (or many nights!) of fun, whether you are new to TTRPGs or want a one-session break from your current system of choice.

[Billy Kid · Rating 3 out of 5]

A collection of small one shot tabletop RPGs. Their quality varies and not all of them will be interesting to the people you play with BUT there's some bangers in here.

I read through all of them and picked out a few that seemed interesting, presented them to my group and we chose to play Unkindness, a game about adolescent ravens causing havoc and experiencing emotions.

It was really funny and it pushed us into different headspaces. There was an interesting contrast between the lofty goals we set out to achieve (stealing some clothing from a baby) and the more grounded results we actually got (NOT stealing clothes from a baby, becoming depressed, dying / mourning over our dead friend).

That was 1 game out of 40, and I'm excited to try a few more of them out with the same group. Even just playing 1 game, I got my money's worth.

So even though I don't see myself playing most of the games in this collection (because they're meant for 1 or 2 players, they don't look exciting, the design is too complicated, etc.), that doesn't matter.

[Javier Viruete · Rating 4 out of 5]

A collection of 40 micro role-playing games, each consisting of 2 pages, in which, as you would expect, we find games of all kinds and of varying quality. Curated by James D'amato, this book is almost a who's who of the micro role-playing world, so simply as a catalogue of authors to keep on the radar, it's a useful book.

I found them particularly interesting:
- On all frequencies by Nathan blades
- Super Overtime by Omari Akil
- Post match Interview by James Mendez Hodes
- Hero dogs saves the world by Alex Roberts
- Truth in the mirage by Amr Ammourazz

All of these and a few more I find very fun and playable, but the beauty is to search and find the ones that best suit your tastes and your particular group. There are also several 1 and 2 player games, which I'm sure will also have their audience.

For the low price it's a must, even if it's only to look for ideas and inspiration.

[Rob Mcknight · Rating 2 out of 5]

Expertly crafted? That’s a huge stretch. Most of these “games” are just sort of concepts that I highly doubt any of the writers have ever actually run games for. They are mostly just brain exercises with some attempts to put mechanics on top, usually lifted from other full successful games. You might get at best a handful of usable ideas out of this book, which might be useful to you, but was very disappointing to me.

[Engel Dreizehn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Got this while on vacation as entertainment while relaxing in the hotel room. I found it to be fun and happy there were a few solo game but the other scenarios sounded like they would have been fun to play with a group of people.

[Gregg · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a fun set of short RPGs. Some cracked me up with their premise and I hope I can get a group to run some one day.

[Mischa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lots of fun micro rpgs for multiple players and a few (4 exactly) for solo rpg with varying complexities and difficulty levels.

[Daniel Hernandez Forero · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good ideas, not many good games. Makes you think, and that's fine.

[Steve]

As you can imagine, some of these games seem more promising than others. There are a good 5 or 6 that I'd like to try.

[Marilyn]

Summarizes video games;