locker room drama

hello! this is my single page ttrpg inspired by a locker room space i invented in my magpie book. it made me reminiscent of a time where anything and everything felt like so much fun, but the drama also in the moment made me feel like everything was the end of the world. i wonder if this feeling is similar for others too. this is why i made this game, because middle school was awful but so much fun. in this ttrpg, 3-6 players are part of a middle school volleyball team trying to build morale and team spirit for a tournament, but too much drama is getting in the way of winning! this is the main concept — the game isn’t about volleyball, it’s about a mental game which affects what we do and therefore affects our success in other goals. it’s an everyone wins or everyone loses kind of game as the aim is to resolve conflict and to build relationship and morale  in order to win the seventh grade tournament. when it comes to tone, this game is described with a whole lot of sarcasm and humour. it’s meant to be funny, a bit nostalgic, and even cursed with the cringe we face when we think back in hindsight how silly and angsty we used to be. i hope these conflicts and prompts encourage players to bring back memories both pleasant and unpleasant of a both pleasant and unpleasant time in our lives. 

there’s room for plenty of creative freedom in this game that on the subject of subject matter, it is entirely up to the players how they want to tell each player’s story. it can be innocent and silly like hopefully a lot of people’s middle school days  were, but perhaps for those who struggled and found the locker room or team sports a traumatic place for them, this can be a place where those insecurities and dark times can be healed. the prompts however are in no way intended to be harmful and is overall written to be very G friendly, but this doesn’t stop older players to change or enhance the game as they so choose. 

with this game, i chose mechanics like a dice roll and specifically sacrificing certain player moves in order to use dice as a way to show how sometimes back then, you had to choose between one friend and another. it was so black and white to us and it ended up causing a lot of drama and betrayal. that sometimes with a dice roll, you have a chance to win it all, but if you roll short, it’s that instant regret we feel as kids making dumb mistakes. that hindsight killed us. 

i hope players can have fun, can be cringey, and maybe even heal that little kid with too many regrets.