About

Merely Roleplayers is a weekly actual-play roleplaying game podcast where theatrical people play roleplaying games.

The players are primarily members of Blackshaw, a London theatre company, and unlike most actual-plays, they don't play original characters. Instead they play versions of themselves, dropped Quantum Leap-style into a different genre and setting each season. This lets the cast explore 'bleed', where the imaginary characters and story in a roleplaying game draw on or affect the players' real selves.

The blurred boundary between performances, constructions, simulations and reality is a subtle but consistent theme throughout all seasons of the podcast.

Seasons

Each season of Merely Roleplayers is a self-contained story in a new genre, meaning listeners don't need to have heard previous episodes to jump in with Act One of a new season. Genres featured so far have included a ghost story, a cosy British seaside mystery, a Western, a heist caper, a spy thriller and an epic space opera in three acts.

A typical season lasts 4-5 Story Acts which advance the main plot and narrative of the game with players making tough decisions against the roll of a die. Alongside these, each season also incorporates 4-5 Backstage episodes used to provide further context to the story, the game, the characters and the players themselves.

Upcoming seasons are set to include:

  • A swashbuckling tale of sky pirates
  • A talent contest in the style of Pitch Perfect or classic Muppets movies
  • A desert island survival tale
  • A superhero story

So there should be something new and exciting to entertain and delight, whatever kind of story fascinates you.

Systems Used

Powered by the Apocalypse

So far all seasons of Merely Roleplayers has used a variation on the influential Powered by the Apocalypse roleplaying game system.

This system was originally designed by D Vincent Baker and Meguey Baker for the 2010 game Apocalypse World and later used for Dungeon World, Monsterhearts and numerous other RPGs.

Powered by the Apocalypse games are centred around resolving what characters do as Moves. Characters have access to a default selection of moves based on the expectations of the game setting and their character class. Character classes have access to a number of class-specific moves. Moves are resolved by rolling two six-sided dice and adding the relevant modifier, should modifiers be a mechanic in the game. Success levels fall on a scale of total success, partial success, or failure - referred to as a 'miss' in the system.

Apocalypse World won the 2010 Indie RPG Award for Most Innovative Game and Dungeon World won the 2013 ENnie award for Best Rules.

The Powered by the Apocalypse system was selected for use in Merely Roleplayers due to its adaptability and ability to be applied to a wide range of unique situations and genres.

An overview of the system from Roll20 Games can be viewed in the video below.

Simple World

Seasons 1-5 of Merely Roleplayers uses Simple World, a streamlined, generic hack of Apocalypse World by Avery Alder at Buried Without Ceremony.

Simple World was created as a response to Apocalypse World hacks that started with months of work and over a hundred pages of material before they got to the table for playtesting. Alder created Simple World in order to showcase that an Apocalypse World hack did not need to be a monumental undertaking, and that a 'get it on the table fast' mentality was possible.

Impulse Drive

Season 6 of Merely Roleplayers uses the new Impulse Drive system developed by Adrian Thoen.

Impulse Drive is a tabletop roleplaying game about misfits and spaceships, using the Powered by the Apocalypse design. It is inspired by fiction like Farscape, Killjoys, Dark Matter, Mass Effect, and Iain M Banks' Culture novels. If the idea of playing compelling, flawed people having adventures in a space opera setting you build up together sounds exciting, visit the website and grab some dice.

An overview of the system from Adam Koebel can be viewed in the video below.