A group of kids on summer vacation have found an unusual arcade game called Polybius. While its graphics are old, its gameplay is second to none. Unfortunately, it seems that those who play it are tampering with forces Man Was Not Meant To Know. Find out what happens when the spirits of dead video game enemies haunt the players that killed them! This was a ransom request game from the Killsplosion Kickstarter. Enjoy! Also Little Fears is a fun RPG.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 3:12:35 — 88.2MB)
Subscribe: RSS
We JUST played that game… and you’re already posting it?
Ross… are you okay? You know you can tell us anything, right? Unless it’s boring.
Thad, you certainly summarized this session as best as one could hope with, “That was fudged up, man.” Creepy session, particularly the game’s evolution after certain milestones were reached.
I also seriously regret consulting the Wikipedia article on Polybius. And not the one on the Greek historian. Uggh.
roll to need to pee was the best mechanic ever. also Polybius is awesome, love the Ross Payton internet urban legend-into-game concept trope.
Woooo, listening to this game while trapped in a fever delirium was not a good idea.
Listening to it once human was a fantastic idea. Great game, fantastic roleplaying all around. Glad you did such a good service to the system, Ross.
I like how every time GM reads tables he hums “dun-dun-duu”. So sexy.
Hey, long time listener, first time commenter. Love the podcast, both AP and regular.
But I was wondering, which edition of Little Fears is this? Since looking around there’s 3 different versions. Original, Nightmare, 10th anniversary.
Thanks.
I ran it with the Nightmare Edition.
http://www.retrocademagazine.com
I conducted an in depth investigation into The Polybius Legend and concluded some very important things. There was FBI involvement with videos games in Portland , Oregon in the early 80s and there were two incidences regarding kids being hurt by a video game. But it’s not what you think. However, the most surprising finding I made is just who Steven Roach was and how he came to play his part in the legend.
I am quite confident you will come away after reading my article with a complete understanding of how this legend began and what it means today.
You can read the article by visiting RETROCADE MAGAZINE.
Catherine DeSpira
Man Little Fears sounds like a pretty cool game. Loved this session and between this and Monster and Other Childish Things, you guys seem to really shine when given the chance to act like children.
@Ross was this what inspired you to make this game session?
I was aware of that short film but I was more inspired by this creepypasta http://inuscreepystuff.blogspot.com/2010/08/killswitch.html
Are there any other Little Fears games down the line for RPPR?
I’d love to see your GM notes on this adventure, any chance you’ll be making them available? I’m running a Little Fears game (inspired by this AP) and I think this kind of adventure would work really well in our current story.
How is this one-shot amazing? Let me count the ways:
* Based on an Internet legend (I’m a sucker for those.)
* It’s a game where you roleplay kids. Like CyberGeneration only… workable. And the RPPR crew did an excellent job of getting into characeter as pre-adolescents.
* The game is scary without being traumatizing, and not all the scares are jump-scares – such as the monsters stalking around the outside of the blanket fort.
* It would film well – the hide and seek challenge between the kids and the Knight, and its callback later in the game, is absolutely brilliant. It’s also a pretty meaty plot with several beats.
* There’s real closure. It’s easy to overstuff a one-shot with inspirations and then run out of beats to wrap it all up. The kids learned what they had to learn about the game, worked around the obstacles, met the final challenge, and got a happy ending.
Well played, RPPR.
Thanks! I’ll probably run at least one more thematically similar game but next time I’ll most likely use Monsters and Other Childish Things as a system because I’m more familiar with it. You can run MAOCT without giving each kid a monster, so it would work just as well as Little Fears.
I’ve been looking at the same sort of thing. Little Fears was a fun play for my group, but the system seemed to easy for them to game, and the rolls were always absurdly higher than my target numbers. Maybe it’s just a matter of playing it and figuring out what target numbers work, but my group pretty much obliterated anything I threw at them. I’ve been thinking of taking the meta-plot I had for a series of one-shots and moving it to the version of one-roll that MAOCT uses, I’m glad I’m not the only one.
If you use MAOCT, I recommend Bigger Bads – it has rules for kids with powers and a bunch of other great new mechanics to round out a game.
My next themed game will probably involve something like the NES Godzilla creepypasta http://nesgodzillacreepypasta.blog.com/2011/07/07/chapter1/
Upon reading through the NES Godzilla creepypasta, I cant wait to hear how you interpret it.
Excellent podcast with the information and the group playing great together.
I look forward to listening to the other Little Fear podcast, Night of the Squashed Cat (Which BTW is not on your RPPR Actual Play website, but on the original RPPR site) first and then heading on over to listen to the Monsters and Other Childish Things podcasts.
Keep on talkin’
Cheers
Jonathon
Colorado
So I listened to this six years ago and this was what convinced me to stick with RPPR for that long. I enjoy the work. Thanks for the stories. :]