The Awful Weekend On-Call
A downloadable game
The Awful Weekend On-Call is a solo, journaling RPG based on terrible weekends as an on-call IT engineer. You'll need a D6 or two, and a way to journal about your experiences.
You don't need to work in IT to play, but some familiarity with computer failures and Internet outages will help you connect with the game. I've included some sample failures to get you started.
I'd love to hear about your experiences playing the game. Or how you connect with the subject matter. If you're mired in a weekend like this - I feel your pain.
This game is heavily influenced by Oliver Darkshire’s awesome 1 page RPGs.- https://www.patreon.com/deathbybadger/posts While I haven’t used his PDF template, I did model this game after it.
Vibrating Cellphone Icon used in the game is licensed CC-BY 3.0 by Delapouite.
Download
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Development log
- One-Page RPG Jam SubmissionAug 08, 2024
Comments
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I like it. The issues escalate quickly and just drives you mad! Nice job! This is the kind of diary where your calligraphy starts nice and neat and ends up looking like a psycho's writing death threats!
If anything, not sure the kind of mindset I need to play it as seems itself a very stressful experience (these days, anxiety on its own is a big problem) but, overall, I like the idea very much.
Thanks for the kind words.
I can see the game being stressful, perhaps too stressful for some - it comes from a place of anxiety in my own lived experience.
Don't take me wrong, the idea is great and easily adapted to other professional fields (an airport, a hospital, whatever). My work and life are stressful as well but that doesn't make your game less good!
No worries. I didn't take any offense. Thanks so much for your feedback.
Good game with hillarious humour (arrested after snapped in a job of IT on call;)).
But it lacks any feature of direct player / PC influence, it runs on just by (external) ranom rolled dice :(. Therefore it is just a story building tool, not as a TTRPG :(. Rating: 4 / 5.
I'm glad you enjoyed the game. I'm sorry to hear that it doesn't align with your interpretation of a TTRPG. To each their own, I guess.
I think the player/PC influence is in your response to the individual on-call events, and maybe the final result of the weekend. That's just another opinion though.
In any event, thanks for the feedback and happy gaming!
Which response? I saw no way of making things-changing response, there is no such rule / mechanic. I was working in a call centre from the position of operator up to the position of a supervisor and the way (including its quality) of a response really can turn an upset client or a total trouble into an advancement in selling services or so. And do not let me start with proactive (selling) calling - telemarketing! ;).
I meant the journaling about what happens during the event. While player actions don't change the weekend's outcome, players have absolute freedom to describe how individual calls play out. There are no rules/mechanics, but there is absolute freedom about what you want to focus on and how it works out.
As I said before, this all comes down to opinions about games, and differences in preference about kinds of games. If you'd rather call it a story telling framework, I won't argue.
You're right that a different game, with more expansive rules, could really dive into how a call works out, relationships with other engineers and/or customers, and ultimately let the player determine how the weekend turns out. That could be an interesting game to play.
Without a mechanic for a thing, there is not that thing in the game - from the playing viewpoint. Because your storytelling tool really lacks real game mechanics (to change the outcome based on players choices), it can't be defined as a game, which is a defined expert term and not an mistake-able opinion-like name. My Lady Master was calling her dog as "King" including behaving towards him like towards a king (interesting idea, right?). But it was a just a dog although sweetly snowhite, kind and even humble, not a king. Got it? By the way, thanks to my Lady Master I firstly saw the power of positive approach including positive reinforcement. So let me use such an advanced approach to you:
My mother was telling me fairy-tales including made up continuation according to my questions and wishes (!😊) for (various!😲) definive ends of them (⚰️ ). But it was still just an interactive narrating - shared storytelling, not a game. But later I finally conceived my mother to allow me to play characters in the fairy-tales including rolling classic 2d6+2 + stat (body, psyche, socialness) + skill (to not roll scarry "snake eyes" even if playing with some stat of 0 and trying something without a relevant skill, while even double lucky 7 can be rolled). The dice were borrowed from Czech board game named "Human don't be upset". Without knowing anything about RPGs or TTRPGs, I entered that world in my lucky 7 years of age. I got my first TTRPG (kind of near to DnD but made in "my" Czech Republic) in age of 15 to celebrate the end of my childhood (including getting an ID card and even motorbike riding licence, for which I had the tests already done). Then I started studying, GMing and later playing TTRPGS. I become also a psychologist including using TTRPGs as tools in psychotherapies. Then I even started making new TTRPGs, board games and physical RPGs including LARPs. So please consider me in this context as an expert writing truthful scientific statements and not as a crappy citizen chatting about not understood stuff. Thank you for your understanding.
Remember, the rating from me was high!😊 Because I rated it as a storytelling tool, not as a TTRPG (in which category it would be just 1 star for that little roleplay which is included in the rules which lacks other TTRPGs-related rules). So my approach was positive from the very beginning and still is such a prettyly positive. Feel free to respectfully rate all my games including what I published under DMDU in DriveThruRPG.