I just submitted Good Morning Magicland to the 200 Word RPG Challenge. I love the constrained creativity of just 200 words of plain text and it allowed me to pump out an idea from my backlog that I wouldn’t have reached for a while. The contest ends this weekend, so there’s still time to submit your own!

My game is inspired by Hello from the Magic Tavern a ridiculous podcast where they worldbuild through improvised interviews with magical creatures. I got to playtest my game this week and it went really well!

Here’s the game in its 200 word entirety:

Good Morning Magicland

Build a silly fantasy world by roleplaying the hosts and guests on TV talk shows.

Choose one player to be the host of the first show.

As a host, introduce your show’s name and topic. Possible topics: applied magic, gossip, food, travel, politics, sports, history, conspiracy, panel, infomercial, educational.

Introduce your first guest. Announce the guest’s name and relevant info (e.g. profession, type of magical creature); then point to a player to roleplay that guest. Players should cross their arms if they don’t want to be that guest.

The host and guest then play out the show. Ham it up and revel in ridiculousness, but don’t contradict the established fiction! The host can invite another guest to join the conversation, with the initial guest staying or leaving. If another player wants to chime in, they can pretend to be on the phone and the host can “take a call from the audience”.

When the topic loses momentum, the host should thank the guest(s) and end the show; aim for five minutes. Then, another player becomes host and introduces their show.

Players can play different characters across shows or repeat characters.

Have fun and good luck with the ratings!

Next Steps

At some point I’ll come back and expand this to fit more genres and have more examples. I’ll post any updates here. Until then, you can email me at [email protected]

If you want to get updates about new games and drafts, sign up for the Diegetic Games Newsletter!