Create Your Character

1. Choose a style for your character: Alien, Android, Dangerous, Heroic, Hot-Shot, Intrepid, or Savvy.
2. Choose a role for your character: Developer, Designer, PM, Scrum Master, QA, UX Researcher, or Content Strategist/Creator.
3. Choose your number, from 2 to 5. A high number means you’re better at HARD CODE (technology; science; cold rationality; calm, precise action). A low number means you’re better at SOFT SKILLS (intuition; diplomacy; seduction; wild, passionate action).
4. Give your character a cool startup adventure name. Like Sparks McGee or something.

Character Goal

Choose one or create your own: ① Become CEO, ② Meet New Customers, ③ Change the World, ④ Find New Revenue Verticals, ⑤ Solve Weird Startup Mysteries, ⑥ Prove Yourself, or ⑦ Keep Being Awesome (you have nothing to prove).

Player Goal

Get your character involved in crazy startup adventures and try to make the best of them.

Inventory

A Company uniform (hoodie and keycard), a Company-issued Macbook, and a can of bear spray in your desk from the last corporate retreat.

Create the Company

As a group, pick two strengths for Rapptr: ① Fast, ② Practices Agile, ③ Well-Funded, ④ Good Security, ⑤ Superior Monitoring, ⑥ In Stealth Mode, or ⑦ Engineering Excellence.

Also, pick one problem: ① Burn Rate (always needs investment), ② Only One Napping Pod (and CEO Chad is in it), ③ Horrible Cloud Servers (servers break when needed most), ④ Cancelled (CEO Chad did some bad stuff in the past).

Rolling the Dice

When you do something risky, roll 1d6 to find out how it goes. Roll +1d if you’re prepared and +1d if you’re an expert. (The GM tells you how many dice to roll, based on your character and the situation.) Roll your dice and compare each die result to your number.

If you’re using HARD CODE (science, reason), you want to roll under your number.
If you’re using SOFT SKILLS, (rapport, passion) you want to roll over your number.

1. If none of your dice succeed, it goes wrong. The GM says how things get worse somehow.
2. If one die succeeds, you barely manage it. The GM inflicts a complication, harm, or cost.
3. If two dice succeed, you do it well. Good job!
4. If three dice succeed, you get a critical success! The GM tells you some extra effect you get.

10X MODE

If you roll your number exactly, you enter 10X MODE. You get a special insight into what’s going on. Ask the GM a question and they’ll answer you honestly. Some good questions: What are they really feeling? Who’s behind this? How could I get them to _____? What should I be on the lookout for? What’s the best way to _____? What’s really going on here? (A roll of 10X MODE counts as a success.)

Helping

If you want to help someone else who’s rolling, say how you try to help and make a roll. If you succeed, give them +1d.

Creating a Workplace Adventure

Roll or choose on the tables below.

Running the Game

Play to find out how they defeat the threat. Introduce the threat by showing evidence of its recent badness. Before a threat does something to the characters, show signs that it’s about to happen, then ask them what they do. “Zuck charges the megacannons on his desk. What do you do?” “Daneela pours you a glass of Japanese whiskey and slips her arm around your waist. What do you do?”

Call for a roll when the situation is uncertain. Don’t pre-plan outcomes—let the chips fall where they may. Use failures to push the action forward. The situation always changes after a roll, for good or ill.

Ask questions and build on the answers. “Have any of you encountered a Time Cube Cultist before? Where? What happened?”