RPG Name: Fastlane
Description: Fastlane RPG Twisted Confessions author Alexander Cherry
What are your reviews for this typical role-playing game? Would Fastlane play by post work well? Did you adjust the game rules to fit your needs? What did you add / subtract?
Played As: Fastlane PBP RPG? or
I'm the designer of Fastlane. When I playtested it, I tried it play-by-post. With the use of the roulette bidding system and the spending of chips.. It does get a bit clumsy, unless you have a specialty thread for out-of-character mechanical handling. Since the game is all about narrative trading, you might be able to handle it entirely within a thread.
Well, instead of dice (It has the built in opportunity to use dice in the place of a roulette wheel, with a table - I'm absurdly proud of myself for doing with 2 dice, or really 4 dice, and matching the odds of the roulette wheel).
It uses the entire roulette bidding system. So in order to do a conflict, you (As the player) need to declare your bet(S). In other words - the player has the choice of any possible risk/reward scenario.
As for the setting, it's meant to be a generic game with a strong built in theme (That of living a risky life that you could easily burn out on).
It can certainly be used for a modern era game, but doesn't have to be. The games I've played with it were:
* Set in a free-wheeling seedy space-dock, where a bunch of disreputable people get entangled with organized crime
* A game I like to call "Arabian Heists" - think Ocean's 11 in Aladdin's world, with fantasy magic
* a James Bond-type spy thriller with spies working for various agencies trying to find out the secret of a casino in the swiss alps
* a supers game where the players were all lower-class, and hoping to make it big.
* a game where all the players were demigods (We invented a fantasy world and its pantheon) who had designs to ascend to godhood.
Sadly, the inclusion of the roulette wheel does make people think "Modern" and it seems tough to shake people from that impression.