Ever wanted to set a tabletop RPG adventure in your hometown? If the answer is ‘no’, you should reconsider – because this new TTRPG zine is the exact tool you’d need to bring that wacky concept to life. Fantasy In My Backyard uses Google Maps and a deck of cards to turn real-life locations into fully fleshed-out fantasy worlds, where mystical creatures hide amongst the mundane population.
Designed by Chase Call and James Quigley, Fantasy in my Backyard is a co-op worldbuilding game for one to six players. It lists urban fantasies like Percy Jackson and Men in Black as inspiration, but the comparison that first came to mind for me was Rivers of London. Truthfully, you could set up all manner of stories within the game’s framework.
Setup goes something like this. Pick a real location and pull up a copy of its map. Decide on a mode of transport for travelling from place to place, and have the players each add a starting landmark. Each player is then assigned a specific character or community to represent (think storybook characters, mythological creatures, cryptids, vampires, and more), and they’ll pick a community center to act as their home base. After that, play begins!
Each round, all players draw a card and create a location depending on its results. A handy resource called Influence is gained and lost as play continues, representing your community’s pull in the locale. You can spend influence to perform special actions. Whatever you choose to do, the game will ask you plenty of narrative questions along the way, putting stories down alongside your map markers.
Each round ends when everyone has finished their turns, and a group event occurs that could bring the disparate communities together or push them further apart. When someone has spent 20 influence or every group event has concluded, the game ends – and a lively location has been created.
The Backerkit page for this project recommends using the tabletop RPG to develop a setting in systems like Monster of the Week, Monster Hearts, or World of Darkness. Personally, I’d just love to see the British city of Swindon turned into a fantasy campaign. The sky is the limit here.
A PDF copy of the game is available from Backerkit for $10. $15 gets you a physical version too, and you can pledge $30 (or even $300) to show further support for the project. Crowdfunding ends at the end of the month.
Want to talk more about tabletop games? Join us for a chat in the Wargamer Discord.