Tales from the Loop:

Lighthearted Roleplaying at its finest

Roleplaying games are a different experience for every person. Each game has its own unique aesthetic and system. The types of roleplaying games that people like is tied closely to their interests and their ability to relate to the setting and characters of the game. Many games direct themselves at a certain group of players, trying to entice them with a setting they can relate to and a system that they can be interested in. The best known of these games is Dungeons & Dragons, which aims itself at creating an interesting and varied high fantasy environment for players to adventure in. It is rare for a new roleplaying game to have developed a setting that is near universally relatable. Tales from the Loop a newly released roleplaying game does just that.

The Setting:

Tales from the Loop bases its setting in the artwork of Simon Stålenhag, a sci-fi artist who paints images of Swedish 1980’s suburbia populated by fantastic machines and curious structures. The creation of these machines and structures has come from The Loop Project, a project that uses massive particle accelerators, referred to as ‘Loops’, for continued research. The creation of the Loops has altered the landscape of 1980’s suburbia drastically. The player characters in Tales from the Loop are kids, between the ages of 10 and 15, who are faced with not only the normal problems of childhood, bullies, siblings, and more, but are also faced with incredibly mysteries revolving around the Loops, and the machines that come from them.  

The System:

Tales from the Loop uses a simple system based around six-sided dice for the resolution of actions in the game. The kids will get ‘pools’ of dice based upon their rating in the skills related to the action they are attempting. After rolling the dice, any that come up as a six are considered successes, any others are considered failures. Kids can choose to ‘push’ themselves on any roll, doing so will allow them to re-roll any number of failures, but will also cause them to become upset, scared, exhausted, or injured. While the specifics of these conditions is left up to the Game Master, mechanically, each of the conditions imposes a penalty of one die for any other check made by the character until they take the time to clear the condition.

The Verdict:

Tales from the Loop is a fantastic roleplaying game, utilizing a combination of a simple resolution system and a relatable suburban setting with a fascinating twist. Tales from the Loop presents as a roleplaying game with a fantastic amount of potential to create amazing stories. Tales from the Loop is a game which every roleplayer with a taste for the unusual, should try.

- Alex