The Fishing game

Like the Sheep game this game was the product of a “let’s invent the silliest game ever” discussion in the early hours of a Ropecon. We were pondering the ability to run metagames - a.k .a. Guerilla! Games – that would not ruin the actual play or experience of the role-playing game sessions that overlapped temporally.

This version is proofred copy of the original text, which was written as a blog post

After Jukka Särkijärvi’s initial reaction to the Fishing game, I decided it might be wiser not to publish it. Eventually however, I decided to post this game, fully aware that someone might try to play it in real life with little understanding of how badly it might break the social contract of the games that this metagame is played on top of.

Basic Fishing?

The original Fishing game is pretty simple:

• 1. The game requires at least two players and a set of actual role-playing game sessions.
• 2. The players of the Fishing game do participate in the actual role-playing game sessions.
• 3. Any actual role-playing game’s facilitators or game masters must not be aware of the Fishing game being played.
• 4. The goal of the Fishing game is to acquire a fishing rod and fish with the rod - inside the fiction of the actual role-playing game.
• 5. The player, whose character perishes in the actual game while fishing, wins the Fishing game.

The Fishing game works best with 4 or more players, trying to avoid more than a Fishing game player in a given actual role-playing game. As a variant, the players might want to fill all player slots of an actual role-playing game scenario [without telling the Game Master].

As enlightened Guerrilla! Gamers might notice the original concept will likely break the social contract of the actual role-playing game scenarios and is unsuitable for proper Guerrilla! Action. Such gentle folk should consider the advanced variant below.

Advanced Fishing & Going

The advanced version of the Fishing game has more depth and takes more skill. The most crucial difference to the basic game is that the players cannot spoil or overtly disrupt the con scenario by playing the Fishing game.

The advanced game uses all the basic rules except the winning clause (rule 5) and the following advanced rules:

• A.1. All games are scored by premise and game system scores (see the scoring tables)
• A.2. All players must post their scoring info to the game scorecard, wherever it’s kept.
• A.3. Players must post their progress to the game scorecard or stream when they either a) get the fishing rod, b) get to go fishing, or c) get a fish in the game.
• A.4. A player’s end score is calculated by adding a game system score to the fishing score. The fishing score is calculated by multiplying the premise score by one for the rod, two for the rod and fishing, or three for the rod, fishing, and actually getting the fish.
• A.5. A player who finished his con scenario with the highest end score wins.
• A.6. Players are not allowed to spoil or disrupt the actual role-playing game scenario (i.e., changing character motives is probably required). A player who openly breaks the con scenario’s social contract loses the Fishing game.

The game system score table

1. A generic story game like Hounds of the Sea
2. A freeform game like Jeepform scenario
3. Any generic system like Gurps
4. Any specific system like Pathfinder
5. A strict story game not about fishing like Zombeja! Ovella!

The premise score table

1. An Ideal Premise - like playing a gentleman fisher in a pole fishing competition.
2. A Common Premise - like playing an adventurer in a cave
3. A Challenging Premise - like playing a Fremen in Dune
4. A Near Impossible Premise - like playing an imperial droid on Tatooine
5. An Absurd Premise - like playing a line in Lineland (1d version of Flatland)