Groovy Noir - The Weird Detective TTRPG

Groovy Noir is a game for telling light-hearted and imaginative short stories about people put in a weird position and forced to take action to resolve some form of mystery or other crime. Perhaps you are taking inspiration from Douglas Adams and decide to tell a story about the murder of some alien life form with biology no one understands in full, either disguised as human or on a space colony. Perhaps you are telling an urban fantasy story where a group of teenagers find out that there is more to their world than they had considered before one of their friends went missing under mysterious circumstances. The underlying thread of the stories for which Groovy Noir is suited best is that the circumstances surrounding some event which needs to be explained are not fully understood yet and unconventional detectives need to get to the bottom of things.

This one-page rpg was inspired by the storytelling in ZA/UM's 2019 game 'Disco Elysium'. I wanted to try and recreate that feeling of exploring a world where the rules are not set in stone by prior expectations and where intuition and seeming nonsense are just as strong methods for resolving challenges as logical deliberation since logic relies on working with pre-established premises but in a co-operative story, inspiration sets such details in place.

At its core, Groovy Noir uses a simple 2d6 system for resolving tasks. Instead of strict target numbers, the systems allows for graded success with complications, and the actions of others may change the situation in ways which make success more (or less) likely. Additionally, characters who follow their instincts have a greater chance of success and players may elect to use plot devices (called 'gimmicks') in their character's possession to succeed by default.

Gimmicks introduce a further system where players negotiate power over the actions of their characters: those who come up with what others consider nonsense reasons become subject to nudges by the GM and when others agree with the logic, they cede some control over their own characters to that player going forward. As a result, no character's actions are fully subject only to the will of a single player.