Scherzando!

Scherzando! is a musical tabletop roleplaying game about things going explosively wrong in which you play both the characters and the soundtrack. It is a GM-less, diceless story game designed to be played in a single session by 3-7 players. You don’t need to own any instruments or know anything about music to play (although if you do, you can absolutely bring that to the table)—it’s a completely beginner-friendly game.

Scherzando! is setting-agnostic, so games can take place in radically different fictional spaces; in general, though, you’ll be playing characters with strong feelings and big dreams following their goals while the world around them goes to hell, sometimes literally. The game is often bizarre, outrageous, and funny, but always earnest, safe, and collaborative.

In addition to playing characters, you will also be playing music. You can do this by humming or tapping on nearby objects or using whatever sounds you can find around you. You aren’t worried about playing “correctly;” you’re trying to guide the emotional landscape of the scene. The structure of a scene is designed to ebb and flow around the music so that neither active players nor musicians can play the scene alone; the scene is directed in turns by the music and the characters.

3-7 players.