Business Wizards: One Gig to Rule Them All - Episodic Indie RPG One-Shot

About the adventure

Do you love a challenge? Can you cast legendary spells on time and under budget? Are your illusionary projections actually illusions? Join a magically powered up team with flexible hours and competitive treasure/experience share. Business Wizards is a silly send up of work culture where players pretend to be powerful sorcerers trapped in crummy corporate jobs. Imagine a version of The Office where Jim is Gandalf and Dwight is Saruman—that's Business Wizards. One Gig to Rule Them All is a season of one-shot episodes that follow a rotating cast of Business Wizards through a series of adventures set in the Arcane World of Business. Each session tells the story of one corner of the larger Business Wizarding world, from turtle-necked arcanists in Sillycon Valley trying to slipper-strap start-ups, to the vast, uncanny evil of multi-planar corporates. Players wend their way through this world on a legendary quest to find a (possibly mythical) treasure: stable employment. Whether you stop in for a one-shot or stick around to understand the mysterious, larger, unfolding plot is up to you! Gameplay is creative, wacky and cooperative—a hallmark of the Polymorph system. Each player only ever uses ONE polyhedral die: a d4, a d6, a d8, or a d10. Each die represents a different character “role” in the group. Whenever a player asks “can I do something?” they roll their die and with a quick glance at a resolution matrix, know if they succeed. There is NEVER any arithmetic involved (no modifiers, no masters). Depending on the game world and what kind of character that you are playing, you may roll with advantage or disadvantage (or not need to roll at all); and the GM (the person running the game) never rolls dice.

Additional Details

How to prepare

Players can best prepare by attending any of the monthly polymorph learn-to-plays and/or by reading any Polymorph game. Players are expected to have a working zoom account, web camera, and google drive account for sharing digital documents. Players should bring their own dice. The game makes extensive use of digital documents (players make a Powerpoint Presentation in Google Drive), but a physical character sheet as well as pen and paper for character notes are often nice to have.

What I provide

I will provide a digital play document such as a google presentation or online white board. Business Wizards makes satirical use of a lot of project management tools in play. These will track our maps, character illustrations, and humorous pictures that memorialize our adventures. These will all be shared with players who retain access to them as souvenirs after the game.

Gameplay details

Content Warning: This game contains depictions of corporate situations and can be difficult for people who have soul-crushing corporate jobs and are just trying to take a DAMN BREAK ON THE WEEKEND. But if you like irony it's probably ok. More seriously, Business Wizards is a mad cap, silly send up of the business world. This sometimes involves depictions of burnout, stress, and the great grinding machine that sacrifices bright-eyed young employees on the altar of the almighty dollar. However, these depictions are usually played for a combination of laughs and therapy.

Content warnings

(none)

Safety tools used

Breaks
Debriefing
Lines and Veils
Luxton Technique
Luxton Technique Discussion
Open Door

How will character creation work

Players will typically make characters during the intro period of the first session. New players may wish to attend a few minutes early to learn the rules and get set up, but POLYMORPH character creation is a fast process.

Players can expect

• Find a game to join solo or search for a professional game master for you and your friends/coworkers/family.
• Book your session and wait for the Game Master to approve you.
• If you don't have a blast with your first game, your next game is on us.