20d20 A minimalist tabletop RPG that you can start and finish in less than 20 minutes, and all you need is a d20 and two or more players. We invented this game pretty spontaneously in January of 2025. You can listen to the podcast episode where we came up with it and played it for the first time here. The entire game occurs in a scenario with some sort of condition that ends the story after 10 minutes. We also recommend having a major event that twists or intensifies the scenario after 5 minutes. Turns go clockwise around the circle of players. The most experienced players should go first, or have everyone roll and let the person with the highest roll go first. On the first turn, the player can riff on the scenario for a couple sentences, and then say what their character does. Then they roll a d20 and STOP TALKING. Each player's turn should only be about 30 seconds tops. The player to their left says out loud the result of the d20 roll, then describes what happened. A roll of 10 or higher indicates a success. A 1 means a dramatic, possibly harmful failure. A 20 is a dramatic, major success. Now, the new player says what they're going to do, rolls the dice, and STOPS TALKING. Keep taking turns like this, clockwise around the room. Each player is the game master for the player to their right, and their game master is the player on their left. Keep an eye on the time. Announce when 5 minutes are up, and the current player can describe what happens with the twist. When 10 minutes are up, finish up one final round as the 10 minute event happens. Here's a table of sample scenarios. You can roll a d20 to randomly pick one of these, or just come up with your own! There's an extra table of settings at the bottom of this page. More scenario ideas: Roll d20 Setting 10 minute end 5 minute twist Alternate 5 minute saboteur twist 1 Nuclear submarine that has broken underwater 10 minutes before oxygen runs out A sea creature starts to attack the sub One of the characters becomes a monster because of radiation from the reactor 2 Old west bank heist In 10 minutes, the characters have to hop on a moving train that will get them out of town The sheriff arrives outside of the bank One of the characters reveals that they're an undercover law man 3 A plane filled with talking snakes In 10 minutes, the plane is scheduled to land and release the snakes onto an island The snakes escape their cages and try to take over the plane One of the characters is a terrorist who doesn't want the plane to land, so that the snakes won't be introduced to the island 4 Underground mining facility The characters have to retrieve a magic gem and escape in 10 minutes Strange monsters bust in through the walls One of the characters is actually an android spy, sent in to lock everyone in the mine 5 Backstage at a massive show in front of 500,000 people The characters are the headlining act, and they need to start performing in 10 minutes. Everyone has forgotten all of the songs on the setlist. 5 minutes in, a scientist shows up with a brain scrambling/descrambling device that...might... help characters remember the songs A band member decides to escape with a briefcase full of cash 6 Rural hunting spot during duck season. All of the players are ducks that can talk, except one player, who is a hunter whose only gun stopped working. 10 minutes in, the hunter's trigger-happy hunting buddy shows up with a functional gun. 5 minutes in, one of the ducks gains the ability to access the hunter's memories. One of the ducks has made a deal with the hunting buddy 7 Group of survivors caught in the middle of an alien/zombie invasion, holed up in the basement of a parking garage, locked in an office. 10 minutes in, The zombie bust through the walls and eat everyone. 5 minutes in, the power goes off and all the doors open automatically. 5 minutes in, one person turns into a zombie. 8 The players are on a road trip from east to west coast. They are 15 minutes away from a gas station with a convenient store. Everyone needs something at the store badly. The car tire blows out and they are forced to pull over One player has to poop, badly, has been eating Taco Bell leftover and may have norovirus, 10 minutes in will have explosive diarrhea. One player is meeting their mom at the gas station to get asthma meds, and has an asthma attack at 10 mins. One player is addicted to gas station dick pills or some vile substance circle k is slinging and is going to freak out from withdrawal 10 minutes in. One player has a hand grenade and is having a psychotic break, 10 mins in will pull the pin. Another car pulls up behind the broken down car. The party realizes one of the players intentionally damaged the tire at the last stop. We found it can be really fun to have each player roll a d20 to determine a random charcter trait: Roll d20 Trait 1 Cowardly 2 Confident 3 Knowledgable 4 Naive 5 Selfish 6 Altruist 7 Optimist 8 Pessimist 9 Pacificist 10 Bloodthirsty 11 Methodical 12 Impulsive 13 Obsessed with something 14 Depressed 15 Ecstatic 16 Bored 17 Insatiable hunger 18 Perilous curiousity 19 Large 20 Small Roll d20 Settings 1 Planetary Recon 2 Stuck in snow peaks after plane crash 3 Players are dieties whose last worshipper is about to die, thus negating their existence 4 Group of kids shrunk by dad's science machine 5 baseball landed in the neighbors yard, players are about to get eaten by their dog 6 Characters are walking/talking trees about to get axed down by Paul Bunyan 7 Aliens have just landed outside of your house 8 Italy in 1500, players need to find davinci and get his help to repair time machine to get home 9 Players are trying to retrieve a magic item from a dragon's lair 10 Middle of a desert that is all basic lego bricks instead of sand 11 Characters are lab rats that figured out how to communicate and make tools 12 Characters are all classic hollywood monsters (frankenstein, wolf man, etc) and they're in a golf tournament 13 life raft in the middle of the oceean 14 Walking among dinosaurs 15 trapped in a price is right game 16 In a library during detention hour 17 in a lab designing a sentient video game controller 18 on a monkey farm 19 trapped in a sweatshop animation studio 20 In a mad scientist lab, and he put a cat's brain into a 20 foot tall gorilla

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