Fan Fiction is an amazing thing. Not only is it a way for people to show their love for their favorite franchises, but it is also how many people first dip their toes into the world of fiction writing. In fact, many beloved modern writers, journalists, and artists got their start in fan fiction (heck, even I started out writing really bad Sailor Moon fan fiction). However, while fan fiction is a fantastic art form, that doesn’t mean it’s immune to weirdness. Fanfic Together is a party TTRPG that taps into this, having players work together to create the strangest bit of fanfic ever made.
Fanfic Together takes the concept of writing fan fiction and turns it into a delightfully chaotic party TTRPG for 2-4 players. To play, you’ll need a timer, a six-sided die, a shared document everyone can type in (like a Google Doc or something similar), a way for everyone to access the document, and a personal sheet, scoring sheet, trope list, and bingo card for each player. Finally, before the game starts, each player should pick a font color so that everyone knows who wrote what.
The Writer’s Method
The game has six phases: setup, secrets, writing, reveal, scoring, and debrief. First comes the setup phase, where players work together to decide some basic information about the fanfic they are going to write, including which characters are going to be the focus, the fic’s content rating, the setting of the story (including if it’s going to be a canon or AU fic), and some basic story context to get everyone on the same page.
After this, the secrets phase begins. Each player secretly rolls the dice and checks the table to find which genre they secretly represent during the game. Each genre has a specific agenda and a list of ten tropes, and the player’s aim is to try to work at least three of these tropes into the story without the other players noticing.
During this phase, each player will take a bingo card. Each square of these cards contains prompts; whenever one of these prompts appears in the fiction, the player marks it off their card (noting if they added it to the fic or someone else did), aiming to complete as many lines as possible.
Once this is done, the writing phase (the main bulk of the game) begins. This phase is divided into turns; during their turn, the player gets eight minutes to write whatever they want. However, a player can only introduce two elements per turn, meaning they have to decide if they want to focus on their genre’s tropes or their bingo card.
Once everyone has written, players have 15 minutes to read the fic and try to figure out the other player’s genres. After every player has guessed, everyone reveals which genre they were trying to slip in. After this, all players calculate their final score by counting up their bingo squares, included tropes, and correct guesses.
Creating Five-Star Fiction
Fanfic Together is a great party game that will have every player laughing so hard they can hardly breathe. Every time I’ve tested this game, the final fanfic is utterly hilarious. To the point that the players I played with ended up quoting it days afterwards. Plus, the game is super accessible and intuitive, meaning that players who are new to social games or fanfic writing will be able to quickly get into the game and have a great time, making this a perfect introductory game for people who want to dip their toes into the world of roleplaying or social games.
I deeply appreciate the designer’s decision not to have players score each other’s writing. Writing fiction is tough, and taste in literature is deeply personal, with one person’s life-changing prose being another person’s pretentious nonsense, so having players get points for “good” writing would likely sour the mood and cause players to write more carefully (so as not to be ranked low), depriving the game of the chaos that makes both it and fanfiction so fun.
Similarly, I love the designer’s decision to include explicit writing on safety tools and how to use them. Free form social games, TTRPG sessions, and fanfic can become deeply personal and go in many unplanned directions, so making sure players know what safety tools are and how to use them is a sensible choice.
One part of Fanfic Together I really love is the inclusion of several rule variants that tweak the game in several ways (for example, having it so players can only read the previous paragraph when it’s their turn to write, or everyone writing at the same time and combining the chunks after the fact). While these modifiers are super fun in their own right, having options is great for a quick party game because players will likely want to play more than once, and these tweaked rules allow it without the game becoming repetitive or predictable.
Fanfic Together is a fantastic party TTRPG for both fanfic lovers and lovers of hidden identity party games. Honestly, it is one of those games I recommend keeping on your shelf, as it’s the type of social game that’s perfect for breaking the ice and breathing life into an otherwise quiet party. Plus, the fanfiction you write is sure to become part of your friend group’s lore for months to come.
