Roadtrip Radio: The Daring Drive To Dicelessness

The best thing about the rise of the independent TTRPG scene has been seeing the term “Diceless TTRPG” widen dramatically. When I first ventured into the TTRPG space in the 2000s, diceless meant that a game used either playing cards or tokens as its resolution mechanic. Today, a diceless game could mean hundreds of things, and developers constantly push the diceless TTRPG in brave new directions. And nothing shows this better than Roadtrip Radio.

One of the best parts of going on a road trip is dipping into local radio. While nowhere near as big of an industry as it was twenty years ago, local radio still allows you to immerse yourself in a small snippet of local life, learning about the people, businesses, and sounds currently on the minds of the local population, and Roadtrip Radio uses this to create a fascinating story.

Roadtrip Radio’s creativity is on display from the start, as the game setup phase asks the players to find a radio and arrange five chairs in a car-like layout.

The Rules Of The Road

Once this is done, the players start working out the basics of the story. Each player picks a radio station to represent their character, and the group decides where the group’s final destination is.

Once this has all been picked, one player sits in the driver’s seat and tunes the radio to their character’s station. Whatever is playing on the radio at the time decides what the topic of the conversation is or who the discussion focuses on.

For example, if the host is doing an ad read, the driver starts talking about something they can see from the car window. If a song is playing, the conversation stays on the previous topic. But, if three songs play in a row or a song repeats, the conversation changes to focus on one of the passenger’s hopes, fears, and dreams.

This continues until an intermission or a talk segment starts. At this point, the players say something they’ve learned about another character and how this information changes how they feel about them. Then, a different player enters the driver’s seat, switches to their character’s radio station, and the process starts again.

Radio Waves Triumph Over Dice Rolls

While the radio element of Roadtrip Radio may sound like a gimmick on the surface, it works stunningly well in practice. The most significant advantage of using the radio as a resolution mechanic is that the sounds are a constant source of inspiration, efficiently giving the players a continuous flow of ideas and discussion prompts, helping prevent situations where the game grinds to a halt because a player draws a blank and has no idea what to say.

And even if a player does need to take a minute to think of something to say, the noise from the radio helps cover it, removing the awkwardness of the situation in a way that makes thematic sense.

Plus, as the radio controls the game’s flow, all players can immerse themselves in the scenario without one player having to constantly pull themselves out of character to roll dice or tell players to progress to the next section of the game, leading to a GMless experience that feels natural and intuitive.

How To Add Extra Immersion

Though, just a tip, if you plan on playing Roadtrip Radio, I suggest forgoing the traditional AM or FM radio and using Radio Garden or a similar internet radio app. This gives players a more expansive selection of stations to pick from, allowing each section of your road trip to feature a different genre or style of music, giving the game a more tangible feeling of movement. On top of this, many internet radio stations have unusual schedules or formats, making the game more unpredictable and exciting.

If you’re looking for some unique stations to use, here are four of my personal favorites:

• Soma FM’s Dark Zone – A Dark Ambient station based in San Francisco
• ATOS Radio – Run by the American Theatre Organ Society, this station only plays songs performed on traditional theater organs.
• CFRO Vancouver Co-Op Radio – Based out of Vancouver, Canada. The local station of the Library! (Check out their Accordion Noir show!)
• Radio Worm – An experimental music station based in Rotterdam

Roadtrip Radio Uses Space To Shape The Story

Also, while you may be tempted to ignore the game’s instruction to find chairs and arrange them in a car-like formation, I highly suggest you do so if possible. The non-symmetrical layout of cars (two people at the front, three at the back) combined with the fact that the players in the front seats are facing away from the other players means that the group’s dynamic will subtly shift as people move from seat to seat.

This helps keep the game fresh, as each round feels different from the last. It also gently pushes the players to dive deeper into their character, asking them to consider their character’s overall relationship with the group and their specific relationships with each group member. Because of this, a Roadtrip Radio game often feels like a cross between a soap opera and a Ken Loach film, capturing a small community with complex but deeply interconnected lives at a specific moment in time.

Capturing What Makes Modern Diceless TTRPGs So Good

Roadtrip Radio shows why the expansion of the Diceless TTRPG concept is so fascinating. While dice are a perfectly acceptable resolution mechanic, by moving away from them, TTRPG designers have created hundreds of unique experiences that beautifully evoke specific emotions, situations, or places in time.

While you could play Roadtrip Radio with a handful of D6, the resulting experience wouldn’t be as immersive or memorable because the radio isn’t just a gimmick. It’s an evocative scene-setting tool that draws players in and helps them step into another person’s shoes and imagine the different routes their life could have taken. And that perfectly captures why modern diceless TTRPGs are so good. They don’t remove dice for the sake of being different. They replace dice with tools that better capture the game’s mood and message.