Night Drifters: Second Stage preview — GM-less RPG melding teen drama and drag racing

Indie designer Will Uhl is soon to release digital and physical versions of Night Drifters: Second Stage. Thematically, the game is built around teen drama and street racing. Mechanically, its blackjack mechanics feed into fast-paced, one-shot gameplay. With the pdf or physical edition, soon to be available at GenCon through Indie Press revolution, you can get rolling with this slim, focused game.

All you need to play is a 52 card deck, some tokens, and the right soundtrack. Luckily, the game comes with suggested soundtracks to set the vibe. The game covers a variety of settings, all with specialized song recommendations; races can take place during an avalanche, at a ski resort, or dodging asteroids in the future. It does take too much time explaining itself and its mechanics/stats to players, but as a relatively simple game, that problem is solved in short order. Characters choose 3 of 7 available attributes. When you take an action, you invoke one of those attributes and spend a token. If you and another player contradict one another, you draw cards, the action going to whoever drew the highest card.

While in the midst of a race, each player gets 2 cards per leg of the encounter. You will then engage in hands of Blackjack, using chips to modify your hand values up or down by 1. If you bust too many times, you crash out of the race. Surviving players with the highest hand totals perform better in the underlying race. Jokers interfere with other racers. Optional rules are tuned to each setting, giving you new ways to influence NPCs or manipulate your hand.

Players also have ways to add flair to the race itself, adding in complications to the roadway or hazards. These rules are all very light, as is the system itself. The speed of the exercise makes it easy to add these racing rules into an ongoing RPG, without the need for much modification at all.

Night Drifters will be available at Gen Con, just look for the Indie Press Revolution booth. You can also take a look at Will’s page directly on Itch.io, where it’s going to be available in the next few days.