That's nice. But what is it?

Play Unsafe is a short, 82-page booklet (I got the .pdf version and printed it out), full of ideas and techniques taken from improvisational classes and applied to roleplaying games. The ideas within will help you get better games with less effort. It's not a densely packed product, but what there is is clear and brilliant. The type-setting is poor, and there's little art but it really, really doesn't matter. Especially at this price point. The .pdf is less than a fiver, and I'd gladly have paid the tenner the print version retails at.

It's not specific to any particular game system or style of play (although some will benefit more than others) - whoever you are and whatever you play, I think you will find something of use to you in here.

The Advice

Graham divides his advice over five sections, each of which contains a series of ideas and explanations about ways to do it better, they are:

• Play, which encourages you to improvise, and make sense.
• Build, which encourages you to create things for others to build on, and build on what others bring.
• Status, which centres on characterisation, and how high and low status creates stories.
• Tell Stories, guides you through some simple guidelines that help produce better stories.
• Work Together, which reminds you that RPGs are best when everyone pulls in the same direction and tells you how you can help that happen.

Overall

There are few roleplaying games on the market today which wouldn't be better games if they tore up a hundred or so pages of rules and replaced them with the text from Play Unsafe. It is a sad fact of the world of roleplaying games that there has been little concentration on the 'how' of roleplaying itself, and instead an overwhelming focus on the rules and fluff of particular games. Play Unsafe steps into this gap alongside precious few others (Robin Law's Laws of Good Gamesmastering springs to mind) and does so brilliantly.

It's a lightweight work; short and easy to read, it won't take a big chunk of your life from you. Although, I rather suspect, it'll take rather longer to master the techniques within and start applying them regularly to your games. I bought the .pdf version, and I'm seriously considering picking up the print version and making everyone I game with read it.

Pick it up; at this price, what have you got to lose?

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