Community Radio

A GAME OF STRANGENESS
ON THE AIRWAVES

BY QUINN MURPHY
Community Radio
Community Radio is a dark comedy improv game that tells the stories of an isolated and weird community.
BY QUINN MURPHY
STARTING
It stitches together improv “slice of life” stories together in the dispatches and announcements of the local SETTING UP
public radio host, who may or may not completely beholden to a sinister and mysterious City Council. It is PLAYING
a dark humor, high improv game that can entertain a group of 3-10 players for a half-hour to an hour and a SLICE OF LIFE
half. The game can be played in the same setting you’ve created in different sessions, but plays just as well DECREES
for quick stand-alone play. RADIO SCENE
BUMPERS
Community Radio is the first in a series of games that juxtapose a fictional reality with how the media will
FRAMES
report it. Old radio dramas and many podcasts serve as inspiration as do radio station-based comedies like
CREDITS
WKRP in Cincinnati, News Radio, and Northern Exposure.

WHAT YOU NEED TO PLAY:

• Captives Drones Supplicants Citizens Players Citizens—people to play the game with. The game
will play well with 3 people, but can scale up as needed. Any less is against Council regulations,
and thus is not recommended.
• A stopwatch of any kind. Much of the game takes place as vignettes followed by a short bumper
by the radio host describing part of what happened in the vignette on the radio. You’ll need to
time the various scenes.
• Index cards and writing materials. There isn’t much of a paper trail, bu you will want index card
to create elements for scenes.
• Two dice. This game is mostly improv, so dice are used to “seed” scenes and to direct the host on
what announcements he might have to make.
• At least one copy of this game. You might want more copies so everyone can have access to the
frames and bumpers of the game.
• Music player. This can be your phone, a tablet, a laptop, a cd player: anything that can play music.
The host will sometimes be required to play music of her choosing

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Setting Up
One player will be host the community radio show. The host’s job is to create radio about the STARTING
after-effects of the preceding vignettes. The host can establish any weird facts that she wants, SETTING UP
PLAYING
and also will announce the weather report, traffic, and decrees from the Council during play. SLICE OF LIFE
The host advances the narrative of the show by declaring what was seen or not-seen by the DECREES
community, and what actions flowed from those events. If it sounds like the position of a GM RADIO SCENE
in another game, you’re sort of right! The host’s role is not to provide opposition to the players BUMPERS
FRAMES
however. The host is a semi-neutral commentator and co-creator, feeding off of what goes on
CREDITS
in the community she inhabits. The host decides how the world outside will hear about what
the community members actually experienced. This can be funny or sinister or it can be both.
The host can decide to leave details out or even lie when necessarily. The host has complete
control over how she reports, even though some of the community will know the truth.
Other players are from the community. In this game you’ll play multiple people in different
situations. You’ll create those personalities on the fly and throw them immediately into weird
situations.
Everyone is on the City Council. No one is on the City Council. (Who is on the City Council?)
Everyone but the host could be on the Council. What this means in play is that everyone gets
a chance to offer decrees to the host. Everyone passes secret notes to the host during the
course of the game who must incorporate any decree she reads into her broadcast. Yes, even

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Setting
if the decree contradicts another decree. Are you questioning the Council? STARTING
SETTING UP
Only the host needs dice. Everyone needs some index cards and writing utensils. Once you’ve PLAYING
got this, you are ready for play. SLICE OF LIFE
DECREES
The play procedures are pretty simple, but it is important to consider the setting that you RADIO SCENE
want to portray. It’s worth talking with your community up front and getting everyone on the BUMPERS
same page. Do you want something simply off-beat and funny (sort of like Northern Expo- FRAMES
CREDITS
sure)? Or do you want to be super grim-dark? How weird do you want to go? Do you want
angels or aliens or both?
If you’re just starting out, you’ll spend time building elements for play. Elements are the
peoples, places and things that lurk within your town, waiting to ambush interact with the
players. Also take a moment to name the town. Where is it located?
On your first play, everyone will name on a card the following (each item gets it own card):
• An Innocent Person—a person who does not know the true nature of what your town faces. What
is this person’s name? What do they do?
Examples: “Fred the Mailman”, “Prince Ferdinand”, “the newspaper delivery girl with unerring aim”
• A Terror—a foreboding threat. Something supernatural or frighteningly natural that threatens at
least one person, maybe the whole town.
Examples: “The creature under the bed”, “The Voice”, “The Wendigo”
• A Place of Interest—what interesting places exist in the town? What are places people should
visit—or avoid?
Examples: “The Butcher’s Shop” “Sweeney’s Pub,” “The Alley”
• A Mood—a possible mood or feeling that you’d expect someone to have when they are in your town.
Examples: “Dread”, “Utter Bliss”, “Trepidation”, “Schadenfreude”
• A Strange Item—an item that is either explicitly supernatural or a normal item waiting to reveal

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Setting & Playing
its hidden nature. STARTING
Examples: “The Golden Ankh,” “A (very) smartphone,” “Lawn Gnomes” SETTING UP
PLAYING
Each of these elements should have its own pile. All of the Innocent People should go in one SLICE OF LIFE
pile, then the Terrors, etc. Also, remember that you don’t have to describe what you write, just DECREES
RADIO SCENE
name it. People will explore what these elements mean in play.
BUMPERS
Elements should be secret from other community members and all should be placed face- FRAMES
CREDITS
down to be revealed when needed.
Elements will be used when playing “Slice of Life” scenes (described below). You can keep
them for subsequent plays. If you do, each community member should add a card to any one
category she wants each session.
Last, what is the name and callsign of the public radio station? Once you figure this out as
a group, it’s time to start.

PLAYING
Play occurs by alternating between Slice of Life scenes and Radio scenes. A Slice of Life
scene lets community members improv a scene showing life in the town then later making
decrees as members of the Council. Afterwards, we will get a summary, announced decrees
and entertainment from the host.
A short session is three Slice of Life scenes followed by three radio scenes. That should

5
Playing
take about 30-45 minutes. For a longer session, either lengthen the scenes (good for more STARTING
drama) or keep the same length scenes but then add a few more (great if you have a lot of SETTING UP
PLAYING
people and want to rotate through). SLICE OF LIFE
DECREES
SLICE OF LIFE RADIO SCENE
BUMPERS
What is life like in the town? Is it terrifying? Wonderful? Community members are going to FRAMES
play out some scene that shows what this place is like. To start, the host rolls two dice then CREDITS
chooses the chooses the appropriate scene frame from the list below.
Each scene frame is written to insert the elements you built earlier into a phrase.

EXAMPLE:
“A <Innocent Person> has a <mood> time at <Place of Interest> while hanging out with <Innocent
Person>”
Any time you see an element repeated, it means that you should draw another element of
that same type from the pile.
The host reads the frame aloud and pulls elements from the pile as needed and inserts the
element into the frame.
Once the frame is announced, the host will set a minute on the timer. In that minute,
the involved community members (strive for two to five people per scene) will brainstorm
about what roles each will play. At the end of this brainstorm, its time to play out the scene!
The host puts on a two-minute timer, and it’s time to play through the scene that you just

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Playing
set up. If the timer ends before the scene does, that’s okay, but the host gets to determine STARTING
how things ended up in the Radio scene! SETTING UP
PLAYING
When playing the scene, you’ll be improvising and making things up. Feel free to stretch SLICE OF LIFE
and take the scene to weird places. The basic rule here is don’t deny what other people are DECREES
RADIO SCENE
building. If someone says “I see a dragon!” don’t say “no it’s not, that’s a helicopter!”. You’ll BUMPERS
suck energy out of the scene very fast this way. Focus on pushing and interacting with what FRAMES
your community members build. CREDITS

While acting out scenes, there should be no physical contact without consent. Other than
that, there are no wrong moves!
While the community members play through the Slice of Life, the host should take notes and
think about how that scene might be described later. Who is it that could secretly be watch-
ing? How might things be misinterpreted? Try to figure out how the broadcast is going to be
about after the scene unfolds.
When the timer goes off, stop the scene right there. The host gives everyone an index card
that each community member can put a decree on.

DECREES
When the scene is done, each person in the scene can now make a decree as if they were a
member of the Council. The Council rules the community, often with as much absurdity as
tyranny. After a Slice of Life scene where the community members run into space aliens in a
pizza joint, you might make a decree “No aliens in commerical zones.” Another citizen might
make the decree that “Aliens visiting town are not allowed to eat earth food.” Another might

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Playing
decree “All Aliens visiting town must leave with at least one Adbuctee”. When everyone has STARTING
written their decrees, place them all in a pile and shuffle them up. SETTING UP
PLAYING
SLICE OF LIFE
RADIO SCENES DECREES
It is now time for the radio scene. The host of the show is there to tell members of the com- RADIO SCENE
BUMPERS
munity what has been happening, and most importantly, the decrees of the council. The host FRAMES
will also need to add a bumper of some kind, determined by a die roll. It could be a traffic CREDITS
report, the weather, or an advertisement of some sort.
So every broadcast will need:
• A bumper
• A report on how the preceding Slice of Life scene affected the community
• A decree

You can announce these things in any order, but you need each in every broadcast. If you want
more time to think, you can roll your bumper during the Slice of Life scene.
The radio host doesn’t have a time limit. Sometimes the broadcasts are long, sometimes
they are short. The goal of the host is to provide an outside context to the zany hijinks of her
comrades.
Also, you must serve the Council at all times.
As a host, you want to cultivate a radio show personality. Consider:
• What is your “radio voice”?
• What do you want to portray as your personality?
• What are you really like when no one’s listening?

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Bumpers
BUMPERS AND FRAMES STARTING
SETTING UP
Here are potential host bumpers and some starter scenarios. PLAYING
SLICE OF LIFE
HOST BUMPERS (ROLL 2D6) DECREES
RADIO SCENE
ROLL BUMPER BUMPERS
FRAMES
2 A list (4 weird things) CREDITS
3-4 human interest story (play some music instead)
5 traffic
6 community history
7 social event
8 advertisement
9 breaking news
10 personal memory (too personal?)
11 read an extra decree
12 station business

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Frames
SCENE FRAMES (ROLL 2D6) STARTING
SETTING UP
2: Devil Inside. In <Place of Interest>, an <Innocent Person> reveals itself as a <Terror>. PLAYING
3: More than a Feeling. Everyone in <Place of Interest> finds herself overcome with <Mood> for SLICE OF LIFE
some strange reason. DECREES
RADIO SCENE
4: Alchemy. A <Innocent Person> finds a <Strange Item> and undergoes a social, mental or physical BUMPERS
transformation. FRAMES
CREDITS
5: Fancy Meeting you Here! <Innocent Person> and <Innocent Person> have a chance meeting at
<Place of Interest>. One of them is trying to hide a secret and the other tries to find out what it is.
6: Monster. A <Terror> approaches <Place of Interest> and creates a feeling of <Mood>.
7: Mistaken identity. The community thinks they’ve revealed or defeated a <Terror>, but really what
they’ve done is impaired/hurt <Innocent Person>. They feel <Mood> about it. What do they do
afterwards?
8: Making Friends? <Terror> announces itself to the community, who reacts in a <mood> manner.
The Terror responds in kind.
9: We Are All Individuals! A cult is discovered in <Place of Interest> based around a <Strange Item>.
What is it they want?
10: It Was Fine Until You Showed Up. A <Innocent Person> has a <Mood> time at <Place of Interest>
while hanging out with <Innocent Person> until <Terror> shows up. How do things get better or
much much worse?
11: Shame About those Interns. A radio show intern (you can just keep making new ones; they’re
endless!) comes to some misfortune from a <Terror or Strange Item: host’s choice> at the radio
station or <Place of Interest> (community’s choice).
12: Live Broadcast! <Terror> comes into the station in a spirit of <Mood>. The community invades
the radio station in the middle of a broadcast! Include the host and the radio
station in this scene.

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Credits
GAME DESIGN: QUINN MURPHY STARTING
SETTING UP
PLAYING
GRAPHICS AND LAYOUT: NATHAN D. PAOLETTA SLICE OF LIFE
DECREES
THIS GAME COMES TO YOU COURTESY OF MY
RADIO SCENE
AWESOME PATREON SUPPORTERS: BUMPERS
FRAMES
Erik Bernhardt, Kip Hampton, James Stuart, Stephen Hood, Michael Hasko, Eric Atkinson, Phredd
CREDITS
Groves, Evan Torner, Ben Barnett, Josh Diaz, James , Parker, Jason Tocci, John Brooks, Jeremy
Morgan, Erik Schmidt, Brian Bentley, Zaid Crouch, Gregor Hutton, Van Webster, Michael Fujita
Wight, Mike Burnett, David Morrison, Andrew Millar, Stuart Chaplin, Brian Cooksey, Stepha-
nie Milton, Christopher W. Dolunt, Michael Huven-Moore, Nicholas Cadigan, Jessica Hammer,
Adam Thornton, Rishi Agrawal, Logan Bonner, Bryant Durrell, Lester Ward, Vincent Baker,
Dev Purkayastha, Hal Mangold, Cheryl Trooskin-Zoller, Avery Mcdaldno, Rob K., Jason Pitre,
Ryven Cedrylle, Emily Boss, Christopher Chinn, Devon Apple, Nathan Black, Lowell Francis,
Tracy Barnett, Jonas Richter, Brad Robins, Penda Tomlinson, Amber Viescas, Joe Banner, Tiara
Agresta, Zed Lopez, Kenji Ikiryo, Patrick Ewing, Larry L., Shoshana Kessock, Misha Bushyager,
Rik , John Perich, Joshua A.C. Newman, Eric Mersmann, Tim Rodriguez, Jason Schneiderman,
Josh Roby, Will Hindmarch, Ara Kooser, Tim Davis, J.Walton , Talison Crosby, Graham, Robert
Cooper Ferguson, John Bogart, Mike Sugarbaker, Nathan D. Paoletta, Paul Stefko, Dave, Andy
Kitkowski, Volkan Eke, Ryan, Matt Parker, Jeremy Glick, Darla Magdalene Shockley, Dan , Fraser
Ronald, Guillaume Carré.

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