Each holiday season, I review different modules, games or supplements as a thank you to the wider tabletop roleplaying game community. All of the work I review during Critique Navidad is either given to me by fans of the work or the authors themselves. This holiday season, I hope I can bring attention to a broader range of tabletop roleplaying game work than I usually would be able to, and find things that are new and exciting!

Time To Drop is a 19 page roleplaying game by Marn S. In it you play a team of cons going on one last job to get out of the biz, but get caught in a time loop. It’s a collaborative game for 3 or more players, played to the tune of the album Nonagon Infinity.

Time To Drop is separated into 6 phases, with an optional seventh phase. The first is creating your crew; this is done in two cycles around the table, the first describing names and your role and why you’re choosing to retire, and the second being to describe relationships between you — grudges, feelings about each other, and the like. The first cycle is well supported, with a list of 11 of each, the second less so; I’d appreciate a similar table of suggested relationships, especially given the very specific inspirations the game has. The second phase is about choosing the job; again, we have a random table to support this, as well as a few questions to expand upon that. Phase 3 is planning: 3 tarot cards indicate the 3 complications you can plan around, and then make your plan. This is all preparation.

Phase 4 is the start of play: You begin with downtime, describing what your character does in the lead up to the heist; this is important, because this phase changes as you recognise you’re trapped in a time loop. Then you start the heist, phase 5. In this phase, you interact with cards on the board, rolling dice with mixed success, potentially clearing or adding new complications to the board. Complications are twisted on doubles, which changes things going forward, and you can of course convert characters to your side. You narrate other player’s complications, and they narrate yours. During the first heist, this is all written down, to provide a framework for the loop. The heist ends when the album finishes, or you fail completely (although there’s not a mechanism for death or being caught here, just the addition of new complications). Phase 6 doesn’t take place in the first playthrough — just play out an extended downtime to see your characters responses to the realisation they’re in a loop — but for every other loop, you review changes to the timeline here and update your notes. The loop ends when all complications are cleared.

One interesting unstated choice in the gameplay here is that you can’t outwit the heist, you need to trial and error this through repeated loops. This is built into the rules —  “2d6 + your crew’s # of cleared Complications” — and makes sense given the collaborative nature on f the game, but it is easy to miss. You should roleplay this — you should be foiled a few ways before each success — but the roll here indicates how you’re foiled, not whether you are. Because the roll is the prompt here, it would benefit from this being stated outright.

Small choices would improve the play here — the small lists in the text that cover the detail would be better called out either in expanded random tables or just in bullet points. This is a good example of where layout and information design overlap — the layout is excellent and clear, looks good, but this modification would make things more playable.

Honestly, this game slaps; we don’t get enough time loop games. I could see this being a super fun weekly session after a dinner, given the brevity of a session. The concepts here are strong, and they work for any table that is confident with improvisation. It could be made more broadly playable with more support for those less willing to wing it based on a tarot card, or with a few additional tables. There’s a set of modules available to cover the tables half of that concern. Marn S has made a bunch of variations on this game — including relitigating a relationship, an action move, and a romcom. If this appeals to you, but you don’t care for heists, check out some of the alternatives. Overall, though, if you’re interested in short games or time loop game, and you’re happy to bring a little of your own imagination to the table, I’d check Time To Drop out.

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