The tabletop role-playing game of queuing to play while you queue. In «La Queue» you will be a group of fans who queue to get the signature of a book author, a famous actress or, worst of all, an internet influencer.
Your crazy playable fan (CPF) will have four skills. You distribute +3, +2, +1, and +0.
You can also choose 2 pieces of equipment that will give you special abilities and 4 items to be signed. You are not very smart, and you have been worrying more about what you will get signed than what you will need during the long lines.
The signable items (comics, books, posters, etc.) function as a kind of points of life. If you run out of signable objects, you will have to leave the queue and go home crying because you will never get that desired signature again.
They can also be used in deals and negotiations, but remember to keep at least one to get it signed.
Finally, you have a Hopelessness counter that starts at 0 and represents how crazy and desperate you are becoming while waiting in an endless queue.
The rolls are easy. To start, they are all opposed, since you will only have to deal with the people in front of you, behind you, and the organization. The rest of the world does not exist. For you, now, only the queue exists.
Roll 1d12, add the corresponding skill, and compare it with the roll of the group you are interacting with. In the event of a tie, the other group always wins.
If your CPFs have good ideas when facing challenges that involve rolls, you can give them an advantage, which means they can roll 2d12 and keep whatever result they want. Using signable objects in rolls also gives you an advantage. The use of these objects can vary greatly, from including them as part of deals to throwing them in the air to distract people while you sneak in.
If there is no other group to oppose, such as with Hunger or Heat rolls, the opposed roll will be against your Hopelessness. You will make your normal roll, and the GM will roll 1d12 and add your Hopelessness to it.
Each failed roll adds 1 point to Hopelessness, and each Pass roll subtracts 1 point. You can not have less than 0.
When Hopelessness reaches 10, you lose all hope and leave the queue. The GM may allow you to perform one last desperate act. This can range from stripping off your clothes and running naked, imitating a chicken, to distract everyone so your friends can sneak in, to running fast and jumping the security fence in an attempt to reach famous person so she/he can sign on your chest.
Equipment will primarily give you immunity to certain things or a +1 bonus to a skill in a special situation.
You can use these items as an example to create your own equip items.
In "The Queue," there are no adventures, there are queues. Each queue is unique and special and has its own rules, but the prize is always the same: the signature of your idol.
To start, you need to define who will be signing and what kind of geeks will be in the queue. This includes everything from star fans, trekkies, potterheads, etc. to Sherlock Holmes readers, Trump followers, or Elvis impersonators.
Next, you must define the difficulty with a circle (also called clocks) of X wedges. 3 would be very easy, and 10 would be very difficult. Wedges can mean different things, from hours or nights of waiting to people ahead of you to even being in the top 50 of those in the queue.
When they achieve something important, fill a wedge. For example, getting the group in front of them to leave can be an important milestone that requires fill a wedge.
When they cross off all the little cheeses, they will be standing in front of their beloved author, their beloved cartoonist, or about to kiss the papal ring.
At the start of the queue, the GM will announce the rules of the queue, which have been established by the organizers. Breaking the rules will result in the other people in the queue reporting you to the organizers, and you will have to fight them to keep your spot. Let's look at some examples of queue rules.
Important hint: each rule can be broken with a skill. «No leaving the queue» with Ninjitude, «No eating in the queue» with Bodytude, etc. The idea is that the rules can be broken in at least one logical way.
The objective of the game is to steal the spot from those in front and defend against attempts to cut in from those behind. So your CPFs should be able to tell who is in front and behind in order to defend against one and attack the other.
If there is a signature limit, they can count how many people are in front of them in the line and how many groups they have to eliminate or cut in front of them to get their signature. They can use Wikitude to gather information about those groups.
These are the people you should eliminate. There are a variety of ways. You might be able to trick them into leaving, maybe you can intimidate them into leaving, or maybe you can negotiate a deal with them.
If necessary, the Hopelessness of this group will always be one point lower than the least Hopelessness of your CPF group. They are ahead, and they clearly have a few more hopes of winning.
These people are your direct enemies. They want what you already have, and overcoming you will bring them closer to their coveted signature.
If necessary, the Hopelessness of this group will always be one point higher than the greatest Hopelessness of your CPF group. At the very least, they have to be a little more desperate than your CPF group.
The main objective of the game will be to defend against attacks from those behind and annoy those in front to either sneak in or force them to leave. Every spot gained is a step towards victory (and you will probably get a little bit of a kick out of it).
As they say, all is fair in love and war, so any tactic is good: seduction, intimidation, bribery, deception, even geeky duels in which the one who knows the most about the signature issue.
The organizers are practically gods in the queue. They do as they please, and only true heroes would dare and succeed in deceiving them.
To create queue people, you must divide 6 points between the 4 skills and roll 1d10 in each column of this table to give them some personality.
Advantages will give a +2 to the roll if applicable to the situation and a +2 to the CPFs if they know it and can exploit it in some way.
If you like, give them a signable object and an item of equipment they can use, which will be the loot your CPFs can take if they defeat them.
| 1d10 | Description | Advantage | Disadvantage |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Uber-geek | Military training | Flat-earther, conspiracy theorist, anti-vaccine, ... |
| 2 | Mother/Father with 1d6 children in their care | Would eat anything a goat would throw up | Small bladder, can only defecate at home |
| 3 | Professional signature hunter | Backpack like Doraemon's pocket | Nothing prepared |
| 4 | Fan in a tacky cosplay | Grandma who brings you Tupperware | Deadly hangover |
| 5 | Someone exactly like one of the CPF | Friends in the organization | Nerdy stories |
| 6 | Old person who got in the wrong line | Stuck in time and must repeat the queue until they get their signature | Hypersensitive to light |
| 7 | Well-disguised fan | Luck of the dwarf | I am too old for this shit |
| 8 | Paid queue waiter | Dance-fighting | One-upper |
| 9 | A famous male or female fan of the person signing | Smoldering Intensity | Family reunion in a few hours |
| 10 | Cover-up organizer | Camperized van | Addicts to board games, cards, etc. |
As a GM, whenever you see fit, or if you want to automate it, when the total Hopelessness of all CPFs is a multiple of 3, you can bring out one of these typical queue hazards that CPFs will have to face. The hazard can affect everyone, like heat, or a specific CPF, like a weak bladder.
Remember that these dangers are not simple rolls; you will have to, for example, find something to drink if you are thirsty, and you might have to exchange a signable object for a soft drink with the people in front of you.
Created by Gwannon. Devoleped under license CC BY 4.0. You have all the source code in Github so you can do whatever you want with it. Created for One-Page RPG Jam 2025.
All images are free rights and you can find them here.
