Scout

Scout is a setting agnostic game where players create an encounter map and tell the story of its features. It's a collaborative (this little corner of the) worldbuilder. Play standalone or supplement your favorite tactical RPG.

Choose your location: anything from the cargo hold of the spacecraft you're boarding to a dragon's lair. Then you'll take turns moving and discovering the topography, terrain, obstacles, and hazards in the area. For each discovery, you invent a description, history, myths, and/or possibilities. Or you can simply state you've placed a nice shrub on the map. 

Everything you need to play is on one page (with common questions and play examples on the back!)

As a supplement, use Scout to run a low/no prep game and keep it in your back pocket for those times when you have painstakingly prepared, but somehow none of your lovingly crafted battle maps apply to the rabbit hole your players have gone down. 

Either way, Scout becomes a mini-game to whip up engaging maps for tactical encounters created with your players. Or entirely by them while you take a break to prepare objectives, foes, or finally get a snack!

Check out the Variants for optional rules to play with your favorite d20 system (like Pathfinder, Lancer, or Dungeons and Dragons), dice pool system (like Shadowrun or Mutant Year Zero), Draw Steel, and Savage Worlds.

This game was created for the One-Page RPG Jam 2025.