TTRPG REVIEW: Tales from the Loop
Before we start, a few notes about me and how I interact with tabletop games, since I'm noticing I'm starting to get a few more readers of late. Unless otherwise specified (and probably not for quite a while), I am a player in any games I review, not the GM. But I do always talk with the GM about what their experience was, because that's important to me, too. In terms of play-style, I'm narrative-forward—not because I think that's the "right" or "superior" play style (I think anything that lets you and the rest of the table have a good time is the "right" way to play), but because that's just personally how I vibe. I build a concept within the setting I'm given, then match the numbers to that concept, even if it's not "optimal" and even if it will make it harder for me to succeed. I do always make sure I have at least one way to objectively help the party, though, because this is a team sport.
All that is a very long way of saying I seek out, and enjoy, games that attempt to marry narrative more smoothly to mechanics. And I think because I seek those out so regularly, I get to see a lot of examples of how people try to make that happen, how it succeeds, and how it fails.
There are a lot of things I like about Tales from the Loop. A big one is the choice to really lean into tropes by way of playbooks/classes. This is something I enjoy about both Powered by the Apocalypse games and Free League Games—and honestly any system that cares to try it. When you're setting a game within a genre or a subgenre, one way to really root yourself in what you're doing is to know what the common characters are and how they benefit the party. It also gives you touchstones in that early character creation process, and (if designed well) it doesn't hold you back from putting your own spin on that character trope.
For example, I played the Jock. And while my character was all physical stats and very little in mental, it was because she was very agile (her sport of choice was sailing) and climbed through windows and into buildings with very little thought for what she was doing at any given time. That's the joy of a really good playbook. While more modular character gen (like that in 5e) allows for really nuanced builds, playbooks let you muck around with genre in a meaningful way.
Other things Loop does well—turning character traits into mechanics in a more straightforward way. While I enjoy figuring out how stats turn into story beats (How does rerolling for Luck look in combat? How does Advantage or Disadvantage look? Why is a seasoned adventurer only level 3?), I have a soft spot for any system that draws that straight line for me. Pride is one of those ways: once per session, you can cash in a personal belief of your character to gain a success.
I've explained this before when talking about Armour Astir and Blades in the Dark, but I value anything that rewards you for playing in-character. (I'm also gaining an appreciation for anything that has stakes when your values are challenged, but I'm still in the midst of an experience with a game like that.) I'm not against putting myself at a disadvantage to stay true to my concept, but it makes me happy that doing this functionally helps the group as a whole.
The major downside of Tales from the Loop is more in the pre-fab campaign we played. The feedback I've gotten from multiple GMs is that this is a great setting that requires a bit of additional work. In the longer game I've finished, we worked from the pre-written campaign. However, this required a lot of patching up and changing along the way. It wasn't as egregious as the issues with Lost Mountain Saga, where keeping the plot moving required players to actively shelve their knowledge of the fae and their personal motivations in favor of narrative causality. It was more the amount of legwork required to bring the characters into some of these stories.
I will admit, I generally play characters who are more than ready to throw themselves face-first into anything even remotely interesting. That's just the kinds of characters I gravitate toward, either at a table or when writing a story. But you can't expect everyone to always play that kind of character. I also understand that a pre-fab campaign can't account for every potential stake for characters the writer will never meet. However, the issue with Tales from the Loop seemed to be that many of the narrative hooks weren't really wanderable-innable, even for the most nosy and motivated kid.
In terms of pre-fab campaigns, I believe that creating motivation is a shared responsibility across three sets of people. First, the player has to create a character who can be engaged in the action. Even if they're reluctant, there has to be something that can be invoked to pull them along. Second, the GM has to hold out a metaphorical hand for the player to take. It's not on them to motivate the characters, but it is on them to meet them halfway; they don't have to drag them up the cliff face, but they should at least scatter some handholds around. Finally, the writer of the pre-fab campaign needs to make a story that can be hooked into by a sufficiently motivated group. Again, they don't have to drag the party up the cliff face, or even put handholds in the cliff face, but there ought to be something at the top that makes the cliff face worth scaling. Often, it didn't feel like there was anything to interest young protagonists, and the only fire burning under a player's ass was the urge to find the next story beat and see if it jogged anything. Our GM did a great job manufacturing these hooks, but there was a lot of progression that amounted to "You ought to just decide that this is a good place to go," which can ruin the pacing of a game.
There's a more minor downside that's a little more system-based, which is that healing from damage takes a weirdly long time and can require a lot of moving parts that don't click well with how the story moves. Don't get me wrong, I love how damage works on a basic level. You have "conditions" (some physical, some emotional) that you take when things go wrong, or to push yourself and reroll. These conditions affect your ability to roll well, and if you take them all... well, kids don't die in this game. Remember, this is 80s sci-fi adventure. But you have to go to specific people and places and spend several hours recuperating. Fine for downtime, difficult for fast-paced action. In our test campaign, we homebrewed around this.
In the end, I love the aesthetic, the concept, and the feel of Tales from the Loop. But I feel it's a system to be altered, homebrewed, and referenced. The character building? Great. The setting? I think it's more meaningful if you move the placement of the local Loop to a place meaningful to the party. (Really tweaks the nostalgia to play in your hometown circa 1987 rather than a place no one has been.) The pre-written campaigns? Some interesting elements (I loved the microchipped birds), but again, better to homebrew.
Tales from the Loop is frankly a game that's better the more personal you make it to your players. To that end, I highly recommend the system in general, and aspects of the setting, but I would also encourage any interested players to do a bit of customizing to bring out its real charm.
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