I played Tales from the Loop last night and I figured I would give some thoughts on the game. Because I do not own the rulebook for Tales from the Loop I do not know the de facto setting but we played in a 1980’s small town setting. I do know that the technology was a bit more advanced than historical 80’s technology thanks to “The Loop” being a part of the town, but most of the technology level was accurate.
Character creation was quick and easy thanks to a small list of archetypes. Each archetype has a few customization options that can really flesh out your character. I chose to play the Popular Kid archetype. There are 4 stats and some skills associated with each stat. Your chosen archetype determines which skills you can put more points into but you could also just put one point in each skill if you want a character that is not really good at any particular thing.
I like the dice-rolling mechanic in which your stats and skills determine how many d6’s you roll and all you need is at least one die to be a “6” to be successful. Rolling multiple 6’s results in some bonuses to action. I really enjoyed how the bonuses add to the narrative. For example, I rolled to Charm another kid and got an extra success and this led to not only the information I was seeking but I was allowed to tag the NPC as someone who would be willing to help out in future without question. Later in the session, I was able to use that NPC to help my character hide from the Big Bad. There is also a Luck stat that allows you to reroll failures but that can only be used a few times per session.
Another way to reroll a failure is to take a condition. I believe conditions are very well implemented in the game as you get to choose which condition fits the narrative such as injured or scared. These conditions have mechanical punch as well because each condition on your character will remove one die from your dice pool. Therefore, the more conditions you carry around, the less likely you are to overcome challenges with die rolls. Conditions can be removed by role-playing a scene with your anchor, a NPC that is important to the character’s life. These anchor scenes can really be heartwarming or heartrending but I think they are some of the best scenes of the game.
Some of the investigation scenes were a little choppy for my tastes but I believe that was due to indecision on a part of the PC’s. I really enjoyed the final scene with the big bad which is played out as a montage of moves as opposed to each character taking actions individually. This allows the final fight to play out in a more cinematic fashion and it flows together really well. A great thing was we were able to defeat the big bad, who was a cybernetic lion/human hybrid, without the use of violence. And also, since it was a one-shot, each player was allowed to add a little monologue at the end to close out their character’s story and that was super fun and emotional as well.
Overall, Tales from the Loop is a game that I hope to play again in the future since my session was truly a memorable one. When the funds allow I want to buy this game in physical form so I can run some sessions myself. I truly recommend trying this game out as I had a lot of fun playing it.
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