How to run Wet Hot American Summer RPG?

#1

I tried posting this on r/rpg a while back but didn’t get any response. Not sure if I’ll have any more luck here or not, but it’s worth a shot.

I kickstarted Wet Hot American Summer last year and have read it several times, with a plan to run it for some friends who don’t have much experience with role-playing games but absolutely love the movie and TV series. The problem is, for some reason, I just cannot grok what my role actually is or how the game works. I get how things are structured in terms of the day being broken apart but the game is so light on actual mechanics that I feel lost. And it is not that I am new to running role-playing games. I have a lot of experience running Dungeons & Dragons 5th edition, Dungeon World, Monster of the week, and a few others. And I have read through many more, a lot of them PBTA games but not all. And I’m not sure I’ve ever had this problem before where I just cannot wrap my head around how the game actually works in play.

Does anyone have any thoughts? I’m particularly interested in hearing from people who have run or at least played the game. My friends that I was going to run it for have been bugging me since it’s been like a year now and I really am excited to give it a shot. I just want to make sure that I actually do a good job and then I have a handle on what my role is, what the players’ roles are, and the actual mechanics of the game. I did watch an actual play video on YouTube from the game’s creators, but frankly it didn’t help much.

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#2

Hmm, the fact that the game was designed by comedians, only one of whom had previous experience with RPG design (and that was on a game that seems to exist just for laughs), it may simply be that the game isn’t particularly well-designed. The Kickstarter, for instance, didn’t seem to communicate any of the mechanics whatsoever.

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#3

Yeah, I think that seems like a fair assessment, unfortunately. I got the impression from the actual play video that it’s more a (very, very loose) structure for improvisation than an actual game. Which is … fine, I guess. It is what it is. But not something I’m particularly stoked about trying to run. I’m afraid this is just going to be a novelty item on my RPG shelf, and I’d rather that not be the case, you know?

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