TAG RPG

TAG RPG is my submission for the 2026 Grit System Jam. 

TAG is a game set in a post-apocalyptic world where the uniting theme is children's playground games. Nearly everything in this world is a dumb pun based in that premise. For example: the stats are: Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes, Eyes and Ears, and Mouth and Nose. The biggest threat in the world is the Tactile Aggregate Germ (TAG), a disease spread by touch that connects all who are infected into an Interconnected Teleconciseness (IT) that exists in perpetual agony, driven to madness by a persistent itch and deep need spread the germ. There are walled off safe zones founded by a billionaire called Ollie Oxenfree.  There are free-roving AI powered autonomous SUVs that travel in packs and have a distinct candy-apple paint job, you know, Red Rovers. You get the idea, its all like that. If you have a high tolerance for a kind of dark but punny humor, this is the game for you.

I developed the world that would become the setting in my early 20s, over a decade ago when I was still working on a factory floor, my mind wandering as I did work that was more muscle memory than anything. It has existed in multiple forms over that time, some of them in game systems I found useful, some in systems I cobbled together from mechanics I've liked in other systems, and some versions were just more abstract experiments in storytelling. All of them haven't really felt exactly right, but I think its finally found a home with the GRIT system. 

Wythe and crew have made a flexible base that can accommodate a wide range of tones and genres, with mechanics that are not only intuitive, but also unexpectedly crunchy at times, and very versatile. It really does everything you need for a TTRPG engine. TAG fits into a similar tone as Blister Critters, another Grit game, while being different enough that its solidly its own thing, which is why I thought it would be a good fit. 

I'm pretty happy with what it has resulted in. The Grit version of TAG is mechanically unlike any version before it, but I was able to keep a lot of what I liked about my earlier versions - like the Tug of War, a 2-sided Global Progress/Danger Clock that moves in real time in response to player rolls, and Hot Potato Mode, in which the Playground Monitor (read: Gamemaster) will change adventure to adventure. 

I was also able to kill some of my darlings, as switching from a  dice-pool system to dice-as-stats system like Grit necessitated re-thinking the entire structure of my Classless skill-building system (inspired by the simplicity of Roll for Shoes). There's some remnants of that in the mechanics as written now, but to a far less degree. I still found a way to eliminate classes though. Viva La Revelation! 

Anyway, I hope you like the thing. It was fun to make. Likely won't be my last pass at it.