From Open 'Til Close

As you may or may not know I've for quite some time now worked at a McDonald's in my old hometown. In spite of the fact that I've now moved to Helsinki I still work there, mostly because I love the people I work with. For a while now I've been thinking of trying to get some of my workmates interested in RPGs but I've been hesitant since I understand they might have some preconceptions about the hobby and I think they might have trouble adjusting to the roleplaying mindset. However, I think I've found the right solution: a humorous RPG that allows the players to play themselves, thus easing the pain of getting into character, but not too mundane so as to not bore the players.

The game will be called From Open 'Til Close, A McDonald's Survival Horror Game! (In case you're wondering, open and close are colloquial terms used by Finnish employees of McDonald's for the morning and evening shifts respectively.) The game's short blurb, as you might imagine on the back of an RPG manual, would read as follows:

It started like any normal morning shift at McDonald's in spite of the fact that the town centre seemed awfully quiet. Almost dead, one might've said. The employees working the morning shift were well under way with their opening chores and were just about ready to open at 9:30 when they realized a throng of people waiting outside, hungry. Not for cheeseburgers, but for brains.

From Open 'Til Close, A McDonald's Survival Horror Game: the lunch rush just got a completely new meaning!

Okay, so that's pretty much the outline of the game. My preference systemwise would be Fate or Fudge on the Fly because of their modularity and ease of use. The game will be slightly humorous in tone and the characters' skills will be those relevant to their work at McDonald's. Persuasion will be renamed Customer Service, Leadership will be Shift Management and Resolve will be called Vitutuskynnys. (a Finnish term for which there is no good translation into English. Quite literally it means "The Threshhold At Which You Get Pissed Off.") Combat skills will be grouped into relevant skills for the use of various materials and equipment: the Cleaning skill will cover the use of mops, brushes and detergents in combat while the Frying skill will be used to handle combat using frier fat and the other materials used near the frying station. There will also be a separate skill for the use of kitchenwares, from mayo guns to knives etc.

This is pretty much as far as I've got thus far. All the skills mentioned above will of course be renamed since I'll be running this game for a bunch of Finns. At least one of my former co-workers has agreed to play, so the game will be set in an alternate reality where he never quit McDonald's. I'll probably be posting updates once I get this thing under way.