Downtown Loop

imagination and dice adventure
with subways and ghosts
for children

You retreat to a subway station to escape a Toronto climate emergency. Unable to tap in, you turn to try to find station staff and instead notice a strange pair of glasses. You put them on, and the world of transit ghosts introduces itself.

Ghosts are strange, supernatural creatures. Ever wonder why the subway is delayed or out of service? The ghosts have poor coping skills and are easily overwhelmed. They’re good natured but need some encouragement.

Players will explore subway tunnels, help ghosts, and discover the secrets of the DOWNTOWN LOOP.

This is an imagination and dice adventure that can be played by pre-schooler. It’s a game about coming up with ideas and trying them, about being friendly, curious, and helpful.

Play with one or more player characters and a Driver (known elsewhere as a Dungeon Master). The rules and adventure are intended to provide enough scaffolding that the burden of improvisation isn’t overwhelming, and enough structure that the game doesn’t feel too arbitrary. Playing this game is not like reading a book; The Driver needs to improvise and change things as they go, but at least we’re not making it up from scratch.

This is a project where I went from having made zero TTRPG zines to having made one. I’ve enjoyed reading several zines and rulebooks as research, but this project is still gleefully naïve.