Once upon a time, I wanted to write a roleplaying game about the experience and act of traveling (the truth is that for years I have wanted such a game, and since I could not find one to fill that gap, I decided I would write it myself). I even had the name picked: Grand Tour. Problem was I didn’t really have a solid idea of how to structure it and I found myself floundering too much. I decided to shelve it for a while and look at it at some other point to see if things had improved. That was 2 years ago and I haven’t looked at that file since. Today, while browsing the Story Games forum, I came across a thread on games to be released at Gen Con, and this one gem caught my eye almost immediately:

Posted By: joepub
At the Design Matters booth, I’ll be releasing Ribbon Drive. It’s a game about road trips, and letting go on the open road. Mix CDs are an integral and driving part of the game. It’s diceless, GMless and easy for new gamers to pick up. It’s an intense game, but a slow-burning and soft one, too.

It’s sold with a mix CD (featuring some really cool artists).

Wow. I immediately checked out the website and boy, have I found a new game to fall in love with. Check out the full description:

In Ribbon Drive, we collectively create a story about a road trip. We do this in the comfort of a living room, over the course of 3-5 hours. We each create a character, one of the people going on this road trip. These characters are our individual jobs; each of us will roleplay one character’s decisions and actions. We’ll share the responsibility of narrating the obstacles and scenery that comes up all around us. Ribbon Drive creates stories about letting go on the open road, and we all work to both further and complicate this agenda during the game. It draws inspirations from road movies like Wristcutters, Everything Is Illuminated, y tu Mama Tambien, Little Miss Sunshine, The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things and Thelma & Louise (and, to a lesser extent, Two Lane Blacktop, The Doom Generation and Wild At Heart). Our ultimate goal is to create a thought-provoking, meaningful experience. We let the music guide us. We let the road throw us curves. As our characters, we rethink our attachment to the future.

That description fills me with excitement, and if the game performs as billed, it seems I may not have to write Grand Tour after all, Joe McDonald may have written it for me already! Since I won’t be going to Gen Con, I will be ordering this game as soon as I am able and putting together a session a minute after that. Expect a full review sometime in the near future. In the meantime, check out the Ribbon Drive webpage (in case you also want to order it now) and the playlist of the Mix CD that comes with it.