RPGenie

Crafted by Adam Vass & Will Jobst on The Brain Trust Podcast. RPGenie is a method of integrating cheat codes and game alterations to tabletop gaming by sharing your favorite ephemera with your friends. The download here is a screen-resolution PDF, the screenshot is the entire single-page file as an image, and the entire text of the RPGenie Tabletop Game Enhancer is below. Thank you!

RPGenie is a system you can plug into any existing game to allow players to make instantaneous changes to the existing narrative or rule structures at hand. Think of RPGenie as a Cheat Code enabler: while your game can now be altered dramatically by its players, the Codes themselves and their effects are up to you.
This concept was crafted on The Brain Trust Podcast, listen today.

First: make sure everyone playing is happy to allow Cheat Codes in your game. Each player should consent to the concept before any Codes are brought up in play. RPGenie only functions when used with positive intent. Codes that are deemed inappropriate for any reason fail simply by any player making an error noise, slamming on the table, holding their hands up in an X, or any other disruption. Use Cheat Codes that bring joy and excitement to your game instead of those against the spirit of play and your gaming community.

To introduce a new Cheat Code to the game, first share its Source. This can be a meme from your camera roll, a TikTok that you double-tapped, an obscure YouTube video with very few views, a note found on the sidewalk, or any other interesting ephemera from your collection. Sources are not confined to media, to digital formats, or to anything at all—explore freely and find pleasure in discovering new Sources for potential Cheat Codes. Share your mysterious treasure with the rest of the group. Send a link to the video, drop it in a group chat, pass it around the table, and otherwise let everyone engage with it. Laugh, cry, smile, and think together.

After everyone has had the chance to engage with the Source, tell your group what effect you hope the Cheat Code has on the game. The more rare your Source, the more powerful its Cheat Code. This effect can be

• Character-facing (a video of a person eating an entire watermelon start to finish makes your character able to withstand great pain, destroy a plant-based enemy, become large, round, and green like the watermelon, etc.)

• Player-facing (a TikTok of someone doing the leg dab challenge for the 40th consecutive day can allow a player to narrate the events of 40 passing days or let them take narrative control until the GM does 40 leg dabs)

• Story-facing (a TikTok of a person sharing their phone number with 0 likes allows you to introduce a cryptic number station reading the digits aloud over a distant radio signal that begs to be investigated)

• Game-facing (a crumpled up lipstick-stained note that says “I’m sorry about your birthday cake, I don’t know what to tell you about your spoon” can allow you to resolve conflict with rounds of the card game Spoons or a cake eating contest instead of typical dice rolling)

This list is far from exhaustive.
Cheat Codes change your narrative, characters, players.
Anything is possible.
This rule breaks rules, break these rules to your liking.