Mission: Accomplished!: Review

Mission: Accomplished! is another I picked up from the Bundle for Racial Justice and Equality that I got a little bit of time to dig into. Its a single session TTRPG built around the debrief after a super spy mission gone wrong, put out by RPG podcaster Jeff Stormer.

Gameplay is advertised as 2 hours, but IMO that’s the minimum amount of time. I could see longer sessions for established groups. 2 Hours is a nice niche to occupy for an RPG and makes it a lot more casual. Mission: Accomplished! can fit in board game nights, and draw in a lot more casual of the TTRPG fan. It also makes for a great fit between sessions game. Someone can’t show and you don’t want to cancel, the DM needs another session to prep, or maybe just the needs a break between campaigns. A collection of one shot RPGs is invaluable. Mission: Accomplished! is a good one shot RPG, which is IMO rare.

Gameplay is similar to a forever favorite of mine, Paranoia. Not the whole game, but the end of mission wrap up where all the players have to debrief and explain what happened. In Paranoia that tends to be a 15-20 min freeform RP session, but Mission: Accomplished! has actual rules to it. Some folks argue that rules ruin a rules light RPG, but I’ve always said that good rules make a rules light RPG. No game benefits from unfun, overcomplex, hard to run rules. Bad rules lights usually cut all rules out, and just rely on free form role play and some coin flips or something. Then, they declare that their game is great because you can ignore it. That’s all well and good, but often times you’ve got to somehow convince someone to buy it. Paying for rules you are supposed to ignore seems like a joke to me, Cops and Robbers is free, and I can play that whenever I want.

Mission: Accomplished! uses structured roleplay and improv prompts for players. Gameplay starts with introduction of characters, and then solicitation of scenes from each player referencing the other players. Its a debrief, so everyone is talking about how the mission they just finished went. You might write “Player A stealth-ed past the guards and let us in the backdoor” or “Player B butt dialed a pizza place, who just started screaming at him, giving away our position”. Once collected, each player comes back and the scenes begin. Players in character explain the scene to mission control, who asks questions while the other players pepper in character side comments designed to make you look bad. But not too bad, because their turn is next. Depending on how you make it through the scene, the GM is giving out dice. Sometimes positive, sometimes negative, and at the end of the game. There’s a little bit more to it, but that’s the gist.

Overall, Mission: Accomplished! is a really fun game for groups that should certainly be in your list of party games for folks. If you aren’t a party game player, its a great TTRPG for one shots, and I’m immediately inspired to run my own season of Bowman Detective Agency episodes.