Be Dramatic. Belt out your karaoke favorites. You’re the star in Jukebox.
Jukebox: The Karaoke Musical Tabletop Roleplaying Game is a rules-lite, no-game-master required, roleplaying game for 3 to 4 players. Over three acts and four hours, you and your friends sing karaoke and create a musical story full of drama, passion, and spectacular showstoppers! If you’re looking for a game where you roleplay stories like Wicked or Hamilton — or where you create the “musical episode” of your Dungeons and Dragons campaign — then Jukebox is for you!
Jukebox features the following:
- Easy setup: All you need to play Jukebox are index cards, pencils, playing cards, and a computer or TV with an internet connection.
- A playbill for your musical: Print and create a playbill keepsake during play to remember your cast and musical numbers.
- Quick start playsets: For faster play, Jukebox includes 16 quick start playsets written by a variety of contributing game designers. These playsets provide plot hooks, a karaoke playlist, and character prompts to help jump right into genre-specific stories. A complete list of playsets is below.
- New player friendly rules: Jukebox is designed with new gamers and the karaoke-shy in mind. The rules are simple enough that they fit on a single page.
Gameplay
- All you need to play Jukebox are:
- A few pencils Index cards
- A deck of playing cards
- A computer or TV with a sound system and a connection to the internet (or a karaoke machine)
Jukebox takes inspiration from story games like Follow, Downfall, Fiasco, and Ribbon Drive, but adds a karaoke singing mechanic. A summary of play is below.
During the Opening Number everyone sings a group karaoke song together, then collaboratively builds the world and picks a group goal the characters seek to achieve.
In Act One each player introduces their characters by singing a character solo. This conveys who they are and what they want, while also hinting at some drama they must resolve – a personal flaw, an old enemy, a sticky situation – before the end of the story.
In Act Two the plot progresses in story scenes. Players ask questions about what happens next and draw songs from their karaoke set lists to see where the story goes.
In Act Three characters determine whether they successfully resolve their drama or succumb to it. Their success is determined by the luck of the draw but is swayed by earlier events in the story.
In the Finale, all characters sing a last song together. Then, depending on chance, what the players wish for their characters, and how successfully the group resolved their challenges, you find out the ending.
By purchasing Jukebox, you'll get:
- The 46 page full color Jukebox print rulebook
- The printable blank playbill for recording your musical numbers
- Four core playset printable playbills and twelve contributor printable playset playbills
- A printer and screen reader-friendly PDF version of the rulebook
Quotes from playtesters:
"This game was an absolute blast! I'm ready to play again immediately!"
"Jukebox is perfect for when you and your musical theater friends want to do karaoke without annoying a bar full of strangers. It's also perfect for anyone who wants an excuse to sing silly songs and tell stories with their friends!!! The TTRPG space has been needing a game like this."
"I was so lucky I got to play [Jukebox] at Big Bad Con 2022. When someone asks me about my highlight games at the con, this is the first thing I talk about. It was a stellar experience I plan to take to friends new and old."
"We did a musical about a ballet school and one of our characters got dragged to hell…Everyone in our group had a really fun time and said they'd love to play it again."
"We ended up doing a heist with a lot of Steely Dan songs in it. The mechanics for introducing complications really helped move the action forward. It had a very cinematic feel of cutting between different groupings of the characters doing different heist things. Everyone had a really good time!"
