Tivoli - A roleplaying game of diversity and friendship

Fun fairs, circuses and amusement parks are magical places. The lights and colours, music, performances and wild rides carry the public away from everyday drudgery for a while.

All the glitter has its flipside. Entertaining the public is hard work, and there is rootlessness in the circus life. The people who create the magic of the show are weird and different and might not fit in the outside world. Sideshow freaks used to be popular attractions – giants and dwarves, bearded or tattooed ladies, wolf children and Siamese twins.

In the Tivoli roleplaying game, the players take on the roles of these weird people, balancing in the space between the magical amusements and the prejudices towards people who are different. The characters are also in touch with the real magic of the world – what that magic is like will be up to your game group.

Tivoli is a beginner friendly roleplaying game for a group of 4 to 6 people. One of the players will take on the role of the game master or facilitator, who helps the group make the game world alive, asking questions and bringing forth challenges. Tivoli is a character-driven game. The GM might create the situations, but the main point is character co-operation and internal character development. The main themes of the game are diversity and facing weaknesses, friendship and co-operation. Even though the group might face challenges and adversaries, the most important conflict is an internal one: facing the character’s weaknesses, processing them and turning them into strenghts.

The rules system is PbtA or Powered by the Apocalypse -based.

The game was originally published in Finnish in 2022. The Swedish and English translations were published in 2023.

Homepage of the game: https://www.kristelnyberg.fi/tivoli