“Remind me to thank John for a lovely weekend.”

Basic Roleplaying in Jurassic Park – Evaluating the Game

In the last post (It’s an Impact Tremor), I discussed the second and final of my TTRPG sessions set in the setting of Jurassic Park, after the park’s collapse. I told the tale of the party’s survival on the island and their (relative cake-walk) of a journey to the Visitor’s Centre and rescue from the island. Now it’s time to wrap things up!

The Gamemaster’s Perspective

I asked my players for their thoughts on the game, but before we get there, let’s talk about how I found running this game as the gamemaster.

Setting and Game Selection

I don’t think I need to make too much of a song-and-dance of how much I like the Jurassic Park setting, I said plenty about that in my first post about preparing for this game (It can’t see us if we don’t move).

As to the game selection, I was very pleased thats my players chose the castaway’s scenario from the options they were presented. With the exception of the “rescuing the park” scenario, I think it is the purest form of game for Jurassic Park, where the biggest threat to anyone is the wild animal hunting from the bushes, not the player characters running around with guns (mostly). This style of game allowed me to run the dinosaurs as animals rather than Dr Grant’s “genetically engineered theme park monsters“. I do think that you can run pretty much any style of game, but I’m glad we went for this one.

Ruleset

One key question I’ve been reflecting on since wrapping up the game is this; was Basic Roleplaying the best ruleset for this game?

I love skills-based games (like BRP and it’s derivatives) as opposed to “level-based” games like (Dungeons and Dragons), the way they implement skills and skill improvement works much more realistically, which makes running long-running campaigns really fulfilling, while giving the player much more control over how their character evolves over successive game sessions. However, as this game was effectively a one-shot (albeit run over two sessions), these advantages don’t really apply in the same way.

The granularity of BRP’s skill list also presented a problem, in that each character has somewhere around 55 skills (plus 8 characteristics and 8 derived characteristic rolls) but through the entire session, I only called for checks on about eight skills, three derived characteristics, as well as sanity checks, and of those at least a third were for Spot or Listen rolls. I don’t think this is necessarily a system problem, given the asymmetric power balance of the players (who have little/no power) to the creatures on the island (animals, yes, but still the big threat) a survival and exploration game would largely focus around investigation of the park and avoiding the animals. But it’s also somewhere that I could have done more preparation. I should have spent time thinking about scenarios or ways to incorporate the variety of skills and characteristics rolls I had at my disposal.

Sanity mechanics worked out pretty well I think, though I should have given it a bit more thought about the penalties to apply when a sanity check is failed, and given more thought to when and if a sanity break is desirable or not. In this game, nobody suffered a critical sanity loss, which felt like a missed opportunity for shenanigans.

I had decided to run this in BRP because it’s a system I’m most familiar with and have actually run before; but I think a slightly more “rules light” system would have worked just as well if not better. Casting my eyes over my cabinet of game books, I think ‘Outgunned: Adventure‘ or another dice-pool type game might have worked better for a one-shot like this, where character progression isn’t important and a more broad, cinematic approach to actions rather than skills could be used. The downside of course would be that I, and my players, would have to spend time learning a new system, which is time it’s hard to justify when we only get a couple of half-days a year to sit down and play TTRPGs together.

What did my players think?

I asked my four players for their thoughts and opinions after the game, and here’s what the group had to say:

“I would have liked to have seen more dinosaur attacks/views just for a bit of excessive terror. I thought it was brilliant, loved the maps they were cool“

– Player Z (Maya)

“Seemed about right to me. Really pleased we did the escape option rather than a military group.“

– Player C (Rosco) (Notably the only other regular GM in the group)

“The T-Rex just being an animal was a good touch – passing it and not being attacked added some good realism. I liked that it didn’t devolve into a shoot-em-up, but required us to be resourceful and focus on survival. One of my favourite moments was the dinosaur with active camouflage. I liked the dynamic between me and Player C too!“

“Really good one shot with a satisfying resolution, and a good mix of silliness and seriousness. The callbacks to the first film were great, and the world you built felt realistic and believable”

– Player T (Ramón)

Overall then, quite a positive reception from my players. I’m also pleased that the group enjoyed the less hack-and-slash style of game. Player Z noted the relatively few dinosaur encounters, which is an observation that I agree with in retrospect. In running the game I kept the fences and the paddocks largely intact, which kept many of the herbivorous dinosaurs away from the party, and chose to keep to film cannon for the raptors, in which it can be assumed all three are dead by film’s end.

“You read what others had done and you took the next step” – Lessons for future games.

If I were to take the experience of running this game, and distill some advice for either my future self or another GM looking to run, here’s my main takeaways:

• Jurassic Park as a setting works really well in the survival context, but as a result the gamemaster and players should be aware of the slower pace-of-play that comes without the combat focus. CoC players will be well placed to make the most of it.
  
• Maps and other physical props are great, even for groups like mine who don’t play with minis and battle maps. Giving the players a map of the island early saved a lot of work on my part describing where they were/where to go.
  
• If you’re going to play this in a skill-based system, put some thought into what skill checks you will want to use, and build encounters / scenarios around it. For example, for a player with Computer Use, make sure they get to the Visitor’s Centre or other buildings with computers, and maybe even give them the chance to come away with some InGen trade secrets (à la Jurassic Park: Trespasser).
  
• Think about (if and) how you’re going to apply sanity mechanics ahead of time, and if so don’t forget to prep for it (e.g.: map out sanity dice rolls per dinosaur).
  
• Just because the fences and paddocks might still be working, don’t let that stop the dinosaurs from roaming more widely, prioritise the players getting to see the creatures.
  
• Jurassic Park isn’t just a horror story, there’s lots of wonder and excitement there too, particularly in the books. Let the players feel some of that too by setting them up with big set piece moments where they can wonder at what’s before them – for example the first time seeing a herd of dinosaurs or watching a Tyrannosaur hunting something (just not the players!).
  
• If (like me) you want the Dinosaurs to be animals rather than monsters, don’t make every carnivore encounter a hostile one, and allow the herbivores to be a threat to the players. Let them behave like animals.

Final Thoughts

That draws us to the end of my re-telling and reflections on running Basic Roleplaying in Jurassic Park. I really loved doing the preparations and running the game. I think the above points encompass the main things I’ll take away from this game, and hope that one day I’ll get the chance to be a player in the setting.

I’d love to hear your thoughts and suggestions as well, so if you’ve gotten this far, let me know your take aways in the comments down below!

Ben D B
31 October 2026