From publisher blurb:
We lived in peace for centuries. Quietly and without incident. The land of Digir was paradise. Perfect in every way.
But that was before the hordes.
The violent hordes of the Red Empire that came and took the healthiest of us as captives. Farmers. Soldiers. Skilled workers. Anyone. We essentially became slaves. Servants to their great monolithic achievement. There is no escape for us, no return to paradise. We will build their great monument until we die. Each of us must decide for ourselves whether it is more painful to hold on to our memories of what we once were, or to let go of dignity and surrender to fate.
Protocol is a series of story roleplaying games that thrusts characters together into dramatic situations. Each game uses the same set of rules, with vastly different parameters, start points, characters, and finales. Players take on the roles of directors outside the action and characters inside the action, using the ebb and flow of four different scene-framing styles (vignettes, interrogations, interludes, and ensembles) to tell meaningful stories about characters in crisis.
Each game in the Protocol series is zero-prep for 3 or more players. The game length is exponentially long, so games with more players take more time to complete. The Protocol Series requires a deck of poker cards as well as tokens to track drama points.
The Protocol One-Sheet Series do not include rules, only charts. Each game requires players to own at least one game in the Protocol series, or Protocol Prime.