Here’s what I love about Preparing for Paris:
- High school themed RPGs are fun. Many players will have a massive library of tropes to work with, plus relevant personal experience. It makes it easy to come up with wild ideas that crash into the wild ideas of your fellow players, generating explosive hilarity.
- The central conceit of “personified sports hoping to make it to the Olympics” adds a wonderful layer of absurdity that gives you even more permission to lean into the craziness and not feel too much of the cringe that might come with role-playing teens and remembering high school awkwardness (for me anyway). It also means that the teens are super-competitive with each other, which is an excellent driver for drama.
- The blend of the firebrands system (mini games and questions) and PbtA (moves) creates a tight gameplay package that moves along smoothly without the need for any prep or a GM. This makes it a good fit for getting to a fun and satisfying ending in one evening.