Rather than abstracting a game of basketball into one or more die rolls, is there a role-playing game that can, with a minimum of house rules, simulate almost moment-by-moment on-court basketball action? That is, a game wherein each player can take the role of an individual basketball player and, on the tabletop, a virtual basketball game can be played?
Such a game should include...
- tactical movement on a map. An absolute requirement; theater of the mind prohibited.
- rules for jumping and, by extension, dunking.
- rules for throwing and, by extension, catching and intercepting a thrown object.
- rules for dribbling. (I know of no game with rules for this kind of dribbling; house rules may be required.)
- rules for guarding a player.
- probably short individual action opportunities (i.e. what most games call turns). For example, Dungeons and Dragons 3.5's 6-second turns seem almost too long, and Hero System, 5th Edition's 12-second turns broken into 1-second phases leave much to be desired.
It'd be great if such a system had rules for fatigue and extra effort as well as rules governing the impact of cheerleaders, coaching, friendly or unfriendly audiences, and court familiarity, but the primary concern is movement and game-play options that permit simulating an actual basketball game, not the entire spectrum of basketball-related ephemera. (Although if such a game includes rules for simulating negotiating contracts and licensing agreements, that would be interesting.)
Further, I realize that a basketball game using such a system would likely be extremely tedious to play out in its entirety. Thus it's totally cool if a role-playing game either allows playing just the basketball game's last few minutes (perhaps 1 to 5 minutes and perhaps providing a means to determine the score up to that point) or abstracts large portions of the basketball game in favor of tabletopping directly only the important bits.
Finally, such a system should support other modes of play besides basketball a la the video game Barkley, Shut Up and Jam: Gaiden, the manga Slam Dunk, and the short-lived American comic book series Xerø, this last this question's inspiration.
Note that I am uninterested in a board game like Blood Bowl or a statistics-only game like Strat-O-Matic, even were such games to have role-playing elements appended.
What campaigns may look like
- Al's GMing and Bob, Chris, and Dylan are players. Al's described the setting as a post-apocalyptic basketball-focused world in which disputes are settled by basketball games between rival gangs. Bob, Chris, and Dylan play secret agents of the surviving spy agency who are tasked with bringing peace and justice to the setting... through basketball.
- Eli's GMing and Fred, Greg, and Harriet are players. Eli's described the setting as a secret magic contemporary one wherein rival factions play underground basketball games to appease the unfathomable evils, the worst players on losing teams devoured by the great beasts from beyond space and time. A tournament will soon be held, the winner gaining control of the great beasts. Fred, Greg, and Harriet play intrepid basketball players/supernatural investigators who must stop the beasts' arrival... through basketball.