In November, I was lucky enough to take an extended vacation with some of my close gaming friends. We’d all been excited about trying RiverBank RPG, and I volunteered to GM our first outing into the cozy, Edwardian-inspired world down by the river.
I ran a single 3-hour one-shot for four players, and it felt like the perfect starting point. RiverBank “adventures” aren’t really adventures in the epic fantasy sense—they’re situations: short, sitcom-style scenarios with a clear beginning, middle, and end. Think pastoral slice-of-life prompt with plenty of freedom for unplanned woodland drama.
Prepping for Play
Like any responsible GM, I spent the week before reading rules, digging into relevant NPCs, and absorbing the situation I planned to run: The King’s Birthday Cake.
This scenario is a charming introduction to RiverBank. All the characters have to do is bake a birthday cake for the King—except they learn about it a bit late. Now they have only a few hours to gather ingredients, bake something worthy of royalty, and get it aboard the 5:37 train leaving the Village the next morning.
I assumed the situations would play out in a fairly orderly way. I would soon learn how wrong I was. Between the Betweentimes Cards and the dreaded Haphazardly timer, randomness plays a far larger role in shaping a RiverBank story than I expected. And it’s delightful.
To set the tone, I prepped not just the game but the environment as well: hot tea, cozy cups, tasty biscuits (a.k.a. cookies), and a laid-back table setup. If RiverBank is about slow, gentle living, I wanted the table to feel slow and gentle too. Every time the Haphazardly timer went off, we served tea and passed snacks before drawing another card.
But no amount of cozy snacks or hot drinks prepared me or my players for the arrival of Satan the goat.
How Satan the Goat Became the Main Character
Every RiverBank game begins with each player drawing a Betweentimes Card, which explains what their character has been up to “between” the last time they played and now. Even though this was a one-shot, I wanted my players to experience that ritual. Not only do Betweentimes Cards provide an event, but they also prompt the player to answer some additional character-driven questions around this event. I found this helped drop my players into character right away.
Now, to my surprise, one of my players drew a Betweentimes card that read:
“You found where Satan the goat was bedding down!”
My brain screeched to a halt in real time. Who the *bleep* is Satan the goat? He wasn’t a listed NPC in the King’s Birthday Cake situation. I didn’t remember adding him to my GM notes or reading about him during my early preparations. Plus, he sure doesn’t sound very cozy.
Cue frantic page-flipping.
He wasn’t listed under the RiverBank Animal NPCS.
He wasn’t in the human NPC section or Village notes.
Finally, buried under the lowercase a “animals,” I found him.
Satan is literally just a feral, old goat. A grass-eating, four-legged, billy goat gruff. This one is a particularly mean-spirited, trouble maker who terrorizes the creatures of the RiverBank. For lack of a better term, a local cryptid with cloven hooves.
The second the players and I learned this, everything about our game changed . . . for the better.
These posh, anthropomorphic Animals immediately became obsessed with Satan the goat. Where was he? Why he was he bedding down in the nearby woods? Was he was watching now? How might he might interfere with cake-baking plans?
What should have been a wholesome culinary mission turned into a bite-sized survival story where the antagonist was a literal farm animal with malice in his heart.
At that moment, I quietly slid all my prep notes aside. Nothing I had planned was going to top this. Satan the goat became the perfect narrative device—appearing at the most unexpected moments, stalking them through the woods, and finally chasing them down the lane as they sprinted to the train with their precariously balanced, perfectly decorated cupcakes. All it took was the draw of a single card.
The players loved it. I loved it. And the experience taught me a lot about what RiverBank GMing is actually like.
Dos & Don’ts for First-Time RiverBank GMs
The game was fantastic and everyone had a great time. Here’s what I wish I’d known beforehand that would have made it even better.
DO: Know the World
RiverBank is driven by its locations, its neighbors, and the gentle rhythms of woodland life. The more familiar you are with the NPCs and setting, the easier it is to improvise when the game inevitably veers into the unexpected. No mechanic helped me figure out who Satan the goat was.
DO: Lean on the Mechanics
The game wants chaos. Betweentimes Cards, the Haphazardly timer, and randomized skill rolls create organic narrative twists you could never plan. Embrace them. They’re not obstacles, they’re story engines. Knowing this now, I will purchase a set of the official Betweentimes and Haphazardry card decks as soon as they are available in a few weeks. However, the core book includes an appendix for using a standard playing card deck, so you’re good to go now.
DO: Set the Mood
Tea, snacks, plaid pants, soft lighting—lean into that cottagecore charm. It’s not required, but it immediately tunes players into the right energy and provides a comfortable atmosphere for a different kind of roleplaying game. There are no combat maps or minis in RiverBank, so the extra step of warm drinks, cute snacks, and the RiverBank map provided an opportunity to theme the table in a completely different way than my players are used to in other games.
DO: Print Reference Sheets
Keep tables, roll guides, and mechanic summaries handy. You’ll need to glance at them far more than expected during your first session GMing. The RiverBank book has lots of text and big words (there are literal footnotes), so book flipping wasn’t efficient for me during gameplay. The good news is that there are already pre-generated reference sheets in the core book, making it easy for a GM and players to print and use at a glance.
DO: Run the Solo Adventure
Did you know that RiverBank has a solo play option? It’s a perfect test-run for understanding mechanics, pacing, and the game’s unique tone before you GM for others. Plus, you can do it all on your own. The solo situation “All Out of Pipe Cleaners” is included in the core book, so no additional purchase is required.
DON’T: Overplan
My biggest mistake? I wish I’d spent less prep time drilling numbers and mechanics and more time absorbing the world and characters. The rolls won’t behave the way you expect anyway, and knowing the locals and locales would have served me better. I spent more time than I would have liked during the game flipping through the book to learn who someone was, what something was, or where someplace was. Knowing the world and its inhabitants is key.
DON’T: Lock Yourself Into a Storyline
You can’t. RiverBank thrives on left turns and gentle chaos. Your job is to shepherd the mayhem, not prevent it. The moment I gave up on trying to drive my players to stick to The King’s Birthday Cake scenario was when the game really found its stride. RiverBank challenges you as a GM to let go of control. It was a refreshing experience.
DON’T: Obsess Over Rolls
Which skill you use for any given roll is random. Neither the player nor the GM gets to choose; the dice do. Sometimes the roll makes no intuitive sense, and that’s okay. I found that Pother and Animality/Poetry progression—the emotional arc of the character—was far more critical than the numerical results of the dice rolls during the game. Choose story over dice and RiverBank shines.
DON’T: Split the Party (unless you can bend time)
The party did split once during our session. Though it facilitated wonderful individual-character moments, it destroyed the 30-minute Haphazardry timer. I couldn’t account for multiple encounters happening simultaneously in real time, so I had to pause the timer more than once to make adjustments. It was clear by the end that the characters solving things together was simply more fun and more manageable for a one-shot game. If I were to ever run a whole campaign, I’d use individual, 10-minute Haphazardry timers for each character’s scene whenever the party splits.
Final Thoughts
Running RiverBank for the first time was an absolute joy. It’s fun, surprising, and far more chaotic than I expected from a cozy animal RPG. The core mechanics push you to improvise, adapt, and cherish the small moments—like the goat cryptid who unexpectedly became the main character.
Satan the goat wasn’t in the scenario I chose. He wasn’t meant to be part of the story at all, but neither was someone’s Great Aunt fainting when she found out there was no RiverBank cake for the King, stealing vanilla from a gaggle of sleeping feral geese, or the local farmer’s runaway bull destroying the path to the train. But RiverBank, with its well-designed mechanics, charming setting, and unexpected gameplay, has a way of giving you the exact story you need, not plan.
If you lean in, trust the randomness, and let the furry, feathery chaos unfold, you’ll end up with something far better than what you started with.
RiverBank is the kind of game that is perfect for a first-time GM or a seasoned one, and provides so many unique opportunities for players. Kij Johnson has truly created something special. I can’t recommend it enough.
Bring RiverBank Home for the Holidays
If all this RiverBank chaos and charm sounds like something your table would love, the RiverBank RPG is available now on the Kobold Press store. It makes a wonderfully cozy holiday gift for the gamers (or animal lovers) in your life.
To ensure it arrives in time for the festivities, place your order as soon as possible!
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