Minimalist setup for maximized fun

I recently started a Duet Pirate Borg campaign for my wife (it started as a one-shot, but then we decided to continue it), and during the Christmas holidays we found ourselves in a hotel for a few days, and I wanted to have a session while we were there. We were flying there, so we couldn't bring many things with us: a minimalist approach was needed. Once we were there, we found out we didn't even have a table in the room, so we adapted to play on the bed.

My setup was just a set of dice, a printed character sheet + rules reference sheet, a pencil and eraser, and the Pirate Borg rulebook PDF on my phone (I was running the Curse of Skeleton Point sandbox from that book). That's it.

Of course this setup would not necessarily work for any TTRPG, but Pirate Borg (or any of the Borg games, for that matter) work wonderfully in this scenario: the GM might roll dice for encounters or other things during the exploration or dungeon crawling phases, but not in combat, when it's all rolled by players, so one dice set was more than enough.
The sandbox was so immediate and easy to use that when my wife decided to immediately investigate the Skeleton Point castle, which is the last part of the adventure and, ironically, the only one I hadn't managed to read while on the plane, I had absolutely no problem running it anyway, reading the descriptions of the rooms as her character entered them and reacting appropriately to her actions.

And the session was a total success, we had a lot of fun.

For someone used to running 5e games where there's so much to prepare, so many statblocks to have ready, so many feats and spells to check, running an OSR game (and even more a Borg game, where a creature statblock is often HP/Morale/Attack) is a breath of fresh air. I'll continue running 5e games for people who want them, at least for now, but the freedom given to me but these lighter games is what keeps the passion of this hobby alive for me right now.

What about you? Have you ever run similar minimalist sessions? Or do you swear by a table with terrain and minis and can't run without them (which I also love, as an amateur mini painter and terrain crafter)? Let me know your preferences and what's the most minimalist setup you've ever used in a session, I'm curious!

This is all for this week, see you next Sunday for my next post!

May your dice never betray you,
Kirhon

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