Cubicles & Corporations is a tabletop game where you and your adventuring companions can escape the drudgery of fantasy life and step into the roles of office workers in a dynamic, results-driven corporate wasteland.

Take a break from dragon slaying and dungeon crawling. In C&C, you and your party of brave salarymen will climb the Corporate Ladder and defeat your sense of self-worth, all for the glory of adding value to shareholders.

How will you endure the ancient ritual of the Office Birthday—standing motionless while colleagues sing at you and maintain eye contact? Can you survive being trapped in an elevator (a sealed chamber, moving vertically) with your direct supervisor? Will you be able to decode the unspoken dress code of Casual Friday? These are the trials that await you in Cubicles & Corporations.

In this office role-playing game, one person, the Middle Manager, acts as the narrator and referee, describing the environment, controlling the workflow, and providing neutral oversight.

Before you start adventuring in Cubicles & Corporations, you must create your unique white-collar worker by picking a personality (workaholic, lazy, toxic, burned-out, or oblivious) and a desk job (accountant, sales rep, IT support, intern, or marketing manager) from an arcane codex called The Employee Handbook.

Will you play an oblivious intern, or a burned-out sales rep? A lazy IT support specialist, perhaps? And how will your skills serve you when confronted with mountains of paperwork, a swarm of unmotivated trainees, or a text from Carol at 11 P.M.?

Define your abilities and traits on your Curriculum Vitae, the official character sheet used to determine promotions, bonuses, and your general worth. Core stats include Inbox Management, Small Talk Resilience, and the ability to cast corporate buzzwords.

The Middle Manager assigns tasks you must complete to pursue promotions and symbolic raises. Your salary determines your value, how NPCs treat you, and the degree to which you are perceived as a person.

Quests can go from the more trivial—escorting the overly enthusiastic new hire through their first team-building weekend—to the truly challenging, like trying to understand if Carol from marketing is flirting or just being nice.

Promotions are earned through successful interactions and can unlock new character classes—from Marketing Assistant to Senior Marketing Assistant, or, if you roll well and someone finally retires, Marketing Manager. Perks scale accordingly: first the reserved parking spot, then the corner office, then a job title so long and elaborate it no longer describes what you do.

Your actions and their outcomes depend on your abilities and dice rolls. The following example should illustrate how a typical encounter unfolds:

“Your party has survived a Passive-Aggressive Reply All and narrowly avoided the Migration to the New HR Portal. But a new challenge appears: a sandwich has gone missing from the break room fridge. The owner has sent a department-wide message stating it was “clearly labeled.”

The Middle Manager clears their throat: “An investigation is underway.”

You are mistakenly suspected.

Middle Manager: “Roll a Credibility check.” Player rolls 1d20.

15+: The blame shifts to a remote employee. Gain +1 Reputation.
10–14: Suspicion lingers. Disadvantage on all future break room interactions.
1–9: HR schedules a meeting. A new fridge policy email is being drafted.

You automatically fail one KPI check.

Victory conditions are undefined. Success in Cubicles & Corporations is measured in incremental raises, meaningless promotions, and the faint hope of someday achieving the legendary Work-Life Balance, a status effect few have witnessed and none have maintained.

Gather your party. The quarterly review awaits.