So, I'd been preparing to run a game of Public Access, but one of the members of our group who had dropped out a while ago is coming back in, and instead of excluding him I want to find something with the same vibe that I can run with him in it. I have Slugblasters, and I'm leaning towards that, but I could use some suggestions.

Things that I'm specifically looking for:

* Gameplay that highlights the weird, strange, and absurd, and encourages the players to indulge in it.
Something with an emergent story where the players are actively shaping it, and have at least some kind of structure for the GM to cling onto while they're doing this because I fucking suck* at coming up with whole storylines of my own, but pretty good at flying by the seat of my pants.
* Not fantasy.
* Is good with 5 players.

I've still got a while before it's my turn to run things, so I'd like to explore some games and have a few options to pitch to my players to see what they'd want to play.

Paranoia is the classic for this sort of thing.

Paranoia. Make sure your players don't know the rules.

Well there's the first "public access" game: Weird Heroes of Public Access

Go nuts with Fiasco.

Fiasco is great for a one-shot, but I'm looking for something a bit longer.

Oh, God. You're right.

I know you said not fantasy, but check out SPIRE and HEART from Rook, Rowan and Deckard. They are (not standard fantasy) settings which are weird, strange, and absurd. Some of the most unique classes and abilities around there, and these are built around shared, emergent storytelling. You need to play a bit of a reactive GM as player abilities can constantly shape the world and the story around you. The rules are easy, but tell the players read some of the lore beforehand just to be able to deep dive into it later on.

Honestly Slugblaster sounds perfect for all of those points!

Alternatively,I could see all of those work for World Wide Wrestling, though I think it depends on your desired flavor of weird/strange/absurd and in general that game has to be your vibe.

If you want something absurd and niche. Look into " Welcome to Night Vale ". If you know the radio show. It's just a wacky.

Is… that true?

Took a look at these because I have Royal Blood and love it dearly, but at the end of the day, I just don't like running fantasy. I've been in too many fantasy games that I'm a bit burned out by it.

10 candles!

I could see WWW working for a different group of people, but really it needs players who were big into the goofy, over-the-top antics of 80s and 90s WWE, which mine aren't. Sadness.

Fair enough! I know the feeling haha.